Argos attacked first, conjuring two extra arms at his shoulder. "Combo Words: Strength + Defense + Speed! Asura Fist Arts: Overlord's Fist!" His Blood Essence seemed to gather solely around his right fist before he punched forward, creating a large splash of water that dissipated a significant portion of the tsunami.
Yet they couldn't waste time, the team knew that if they delayed for even a second, their efforts would have been in vain.
Leonel knew he couldn't do much, the moves he could perform with as little charge as possible weren't geared towards brute strength so he focused on simply controlling the lesser flame version of his Star Essence to cast a large fireball and create a crude ring of golden flames around the visible hole that Argos ad made on the surface of the tsunami, preventing the hole on repairing.
Emery was just like the golden haired teenager, his attacks weren't geared towards brute force but he was capable of enforcing the ring of fire that the latter had created with his Umbra Essence.
Noah exhaled and clenched his fist tight while he faced the deadly tall tsunami. "Dual Circulation: True Azure Dragon Art." His muscles tensed as he pulled his fist backwards, his Blood Essence flowing within him while his Essence coated his arm. His face was stern, focused fully on manipulating the two Essences flowing within his arm, knowing fully well that if he made a mistake, no matter how little, he would probably lose it.
This was why he had attacked last, such an attack took time to prepare and worse, this was for the simplest moves in the Azure Dragon Art. Utilizing such a skill while in battle was simply a death wish.
But he wasn't thinking about all that at the moment. The only thing in his mind was the large wave of water approaching them. "True Dragon Fist!"
His arm punched out, meeting the ravaging waters with tremendous strength while a powerful projection of a silver-blue dragon left his fist at the point of impact, tearing through the water and revealing a pathway to the other side.
Leonel appeared by his side with a flash of light, holding onto Emery and Argos before he stepped on the Spatial Platform Noah had created and used it as a foothold to dash forward, quickly passing through the 20 meters deep water. Noah didn't delay either, his body blurred as he shot forward with his Dragon Step, easily catching up to Leonel on the other side.
He glanced around and sighed, staring at the leaving tsunami while confirming that the space around him had returned to its normal density. It seemed that the Academy had wished to place a limit on him, knowing that he could easily bypass the tsunami. The space before they had bypassed it was so thick that Noah reckoned that if he attempted to teleport he would only move forward a single meter. And even then he would have to burn through half of his Essence Core to do that.
Well, to be fair, he couldn't teleport even if he had the ability to do so. He couldn't teleport with someone yet and losing more than 2 members of a team was enough to get him disqualified.
He glanced around them and noticed a patch of land a few hundred meters away from them. With no other choice, the four could only move in that direction swimming as they did so. Of course they could get there without getting into the water, but it was obvious that another challenge awaited them over there so they didn't bother, choosing to conserve their energy instead.
The four left the water while Leonel released his Star Essence drying them up so that they could easily face the next challenge before them. All around them were students who seemed to be recovering their Essence before jumping into the next challenge, it seemed they had learned to emulate the team.
Seeing this, Noah showed no reaction, not even wasting a second when he noticed the resting Nolan genius whose was named Arnold. In his head, the latter's time to suffer defeat at his hand would come. His expression only cracked a bit when he saw the distant Alyssa smiling at him, but he only nodded before taking his attention off her.
"You're so cold-hearted Noah." Leonel groaned as he watched this happen, he felt it to be impossible for any man to reveal such a lack luster response to such a beauty.
Noah glanced back at the teen. "You don't like your tongue?"
The golden haired boy retreated while nervously laughing. "I yield, I yield." He could only give up. It seemed that his friend didn't seem to care about thoughts like that and just as much, wouldn't entertain them.
So the four stood in silence while recuperating. Soon, other teams began to move forward, disappearing once more just like after the first challenge. They glanced at each other and nodded before stepping into forward, not resisting the spatial force that pulled them.
The next moment they felt their skin singe slightly, causing their eyes to narrow. The temperature around them had seemingly doubled and was still steadily rising and they soon found the source of their predicament.
Before them was a large mountain, but ash seemed to clog the air around it while red molten lava spilled out constantly, rolling off the edge of its gaping entrance.
Noah's lips twitched while he quickly coated his body with Essence to offset some of the heat, allowing his body cool off while beads of sweat drenched his body. He didn't understand why the Soaring Star academy seemed hell bent on torturing its students. It would have been better to just disallow Year ones from taking part of this competition. Not much of the Year one teams remained at the moment, and even he and his team weren't sure of their chances.
The third challenge was actually against a monstrous Volcano with enough power to burn even Adept Stage Battlesoul master to ashes.