57: Chapter 57 Human Body Folding: A Lesson in Magic

Lin Qi's feet seemed welded to the ground, remaining completely motionless.

But his upper body snapped backward without any warning.

It wasn't bending over; it was a snap.

Using his waist as an axis, his entire body instantly folded into a perfect ninety-degree right angle, the back of his head nearly touching his heels.

Whiz!

The crimson fireball whistled past the tip of his nose, the resulting airflow making his collar flutter loudly.

The fireball slammed violently into the protective barrier behind him, exploding into a brilliant burst of fire.

Like a spring, Lin Qi exerted force from his waist, and his upper body instantly snapped back to its original position.

He reached out to brush off the sparks on his collar, his face calm.

"This... his waist didn't break?"

Someone asked stutteringly.

Watching such a movement that defied human anatomy made one feel phantom pains.

Standing at the control console, Examiner Wang Su nearly snapped the electronic pen in his hand.

"A coincidence, it's definitely a coincidence."

Examiner Wang Su gritted his teeth, his fingers sliding rapidly across the control panel. "You were lucky to dodge a single-target lock once; let's see how you dodge a full-coverage strike."

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

The sound of dense mechanical operation rang out.

Over a hundred launch ports around the training ground lit up with blue light simultaneously.

This time, it wasn't a single fireball, but a dense rain of ice spikes.

There were no blind spots—front, back, left, right, up, and down—all evasion space was sealed off.

"It's over; there's really nowhere to hide this time."

Zhao Lei muttered from the sidelines, "With this density, unless you can turn into a fly."

Lin Qi glanced at the blue lights illuminating the surroundings.

The look in his eyes changed.

It was no longer that lazy state, but had gained a hint of focus.

Half a second before the ice spikes were fired.

He moved.

His feet stepped out in a strange arc, his figure becoming elusive and unpredictable.

Baguazhang, Wandering Dragon Steps.

In the game from his past life, this was the movement technique used to take a general's head from the midst of ten thousand soldiers.

No shields were needed, no blocking was required.

As long as one calculated the trajectory's landing point, even a gap the size of a needle tip was a path to survival.

Thud, thud, thud, thud!

The dense ice spikes nailed into the ground, producing a tooth-grinding sound of impact.

In the midst of this chaotic ice-blue storm, Lin Qi was like a slippery loach.

He turned sideways to let an ice spike pass, lowered his head to avoid two wind blades, and with a light tap of his toes, his whole body spun through the gap between three ice needles.

With every evasion, the ice spikes brushed right against his clothes.

It was perilously close, yet he remained completely unharmed.

"He's predicting them!"

Li Shaobai suddenly took a step forward, staring intently at the field, his expression extremely grim.

"Predicting what?" The lackey beside him didn't understand.

"He's watching the launch ports."

Li Shaobai pointed at Lin Qi's eyes. "He's not dodging the ice spikes; he's already determined the landing points before they're even fired. How is this possible... there are hundreds of launch ports!"

An ordinary person's brain couldn't process such a massive amount of information.

Even an S-grade Intelligence-type mage couldn't achieve this level of instantaneous calculation.

But Lin Qi did it.

He didn't rely on cerebral computing power, but on a martial arts intuition carved into his Soul.

It was an instinct earned from dying tens of thousands of times in the martial arts era.

Five minutes passed.

The originally smooth training ground floor had been riddled like a beehive, with shattered ice and scorched marks everywhere.

Only the spot where Lin Qi stood was relatively clean.

Watching the screen still displaying "Stable Vital Signs," Examiner Wang Su felt his head buzzing.

This was like taking a max-level character to a newbie village to bully low-level players, only to find yourself getting outplayed by one of the village's chickens.

"I don't believe in this nonsense."

Examiner Wang Su flipped open the protective cover on the console and pressed a red skull button.

"Tracking Lightning Orb, initiate."

The air in the center of the training ground suddenly became dry.

Sizzle!

A purple lightning ball condensed out of thin air; it was only the size of a fist, but the energy fluctuations it emitted made one's scalp tingle.

It didn't fly in a straight line; instead, as if it had a life of its own, it paused in mid-air and locked onto Lin Qi's aura.

