138: Chapter 138 Genius Under the Spotlight

Whoosh—

On the screen, the draw results began to spin wildly, but they were slow to reveal the final outcome.

The audience was used to this; after all, for a competition of this magnitude, the draw was part of the suspense. Who knew, the broadcasting station might just be playing commercials right now.

The host also cunningly steered the topic toward the VIP boxes.

"Clearly, the draw system is working hard! I forgot to mention, after introducing the Magic Card Masters, we will also have a grand introduction for our Card Creators. Everyone, take a look!"

The holographic screens in the VIP boxes lit up.

The camera panned slowly down from the arena dome, passing over the heads of over a hundred thousand spectators, through the giant light curtain above the arena displaying the scrolling draw results, and finally settled in the very center of the VIP area.

Su Bai was sitting there.

The top button of his school uniform was undone, his right hand was propping up his chin, and his expression was as indifferent as if he were watching TV in his own living room. Kyubey was crouching on his lap, its tail lazily sweeping across his wrist.

Then, the voice of Chief Commentator Lu Ming exploded from the speaker array.

"—This is the youngest Card Creator in this year's finals! The founder of the Magical Girl System! The recipient of the Dragon Pulse Baptism! Su Bai!"

The spotlight slammed onto him.

The crowd's reaction was even more intense than that of the previous three prodigies combined. Screams poured in from all directions; some people sprang from their seats, others waved Magical Girl support fans frantically. A group of big men in the back row wearing Berserker armor shouted Su Bai's name in unison—their volume completely rivaling the group of female students next to them holding pink glow sticks.

"Su Bai!! Su Bai!!"

"The God of Magical Girls!!"

"He did a JOJO pose in front of the Empress!! I fucking laughed for a week!!"

"Me too!! After I finished laughing, I realized he was so serious about it!!"

"Just for that, I'm his fan for life!!"

Comments flooded up from the bottom of the screen like an avalanche.

[Su Bai looks so much more handsome than during the Monthly Exam. Is this the effect of the Dragon Pulse Baptism?]

[That cat on his lap!! Kyubey!! Kyubey is yawning!!]

[Yawning in this kind of situation, what kind of nervous system do this master and pet have?]

[Those who said he was a has-been, come out and get beaten up. He's sitting in the VIP box right now.]

[Sitting in the VIP box doesn't mean he can win. It'll be funny if Qin Ye gets knocked out in the first round later.]

[To the guy above, just you wait. The Stand System definitely has some tricks up its sleeve.]

There were also those who didn't buy it.

In the back row of the VIP area, a few students wearing Imperial Military Academy uniforms huddled together, and one boy with a slicked-back hairstyle sneered twice.

"What's he so arrogant about? If Qin Ye gets eliminated in the first round later, let's see if he can still prop up his chin and pretend to be calm."

"Today is the day he has to deliver on the boast he made in front of the Empress. It's either godhood or social death; there's no third possibility."

Su Bai nodded at the camera.

Just once.

Then he continued to prop up his chin and watch the arena.

Kyubey yawned again.

Lin Xiao was sitting to his left, and a new message popped up on her phone screen—sent by Lin Weiwei from Jinghai.

[Lin Weiwei]: [That nod of his was pretty pretentious. My dad is already clapping in the living room.]

Lin Xiao flipped her phone over onto her lap, her lips twitching slightly.

Zhao Dahai, on the other hand, didn't notice any of this at all. He was leaning entirely over the box railing, his chubby face turned pale by the spotlight, muttering over and over, "Eight hundred million online, eight hundred million online, eight hundred million online."

[Su Bai.] Kyubey's voice rang in his mind. [Qin Ye's Mental Power wavelength jumped just now. There's an aggressive fluctuation.]

"Normal. She's smelled the scent of her prey."

The camera's focus shifted away from the VIP box.

The giant light curtain above the arena finally stopped scrolling. The draw results for the Top 16 popped out row by row, each row triggering a new round of commotion in the audience.

Qin Ye stood at the very edge of the contestant waiting area.

She had already taken off the long black coat she used for warmth, revealing the dark gothic-style Magical Girl dress underneath. With a black base, layers of pink lace intertwined, and dark gold gear patterns embroidered on the hem of the skirt, it cast a faint, cold light under the spotlight. The gear pattern on the back of her hand was accelerating its rotation at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Then, that layer of golden energy steamed up from her body.

It wasn't the flashy visual effect of magic light, but something purer, more ominous—as if someone had vaporized a solid block of gold and let it re-condense in the air into a thin, flowing mist. The mist swirled slowly around her, and with every rotation, a few extremely fine cracks appeared on the ground beneath her feet.

Master Mage Chen Taixu, who was sitting in meditation in the very center of the arena, opened his eyes.

Just a slit.

Then he closed them again.

Thunder God Xiao Juehan's mechanical arm let out a piercing screech of electricity. That was the Star Destroyer Core inside him autonomously increasing its output power—an instinctive reaction after the core sensed some kind of threat; he hadn't even had time to press the switch himself.

Wei Xiaoyu slammed her furnace battle-axe against the ground. She stared at the layer of golden mist on Qin Ye with furrowed brows, her lips moving as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she just gripped the battle-axe tighter.

Chief Commentator Lu Ming leaned forward from the hosting desk.

"Audience—the director just gave us a set of real-time data! The golden energy currently radiating from contestant Qin Ye, based on preliminary analysis by the arena's monitoring array—is not magic! It is not battle qi! It is not any known form of energy! I repeat—it is not any known form of energy! This is a completely new way of projecting Mental Power that we have never seen before!"

The audience exploded.

"Golden battle qi?? Isn't she a Magical Girl??"

"Magical Girl transformations are pink light! Chu Yin is pink light! Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan is red light! What is the golden one??"

"Could it be the effect of that Stand System??"

"The thing Su Bai mentioned in the Imperial City half a month ago—something about soul extension—"

"Wasn't it not activated yet?? It has special effects like this without being activated??"

"I don't care what this is, I just know that Qin Ye looks like a Super Saiyan right now."

"What is a Saiyan?"

The carnival of comments continued.

Chief Commentator Lu Ming took a deep breath and raised the microphone to his lips. On his face, which was so precise it could be written into textbooks, he finally suppressed all excitement and curiosity, switching back to the professional state a gold-medal host should have.

"Audience—the draw results have all been revealed. Now, I announce: The 137th National Card Creator Prodigy Competition, the first stage of the finals, officially begins!"

Sixty-four holographic projections on the dome simultaneously burst into fireworks of intertwined gold and red.

"The first marquee match—the favorite to win, the true disciple of the Hidden Dao Sect with the codename 'Mystic Shadow'—Master Mage Chen Taixu! Versus—the military biochemical cyborg, codename 'Thunder God'—Thunder God Xiao Juehan!"