Chapter 194: Chapter 194: In seconds
Chapter 194 – In seconds
The participants were not the only ones surprised by the content of the Second Test.
The arena was dead silent, every eye wide and filled with surprise, transfixed on the wide screen divided equally into four parts, showing each zone.
Isolde was gripping her armrests so tightly that cracks were spreading through them like webs, her purple eyes settled worriedly on Cassius.
Beside her, Lucian and Lilien had gone dead silent, their faces in that instant looking exactly like their father’s — cold and expressionless.
The nobles in their own room narrowed their eyes instantly at the content of the test. They, more than anyone, knew how difficult the Second Test was.
The Academy had given them exactly three minutes to eliminate nine people from each zone.
And three minutes was far too short for anything. It wasn’t enough time to allow a compromise to form between them, nor for alliances to be made, nor even for a proper strategic plan to take shape in their minds.
The Academy gave them no time to think. In fact, it was clear that their goal was not to observe how they would think in such situations.
That was not the purpose of the Second Test.
All they wanted to see was what this young generation — the one they believed to be the Golden Generation — would do when time pressed against them and action was demanded.
They all expected some kind of struggle: chaotic battles across all zones that would result in unnecessary deaths, and talented people being eliminated despite being worthy of entering the Academy.
They were all prepared to witness such events.
However, what happened in the next few seconds was something no one in the entire Kingdom had ever expected to witness.
And it was a scene they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
In fact, these recordings would be entered into the annals of the Elysia Academy, crowning the beginning of the greatest generation it had ever witnessed.
Because the moment the timer began, the Chosen Ones knew better than to target one another.
It was foolish.
And no matter how high and bloated their ego and arrogance were, they knew how to set it aside and make the wisest decision.
And so, in the Zone of the Rocky Mountains...
Klaus, fast and formless like wind, acted first and used his Second Skill. He targeted with his bow a group of three men clustered together and about to attack.
They saw him, roared, but were too late to react as he fired a tightly condensed wind arrow. The arrow whistled through the air and, in a heartbeat, arrived before the three.
Then it split into three equal parts and pierced through all three men.
They cried out in pain, lashing out mindlessly with their Aspects, causing effects and light to bloom and the Safe Zone to shudder restlessly.
They were not yet fully dead, and even seemed to be recovering. However, Love landed the merciless killing strike by feeding the residual wind Klaus had left on them with dozens of flame runes.
Blue fire detonated, and the three men burned to death writhing on the ground.
At that same moment, Theophane smiled at a large, muscular man about to punch through Sarah’s face, causing him to instinctively freeze in shock at her beauty.
That pause was all Esmeray needed. She blurred from her spot and mounted the man like a cat, grasping his head with a hand glowing with soul power, and detonated it.
Yet there was no visible explosion, for it was the man’s very soul that turned to ash.
He fell, eyes all white, still staring at Theophane, whose smile never faded.
Klaus Handoff killed another woman by sending an arrow straight into her right eye, bursting her brain from the inside out.
Two people instantly forfeited, seeing blood and death pile up so rapidly. They vanished immediately, taken away by the Academy.
Only two remained. And they were killed by a large beast — a white tiger with crimson markings across its body.
The strange, mystical beast brought the heads of its prey together and swallowed them at the same time. Then it snapped its head wildly and tore the heads off.
Blood gushed out like a fountain, painting it red. The markings on its body glowed. The beast drank the blood of its victims with obvious delight and transformed back into a human.
A white-skinned man with crimson hair like a tiger’s mane, and slitted, beastly yellow eyes. His mouth dripped with blood, flesh and organs.
With that, nine people of the Rocky Mountains were either dead or had forfeited.
The six who remained were: Klaus Handoff, Love de Bayard, Theophane Celeste, Esmeray Hood, Sarah, and finally... Tiger Woods.
In the Zone of the Frozen Sea, Raven and Jonathan didn’t even move from their spots despite the start of the test. They kept staring at each other with open hostility.
The women, this time, did all the work, or rather... Keisha did everything. Or perhaps not Keisha exactly.
