Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

Han Yue made his decision in the space of approximately two seconds.

Lin Yi could see it happening. The recalculation behind the eyes. The assessment of what the two problems meant against what the prepared plan had been designed to accomplish. The weighing of whether the witness count was actually a deterrent or whether the situation could be managed afterward. Most people with genuine combat confidence eventually arrived at the same conclusion when they had already committed to the approach. Press forward. Deal with consequences later.

Han Yue raised his bow.

"Your first problem," Lin Yi said, completing his earlier thought, "you can solve by making me agree."

He said it in the same level tone as everything before it, which was the last ordinary thing that happened in the extraction zone for the next four minutes.

The golden arrow released.

SWOOSH!

The same output that had generated floor-clearing results in the Dragon God Tower. At this range and with this target, Han Yue had calculated that the force would be enough to create a negotiating position, not necessarily to incapacitate, but to demonstrate that the threat was real.

Lin Yi was not at the location the arrow arrived at.

Phantom Void Step carried him laterally across the extraction zone in an instant, the spatial distortion leaving a faint shimmer where he had been standing. The arrow struck the stone surface and detonated in a burst of golden energy that created a two-meter crater in the ground. The crowd at the perimeter moved backward collectively.

Lin Yi appeared six meters to Han Yue’s right.

"You raised your bow first," Lin Yi said.

He was already moving.

Han Yue was fast. Genuinely fast. His S-Rank class enhanced reflexes in a way that compressed the reaction window to something that would have caught most opponents. He pivoted, hand going to the bow grip, the golden energy beginning to condense around the second arrow.

Lin Yi crossed the six meters before the condensation completed.

He didn’t draw the Celestial Lord Blade.

His left hand closed around Han Yue’s bow arm at the wrist, stopping the draw. His right elbow drove into Han Yue’s shoulder with the kind of force that came from Strength 598 applied through a compact close-range strike.

The impact produced a sound that carried across the extraction zone clearly. Han Yue left the ground. He traveled approximately four meters through the air and hit the stone surface on his back. The bow skittered out of his grip and came to a stop three meters from him.

The crowd made a sound that was the collective version of held breath releasing.

The three positioned sect members moved simultaneously. This was what Lin Yi had expected. The encirclement had been planned with the assumption that Han Yue’s bow would create distance management, and with that element disrupted they defaulted to close-range convergence.

The first one was a second-year student, S-Rank class based on his movement speed, closing from the left with a drawn sword at the kind of pace that made him genuinely dangerous to most opponents.

Lin Yi turned left.

He caught the sword arm at the forearm on the approach, redirected the momentum downward, and the second-year student’s own forward velocity contributed to the force that drove him face-first into the extraction zone’s stone surface. The sword left his hand on impact. He did not immediately get up.

The second member came from the right, and he had seen what happened to the first one and adjusted. He stopped his approach, shifted to a ranged skill, a compressed force projectile that released from his palm toward Lin Yi’s back.

Lin Yi heard the release.

Phantom Void Step.

He wasn’t there when it arrived. He was behind the second member.

He placed one hand on the second member’s shoulder and applied spiritual pressure with a controlled portion of his actual strength.

The second member’s legs gave.

He went to his knees on the stone, the ground under him cracking slightly from the force distributed through his mass by the pressure Lin Yi applied. He stayed there, unable to straighten, his face communicating a very clear message about the difference between the force he had been prepared for and the force actually being applied.

"Don’t move," Lin Yi said.

He didn’t move.

The third member had stopped before Lin Yi even turned around. He was the one who had shifted his posture earlier in the confrontation, the one who had registered from the beginning that the situation was developing poorly. He was now standing with his weapon lowered at a trajectory that communicated he had made a decision about participation and the decision was against it.

Lin Yi looked at him.

"Good," Lin Yi said.

He walked back toward Han Yue.

Han Yue had gotten to his feet. He was standing with the posture of someone whose shoulder had taken a serious impact and who was managing the pain through controlled breathing and the refusal to let it show more than was unavoidable. He had not retrieved his bow. He was looking at Lin Yi with an expression that had passed through several things during the past forty seconds and had arrived at something complicated.

Wang Hao was standing where he had been standing when the exchange began, blade still drawn, expression carrying the look of someone who had been prepared to contribute and had never found a window to enter because the situation had resolved before one opened. Shen Rou was still at the perimeter, datapad active, recording every evidence that can be used later incase Han Yue tried something sneaky.

The crowd at the edge of the extraction zone was completely silent.

Lin Yi stopped in front of Han Yue. He looked at him without expression. "You struck first," he said.

Han Yue said nothing.

So don’t blame me for striking back," Lin Yi said. He looked at the bow on the ground between them. "You called for score transfer. I’m calling for the same."

Han Yue’s jaw tightened. "That’s not how the rule works. You have to agree mutually."

"Then we have a dispute," Lin Yi said. "And I’m resolving it the way you tried to resolve yours." He met Han Yue’s gaze steadily. "Transfer Dragon King Sect’s score to Celestial Legion."

"No," Han Yue said.

Lin Yi looked at him for a moment. "You coordinated an ambush using a fabricated conversation as cover," he said. "In front of forty-plus witnesses. On academy-adjacent grounds. During a sanctioned dungeon event." He paused. "The academy conduct review that results from that has a predictable outcome. You lose the score anyway when they revoke it as a penalty." He paused again. "Or you transfer it now and we settle this here."

Han Yue’s expression moved. The calculation was visible. "I’m not the sect leader," he said. "I can’t authorize a score transfer without the leader’s consent and—"

Lin Yi took a step forward, interrupting Han Yue before he could finish, raising his.....