Chapter 381: Li Luo's Bottleneck

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

During this half-month, news regarding the ticket matches for the Holy Grail War had spread throughout the academy, which undoubtedly drew the enthusiastic attention of countless students; after all, the ticket matches were related to whether one could participate in the year-end Holy Grail War, which was equivalent to the honor of the academy, and as students within it, the two were clearly bound by a shared fate.

All students took pride in being members of the Astral Sage College, so during this half-month, almost everyone was united against a common enemy, looking forward to the Astral Sage College being able to win this first battle that symbolized the start of the Holy Grail War in the upcoming ticket matches.

As for the format of the ticket matches, it had already been announced, and the final seven representatives had also become the hottest topic in the Astral Sage College during this period.

While the academy was heatedly discussing the candidates, Li Luo and the others were still bitterly training in the "Holy Wood World Cave" every day, charging at higher platforms time and time again, experiencing the relentless pounding of the Green Spirit Puppets.

After half a month, the Justice Team led by Li Luo had now reached the thirty-third level.

After reaching the thirtieth level, the difficulty of breaking through actually became extremely high; when they were at the twenty-something levels, Li Luo and his team could still break through several levels a day, but as they entered the thirtieth level, they could only break through one level almost every day, and then they would be exhausted, with no strength left to break through further.

After the thirtieth level, both the strength and the number of the Green Spirit Puppets were enough to cause immense pressure on Li Luo and his team.

There was even one time when they nearly failed to break through; if not for the tacit cooperation of the three, I am afraid a day's effort would have been wasted.

Clearly, as the levels continued to rise, the limits of Li Luo and his team's strength began to gradually manifest, which was also a normal matter; counting the history of the "Holy Wood World Cave" opening, all the first-year teams that had entered basically stopped at the thirty-something levels.

After this half-month of cultivation, the strength of all the Purple Glow Team members who entered had obtained a quite obvious improvement.

Bai Doudou, Wang Hejiu, and Duze Beixuan had gone a step further, directly stepping into the fifth pattern of the Pattern-Forming Stage, Xin Fu reached the fourth pattern, Bai Mengmeng the third pattern, and even Yu Lang had improved to the second pattern.

But the most eye-catching among them was Qin Zhulu; three days ago, he completed the most difficult and important breakthrough of the Pattern-Forming Stage, directly completing the transformation from the Pattern-Forming Stage to the Phase-Forming Stage, and his strength skyrocketed.

With this, Qin Zhulu became the first person in this year's first-year cohort to reach the Phase-Forming Stage!

As the news of Qin Zhulu's breakthrough spread in the academy, he immediately surpassed Li Luo as the hottest candidate for the first-year representative in the ticket matches, and because of this, some students in the academy who supported Li Luo and Qin Zhulu respectively even sparked many heated discussions and disputes.

"Qin Zhulu possesses the upper eighth-grade 'Gold-Devouring Demon Tiger Phase', and his combat power is astonishing. Now that he has broken through to the Phase-Forming Stage, he is absolutely enough to represent the first-year to fight against the 'Blue Abyss Holy Academy'. After all, I heard that the other side's first-year will also send out students with upper eighth-grade phases."

"Li Luo's dual phases are not simple either. In the past half-year, how many times has he defeated the strong while being weak?"

"But he has not yet broken through to the Phase-Forming Stage; this is a fatal flaw."

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

"But it is strange to say, Li Luo seemed to be about the same as Qin Zhulu when he entered the fifth pattern before, and I heard that in the 'Holy Wood World Cave', their team's level was even higher than Qin Zhulu's team, so why is it that Qin Zhulu broke through first?"

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

Similar voices were heard almost all day long in the academy; after all, although there was only one spot for the first-year in this ticket match, this one spot was also particularly important, so the many students' attention to the candidates was also particularly enthusiastic.

The sudden stagnation of Li Luo here was not only of great concern to many students, but even the several Purple Glow mentors of the first-year were a bit puzzled by this.

