Chapter 131: Chapter 131
Ayla rolled smoothly into the front row of the orientation sector, her translucent blue body settling onto the polished white marble with a soft, quiet squish. The massive central pavilion remained completely frozen in a state of absolute, icy stillness. Thousands of older students from the second and third academic years stood perfectly stiff under the banners of their respective factions, their eyes wide with a mixture of profound shock and deep, unadulterated fear.
Tyrok, the proud vanguard commander of the Iron Shield Faction, was still groaning weakly against the base of the crystalline pillar. His heavy iron armor plates were ruined, and the dark red blood leaking from his deep lacerations continued to stain the white floorboards. The permanent bleeding effect from Ayla’s Rend of the World-Order trait kept his internal mana pathways locked in a state of constant, burning pain, preventing his Gold-ranked physical recovery skills from doing anything to seal the wounds. Two low-ranking members of his faction finally gathered enough courage to run over, frantically dragging his massive nine-foot body out of the pavilion toward the medical bay without looking back.
The thousand first-year freshmen who had witnessed the entire exchange felt a weird, twisted sense of comfort rising in their hearts. They still hated Ayla with a deep, burning envy, but seeing a powerful second-year senior get thoroughly liquidated in a single millisecond made them realize that their own failure yesterday was not because they were pathetic recruits. It was simply because the blue slime was a literal walking natural disaster.
Ayla ignored the heavy gazes drilling into her back. She focused her golden-ringed pupils straight ahead, looking toward the high crystal podium where the senior faculty members were starting to assemble.
"Nexus, the senior was very loud, but his soul container was incredibly fragile," Ayla communicated through the mind link, her mental voice carrying her standard, flat tone of pure boredom. "His defensive barrier felt like thin dried mud. Are all the older students in this sector going to be this unsatisfying?"
"Do not generalize after fighting just one arrogant meathead, little monster," Nexus responded with a light chuckle, a small blue digital window displaying Tyrok’s broken status parameters over Ayla’s eye. "Tyrok is just a mid-tier vanguard commander who relies entirely on physical weight and standard iron attributes. The true powerhouses of the upper years are currently away on mandatory cosmic expeditions. But your little display just now has definitely caused a massive spike in the local network traffic."
"The network traffic?" Ayla tilted her mass slightly.
"Yes. The communication arrays of all the major student factions are lighting up like a holiday festival," Nexus explained, her tone filled with deep amusement. "The leaders of the Roaring Dragon Faction and the Eternal Sword Faction have already marked your name with a triple-red danger alert. They are realized that you are a genuine threat to their dominance over the academy’s resource distribution."
Before Ayla could reply to Nexus’s summary, a sudden, blinding flash of pure silver light erupted directly on top of the central podium.
The space parameters inside the pavilion violently compressed, forcing the ambient mana in the air to snap into a perfectly orderly pattern. From the center of the silver light, a tall, imposing figure stepped forward. It was General Vane, the primary director of the Practical Examination Department. He wore his crisp, formal military uniform, his sharp eyes scanning the massive ocean of ten thousand students with a cold, unyielding authority that instantly crushed the lingering murmurs in the hall.
Behind General Vane, a row of senior professors—including Instructor Argenta—took their respective seats at the long evaluation table. Argenta sat down calmly, her midnight-black uniform perfectly neat as she picked up a tablet desk. She did not look at Ayla openly, but her silver, pupil-less eyes carried a very faint trace of satisfaction.
"Silence," General Vane’s deep, booming voice rang out across the entire pavilion, vibrating the massive crystalline pillars.
Every single student, both first-year beginners and seasoned seniors, instantly straightened their backs and held their breath.
"The orientation trial week has officially concluded," General Vane announced, his voice carrying the weight of a Crown-ranked powerhouse. "The freshman batch has completed its initial placement parameters. While the general performance of the majority was thoroughly pathetic, the historical data limits of the Ascendant Academy have been completely broken by a single individual."
General Vane paused, his sharp gaze shifting down to lock directly onto the small blue slime sitting in the front row.
"Ayla of Sub-Division One has been awarded the absolute title of First-Year Vanguard Leader," General Vane declared smoothly. "Her record-shattering score of ninety-eight thousand four hundred points has been permanently locked into the master database. Any student, regardless of their academic year, who attempts to disrupt her official resource distribution will face immediate administrative formatting."
A collective gasp rippled through the senior sectors, but nobody dared to object after seeing Tyrok’s bleeding body just minutes prior.
"Now, let us begin the primary alignment of the academic year," General Vane continued, waving his gloved hand across the air. A massive, glowing blue map projection suddenly expanded above the podium, displaying hundreds of different cosmic coordinates, floating islands, and resource nodes. "Starting today, the main academy sectors are fully operational. You will be divided into specific hunting squads to clear the outer sectors of the cosmic grid. The resources you gather will directly determine your daily cultivation allocations."
As General Vane continued to explain the complex layout of the upcoming academic missions, Ayla’s focus completely drifted away. The technical details about squad sizes, point distributions, and territory boundaries were entirely useless to her. She didn’t want to join a squad, and she certainly didn’t want to share her meals with anyone else.
