Chapter 11: The Contest

With the experience from their first day as mercenaries, the students no longer needed much direction from Lin Yuan. Over the next ten days, they took on tasks and completed them on their own every day. Lin Yuan also experimented with his mixed magic during different tasks each day. However, unfortunately, since the accidental creation of the fire-and-ice ball, his mixed magic had made no progress at all.

After more than ten days, the number of gold coins in Vince's possession had surprisingly exceeded 100. Encouraged by the students, Lin Yuan had no choice but to immediately apply for a mercenary group.

"You still need to do one more thing," the clerk said after receiving the 100 gold coins, but did not immediately approve the establishment of their mercenary group.

"What?" Lin Yuan asked.

"Before establishing a mercenary group, you need to prove your strength first," the clerk pointed to the task board nearby. "Complete a task that is at least D-class."

Lin Yuan breathed a sigh of relief. Even if the clerk hadn't mentioned it, he had already planned to take on a D-class task to give the students some practice, as they had been requesting for the past few days.

In mercenary tasks, F and E-class tasks are considered low-level tasks that can be independently completed by mercenaries with a certain foundation in combat. However, D-class tasks are a different story. Starting from this level, each task truly becomes dangerous. Generally, these tasks are assigned to mercenaries who have already achieved a certain level of strength, and ordinary academy students still fall short.

Of course, for mercenary groups, these tasks are another matter. A task that one person cannot handle becomes much simpler with a group. This is also why the Mercenary Guild uses D-class tasks as the initial assessment for mercenary groups.

After discussing with Katusha, Lin Yuan finally chose a task titled "Eliminate the Dire Wolves."

The task was not complicated. Less than 50 miles northwest of Winden City, there was a farm. Recently, a pack of wind wolves had appeared on the outskirts of the farm, severely disrupting its normal operations. With no other choice, the farm owner had to post a task to recruit mercenaries to eliminate the wind wolves.

Wind wolves are only Level 1 Magic Beasts, slightly stronger than ordinary wolves, and capable of launching a few wind blades. Even as pack animals, they do not pose a significant threat. This task is considered relatively simple among D-class tasks and is perfect for the students to practice.

"Teacher Lin, I oppose taking on this task," Vince suddenly spoke up as Lin Yuan was about to accept the task.

"Oh? Why?" Lin Yuan asked.

"The reward for this task is 10 gold coins, but I just calculated that our expenses to complete this task will reach 4 gold coins, leaving us with only 6 gold coins in profit. And completing this task will take at least a day; the efficiency is just too low," Vince said seriously after being appointed by Lin Yuan as the "finance minister."

"Don't worry about making money for now. Once everyone becomes more proficient, efficiency will naturally improve," Lin Yuan smiled and patted Vince on the shoulder. "Besides, our main goal is to give you all a good workout. As long as we don't lose money, it's fine."

Vince opened his mouth but eventually didn't say anything more.

After more than ten days of training, the students' physical strength had improved significantly. Although they had traveled 50 miles by carriage, they all got off looking energetic. If it weren't for Lin Yuan's restraint, they would have immediately gone to the outskirts of the farm to look for the wolf pack.

"I didn't know there was such a vast grassland outside Winden City," Lin Yuan looked into the distance and saw a small farm ahead. Beyond the farm was a sea of green, with large herds of cattle and sheep grazing peacefully.

According to the information provided by the farm owner, the wind wolves only appeared at night, and at least hundreds of them would show up at once. The farm's simple defensive forces were no match for them.

Since they knew the wind wolves only appeared at night, Lin Yuan wasn't in a hurry. He gathered the students together to also test their progress over these days.

Indeed, although they hadn't learned systematic magical knowledge these days, the students had become more and more proficient in using magic while completing tasks. Although their options were limited, the power of their spells was incomparable to before.

"Come on, let's have a target practice contest," Lin Yuan found a bunch of sticks from somewhere and casually stuck them into the grass. "Whoever wins, I'll treat them to dinner."

"Teacher, do you even have money to treat us?" As soon as Lin Yuan finished speaking, a student suddenly shouted loudly.

