Chapter 381: Li Luo's Bottleneck

The special training time flowed like water, and before they knew it, more than half a month had passed.

During this half month, news about the Holy Grail War ticket tournament had already spread throughout the academy, which undoubtedly drew the enthusiastic attention of countless students. After all, the ticket tournament was tied to whether one could participate in the year-end Holy Grail War, and this was equivalent to the honor of an academy. As members of it, the two matters were clearly bound together in shared glory.

All students took pride in being members of the Sacred Mystic Star Academy, so during this half month, almost everyone shared a common indignation and was looking forward to the upcoming ticket tournament, hoping that the Sacred Mystic Star Academy could make a strong showing in this first battle that symbolized the opening of the Holy Grail War.

The rules of the ticket tournament had also long been announced, and the matter of the final seven representative candidates had become the hottest topic in the Sacred Mystic Star Academy during this period.

While the academy was heatedly discussing the candidate matter, Li Luo and the others were still training hard every day inside the "Sacred Wood Boundary Cave," repeatedly charging toward higher platforms and enduring the endless pummeling of the Green Spirit Puppets.

After half a month of this, the Justice Squad led by Li Luo had now reached the thirty-third floor.

After reaching the thirtieth floor, the difficulty of breaking through actually became extremely high. Around the twenties, Li Luo and the others could still break through several floors in a day, but once they entered the thirties, they could barely break through one floor per day before being utterly exhausted, with no strength left to push further.

Beyond the thirtieth floor, both the strength and the number of the Green Spirit Puppets were enough to put tremendous pressure on Li Luo and the others.

On one occasion, they nearly failed to break through, and if not for the tacit cooperation of the three, an entire day's effort would have been wasted.

Clearly, as the floor numbers kept rising, the limits of Li Luo's strength gradually began to show, which was normal. Looking back through the history of the "Sacred Wood Boundary Cave," all the one-star academy teams that had ever entered basically stopped around the thirties.

After this half month of training, all the members of the Purple Radiance Squad who had entered had achieved quite noticeable improvements in strength.

Bai Bai Doudou, Wang Wang Hejiu, and Douze Duze Beixuan advanced another level, directly stepping into the fifth pattern of the Pattern Birth Stage; Student Xin Fu reached the fourth pattern; Bai Bai Mengmeng the third; and even Seeing Yu Lang had improved to the second pattern.

But the most eye-catching among them had to be Qin Qin Zhulu. Three days ago, he completed the most difficult and important breakthrough of the Pattern Birth Stage, directly completing the transition from the Pattern Birth Stage to the Transformation Phase Stage, leaping into the Transformation Phase Stage in one bound, his strength surging.

With this, Qin Qin Zhulu became the first Transformation Phase Stage practitioner of this year's one-star academy!

As news of Qin Qin Zhulu's breakthrough spread through the academy, he immediately overtook Li Luo to become the top candidate for the one-star academy's representative in the ticket tournament. Because of this, students in the academy who respectively supported Li Luo and Qin Qin Zhulu erupted into much heated discussion and argument over the matter.

"Qin Qin Zhulu possesses the upper eighth-grade 'Gold-Devouring Demon Tiger Phase,' and his combat power is astonishing. Now that he's broken through to the Transformation Phase Stage, he's absolutely qualified to represent the one-star academy against the 'Blue Abyss Sacred Academy.' After all, I heard their one-star academy will also be sending an upper eighth-grade student."

"Li Luo's dual phases aren't simple either. In this past half year, has he lacked instances of the weak defeating the strong?"

"But he hasn't broken through to the Transformation Phase Stage yet. That's a hard weakness."

"Isn't there still ten days until the ticket tournament? Li Luo will definitely be able to complete his breakthrough."

"But speaking of it, it's strange. Previously, Li Luo seemed to enter the fifth pattern at about the same time as Qin Qin Zhulu, and I heard that in the 'Sacred Wood Boundary Cave,' their squad's floor count was even a bit higher than Qin Qin Zhulu's. So why is it Qin Qin Zhulu who broke through first?"

"Who knows, maybe it's because of the dual phases?"

Similar voices hardly ceased throughout the academy all day. After all, in this ticket tournament, although the one-star academy only had one slot to fight, that single slot was equally especially important, so the students' attention to the candidate was especially enthusiastic.

Li Luo's sudden stagnation here drew attention not only from many students, but even several Purple Radiance mentors of the one-star academy felt a bit puzzled by it.

On a high platform of the Sacred Wood Boundary Cave, Mentor Cao Sheng gazed at the fierce battle on a platform below, then said: "This Li Luo, it seems today there are still no signs of a breakthrough."