"It has navigation?"

Someone exclaimed, "Isn't this cheating? You can use tracking skills in an evasion test?"

"Wang is getting desperate," Zhao Lei gloated. "He's trying to screw that kid over for good."

Whoosh!

Trailing a purple flame, the lightning ball charged straight at Lin Qi.

Lin Qi frowned.

This kind of energy lock was indeed troublesome; it couldn't be dodged by simple positioning because it could turn.

He turned and ran.

The lightning ball pursued relentlessly, its speed getting faster and faster, the distance closing from ten meters to three.

"What's the use of running? You can't outrun lightning even if you run yourself to death."

Examiner Wang Su sneered, "This is a lock on the level of rules; unless you disappear, it will chase you to the ends of the earth."

Lin Qi naturally knew he couldn't outrun it.

His current speed was only at the level of the Flesh Refining Stage; he hadn't reached the point where he could outpace lightning.

He was running to find a position.

Ahead was that high-strength alloy wall used for testing defense.

Five meters, three meters, one meter.

He was about to hit the wall.

The lightning ball behind him had closed in to within half a meter of his back; he could even feel the numbing static electricity.

Just when everyone thought Lin Qi was going to crash and end up bloodied.

He didn't slow down.

His right foot stepped heavily onto the wall.

Bang!

A clear footprint was left on the wall.

Borrowing the force of that step, Lin Qi soared into the air, performing an extremely high-difficulty backflip.

He curled into a ball in mid-air to minimize his hit area as much as possible.

Because the purple lightning ball's inertia was too great, it had no time to make such a sharp 180-degree turn.

Whoosh—

The lightning ball flew past the soles of Lin Qi's shoes and slammed violently into the alloy wall.

Boom!

The violent explosion made the protective shield tremble.

Airwaves rolled.

Lin Qi, still in mid-air, was blown away by the shockwave.

This should have been a situation out of control.

But as if he had anticipated it long ago, he stretched his body out in the air, using the thrust to glide over ten meters like a large bird.

He landed steadily.

The dust from the explosion cleared.

A charred crater had been blasted into the wall.

And Lin Qi stood over ten meters away from the crater; aside from his clothes being a bit messy, not a single hair was missing.

"Holy crap..."

"That works too?"

"Is that a move a human brain can come up with?"

The entire audience was stunned.

Using the enemy's attack for displacement, and even borrowing the force to dodge several subsequent stray bullets.

This grasp of timing was simply precise to the millisecond.

If he had been even 0.1 seconds slower, Lin Qi would be a piece of charcoal by now.

At that moment, the timer on the large screen ticked.

[Current Duration: 8 minutes 01 second]

The record that originally belonged to Li Shaobai was quietly broken.

Li Shaobai's face was as black as the bottom of a pot.

But he didn't speak; a flicker of hard-to-detect fear even flashed in his eyes.

He placed himself in that scene just now; if he didn't use sword kinesis, could he have survived?

The answer was no.

This wasn't just a matter of physical fitness; it was a total crushing of combat intelligence.

Lin Qi stood in the center of the field and looked up toward the control room.

Through the bulletproof glass, he and Examiner Wang Su locked eyes.

Lin Qi clapped the dust off his hands, the corners of his mouth turning up as he mouthed some words.

Although no sound could be heard, everyone could read those words.

"Is that all you've got?"

Examiner Wang Su felt as if his chest had been struck by a sledgehammer, his blood surging.

Provocation.

Blatant provocation.

A piece of trash judged as F-grade by the System was actually mocking Longya Academy's assessment System?

"Good, very good."

Examiner Wang Su laughed out of extreme anger, a hint of madness flashing in his eyes.

He no longer cared about any rules or regulations, and placed both hands on the black lever on the far right of the console.

That was the ultimate defense measure only activated when dealing with high-risk, out-of-control creatures.

"Since you want to play, then let's play big."

Examiner Wang Su's voice spread throughout the field via the broadcast, carrying a hysterical tone.

"Spatial Shockwave, maximum power."

Click.

The lever was pushed all the way to the bottom.