Congratulations! the host's active earth magic skill [Stone Fist] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 7. Congratulations! the host's active earth magic skill [Stone Fist] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 8. Congratulations! the host's active earth magic skill [Stone Fist] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 9. Congratulations! the host's active earth magic skill [Stone Fist] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 10. Congratulations! the host's active earth magic skill [Stone Fist] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 1.

"One punch one rank up," Lone joked. "Doubt that'll happen again. This skill isn't nearly as efficient at levelling up at Dehydration was. Makes sense considering the circumstances."

The large armoured hands of the massive golem were rocketing towards him but to Lone they looked like they were moving in slow-motion. In fact, he felt that they were going so slowly that he deemed he had enough time to check the new information of his recently ranked-up skill.

At the same time numerous thorny vines shot out of the sandy ground and wrapped around Lone, squeezing him tightly.

The host has developed the nature magic skill: Poisonous Vine Entrapment. The host has developed the passive skill: Nature Magic Resistance.

"Poison? That's unexpected. Good thing I have a high mastery of Poison Resistance... It's been a while since I last relied on that skill," Lone muttered before he was seemingly crushed into paste by the massive armoured fists of the golem.

The host has developed the earth and metal magic fusion skill: Lesser Shielded Golem.

The crowd was going wild as a violent cloud of dust obscured their vision. Everyone was certain that Lone was dead after having endured an attack like that.

He had certainly taken damage, but dead? Far from it. 'Only lesser? To be fair, there are, like, 40 earth mages working together to empower it... Still, what a letdown. I doubt it'll be as powerful as this when I use it unlike the Grand Aqua Serpent. I guess the leader of the water mages is just stronger than Darius is. Such a shame.'

His resistances began growing, but he ignored the notifications for now. As much as Lone loved levelling up skills, seeing dozens upon dozens of notifications at a time got stale very quickly. He'd had his fill for the day in that regard during his 'battle' with the serpent.

"W-What?!"

"How is he alive!"

"Even as a triple-S-ranker, getting hit by a golem with so much mana flowing though it should be impossible to survive, even if he does specialise in the physical stats!"

While a lot of the mages were panicking, the leader of the nature mages furrowed his brow in concern. 'His veins aren't turning purple or bulging... There's no way he took an antidote before the battle started, he had no way of knowing that poison would be used on him, and even if he did know, how would he know what kind? There's no such thing as a cure-all antidote for poison...'

The skinny man was truly mystified how Lone was avoiding the effects of his thorn's poison. 'I can't kill him like this if the poison has no effect! My vines are barely tough enough to pierce his skin... Damnit. Am I going to have to rely on that woman's green flame?'

Another fist from the titanous golem sped towards Lone's body, but this time, instead of accepting the attack head-on, Lone raised one of his hands effortlessly as if the vines wrapped around it didn't exist.

The foxkin then shockingly grabbed the golem's fist mid-swing. Lone's arm muscles bulged under the pressure, but he didn't buckle. "I'm not gonna get much more from you, so let's end this now, shall we?"

He tightened his grip of the enormous armoured fist, resulting in his fingers bending the metal and firmly indenting themselves into it. "Haaaah!"

This was the first time that Lone had ever put his strength to the test, and honestly, it made his blood boil from excitement. He could feel his muscles ripping and rapidly being restored due to his Basic Regeneration.

Clearly, he wasn't naturally strong enough to pick up the lumbering giant of stone, but with the help of his nigh-impossibly high natural regeneration, he was able to lift the construct up off of the ground.

His legs almost instantly shattered and buckled underneath him from the weight, but thankfully his bones were tougher than steel and even some magical alloys, so while the threat of them snapping remained, with a little bit of channelling of his MP, he was able to heal them faster than they were breaking.

'I really wanna throw this thing... I need two hands for that.' Lone made a split-second decision.

He stored his lexicon then used his new free arm to help support his other hand. Now with two iron grips locked onto the enormous fist, he felt the burden on his entire body lesson.

"Haaaaaaaah!" He screamed his lungs out as he arched his arms back. He almost toppled over then and there when the golem was being held precarious behind him, but he had managed to counter it with his high Dexterity and Agility.

His thighs and calves almost exploded, but that was beside the point.

What he did next shocked everyone, The Wanderers included. He... began spinning.

The more and more he spun, the less and less the burden on his legs became and the more and more strain his arms came under. Every single vine attached to him was ripped off, leaving a whirlwind of his drawn blood.

The whole scene looked rather fascinating and equally grim. With a final determined shout, he let go of the golem, sending it rocketing towards the enchantment shielding the viewers at a blistering speed.

It mercilessly slammed into Archon Milos' magical protection and crumbled to dust after a massive shockwave reverberated across the entire stadium, even spreading out of the enchantment, shaking the seats and even the Divine booths.

Archon Milos almost coughed up a mouthful of blood but he didn't want to dirty the baby foxkin in his arms, so he swallowed it back down. "What ludicrous physical strength..." he muttered.

Lone was covered in sweat and blood was flowing like a river from his now-torn arms, but a smile was painted across his face. "Fuckin' knew I could do it."

The host has developed the passive skill: Throwing Mastery. The host has developed the active skill: Basic Strength Up.