On a high platform in the Holy Wood World Cave, Mentor Cao Sheng looked at the fierce battle on a platform and said, "This Li Luo, it seems there is still no sign of a breakthrough today."

Mentor Mi'er nodded. After Qin Zhulu's breakthrough, they had also been paying attention to Li Luo's progress, but it was now the sixth day after Qin Zhulu's breakthrough, and there was still no movement from Li Luo.

Mentor Xi Chan frowned slightly and said, "The Phase-Forming Stage is the realm with the greatest changes in the Phase Master stage. Once reaching this level, the phase power seed in the body will begin to evolve towards the origin of the phase nature. Li Luo possesses dual phases; others only need to perform one evolution, but he needs to perform two. In such simultaneous evolution, it is indeed difficult to control."

Mentor Chu Zi smiled and said, "But this also means that once the evolution is completed, his improvement in strength will be much stronger than other single-phase users."

Shen Jinxiao smiled faintly and said, "But now the special training is about to end, and the ticket matches are about to begin. He doesn't have much time left. If he is still only at the fifth pattern of the Pattern-Forming Stage by then, I suggest that the representative for the first-year should be Qin Zhulu."

Mentor Cao Sheng smiled and said, "It doesn't matter who represents, as long as we can maintain the face of the Astral Sage College's first-year. Moreover, Qin Zhulu has always regarded Li Luo as his strongest opponent. With his personality, I am afraid he really wants to wait for Li Luo to step into the Phase-Forming Stage to have a real showdown with him."

Shen Jinxiao shook his head and sighed, "No matter how unique the dual phases are, if Li Luo cannot reach the Phase-Forming Stage, I cannot agree to him serving as the representative for the first-year. I have no selfish motives in this; it is purely for the sake of the reputation of the Astral Sage College's first-year."

Mentor Xi Chan looked over coldly: "Your personal approval is not important. There will be a vote to decide when the time comes."

Shen Jinxiao sneered and said, "Mentor Xi Chan need not be angry. I am just expressing my own thoughts. As for who will be chosen, it will naturally be decided by our vote, but I think, for the sake of the first-year's reputation, other mentors might not choose someone at the fifth pattern to represent the Astral Sage College's first-year, even if his combat power is far superior to an ordinary fifth pattern. After all, we can't tell other holy academies that the strongest in our Astral Sage College's first-year is just a fifth pattern, right? That wouldn't sound very good."

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

"I have heard of this matter, but that was not Li Luo's credit alone; there were also Qin Zhulu and Lu Qinger. Besides, that so-called powerful enemy at the third transformation of the Phase-Forming Stage was only a third transformation forcibly elevated by secret techniques, and their true combat power might not be much stronger than a second transformation of the Phase-Forming Stage with an eighth-grade phase," Shen Jinxiao said with a faint smile.

"Now even Bai Doudou, Wang Hejiu, and Duze Beixuan have 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 Jinxiao and shook her head, no longer arguing with him. After all, saying these things was useless; everything still had to wait for Li Luo's breakthrough. Although dual phases would bring some obstacles in such a breakthrough, she believed that Li Luo could overcome them.

Moreover, even if he really failed to break through in time, with Li Luo's special combat power, it was not impossible for him to compete with Qin Zhulu.

While Mentor Xi Chan and Shen Jinxiao were arguing here, Li Luo, the protagonist of the topic, cast aside distracting thoughts and, without being disturbed by anything, was still fully charging at the higher-level platforms.

In fact, he knew the reason why his own breakthrough had become difficult better than anyone else.

Others thought it was because of the difficulty of dual-phase evolution, but in reality, it was not... because if one were to speak carefully, there were actually four types of phase natures in his body...

Water phase and Light phase.

Wood phase and Earth phase.

Each with one primary and one secondary.

Others only needed to visualize one phase nature and then evolve its reality, but he needed to evolve four... How could this not be slow and difficult?

Thinking of this, Li Luo sighed helplessly in his heart and could only temporarily suppress this frustration, because he had encountered a more realistic problem now...

He discovered that with their strength, it was starting to become difficult to advance.