Chapter 193: The First Round

"You've transformed. You may continue."

As if sensing Xiaoliang's momentary hesitation, the Mimosa, after transforming, made no further move—only held her wand behind her back and calmly declared to Xiaoliang.

Xiaoliang said nothing more, but swung her wand and cautiously fired several beams of magic toward the front.

As the most basic offensive technique for a Magical Girl, magic beams are potent yet require little mental focus, making them ideal for probing.

She did not immediately use a spell or magic armor—though that would have quickly revealed the opponent's limits, it would not have allowed both sides to demonstrate their abilities.

This battle was ultimately a trial, not requiring extreme measures. Victory mattered, but leaving room for mutual expression better embodied the spirit of a "trial."

So, how would the opponent respond to such a simple attack? After launching the beams, Xiaoliang turned her gaze toward the Mimosa, pondering this.

In her expectation, most would either dodge through reflex or raise a barrier to block—perhaps the overconfident might even counter with their own magic beams… No matter the response, Xiaoliang had already prepared countermeasures; as soon as the opponent acted, she could deploy her pre-planned tactics…

Unfortunately, when the Mimosa revealed her technique, Xiaoliang realized those plans would likely be useless.

She saw a scene she would never forget.

How, in the future, could she describe this moment to others? Even that seemed difficult.

In her view, she could clearly see her own magic beams being "shattered" by some force entirely invisible.

First, it must be clear: magic beams, as one of the most fundamental offensive techniques for Magical Girls, are an extension of the "Magic Emission" ability, one of the four core abilities acquired from the Seed Stage.

Flight, Enhancement, Magic Emission, and Magic Perception. These four abilities are the foundational skills of every Magical Girl.

Regardless of their Blossom Stage, these Seed Stage abilities remain the most frequently used, forming the basis for all derived techniques.

And these techniques are not spells.

Using the human body as an analogy: if spells are systematic martial arts—how to attack, how to generate force, how to strike vital points—then these basic ability techniques are "how to walk."

Yes, walk.

For humans, walking is an ability almost everyone learns postnatally, often with extremely high priority. Eventually, it becomes instinctive, requiring no conscious thought.

The four core abilities of a Magical Girl function the same way: after initial learning and mastery, they become as simple as breathing, requiring no extra thought before use.

When ordinary people walk, they do not consider how to extend their legs, how to tense their muscles, how to make their entire foot contact the ground, or how to switch between stance and swing phases. Most often, walking stops at "good enough"—as long as they can walk normally, few question how they accomplish it.

Then, is there a relatively better way to walk for the human body?

The answer is yes.

Horse gait, duck gait, pigeon-toed, out-turned joints… numerous incorrect gaits prove many people simply do not know how to walk properly.

Yet, whether correct or incorrect, the impact on the human body is not overly severe. After all, the human form is relatively fixed.

With a fixed form, the movements performed with it cannot deviate too far. Incorrect gaits in ordinary people may only make walking less graceful, and over time might affect muscle and joint structure.

But incorrect magic techniques are far more serious for Magical Girls.

Compared to the human body, a Magical Girl's true form possesses far greater malleability, meaning their use of magic often lacks rigid conventions.

In human walking, the muscle groups and joints involved remain fixed; no matter how bizarre the posture, walking ultimately results from these organs working together—most people still walk on two legs on the ground.

But for Magical Girls, magic use is not like this.

From the magic source, how magic flows through the true form, reaches the outside, and acts upon reality—this entire process has few fixed stages.

This results in vastly greater variation in how Magical Girls use magic than in human gaits.

For a human to walk inverted on two fingers, sit and walk with their buttocks, lie half-on-the-ground and walk with their elbows, or even slit their belly and let their organs walk… such absurdities are impossible in the human body.

But for Magical Girls, the variation in magic use can be this extreme.

On this foundation, depending on a Magical Girl's fighting style and true form, "how to use magic" has no single optimal solution. Sometimes, bizarre phenomena arise—like someone walking on two fingers faster than others, yet becoming ordinary when standing normally.

Given all these factors, the magic beam is a truly great invention.

In pure power, it is certainly not the strongest—its speed, destructive force, and accuracy are far from optimal.

Yet its modern structure has been gradually refined over generations of Magical Girls, polished in countless details, and passed down to the present. Thus, the magic beam's greatest strength is its "mediocrity."

No matter how you activate it, no matter your state, no matter your process, the magic beam's power remains "roughly the same."

Some Magical Girls use wands to cast magic beams, others throw them with their hands, and some even spit them out through their mouths… Yet no matter how used, as long as the magic input is similar, the beam's power remains roughly equal.

At least, if asked a few minutes ago, Xiaoliang would have given the same answer.

Until she saw how the Mimosa responded to her attack.

She was certain: at the moment of counterattack, the opponent had also used the "Magic Emission" basic ability, and the structure of her magic flow was nearly identical to a magic beam.

No—it was a magic beam.

As a Leaf Stage Magical Girl, Xiaoliang's magic perception in battle was extremely sharp; the instant the opponent raised her wand, Xiaoliang could almost confirm: the response was a magic beam fired back.