"Nexus, look at the bottom corner of the map projection," Ayla whispered inside her mind. "There is a small, grayed-out icon that looks like a broken skull. What is that sector?"
Nexus clicked her digital tongue, immediately running a background scan on the hidden parameters of the projection. "Ah, that is the Desolate Abyss Sector. It is a real, unmanaged border zone located at the absolute edge of the academy’s territory. The system grid has completely locked it down because the monsters inside are true, unrefined cosmic entities that possess heavy anti-magic traits. The academy only opens it for graduation seniors who are preparing for the Crown Rank trials."
Ayla’s golden-ringed pupils expanded instantly with a dark, manic light. Her blue fluid mass bobbled with a sudden wave of sharp, unadulterated hunger as she stared at the grayed-out skull icon.
"Can my Private Cosmic Hunting Coordinate Token bypass that lock?" Ayla asked, her mental voice shivering with a terrifying anticipation.
"Oh, absolutely," Nexus giggled softly, a purple interface window flashing a confirmation status code across her vision. "The Map Cleanser achievement token you won last night operates on the highest administrative layer of the World Administrator. It doesn’t care about the academy’s local security parameters. If you activate it, the system will forcefully open a private spatial tunnel and drop your body directly into the center of that primitive world."
"Perfect," Ayla whispered. "I do not want to sit in this classroom anymore. Let’s leave as soon as the ceremony ends."
The orientation ceremony dragged on for another hour as the senior professors distributed the standard mission tokens to the various student factions. Ayla remained perfectly still on her spot, quietly refining the lingering traces of the Primordial Bone Fragment inside her core, waiting for the administrative lockdown to lift.
The moment General Vane announced the official dismissal of the assembly, the massive crowd of students began to disperse, the seniors actively moving away from Ayla’s coordinates to avoid any accidental confrontation.
Ayla did not roll toward the exit corridor with the others. Instead, she turned her body toward a quiet, shadowed corner of the pavilion behind a massive crystalline pillar, completely hidden from the sight of the monitoring cameras and the professors.
"Nexus, activate the token now," Ayla commanded flatly.
"Initiating private cosmic transit," Nexus’s voice turned perfectly serious, her digital parameters flaring with a brilliant purple light inside Ayla’s mind. "Deploying World Administrator authority packet. Locking coordinate node: The Desolate Abyss Sector. Warning: This is a real physical world with zero safety parameters. Ejection code is disabled. If your core breaks there, you will die permanently."
"I know," Ayla replied, her golden eyes burning with a savage bloodlust.
A sudden, silent tear opened directly in the spatial fabric right in front of her blue mass. Unlike the bright golden portals of the academy grid, this spatial crack was completely pitch-black, radiating a freezing, ancient void pressure that smelled heavily of ancient blood and wild, untamed mana.
Ayla did not hesitate for a single microsecond. She dropped her round blue body straight into the dark spatial crack. The pitch-black tear instantly snapped shut behind her mass, leaving absolutely no trace of her presence in the pavilion.
Boom.
A heavy, thunderous sound echoed as Ayla’s body crashed heavily onto a hard, jagged floorboard.
She opened her golden eyes and immediately looked around her new surroundings. The environment was completely different from the clean, structured halls of the Ascendant Academy or the rainy swamps of the simulation map.
She was standing in the middle of a massive, dark wasteland that stretched out for thousands of miles under a blood-red sky. The ground beneath her was formed from dark, petrified volcanic rock that was cracked and bleeding with slow streams of glowing purple lava. The air was incredibly hot, thick, and heavy, filled with a suffocating sulfur odor and the dense, wild mana of a primitive world. There were no crystalline pillars, no automated system announcements, and no fragile students.
Suddenly, a terrifying, deafening roar vibrated through the cracked mountains in the distance.
From the edge of a nearby lava trench, a colossal creature slowly rose to its full height. It was a giant, four-legged primitive beast, easily sixty feet tall. Its body was entirely covered in jagged plates of black volcanic bone, and its chest carried a massive, exposed energy core that glowed with a violent purple light. Its four red pupils locked onto the small blue slime floating on the rock, and its massive jaws opened wide, dripping with boiling acid.
It was a true, unmanaged cosmic entity. A real monster of the outer universe.
Ayla’s golden-ringed pupils expanded to their absolute maximum width as a wild, uncontrollable wave of pure joy and primal hunger exploded from her Apocalypse Gold Metal Core. Her translucent blue body began to ripple violently, her five pitch-black claws slowly extending from her front mass, slicing through the local air parameters with a sharp metallic click.
"Finally," Ayla whispered into the quiet, blood-red wasteland, her multi-layered voice carrying a deep, terrifying resonance. "A real breakfast."
She did not wait for the giant beast to charge. She dropped her Gold-ranked body forward, her fluid mass becoming a devastating, high-speed blue blur as she rushed straight toward her first authentic cosmic meal, completely ready to unleash her monstrous hunger across the entire primitive sector.
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