Chen Bo and Ye Zi's ice and fire battle easily enveloped the entire top floor of the building.
On Chen Bo's half of the field, even in the corners where the military personnel stood, the air temperature was noticeably more than ten degrees higher than before. However, as it was currently the transition period between winter and spring, a temperature increase of over ten degrees felt much like a heater—not unpleasant at all, but rather quite comfortable.
Nevertheless, the military personnel still had no intention of moving even slightly closer to the center.
That was because they had witnessed Chen Bo's full-power outburst on the military training ground, knowing that under such conditions, even their current location would experience air heated to nearly fifty degrees Celsius.
After all, it was just a friendly match. They weren't sure if Chen Bo would push it to that extent, so they simply remained where they were, observing the situation to avoid the embarrassment of being forced to retreat later.
"Squad Leader Chen's heating field is incredibly lethal, but Miss Ye's output on the other side is no slouch either. She can stand toe-to-toe with Squad Leader Chen in a direct clash of domains, not falling behind in the slightest. This kind of power purely tests raw output; there's no way to cheat it."
"Did you notice? That Vice Squad Leader Bai isn't simple either. His position is precisely on the frontline where hot and cold intersect," said Hong Si from Military Squad Eight.
"He didn't show the slightest expression of discomfort, nor did he dodge like everyone else."
Bai Mo hadn't expected that he would one day be noticed because of his expressionless face.
The slight temperature difference before him meant nothing; he wasn't at the point of feigning weakness for the sake of it, so he simply ignored it. Yet, it was this small detail that gave him away.
...
"Squad Leader Ye truly proves that women are no less capable than men; I'm impressed."
"You humble me."
Bai Mo continued to stroll back and forth near the cold-hot boundary, carefully sensing the forces from both sides.
"This Bai Mo never leaves the boundary line between the two sides. Is it because his ability happens to be related to energy transfer or balance, allowing him to stay precisely on the boundary but not move into areas of only high or only low temperature?" Chen Bo wondered internally.
He reasoned that, based on military hierarchy, a full squad leader was inherently stronger than a vice squad leader.
And since Ye Zi, as a full squad leader, was roughly on par with himself, it stood to reason that Bai Mo, as a vice squad leader, shouldn't normally be more powerful than her, capable of treating his high-temperature field as nothing. Therefore, he concluded that Bai Mo merely possessed an ability that coincidentally suited the situation.
"Squad Leader Bai is also quite unassuming, able to walk leisurely on the boundary line."
"It's just that my ability happens to be suitable for it." Immersed in thought, Bai Mo, after glancing at the reactions of those around him, finally realized he seemed to have given something away.
Naturally, Bai Mo's explanation only further solidified Chen Bo's conjecture: this vice squad leader was only able to operate at the boundary of the two fields because of his specific ability, not because he was already powerful enough to be impervious to both fire and water.
On the other side, Ye Zi, who had watched his previous battle, grew even more curious about Bai Mo.
"High temperatures, low temperatures, physical attacks, even close-range lasers—none of them could harm that person. What exactly is his ability? How am I supposed to deal with him? Do I need to combine freezing with my second ability?"
Ye Zi's old habit flared up again, turning anyone she couldn't understand into a hypothetical enemy.
"Squad Leader Ye, let's stop our sparring here. Any further would just be a pointless test of stamina, and the venue looks like it's about to give way. How about we leave the remaining time for others to exchange pointers?" Chen Bo suggested.
Chen Bo felt that their contest had reached a stalemate. After confirming that his opponent was a master no less skilled than himself, he had no further inclination to reveal his trump cards. After all, they were half-teammates, not irreconcilable enemies.
"Mmm, indeed, there's no point in continuing."
"Although Chen Bo's output is powerful, his control is clearly far from sufficient.
If his control were sufficient, he should have been able to detect that the air temperature around me had distinctly dropped to around thirty degrees Celsius.
Nearly all the energy he released in this vicinity was absorbed by me. I just don't know what his hidden second ability is."
"What these two are currently demonstrating are area-of-effect abilities, excellent for clearing out minor foes. It's like my own telekinesis; any ability user without a Life Field who comes close is just asking for it. In fact, with abilities like theirs, one can't even get close.
But when facing opponents of the same rank, such wasteful Spirit Energy techniques are utterly useless, not even breaking through their defenses."
Bai Mo continued to summarize the two's information, while Ye Zi and Chen Bo had both retracted their respective fields and stood reflecting on the match.
"Sister Zi, why are you so amazing! Everyone only started gaining abilities a few months ago." Yue Yu instantly teleported behind Ye Zi, wrapping her arms around her. "So cold!" she exclaimed, then immediately recoiled as if pricked by needles.
The temperature hadn't recovered yet; the sub-zero temperatures still posed considerable harm to exposed skin.
After losing the pressure from the two output sources, the enormous temperature difference between the two sides caused violent air currents at the interface, briefly creating howling winds. However, since everyone present was a top-tier ability user, this level of wind was no different from a gentle breeze caressing their faces.
"Everyone is welcome to spar with opponents they find interesting. I'll reiterate one point: stop when appropriate, don't get injured, and don't affect the upcoming conference."
"Clearly, Squad Leader Chen, you pose the greatest threat to us." This thought surfaced in everyone's minds, but out of deference to Chen Bo's power, none dared to voice it.
"Squad Leader Bai, I, Old Wang, am not good with words, so please don't take offense. To be blunt, I'd like to spar with you?" A burly man with a simple, honest face stepped out from the crowd.
"Just now, while watching from the sidelines, I was constantly curious why you could stand in the middle of Squad Leader Chen's and Squad Leader Ye's battlefield without feeling any discomfort. So, I wanted to challenge you once. Squad Leader Bai, would you be willing to honor me with a match?" Wang Qiong from Military Squad Four continued.
"My apologies, but I'm just a support-type ability user, and I'm not responsible for front-line combat duties at the Dao Academy." Bai Mo painstakingly adjusted his smile, trying to make it appear as natural as possible, as he tactfully declined the proposal.
After his vision underwent a drastic transformation, he found himself increasingly clueless about normal interactions with "people."
His mind remained in a state of intense contradiction: on one hand, reason told him that these were fellow beings just like himself, living humans, and he should interact with them as such.
But on the other hand, after his perception completely changed, the living human bodies Bai Mo saw with his own eyes were vastly different from how he remembered humans should look.
People without a Life Field obscuring them appeared to him like specimens, merely aggregates of bones, muscles, skin, organs, and blood; he could see everything.
As for ability users protected by a Life Field, Bai Mo saw humanoid figures enveloped by swirling masses of light on their surfaces.
Paradoxically, the images of people on TV and computer screens still resembled the "humans" remaining in his memory, though they appeared as mere paper-thin figures. When Bai Mo's divine sense swept over them, the TV screen showed only a collection of two-dimensional people moving before the cathode ray tube...