This perfectly matched the opponent's earlier demeanor—not arrogant, but undeniably confident. Meeting the same attack head-on was the most confident response, as it tested three abilities: seeing the attack's path, judging its power, and possessing high proficiency.

If it ended there, Xiaoliang would not have been surprised—it merely proved the opponent's foundational skills were solid, nothing more.

But when her magic beam was "shattered," Xiaoliang's eyes flew wide open.

It wasn't just that the image of "shattering" seemed too abnormal—it was that the result exceeded her understanding.

Both used magic beams, the same technique, nearly identical magic quantities—yet her side suffered total defeat?

She could not comprehend this outcome, and her pre-planned countermeasures momentarily failed to activate.

"My turn."

But the battle was ongoing—the Mimosa gave her no time to process this revelation.

Almost simultaneously with her counter, she swung her wand and launched several pale red magic beams right back.

This move tightened Xiaoliang's chest and furrowed Lin Xiaolu's brow.

Unlike Xiaoliang, who stood bewildered in the arena, Lin Xiaolu had already encountered this inexplicable phenomenon a week earlier, from Bai Ji.

Back then, the exchange was smaller—just a simple clash of small magic balls—but Lin Xiaolu had been utterly defeated.

Now, nearly the same scene unfolded—but the combatants had changed to Xiaoliang and the Mimosa.

How would Xiaoliang respond? Or more importantly, could Xiaoliang respond at all?

She unconsciously clenched her sleeve, her thoughts tangled.

What Lin Xiaolu didn't know was that Xiaoliang herself had no answer to this question.

At least after the opponent unleashed the magic beam, Xiaoliang's reaction was slightly delayed—because in that instant, her understanding of the opponent's magic had changed completely.

She should treat it as something similar to the残兽's magic.

The残兽's magic has a certain erosive effect on magical girl magic, so magical girls usually avoid the残兽's attacks as much as possible, even when using barriers to block, they never overly rely on the barrier's protective capacity.

At this moment, Xiaoliang was applying exactly this mindset.

She opened her hand, 凝聚ed a rune for her barrier in an extremely short time, and quickly released the makeshift magic barrier she had just learned; at the same time, she kicked off the air and shot sharply to one side.

This move seemed baffling at first glance, but a moment's thought revealed its intent—she was testing the opponent's attack strength.

She used a magic barrier to respond, yet had no faith it would hold, so she didn't hide behind it at all.

The facts proved her reasoning correct.

For just as Xiaoliang barely dodged, the thrown magic barrier emitted a groan of unbearable strain, then shattered with a "crash" into several pieces.

As for the mimosa's magic beam, after shattering Xiaoliang's barrier, it still retained some power, striking straight into the training ground's wall and leaving several charred small pits.

"Good response, very calm—but this magic beam… after shattering the barrier, still retained power close to a magic bullet?"

This made Senior Cuique raise an eyebrow and look up at Ma Sheng Yuanxiang beside her: "Is this your team's secret weapon?"

Ma Sheng Yuanxiang smiled without answering.

Not only did she remain silent, but even the mimosa in the arena slightly lifted the corner of her mouth, as if smiling.

"Can you rest easy now?"

She looked at Xiaoliang: "Use your full strength."

Xiaoliang was breathing slightly heavily.

Although she hadn't expended much magic in the previous exchange, her tense mental state was undeniable—even though the magic essence had no heart or respiratory organs, she couldn't help taking deep breaths, trying to ease the tension.

The opponent was strong.

In just one round, she had realized this fact.

Not only had the opponent been a magical girl longer, thus possessing more magic, but also her techniques were clearly far more varied than Xiaoliang's.

Xiaoliang had no prior experience fighting other magical girls, but logically speaking, in magical girl duels, "the variety of techniques" was extremely important.

Even a Flower-rank magical girl's main combat power could essentially be broken down into just a few major categories: magic quantity, endurance, technique, spell, Mirage Realm, and magic gear. And as the two trump cards of magical girls, magic gear and Mirage Realm were best held back to achieve a counterstrike effect.

Now, in her duel with the mimosa, in just one round, with the opponent using only basic techniques, Xiaoliang had already been forced to deploy a spell—and still hadn't gained the upper hand.

This meant that in the next exchange, she would have to use even more spells, or even reveal her magic gear outright.

Should she use her magic gear?

Xiaoliang began evaluating internally.

If she now summoned her magic gear—Yin Li—she could likely catch the opponent off guard; she might even use the opponent's own magic against them, which would undoubtedly resolve her earlier disadvantage in magic clashes.

But would merely using her magic gear to bridge the gap in magic power truly guarantee victory?

The mimosa was also a Leaf-rank magical girl; without doubt, she possessed magic gear and spell capabilities, and given her longer tenure as a magical girl, her spells were certainly more refined than Xiaoliang's current ones.

That meant, if Xiaoliang tried to compensate for the magic gap with her magic gear, she would have no remaining trump cards—when the opponent revealed her magic gear, Xiaoliang would essentially be defeated.

At this moment, Xiaoliang suddenly understood why the opponent had told her, "Use your full strength."

The mimosa was right: though only one round had passed, Xiaoliang was now at a point with no retreat left.