’Leave it to me.’ Shakei whispered to Keisha the moment the test began. The young innocent girl agreed with a gentle smile, thinking it was time she became useful.
At her consent, in an instant, her whole presence changed dramatically, going from innocent, shy and fearful to a woman of authority. Her body transmuted. It was no longer made of flesh and bone.
Now her body was made of ice and mist.
She opened her eyes, revealing a piercing yellow light in her right eye amid a sea of mist. They were cold and ancient, holding knowledge and power impossible for an eighteen-year-old.
Keisha — or more accurately, Shakei — raised her hand, then clenched it tightly into a fist.
In a heartbeat, nine people were frozen in black frost, instantly dead, their hearts frozen solid. To finish it, Natalia shattered all of them like glass, her eyes unfeeling.
In thirty seconds, nine people died.
The only ones left were: Jonathan of Grace, Raven Hood, Keisha Silver, Natalia Glassscion, William Castria, and finally a woman hovering in the sky — seated upon a skull, wearing a witch’s hat and a white mask over her face.
She was named Nafissatou. And she was giggling.
"Oh my~"
In the Yellow Forest, before Emrys could even act, a participant using a Space-type Aspect sealed the space around the nine people he considered weakest, freezing them in place, unable to move.
Then without mercy, he sent invisible space blades toward each of them, intending to behead them swiftly.
However, Meadow and Omm were among the nine sealed.
Both their eyes widened in shock as they sensed death approaching rapidly.
But before either of them was harmed, the attack targeting Meadow was easily intercepted by Emrys’s hand crackling with lightning, while the one aimed at Omm was deflected by Jeanne’s black flaming sword as she stood in front of him.
Emrys and Jeanne looked coldly at the man smiling with obvious arrogance. He was short, with pale-yellowish skin. His eyes were horizontal slits, like a toad’s, and his head was completely bald, covered in tattoos.
He looked ridiculous. But the power radiating from him was staggering.
Emrys felt an instant, strong distaste for the man.
But then, without bothering with him, both Jeanne and Emrys attacked.
Jeanne slashed her sword toward a nearby woman who had wet herself, burning her with black flame.
Emrys simply flicked a finger toward a man frozen with fear, sending lightning into his brain and knocking him unconscious.
Thus, eight people were dead and the last one forfeited.
And that, in one minute and six seconds.
The only ones remaining were: Emrys Stormblessed, Jeanne Safara, Omm, Meadow, and finally... Omar Ibn Omar.
At the same time, in the Zone of the Black Dunes, six people remained.
All none participants had forfeited, thanks to the blood Cassius had injected into them through the handshakes he had given when they handed over their artifacts earlier.
None of them had felt his blood sinking deep within them at the time, going straight to their hearts, waiting to be activated by him.
And all of that thanks to Anesthesia, who had completely entranced their minds, making them forget everything but her.
And so, with the combined threat of a terrible death by asphyxiation and the gentle smile of Anesthesia asking them to forfeit... all of them obeyed, finally realising they had not only lost their artifacts and precious items, but had been played from the very beginning.
All in forty-five seconds.
Thus, six people remained: Cassius, Anesthesia, Océane, Jurkil Julaibib, Diaila, and finally Layla Bint Aicha.
With that, the Second Test ended — the first to finish being the Frozen Sea, then the Black Dunes, the Rocky Mountains, and finally the Yellow Forest.
The test had ended in a way no one had ever anticipated.
It was as if all the geniuses had made prior arrangements to weed out the weakest among them.
The students of the Academy watched with hidden goosebumps across their bodies, looking at the people who would soon be their juniors.
Yet most of them were embarrassed to admit — especially the second years — that they would likely not have survived had they been in the same test.
The teachers were all now fully focused, their eyes glowing with a strange light at witnessing such efficiency.
After allowing a few more seconds for people to gather themselves, the presenter’s voice thundered once more for all to hear.
<This is phenomenal!> the voice said, voicing what everyone was thinking. <We expected absolute chaos. Instead, you showed us the difference between those who are truly gifted and those who are merely strong by the world’s standards. For that, we have the honour of sharing the formidable news that all twenty-four people still alive across the four zones are officially admitted to the Elysia Academy.>
Roars instantly erupted.