Mentor Mentor Mi Er nodded. After Qin Qin Zhulu's breakthrough, they had also been keeping an eye on Li Luo's progress, but now it was the sixth day after Qin Qin Zhulu's breakthrough, and there was still no movement from Li Luo.

Mentor Xi Chan slightly furrowed her willow brows and said: "The Transformation Phase Stage is the realm with the greatest change in the Phase Master realm. At this level, the phase power seed within the body will begin to evolve toward the origin of its phase nature. Li Luo carries dual phases; others only need to undergo one evolution, but he needs two. In this simultaneous evolution, it indeed becomes somewhat difficult to control."

Mentor Chu Zi laughed and said: "But this also shows that once the evolution is complete, his strength improvement will be much greater than that of other single-phase practitioners."

Shen Shen Jinxiao smiled faintly and said: "But the special training is about to end now, and the ticket tournament is also about to begin. His time is running short. If he's still only at the fifth pattern of the Pattern Birth Stage by then, I suggest the one-star academy's representative be Qin Qin Zhulu."

Mentor Cao Sheng laughed and said: "It doesn't matter who represents us, as long as we can maintain the face of the Sacred Mystic Star Academy's one-star academy. Besides, Qin Qin Zhulu has always regarded Li Luo as his strongest opponent. Given his personality, he probably wants to wait until Li Luo steps into the Transformation Phase Stage to truly determine who is superior."

Shen Shen Jinxiao shook his head and sighed: "No matter how unique the dual phases are, if Li Luo cannot reach the Transformation Phase Stage, I cannot agree to him serving as the one-star academy's representative. I have no selfish motives in this; it is purely for the reputation of the Sacred Mystic Star Academy's one-star academy."

Mentor Xi Chan looked over coldly: "The agreement of one person alone is not important. When the time comes, there will be a vote to decide."

Shen Shen Jinxiao gave a mocking laugh and said: "Mentor Xi Chan need not be angry. I am merely expressing my own thoughts. When the time comes, whoever is chosen will naturally be decided by our vote. But I think, for the sake of the one-star academy's reputation, the other mentors might also not choose a fifth pattern to represent the Sacred Mystic Star Academy's one-star academy, even if his combat power far surpasses that of an ordinary fifth pattern. After all, we can't exactly tell the other Sacred Academies that the strongest in the Sacred Mystic Star Academy's one-star academy is just a fifth pattern, can we? That wouldn't sound good."

Mentor Xi Chan's eyes were calm as she said: "So what if it's the fifth pattern? Don't you know that previously, in the Golden Dragon Arena, Li Luo, with only the strength of the third pattern, defeated a powerful enemy at the third transformation of the Transformation Phase Stage?"

"I have indeed heard of this matter, but it was not solely Ren De Gong of Li Luo. Qin Qin Zhulu and Lv Qing'er also played a part. Moreover, that so-called powerful enemy at the third transformation of the Transformation Phase Stage was merely someone who had forcibly boosted himself to the third transformation through Mi Fa. His true combat power may not necessarily be much stronger than that of a practitioner at the second transformation of the Transformation Phase Stage who possesses an eighth-grade phase." Shen Shen Jinxiao said with a faint smile.

"Now even Bai Bai Doudou, Wang Wang Hejiu, and Douze Duze Beixuan have all entered the fifth pattern. If Li Luo continues to stagnate, his ranking might even fall behind."

Mentor Xi Chan swept a cold glance at Shen Shen Jinxiao, shook her head, and ceased arguing with him. After all, talking about this was useless. Everything still depended on Li Luo's breakthrough. Although the dual phases would bring some obstacles to this kind of breakthrough, she believed Li Luo could overcome them.

Moreover, even if he truly failed to break through in time, with Li Luo's unusual combat power, he might still be able to compete with Qin Qin Zhulu.

While Mentor Xi Chan and Shen Shen Jinxiao were sparring verbally here, Li Luo, the subject of the topic, had cast aside all distracting thoughts, undisturbed by any of it, and was still going all-out to charge toward a higher-level platform.

In fact, he understood the reason his breakthrough had become so difficult this time more clearly than anyone else.

Others assumed it was the difficulty of evolving dual phases, but in reality, that wasn't the case... because if one were to be precise, there were actually four kinds of phase natures within his body...

The Water Phase and the Light Phase.

The Wood Phase and the Earth Phase.

Each pair consisted of one primary and one secondary.

Others only needed to visualize one phase nature and then evolve it into reality, but for him, he needed to evolve four... how could that not be slow and difficult?

Thinking of this, Li Luo could only sigh helplessly in his heart and temporarily suppress this frustration, because he had now encountered an even more practical problem...

He found that, with their current strength, it was becoming somewhat difficult to push forward.