In the dense thicket, a figure dressed in a maid outfit darted nimbly through the underbrush, causing the surrounding leaves to rustle and fall with a “swish-swish” sound.
Two Magic Beams shot toward her from behind. Ximo made a sharp stop and turned, causing both beams to miss completely and slam into a nearby rock, shattering it and sending fragments scattering across the ground.
“Damn it… chase her!”
Jackson gritted his teeth, his eyes fixed solely on Ximo’s fleeing figure.
Jackson felt his luck was pretty good. Not long after entering the exam grounds, he had run into two new students who were old acquaintances of his. The three of them quickly formed an alliance, and soon after, they encountered Ximo.
This was a perfect chance for revenge as far as Jackson was concerned. Students who were eliminated received scores based on their elimination order, and Jackson was eager to make Ximo the last place in this Class Division Exam.
But who would have thought this little maid could run so well? All three of them had applied the Agility buff, yet they could barely keep up with Ximo’s pace.
Jackson was a Beginner Mid-Grade mage, while the other two were only Beginner Low-Grade. Even the simplest Flight Magic was beyond them now; they could only rely on basic buffs like Agility to boost their speed.
Ximo’s earlier provocation had driven the three of them into a frenzy. They never once considered that a completely magic-less ordinary person could outrun three mages enhanced by Agility buffs. Something was off.
Damn it, was this girl a monkey or what?!
Jackson cursed inwardly. As he stared at Ximo fleeing ahead, he noticed a massive tree not far away.
His eyes lit up. He halted, aimed his staff forward, and after three seconds of charging, unleashed a Magic Beam… which grazed right over Ximo’s head.
“Classmate, your aim’s a bit off, huh~”
No sooner had Ximo’s mocking words fallen than a “crack-crack” sound echoed from above. She stopped in time, and the next second, the giant tree—severed halfway up—crashed down, blocking her path perfectly.
The other two immediately understood and flanked her from both sides, completely sealing off Ximo’s escape routes.
“Run! Weren’t you good at running?”
Jackson approached slowly with a smug smile. Ximo’s back was against the felled tree trunk, and the three formed a triangular formation, closing in on her step by step.
“I thought you had some real skills. Turns out you just talk big and run away. How pathetic.”
Seeing Jackson’s triumphant expression, Ximo merely sighed softly. “Sigh, whatever. We’ve run this far already. Should be fine now, right?”
“You don’t seriously think you still have a way out, do you?” Ximo’s nonchalant attitude only fueled Jackson’s rage. “I’d love to see what other tricks you’ve got.”
All three staves aimed at Ximo, making her feel oddly like she was staring down the barrels of three guns… Should she raise her hands and surrender?
Ximo glanced at the staff in her hand—the one she’d used to stir her soup earlier. Over the past few days, Xiliya had given her crash courses in basic magic, but that superficial knowledge wouldn’t cut it here.
So, Ximo put on a pitiful expression, mimicking them by gripping her staff and aiming it at one of them.
“Fine, looks like there’s no escaping. You wanted to see what I’m capable of, right? Let’s fight then?”
Instead of retreating, Ximo advanced, slowly closing in on one of them with her staff in hand. Jackson burst out laughing at the sight.
“Are you an idiot or something?” Jackson sneered contemptuously. “You, a total magic-less waste, really think you can take on all three of us?”
“I’ll do my best,” Ximo shrugged, chatting casually. “Surrender isn’t really my…”
The shift happened in an instant. One moment, Ximo was strolling forward while chatting to buy time; the next, she crouched low and exploded forward, charging straight at one of them!
“Wha—”
The target widened his eyes. His staff, aimed at Ximo, began charging for a spell, but he was too slow. Ximo’s burst was even faster than her earlier flight!
Before the magic could gather at the staff’s tip, Ximo was in his face. Her demeanor shifted from casual chatter to razor-sharp focus, and she thrust the staff’s pointed end viciously toward the new student’s heart!
Who said a staff couldn’t be used to stab?
It all happened in a breath. With Ximo’s speed and force, the tip would pierce straight through a heart!
But a faint blue barrier bloomed at the student’s chest, blocking Ximo’s strike just in time. The next second, his figure turned translucent. The Hexagram Stone he wore cracked with a “crack-crack,” and a large hexagram array appeared beneath his feet.
The Academy-issued Magitool had saved him from the fatal blow and teleported him out of the exam grounds.
“Oh, so that’s how elimination works.”
Watching the student vanish completely, Ximo nodded. The other two finally snapped out of it and began chanting spells to counterattack. But before the second one could finish, a whooshing sound rang in his ears, and a hexagram array appeared under his feet too.
“What? When did I get hit…?”
He looked down to see a flying knife blocked by a blue barrier, lodged just inches from his waist. Ximo smirked—her throwing knives didn’t need chants or charging.
The situation flipped in a heartbeat. What was once a three-on-one became a one-on-one. Jackson’s eyes bulged as his finally completed Magic Beam blasted toward Ximo, only for her to dodge it effortlessly. The beam struck the tree behind her, shearing off half the trunk.
“Don’t tell me that’s your only move?” Ximo tsked twice. “I thought fighting you three would make a huge racket.”
In Ximo’s mind, mage battles were like the one between Xiliya and the Beastman Priest—after theirs, half the forest outside Camberlan City was gone. She’d run this far to protect her hard-cooked meal from the fallout.
She hadn’t expected Jackson to only know one trick, like some skill-less mob. She wouldn’t have bothered running so far.
“Y-You… don’t you not know magic?”
“I really don’t know magic,” Ximo said leisurely, twirling her flying knife. “I just don’t know magic. I never said I couldn’t do anything else. You’re the one who underestimated me, okay?”
“You… That’s cheating! This is the Magic Department’s Class Division Exam—why aren’t you using magic?”
Jackson hadn’t anticipated this twist. In his eyes, a magic-less waste like Ximo couldn’t possibly know anything else. With such strong physical skills, why wasn’t she in the Physical Arts Department?
“The Academy doesn’t force candidates not to team up, and it doesn’t mandate using only magic in the exam, right?”
“You… Damn it!”
Jackson flushed with anger, aiming his staff at Ximo and bracing for battle.
Those two new students had been caught completely off-guard, but he was Beginner Mid-Grade—stronger than them. One-on-one, he wouldn’t necessarily lose!
But the next instant, an icy dagger was at his throat. Ximo had closed the distance so fast he couldn’t react.
“Give up. For a scrub like you, letting me get that close earlier sealed your fate.”
For mages, an assassin’s close range was deadly—they couldn’t chant a single spell before getting stabbed.
Ximo eyed Jackson, who was rigid with tension. “Honestly, if you three had just attacked outright, I might not have closed in easily. But you had to come closer yourselves—to humiliate me first, right? Who gave you that confidence?”
“I thought you’d be tougher. You’re so weak—I shouldn’t have run so far.”
“Oh, right. You called me a waste earlier? How’s it feel to lose to one?”
“You…”
Ximo’s faint words cut him off mid-sentence as she sent him straight out of the exam grounds.
Glancing at her unchanged score, Ximo pouted. These three hadn’t even taken down a single Magic Beast. What a waste of her effort.
But getting booted at this point? They might really end up at the bottom.
Ximo smiled, tucked the dagger back under her maid skirt, and headed back to check if her rabbit was burnt.
