Just as Kale has said, three foxes jumped out from the shore of the river, one of them had an injured eye while the other two were completely fine.
Mike stepped forward and slammed the lower edge of the shield on the ground.
'Taunt'
A magic circle shined on the shield then a formless wave of energy spread in all directions.
Suddenly, the three foxes that were eyeing Amber and Alice at the rear focused their attention on Mike and angrily howled, then they blindly charged at him.
Seeing the approaching foxes, Mike channeled the Battle Qi in his body and increased his physical strength, the change was unnoticeable from the naked eyes but right now he was almost as strong as a weight lifting champion among Mortal people.
'So this is what a spell imbued equipment looks like, but he should have still used mana and now he is strengthening his body with Battle Qi so… Martial Mage?' Kale thought. When someone uses spell imbued equipment they don't need to learn the spell and just using mana will do the trick, if it was enchanted by a Battle Skill then the user would need Battle Qi instead of mana.
The fox within the injured eye blindly crashed into it, the other foxes followed after, the second they crashed into the shield, Mike's strength erupted like a volcano and he pushed them all using his Martial Technique.
'Mountain Crushing Charge'
All three foxes felt like they were hit by a charging rhino, the impact woke them up but they were in no condition to make up for their mistake and were thrown several meters back in the air then crashed onto the ground, Mike didn't charge at them himself and commanded "Now,"
Arlo unsheathed his «Twin Shark Blades» and dashed at the fox on the left, Night Hunter was also the same, he held the dagger in his left hand and threw a shuriken with his right hand.
The strange shuriken spun and split into three parts on the way before hitting the fox.
Mike didn't look at them, his focus was on the last fox, the injured one that brought the other two here. He had just one thought in his mind 'Why hasn't he attacked? From where is he going to charge?'
He had just thought this when he felt something pressing on his shoulder and in the next second, he saw a silhouette spinning his body in the air.
Kale spun his body to accelerate then threw «Fallen Sakura» several meters away from the fox, the others almost had heartache when they saw it but then they noticed a thin chain attached to the handle of the knife and its another end held by Kale.
As his body spun, the knife swung in an arc because of the chain, it accelerates on its way and struck the neck of the fox.
The fox had a considerable amount of defense but in front of the accelerating knife, it was powerless.
The knife continued his advance even after the slash, Kale pulled it and skillfully caught on its handle before landing on the ground. He turned and looked at the fox lying on the ground, the fox was dead, it was continuously spurting out blood from the big cut on its neck. He thought 'As I expected, this chain decreases the acceleration speed due to the unstable weight and it also makes a lot of noise as I use it, I need a good alternative,'
«Fallen Sakura» was a magic weapon but the chain wasn't, which prevented him from channeling his mana to further strengthen it, although strengthening it with mana wasn't as good as doing it with Battle Qi but it was still better than nothing. If not for the chain's problem, then his attack could have been stronger.
He then looked around and noticed that he was in the spotlight.
'He got stronger again,' Layla thought, she was a little speechless, if he got stronger as a mage then she was fine but he got stronger in the martial field when he wasn't even a martial artist.
Night Hunter peeked at Kale for a moment then focused on the fox in front of him.
'Confusion'
His purple mask covering his face reacted, the two eye socket gave off a purple gleam of light than the fox that was about to attack stopped in its tracks and looked at him in a daze.
'Purple Moon First Appearance'
Night Hunter dashed past the fox while slicing off its head with a curved slash.
Arlo on the other hand directly charged into the fox, both of his blades crossed each other and his battle Qi surged into the blades.
The fox was about to charge at him but a stream of blue electric current struck it out of nowhere and stunned it.
'Intertwined Diagonal Cross'
As the blades fell, a red cross-shaped wound appeared on the fox's head splitting it into four parts.
'So his mutant ability is related to current manipulation,' Kale concluded.
"Anonymous what were you thinking? This place isn't meant to act recklessly, get a little serious man and use Battle Qi when needed," Mike lightly scolded, he was more than happy with Kale's battle strength but he cannot let him act recklessly because as a leader, his teams' well being is his responsibility.
Kale tilted his head, showing a confused look, not that they can see it under his mask.
Arlo's lips were stiff when he heard it.
Layla was holding back her laughter.
Mike felt something was wrong when Alice spoke to clear his confusion "He is not a Martial Artist but a Mutant Mage,"
Mike turned to look at Kale and didn't know what to say, in the end after seeing that they weren't in right place to discuss it he decided to postpone the matter "Eh... Let's move on to our next opponent for now,"
Night Hunter gave him another look, it was hard to tell what he was thinking.
Others were also in confusion, they knew Kale was a mage after he had used the spell earlier but why was he a Mutant Mage instead of Martial Mage with such skills?
Kanna looked the most surprised one, she had never seen a mortal child doing something like that without using any type of energy before in person.
"I will do the work of attracting them, when enough foxes survive my attacks I will guide them here," Kale said then rushed into the foxes fighting others without a moment of thought. He knew that dealing the damage and snatching the kill was the best way of earning the CP.
