Chapter 86: The First Mana Core Badge

The Iron Toothed Wild Boar suddenly shifted half a step to the side.

Mia’s foot, originally preparing to move right, stopped as well. She stared at the magical beast. More precisely, her eyes were fixed on its shoulder, where there was nothing, at least nothing ordinary people could see.

But in Mia’s perception, the originally chaotic flow of mana within the Iron Toothed Wild Boar was quickly gathering toward its two front legs before the charge, and the right was stronger.

If her judgement was righ, its next move would definitely lean left.

Boom!

The magical beast rushed out against, and Mia sidestepped ahead of time, avoiding it again.

But this time, she did not continue retreating. The short staff rose, and three mana bullets shot toward the left front leg the Iron Toothed Wild Boar had just landed on.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

When the third attack struck, that front leg, which had already borne enormous pressure from the consecutive charges, finally gave way as the Iron Toothed Wild Boar’s body tilted and slammed heavily into a nearby tree.

Crash!

Mia pressed the advantage and continued firing mana bullets, almost all of them landing in the same place.

Only when the boar struggled to its feet again did she widen the distance once more and continue firing mana bullets.

Although the mana bullets did not deal much damage, she wore the monster down bit by bit.

A full seven minutes later, the Iron Toothed Wild Boar finally fell.

The young girl stood in place holding her short staff, her chest heaving violently, her mana almost exhausted, and her right leg throbbing faintly because she had twisted it during that first dodge.

Watching the girl, the system panel before Victor’s eyes lit up again.

[Target’s special talent active reaction detected.]

[Investment scan information updated.]

[Name: Mia Hart.]

[Level: 8.]

[Potential: S.]

[Profession Seed: Dormant.]

[Hidden Talent: Mana Pattern Resonance.]

[Current Status: Initial awakening.]

[Mana Pattern Resonance]

[The target can instinctively perceive mana circulation patterns, changes in skill structures, and the connections between certain magical array patterns.]

[Current Development Level: Extremely low.]

[The academy’s regular profession detection array failed to identify this talent.]

Victor stared at the last two lines and finally understood why the system had marked a student who was only level eight and had not even formed a formal development path as gold.

She was weak, very weak, but what she possessed was not an ordinary combat talent at all: mana circulation, skill structure, magical array patterns.

If she truly grew up, how far could this kind of ability extend?

See through skill weaknesses? Judge spell formations? Break magical arrays? Even... assist in constructing higher level magic?

It was still unknown, but based on what had already been displayed before his eyes alone, it was enough for Victor to confirm: worth investing.

After all, a faction did not only need combatants who would fight on the front lines. It also needed people like Mia who could analyze skills, understand magical structures, and deal with complex magical arrays.

But still, he remained standing where he was. At the very least, he could not jump down from the high platform, rush into the examination zone, and stuff a piece of equipment into her hands right now.

More importantly, what Mia truly needed now was not an epic piece of equipment that was frighteningly expensive, since she had not even formed her own profession path.

What mattered most now was surviving the screening first, and then Victor would decide where the first batch of resources should go.

"Is she more valuable than Leah?" Cecilia suddenly asked out of the blue.

Victor watched Mia in the image begin clumsily processing the Iron Toothed Wild Boar materials.

"She’s different."

He did not make such a meaningless comparison, because Leah’s SSS potential and the Astral Spirit Envoy profession had already fully formed, while Mia was only an undeveloped S level target, and the investment methods were not the same thing at all.

At that moment, after finishing processing the proof materials that could count toward points, Mia prepared to continue along the outer perimeter.

But as she passed the large tree cracked by the Iron Toothed Wild Boar, she suddenly stopped.

She frowned, took a step back, then forward again, and stopped once more.

Victor’s gaze narrowed. There was no obvious abnormality in the image, but Mia squatted down, reached out, and brushed aside a layer of wet soil beside the tree roots.

Beneath it, a small section of stone, long covered by moss, was revealed, with a line that had almost completely faded carved on its surface.

It was very odd and did not even look like a magical array that would still operate normally now.

Mia’s fingertip had just begun to move closer, but stopped when it was still a few centimeters away.

For the first time, an expression of obvious discomfort appeared on her face, because she could "feel" it. This thing clearly was not glowing, nor was it releasing any obvious mana, yet the patterns inside were still running extremely slowly, like a blood vessel buried underground for many years that had never truly broken.

Mia looked at it for a few seconds, then did something that satisfied Victor even more. She did not touch it, and she did not even continue digging out of curiosity.

Instead, she pushed the wet soil back, stood up, stepped back, then went around that tree and continued walking.

Cecilia had clearly seen it too.

"What did she find?"

"I don’t know."

Victor answered very simply, but his eyes were already fixed on the spot where Mia had found the stone.

’What could it be?’

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ecological zone, a huge pillar of mana light suddenly rose above the forest.

Boom!

It lasted less than three seconds, but it was enough to make students within several kilometers all look up.

Immediately after, the identity cards of all freshmen participating in the screening vibrated at the same time.

[Regional Announcement.]

[The first Mana Core Badge has been discovered.]

[Current Holder Identity: Hidden.]

[The badge’s regional location will undergo its first public refresh in ten minutes.]

"Already? Someone found it already!"

"Who saw it?"

"It doesn’t matter who saw it! That badge belongs to me!"

The entire Third Enclosed Ecological Zone became chaotic as countless students, originally acting separately, simultaneously changed direction.

Leah looked up toward the place where the pillar of light had disappeared.

Ryan stopped wiping his blade.

Mia, who had just set out alone on the outer path, also glanced at that direction, a competitive gleam appearing in her eyes.

And above the monitoring area, Victor slowly narrowed his eyes as he watched these three individuals.

The true contest had finally begun!