In Desde City, Maryam finally allowed herself to sit down, but her emotion was so overwhelming that her knees gave way and she dropped to the floor.
She looked at the screen with blurry eyes, shaking, her lips unable to stop quivering. She looked at her son, who had finally succeeded in entering the Academy, and could not believe it.
Her son? Her? A commoner who barely knew how to read and write...with a child in the greatest Academy?
’Glory to the Lord!’ She praised inside her head.
She turned to look at her husband, and found the big, muscular Ali on the floor, staring blankly at the TV.
He was crying. And smiling.
Under his breath, he kept muttering something:
"Praise be to God! Praise be to God!"
He was so overwhelmed that he lowered his head in prostration, thanking his Lord.
Soon Maryam joined him, and hugged him, and cried with him, and prayed with him, happy for their son, yet at the same time... profoundly worried about him.
They had witnessed how close to death he had been only moments ago, and could not stop themselves from wishing him back home with them.
Now all they could do was pray for him. And pray they did.
In the same way, the mother of Diaila was overwhelmed with joy.
This was the first time anyone in her family had succeeded in entering the Elysia Academy despite them being noble.
And that someone was her own daughter. However, Diary knew well that it was not because of her own strength.
So she looked at Jurkil Julaibib standing beside Diaila with his lazy expression, and realised that everything — even her daughter’s future — depended on this strange young man.
And what the young man wanted had been made clear to everyone.
He wanted her.
At that realisation, Diary’s heart skipped an involuntary beat. She turned her head toward her husband and saw his face red.
He was fuming, looking at her with scornful eyes.
"You know the consequences if you ever dare consider that idea." He said immediately, as if able to read her thoughts. "You know it well, Diary. You know it well!"
Diary said nothing at first. Instead, she smiled faintly at him, her brown eyes flashing with an unknown light.
A light that would finally guide them and make them more than a Tier Three Family under the Safara Family in her opinion.
A light...
She turned and looked at Jurkil Julaibib.
...that required nothing but a little sacrifice.
’Ah... wanting an old woman like me... why? Just why? Now... ah, Jurkil Julaibib, just... who are you?’
Many others like them grew happy, and began preparing to celebrate the admission of their children.
However, the nobles did not let out a single sigh of relief or smile of joy.
To them, it was a given that their children would enter the Academy. What concerned them more was the ranking of the First Year.
And that was when the Third and final Test came. And as she thought it over again, Morenna immediately regretted how she had designed it.
Because of how she had done it, she had crippled her own grandson. Her favourite one.
’My angel...’ She clenched her jaw, and listened.
All of them listened.
<You have succeeded in being admitted to the Academy. Now it is time to decide the ranking.>
"OHHHHHHH!!!!" The arena bellowed, even more eager.
<A small piece of advice: the ranking is the most important thing in the Academy. Everything depends on it. And when I say everything... I mean everything.>
<As for the Third Test, it will take place in the True Entrance Testing Ground, located beneath where you are currently standing.>
<The rules are simple. There are twenty-four doors, one for each participant, on the summit of Mount Hivetop. Each door can only be opened by a specific Key. Your own Key.>
<The problem is that your Key is not in your possession. It is currently held by another participant. Likewise, you hold someone else’s Key.>
<To pass the test, you must obtain your Key, reach your door, and open it.>
"Oh Queen above..." Cassius’s eyes widened.
<The first participant to do so will earn the title of Palatine. The remaining rankings will be determined by the order in which the doors are opened.>
At that point, Anesthesia looked at Cassius and smiled crookedly.
"You are fucked, Cassius."
And indeed...
<As for Cassius Desdemona, who chose to bear the burden of Océane Terre, he will require two Keys. Consequently, he will also be entrusted with two Keys belonging to others.>
Isolde, the Jambars, the Desdemonas, and all those who supported him rose from their seats in shock.
<One final detail. Each participant will know exactly who possesses their Key. Thus...>
[...Cassius...] Ananke said worriedly, looking at Cassius, who was completely silent.
<...let the Third and Final Test begin.>
—End of Chapter 194—