The students burst into laughter. Although they had been working hard on tasks these days, they all knew that Lin Yuan was still quite poor.

"Tsk, although I'm still poor, I can still afford one meal," Lin Yuan said stubbornly. "Stop talking nonsense and step back. I'm about to announce the rules."

Among these students, the longest time spent learning magic was 13 years, and the shortest was nearly 6 years. Yet, they had never seen such a fun magic teacher as Lin Yuan. He didn't teach them magic bit by bit every day but instead took them out to run around everywhere. If this were any other magic academy, such a teacher would probably have been scolded to death.

Lin Yuan stuck 10 sticks in a row about a hundred meters away from the students and then used a fireball spell to burn a line in the middle of the sticks.

"The rules of the contest are simple. Each person will use a Level 1 magic spell to attack the sticks, but each stick is limited to one attempt, for a total of 10 tries. Breaking one stick counts as one point. If it's broken exactly from the line I've drawn, that's an extra point. The highest scorer wins. Do you understand?"

"Teacher, that's not fair. Earth mages are at a disadvantage in this," one student complained.

This was indeed a problem. Among the four major elemental magic systems, each has its strengths at the high end. However, in low-level magic, earth magic's offensive capabilities lag behind the other three. Even among water, fire, and wind magic, there are significant differences in attack power, although not as pronounced as with earth magic.

"Don't worry, I haven't finished speaking," Lin Yuan chuckled. "For earth mages, breaking a stick will earn you two points."

The students had no more complaints. Although low-level earth magic wasn't very powerful, breaking a stick wasn't that difficult. As long as their magical power was strong enough, the flying stones they could summon were quite formidable.

Lin Yuan walked over and casually cast a wind blade, drawing a straight line on the ground.

"Pay attention. You can only attack from behind this line. Stepping over the line is a violation and will disqualify you. Do you understand?"

"Understood!"

"Alright, take turns. Natasha, you go first."

Natasha approached nervously. She was still just a water apprentice mage and hadn't even learned the more offensive variant of water magic—ice magic. She wasn't very confident about breaking a stick from such a distance.

But seeing Lin Yuan's encouraging gaze, she steadied herself. For some reason, she trusted this teacher, who didn't seem as wise and powerful as other mages, but somehow inspired confidence.

After throwing 10 water balls, she barely managed to break one stick, but none of her water balls missed, and all hit the line Lin Yuan had marked. If her magical power had been stronger, she could have easily scored full marks.

Lin Yuan nodded. Natasha's magical power might be low, but her control over magic was exceptional. Once her magical power grew, she would surely surpass many mages who were currently at a higher level than her.

The control of the following students was far inferior to Natasha's. The best one only hit 8 sticks, but their magical power was stronger than Natasha's, so they managed to break more sticks. As a result, their final scores were better than Natasha's.

It wasn't until Zona took the stage that the situation changed.

With only 10 sticks, she used four types of Level 1 magic spells—fireball, spark, water ball, and ice arrow. She truly demonstrated her dual-element mage status and showed that she had reached a certain level of proficiency in both magic systems.

Compared to her, Fasno, who followed her, was much more low-key. Ten basic wind blades, ten sticks neatly cut at the line drawn by Lin Yuan—that was his performance.

After witnessing the performances of these two, Lin Yuan was also impressed. Zona was impressive, but even Fasno's results were not as simple as they seemed.

The intervals between his ten wind blades were identical, as precise as a stopwatch. Moreover, these intervals were shorter than those of all the previous students. Although the difference was not significant, for a mage, casting speed is also an important aspect. In a duel between two mages, being able to cast one more spell can often determine the outcome. For a mage, the time to gather magical power, concentrate the elements, and release the spell all have a fixed limit. Advanced mages, through long-term training and combat experience, can get infinitely close to this limit. But Fasno was just a teenager, not yet an adult. He had been practicing magic for no more than ten years. The fact that he could already come so close to the limit was beyond the description of genius.

Of course, for Lin Yuan, who could cast spells from two different elements at the same time, this was not an issue at all.