"Oh, awesome, I wasn't expecting any new skills," he happily said as the wounds on his arms rapidly began to close.

He took out his lexicon once more then grabbed the Eternal Mana Crystal on his belt. He cracked his neck then turned to face Darius.

He and all of the other earth mages had collapsed from the backlash of the golem being so viciously destroyed. Lone sighed. "Oh well, looks like it's just you two left, Nature Magic Leader and Fire Magic Leader. No offence to you," Lone said as he looked at the gangly nature magic upperclassmen, "but your vines don't do shit. Might wanna focus on recovery or something. Help out your teammates, y'know? The air mages aren't out for the count just yet if you give them a hand."

The man grit his teeth and ignored the honest advice, instead, he chose to force himself beyond his limits and wrapped Lone entirely in vines. "I won't listen to a cheater like you! You just defeated the earth mages without using magic! That's a clear violation of the rules! Surrender!"

'I likely can't kill him... After watching that, I doubt anything below the Divines could seriously harm him... This whole challenge is a farce! No wonder Headmaster Erion is paying special attention to him... I'll have to give up on Sophie... There are plenty of fish in the sea,' the leader of the nature mages thought reasonably, curbing his murderous thoughts significantly.

The spectators had been too immersed in the action to notice this. Indeed, Lone had broken the rules. From everyone's understanding, he was only allowed to use magic, so didn't that mean that he had already lost?

Lone chuckled in amusement like he had expected this. "Semantic nonsense to hide your own inability to defeat me. If it was against the rules for me to use raw physical force, then is it also against the rules for me to breathe? To walk? To even use my muscles at all? Stop being a coward and shut up, would you? I'm sure that Headmaster Erion can confirm for everyone present that I didn't use a skill when throwing that golem, just raw physical prowess."

The soft voice of Divine Time flowed freely, entering everyone's minds. "Indeed. I can vouch for my disciple. Even the skill he is using to heal himself consumes MP, making it a sort of magic skill. There are no issues with how he handled the Lesser Shielded Golem of Student Darius, and I am sure when the boy wakes up he will also have no issues with how he was defeated."

Even if he was the master of the person being questioned, his word as a Divine was equivalent to law. No one had the right to refute him, not even a fellow Divine, not unless they wanted to openly challenge Erion himself, that was.

Lone grinned. "Well, with that settled... I have more than enough MP stored in this little guy, and since you don't seem to want to work together as healers, time to hit you with some nature magic, huh? Sticking to the theme and all that."

To the horror of the nature magic students, Lone went on to invoke their very own skill dozens of times and he was using it against them! Every single nature magic student was wrapped in the poisonous vines, resulting in them screaming and passing out from the pain one by one. The leader was no exception.

Lone saw the string of new notifications for level-ups get added to the collection in the corner of his eyes then he licked his lips. "I guess it's just you fire mages left, right? The air mages don't seem to be fit to fight. That Air Domain was more taxing than it seemed."

The leader of the air mages was still panting heavily on all fours and he had a sour expression on his face. "No thanks to you staying in it without being affected for so long... I've never had to maintain the domain for more than 3-minutes before, and never at that scale..."

Uncaring in the wake of her comrade, the upperclassman leading the fire mages smiled slightly. "I do not care if we win, Student Lone. You have so many more groups to fight after us, each as or more powerful than us. We are mostly just children still learning the very basics of magic. All I hope for is that you will meet my special fire with open arms and experience it to the full as you have with the other magics already!"

"Bring it on! My Fire Resistance could use a boost," Lone teased.

The fire magic leader's eyebrow twitched. "You truly are arrogant... Well, even if you possess the resistance to fire magic, let's see how well you can defend against this!"

With a flick of her wrist, the large wisp of green fire flew like a bullet through the air and slammed heavily onto Lone's body.

He instinctively stepped back with his right foot, closed his left eye, and braced as the force of the attack threatened to push him back. The very next moment, his entire body was engulfed by the mystical flame.

The glass of his recently upgraded steamforged spectacles shattered. His ocendium battlemage's robes disintegrated and turned into a pile of dust at his feet. Were he not fast enough then perhaps his manhood would have been exposed for the world to see, but thankfully, he has moved most of his tails to his front, perfectly covering himself.

His tails and skin were repeatedly being burned, at times revealing his strangely coloured bones, but with enough MP, he was immortal. He quickly stored the lexicon once more so it wouldn't melt. He then channelled MP directly out of the Eternal Mana Crystal and used it to heal himself.

Not once did his face look pained nor did he grunt or make even a single noise. He just... stood there and waited for the effects of the magic to wear off.

Finally, the green flames slowly died down and winked out of existence. Lone's skin returned to its usual perfect lustre, all of the hair on his head regrew to its previous length of reaching just below his shoulders. The fur on his tails regrew and seemed even fluffier and softer than it was before.

Lone smiled. "That was hot." He then snapped his fingers, resulting in glasses being repaired and then a new set of ocendium battlemage's robes appearing on his body.

Once again, he retrieved his lexicon. "I guess I should return the favour, right? My special flames will kill you, for sure, but this Verdant Life Mote of yours? I'd reckon at beginner rank you should survive."

Like a dream or a nightmare, small green flames started spawning above the floating lexicon, each giving off about a quarter of the strength that the one the fire mages had worked together to conjure had.