[Third Person Pov]
Boros pushed open the doors of the main training hall.
He wanted to see how the first-year students were faring today.
It had only been thirty minutes since the freshmen touched the blue orb and dove into the illusory trial.
But the early reports he received in his office were already much better than the faculty expected them to be.
Blaze noticed the principal walking in immediately.
The red-haired professor stepped away from the main monitoring consoles.
He quickly moved to the entrance and bowed his head respectfully to welcome him.
"How is the overall progress?" Boros asked, his eye scanning the busy room full of monitors and teachers.
"It is actually much better than we thought, sir," Blaze replied, standing up straight.
"But there is one specific student who is completely breaking the curve right now."
Boros turned his attention toward the LED scoreboard hanging high on the stone wall.
The digital numbers were shifting constantly in real time.
[Shane Newman: 400 Points]
[Mia Daithene: 350 Points]
[Zephyr Myloth: 300 Points]
[Raven Seahorn: 200 Points]
[Melissa Aviant: 200 Points]
[Lucian Maxith: 150 Points]
[Kiara Vasylia: 100 Points]
Even the second and third-year cadets hanging out on the raised viewing balcony were watching the scoreboard with a completely newfound interest.
All the teachers, and even Boros himself, were genuinely shocked to see such an insane surge in points within just thirty short minutes.
Earning four hundred points meant this kid was slaughtering D-rank and C-rank monsters without a single pause to rest.
Right as they watched the screen, the digital numbers blurred and updated again.
[Shane Newman: 450 Points]
"What kind of monster is he?" a tall second-year student whispered loudly from the balcony.
"That guy is on a killing spree in there," another senior muttered, leaning over the railing in disbelief.
"He definitely belongs to the Falcon Squad," a third-year girl announced, crossing her arms proudly.
"We need a vanguard like that."
"Huh? Who says he is going to your squad?" a rival senior shot back immediately.
"The Lion Faction will take him."
The upperclassmen had already started fighting over the recruit.
They were ignoring the fact that Shane had not even approved of any of this yet.
All of them just saw a physical asset for the upcoming faction wars and wanted to claim him first.
Blaze folded his arms over his chest.
He watched the points climb again.
"This is a mistake," Blaze said, shaking his head slightly.
"Looks like the kid is just wasting his mana reserves away to show off early. If he keeps fighting at this pace, there is no way he could survive the full three hours. He will be exhausted before the second hour even starts."
But the medical monitors told a different story.
Blaze pointed a finger at a smaller screen showing the students' vital signs.
Shane's heart rate was steady. It was actually calmer than almost all the other students, who were just hiding in the bushes and avoiding fights.
The kid was not panicking at all and he was not overexerting himself at all.
Boros stared hard at the name on the board.
He felt a very strange sense of energy when he looked at that specific student yesterday during the assembly.
Boros had the unique ability to see the deep flow of mana in people.
Shane's core was highly unstable.
It carried a power that a normal commoner should not have.
Boros knew there was a secret hiding behind that kid's blank face, and he fully intended to watch it unfold today.
Far outside the safety of the academy walls, miles away from the capital city, an event was taking place.
At the very top of a barren hill, ten rogue mages stood in a wide circle.
They held each other's hands tightly, keeping the magic circle closed, and chanted a low, continuous spell.
In the centre of the circle stood a bald man.
He was the High Priest of their hidden cult whose face was covered in ugly scars.
Blood constantly dripped from his mouth, staining his chin and his dark robes.
The magical pressure in the air was so heavy that it made it hard for the others to even breathe.
"Is it finally time now, High Priest?" one of the hooded figures asked. His voice trembled with a mix of genuine fear and twisted excitement.
The bald man did not speak right away.
He simply opened his mouth and spat a mouthful of dark blood directly onto the dry dirt in the middle of the circle.
Suddenly, the blood started glowing with a red light.
The ground beneath their boots shook hard as deep cracks formed in the solid rock, spreading outward from the glowing puddle.
The chanting from the mages grew much louder and far more frantic to match the shaking ground.
The bald man raised both his arms high toward the sky.
"From the seventh layer, where light has never reached."
"From the throne built on the bones of fallen gods."
"He who was never born and cannot die. Azrael, first breath of destruction, hear your servant's final offering."
"Take this vessel. Take this blood. Take this world."
The moment the demon king's name left his bleeding lips, the High Priest's body shook uncontrollably.
The energy responding to the call was way too much for a human vessel to hold safely.
He fell onto his knees right in the middle of the glowing circle.
His limbs convulsed wildly on the dirt.
The ten mages kept chanting, refusing to break the circle even as the ground cracked further.
Within a single minute, the High Priest's body went entirely still.
Then, just a few seconds later, his head exploded. A disgusting fountain of blood and bone sprayed outward, filling the glowing magical circle.
The horrific sacrifice was complete. The spell locked into place, bypassing the academy's security barriers miles away as the demon's essence slipped through the cracks in reality, finding the perfect space to infect.
Inside a custom-made hut, a dark haired women whose face was hidden behind her hair smiled.
Inside the illusion trial, the environment was completely ignorant of the magic happening in the outside world.
I wiped my bloody sword on the tall grass.
Ten wolves lay beside me, none of their heads intact.
It had only been one hour since we dropped into the simulation.
We still had two hours left before the mandatory exit timer finally unlocked.
Zephyr and I were supposed to meet at the narrow path very soon.
Everything was going according to my plan.
But then, the air shifted completely.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up straight.
A cold pressure washed over the entire forest.
It felt like the intense gravity shift in the real cave, but a hundred times worse.
The fake birds stopped chirping instantly as smaller monsters stopped moving in the bushes.
ROAAARRRRRR
'The hell?'
The sound was so loud that the ground vibrated hard under my boots.
It was a roar filled with demonic rage that carried a heavy shockwave that literally rattled the leaves off the giant trees.
'What the fuck is going on?' I thought to myself, gripping my sword tight.