Kale took a few steps and already found his target, his lips curled upwards, he stepped forwards and spun horizontally as he released the knife from his hand, under the guidance of the chain, it moved like a flying snake and shot at the head of a Mortal Fox cornered by two students.
The mage student at the rear had almost finished preparing his spell to finish off the fox when a chained knife came out of nowhere and pierced through the fox's head. The knife was pulled back then changed the direction in mid-air striking a fox attacking another student.
Another fox got its brain destroyed.
Everything happened in a flash.
Students from both the group looked at each other into the eyes then turned to the faraway Kale who was spinning the chain with his right hand while searching for another target without even sparring them a look, he looked like he had nothing to do with this matter if it wasn't for the blood dyed blade they might have even believed it but right now they felt like their IQ was put up to a test.
The crowd flared up in an instant.
"Kill Steal! It's a kill steal,"
"Crap… Someone catch that white-haired bastard, my efforts were in vain,"
"That shameless runt is running away,"
"Brat, do you want to get expelled? Don't you know what happens when you break the Academy rules?"
Kale turned to them and spoke, "Which rule did I break?"
The student that had just shouted was about to retort but then he abruptly stopped, he said it in the spur of the moment but right now he really couldn't remember a rule stating that they cannot steal kills, he looked at his companions but they averted their gazes.
He braced himself, and spoke again "Even so, what about the chivalry of a warrior, huh? Where did he go?" The boy had finally thought of something and spoke when he realized that Kale had already left.
Mike in the distance looked at him and felt he got somewhat trolled.
Kale didn't seem like he planned to attract foxes but leave some of his leftovers or come to them only to avoid trouble.
"Should I also attract foxes?" Arlo raised his hand.
Night Hunter also looked at him.
Mike's lips twitched.
"Leave him be, he would come when you call him, Ka- cough* Anonymous is good at solo hunting, his attacking method is also like that he would have trouble using his full strength when allies are near him," Layla evaluated and said.
Mike slightly nodded. He wasn't that bothered because when they had practiced formation and discussed plans as a team before, Kale wasn't there so it would be trouble explaining all of that to him during the battle, it was mainly because of gaining Layla's favour that he didn't mind taking Kale in.
He decided to fight just as they planned before but he inwardly thought of meeting Kale, later on. He had now seen his battle strength, it was never a bad thing to have good connections with the rising stars of the academy.
"Leave this to me," Amber at the rear said, a red magic circle appeared in front of her magic wand.
'Fiery Fall'
The magic circle shined and several small fiery seeds shot out from it, they were like fire in the shape of seeds that flew in the distance leaving behind a trail in the air. All of them headed into the distance making a parabola and struck an Enlightened Mortal-Rank Water Fox that was leading a small pack of foxes.
The fox quickly reacted, it avoided one or two of them but a few still hit him and burned its fur, the fox snarled at them angrily and rushed in their direction leading the pack behind it.
Amber could have chosen the most basic but efficient spell ‹Fire Ball› after choosing the Fire Mage as her first subclass she instead chose ‹Fiery Fall› that was hard to learn and had lesser destructive power compared to ‹Fire Ball›, it was because although its destructive power was lower, its range was highest in Mortal-Rank fire spells, it has a wide range of effect and at last, it consumes less mana.
Mike looked at the approaching wolf pack and made a decision, he did a hand sign and everyone reassembled into a defense type formation.
On the other side, Kale was gaining, contribution points at an astonishing speed, but it was not the only thing, his fame was also rising at an astonishing speed.
A big group of fans was following him from behind.
"You bastard stop! We spent three magic tools in cornering that damn fox, you stole the kill in a second,"
"White Mask Fiend give back my contribution points,"
"Everyone snatch away that chain from him, this must be the reason how he can kill them so easily,"
"Yes, snatch his chain, snatch his knife, snatch everything from that bastard, we should also take his leather bag, rip his clothes, and…"
"Bruh… We have a Yaoi lover among us,"
"Cough… You misunderstand, anyway, someone catch that Kill Stealer!"
Kale ignored the shouts from behind and kept slaughtering the foxes on the way.
He peeked behind him from the corner of his eyes and laughed inwardly 'Well done brats, keep scaring those groups,'
It wasn't a coincidence that he killed the cornered foxes and these students were chasing him.
In the start, he gave priority to his image and thought that he should take it slow but after seeing the useful equipment of Night Hunter, he realized that others might have better ones that can help them gather more points especially if they are older up to 18 years of age.
Academy allowed any student starting from 12 years to 18 years of age who hasn't started cultivating to join in.
That's when he got an idea, directly killing stray foxes was the fastest way to earn contribution points but doing so would attract the anger of big fox groups sooner or later which can be dangerous, and if he acts as a team then his chances of securing top ranks weren't that high as the contribution would automatically get divided accordingly.
That's why, he attracted public anger and made so many students chase him, because of the crowd behind him, the big fox groups chose to avoid him while he hunted the stray foxes without any worry, some people also understood it but they still followed him the reason being… Kale didn't collect a single beast core from the Enlightened Mortal-Rank foxes he hunted, but his plan wasn't over yet.
Kale looked at the waterfall in the distance then scanned through the crowd behind him, he thought 'It should be enough,'