As the judge’s whistle blew, the audience seats descended into disarray.
"It’s over? Just like that?!"
"What happened?! Since when can the Flame Listening Dog teleport? Isn’t it a Fire Attribute Beast?!"
"Did they even fight? I just bent down to grab a bottle of water, and it’s over?!"
This was completely outrageous!
Students who could participate in the National Campus Beast Taming Competition were the cream of the crop from their respective schools. When the Pet Beasts are at the same level, even if there are differences, they shouldn’t be this huge!
Amidst the surrounding commotion, Qiao Sang remained quite calm.
She knew that an important reason she won so easily was that the opponent had no idea that Yaobao had attributes of the Psychic Series as well.
The lack of information led to his unpreparedness.
Competitions usually get harder as they progress. On one hand, the opponents become more formidable, and on the other, the strengths and trump cards of the Pet Beasts are mostly exposed, allowing people to think of tactics and countermeasures in advance.
This kind of instant knockout battle would essentially not occur in the later stages of the competition.
"Yaobao, don’t be complacent. This is only the first match," Qiao Sang cautioned.
"Yaobao!"
Yaobao called out full of fighting spirit, indicating that it was ready for a serious fight.
Simultaneously, the whistle for the second match blew.
Zhao Weiwei summoned his beast with a dazed and lost spirit.
The gray Star Array lit up.
Qiao Sang and Yaobao stared intently.
"Eeyi~"
A cat-type Pet Beast with ears even longer than a rabbit’s appeared in the center of the Star Array, casually lifting its left front paw and licking it with its tongue.
Qiao Sang: "..."
Yaobao: "..."
A junior Pet Beast, the Long-Eared Cat—was this just a giveaway?
The match began, and Yaobao unleashed a Flame Vortex. The Long-Eared Cat couldn’t dodge in time and the battle ended, even faster than the last one by two seconds.
Zone C fell silent.
Although everyone had guessed the outcome as soon as the Pet Beast appeared, the fact that the battle ended before they could blink again showed the gap in strength was too great.
Apart from Shengshui Middle School, the representatives and leaders of other schools all looked very serious, knowing that they would eventually have to face these competitors, as they were all in Group A2.
Back at Beast Taming High School’s players’ seat.
The senior coach said gravely, "When it’s your turn, don’t reveal all your strength. If you’re supposed to lose, just lose, got it?"
"Why?" the girl wearing a headband asked, puzzled.
"The coach means we should conserve our strength for others," Li Kun said, his gaze not leaving the girl on the field. "Against this person, we stand no chance. It’s better to lose when we should, to keep others from figuring out what we’re capable of."
Exactly, that was his point... The coach nodded, feeling reassured.
The preliminaries were point-based. They could always strive to score elsewhere if they lost a few points here.
Trying to score against Shengshui Middle School was already unrealistic, let alone against this monster. They simply didn’t believe they had even a slim chance of winning, unlike in previous rounds.
A Fire Element combined with Psychic Series attribute; with just the levels of the students from their school, what was the point in struggling?
The girl with the headband pondered seriously, then said, "Actually, I feel, even if we did want to show all our abilities, we wouldn’t have the chance."
Coach: "..."
The preliminary battles in the qualifier were all done in one day, rotating among three individuals from the same school, with a ten-minute healing and rest break after each battle.
Ten minutes later, Qiao Sang sent out Yaobao again.
At Shengshui Middle School’s players’ seats.
"The second one is Li Kun. I saw Qiao Sang chatting quite well with this Li Kun just now. It looks like in the following two matches, Qiao Sang will probably ease up," He Daotao analyzed.
Xu Yixuan laughed softly twice and said, "I thought the same before Qiao Sang started competing."
Who could have imagined that such a sincerely chatting junior could be so crafty!
If it hadn’t been for Xu Yixuan listening in on the entire conversation between Qiao Sang and Li Kun, and had not seen the summoned Flame Listening Dog afterwards, she might also have thought these two really hit it off well...
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