Her basic abilities were temporarily suppressed, and her overall technique variety couldn't match the opponent's; continuing to fight cautiously would only lead to exhausting all her trump cards without winning.

If this were a card game, her hand was worse than the opponent's. And the player with the worse hand must abandon conventional play to win.

In this light, the only path to victory seemed clear.

——Spend all her cards at once, and win this round through information asymmetry.

And information asymmetry was precisely what she currently possessed.

It had been only a few nights ago, when Xiaoliang had gone to Senior Cuique to express her desire to learn spells, that Cuique had told her this.

"I'll tell you no more about barrier techniques for now—just understand the basic principle."

Putting away the Faw rune representing the magic barrier, Senior Cuique smoothed her falling hair: "If you want to win future duels, you'll need to change the order of spell learning—you must learn something else first."

"Something else? What?" Xiaoliang tilted her head.

"When you first awakened your magic gear, I once promised you something."

Senior Cuique leaned back slightly, resting against the chair: "Your magic gear cannot yet deal significant damage at the Bud-rank. If you want it to become lethal, after reaching Leaf-rank, many spells can synergize with your magic gear."

"I think you did say something like that…"

After a moment of recollection, Xiaoliang nodded: "So I can learn those spells now?"

"You can—and you can't."

Senior Cuique sighed softly: "That's why I asked you just now how you viewed spells—it's precisely because your magic gear is so perfectly suited to certain spells that using them would drastically boost your combat power in a short time. But the knowledge behind those spells is often extremely complex; I worry that if you rush, you'll waste too much time on them."

"Isn't increasing combat power a good thing?"

"No matter how much you boost your combat power at Leaf-rank, it still won't match the power of a single fingertip after you master Mirage Realm."

Senior Cuique lowered her eyelids: "The saying 'don't pick up sesame seeds and lose the watermelon' applies here."

"I get it—don't neglect magic cultivation, right?"

Xiaoliang gave a forced laugh: "I'm not a child—I hear once and I remember."

"Sigh—I hope you really remember."

Senior Cuique stared at Xiaoliang for a long while, until Xiaoliang's smile was about to crack, before slowly withdrawing her gaze: "Then start with the simplest spell. Within the entire spell system, spells with similar functions are grouped into the same category…"

Spell classification.

This was also a deep subject—in the entrance exam of the Magic Kingdom Research Institute, there was a classic multiple-choice question.

【Fireball Spell and Fire Wall Spell both belong to the Fire spell category, so they are the same type of spell ( ).】

This question was originally created by Emerald in the Institute's early days, and centuries later removed by Emerald herself for being too simple—but unquestionably, it represented many counterintuitive aspects of the spell classification system.

The answer to the question is "False."

There are two reasons: first, the classification "Fire Element" does not exist within the art forms; rather, terms like "Water," "Fire," and "Thunder" in art forms always modify only the appearance, not the essence.

Second, the Fireball Art and the Fire Wall Art are indeed not the same type of art form.

Although the external imagery of both art forms is "flame," presenting the image of fire to the observer, the underlying principles of their construction are worlds apart, so there is no such thing as sharing the same origin.

Therefore, the classification of art forms in the Magical Kingdom often requires researchers to memorize them by force, or even personally consult and search the rune composition of each art form to understand the reason for its belonging to a certain category.

Yet among so many art form classifications, there exists an outlier.

Unlike other categories that defy intuition, the art forms in this category are such that nearly half can be identified at a glance as belonging to which class, pointing directly to the essence from the appearance alone.

This is because the commonality of art forms in this category is using a large number of rune structures to assist in the compression and arrangement of mana, thereby achieving high density and high energy levels of mana.

The official academic name for this category is "High-Energy High-Density Class." Of course, in combat, no one would refer to such art forms by that name; the Magical Girls would simply give it a more intuitive and memorable name.

—"This really is quite intuitive..."

Gazing at the radiance formed by the runes in her hand, Xia Liang instinctively let out a sigh.

Magic armor, mana, art forms—she had already unleashed everything she possessed, all to defeat her opponent directly in the next clash.

There was no control over the force, because she knew she did not have the luxury to control the force now; any extra control would only lead to defeat.

She did not want to lose very much.

Thus, she could only use this move, whose concept had only been formed a few days ago, and for which she herself was not even confident in executing properly.

Yin Li had fully manifested the form of the magic armor, but at this moment, all of them were arranged in a single line, with every mirror surface stacked together, forming a long cylinder layer by layer, aimed from the sky at the ground of the training field.

And the runes in Xia Liang's hand were aimed directly at one of the mirrors.

The art form Senior Cuique had taught her a few days ago was a rather obscure one, because as a foundational art form for a major category, its practicality was quite poor; its range could only reach within ten meters in front of the user, and moreover, those ten meters were very likely to affect the user themselves.

However, if Yin Li were used, this would not happen.

Yin Li could transmit the properties of mana, able to extend the range of this art form infinitely, not only preserving its power at close range but also ensuring it would not affect Xia Liang herself.

And this art form, along with the entire art form category to which it belongs, bears such a resounding name:

—"Explosion Class."

(End of this chapter)