Uncle Inom

That bastard.

I am a mage.

A top-5% player of DeoEn, and a devoted fan of Lily.

When Lily burst onto the scene like a comet a few months ago, her stunning looks and voice turned her into a celebrity no one could afford to ignore in a matter of weeks.

If all she had going for her were character customization, such an absurd rise would have been impossible. Being able to customize your avatar means gorgeous people are a dime a dozen, which makes looks matter far less in-game than they do in real life.

But her skill was every bit as exceptional.

Skilled enough to beat down the famous rankers of the day.

Mesmerized by the sight of her blasting apart boss after boss and ranker after ranker, I had followed her streams religiously — and even donated back when donations were still open.

Had the gods blessed all that effort with a stroke of luck?

"Oh, holy crap!"

The very moment Lily declared, "I will now be distributing invitations," an invitation appeared before my eyes.

I'd been in the middle of my mage quest line, hunting in a grinding field with her stream open on the side, and the invitation had descended as if it had been waiting for exactly this moment.

A rectangular letter made of shimmering blue light.

I grabbed it on pure reflex, and the instant my fingers closed around it, a series of questions about Lily appeared in front of me.

Trivially simple ones, too. Her full name, her weapons of choice, the monsters she'd hunted recently — questions anyone who had watched even a little of her content could answer.

"As if a certified PhD in Lilyology could ever fail."

I typed the answers to all four questions without hesitation, and the invitation flared blue before transforming into a pristine white ticket.

"Obviously I'm going!"

I accepted before I'd even finished reading the instructions.

Every second counted. If I got in fast and passed first, I could flex on people everywhere.

Especially if I posted a "I passed, lol" certification thread on the community forums — people would die of envy.

"Should I hold off on the Progenitor for now, though?"

According to what Lily had said, the Progenitor was an extremely dangerous boss. The kind of boss that seemed tailor-made for unreachable monsters like Leo or Vlack.

Honestly, with my skill, I figured I could clear it after a few tries... but no.

"Pass first. Flex later."

There would be other chances anyway. Flexing came first.

White light flickered, and I arrived in the waiting room.

Red and blue mana stones paved the floor, walls, and ceiling, while panes of blue glass ticked slowly in their frames, channeling the flow of mana. At the center of it all stood something imposing — a statue, one that looked like it belonged in some desert kingdom.

And the waiting line... there were already six people in it.

And I had spotted the invitation the instant the stream started, solved the questions immediately, and come straight here — yet six people had beaten me here.

There was no guarantee this was the only waiting room, either.

God, there are a lot of insane Lily stans out there.

Not that I was one of them. Obviously.

Most of them were decked out in dazzling gear, which made me shrink back a little — but then again, who was I? A 3rd Advancement mage, Level 74, no less. If everything Lily had shown us was the full extent of the exam, nothing here could possibly stop me.

So I waited. And waited.

Thud.

"Hey."

"?"

Someone had grabbed my shoulder. I turned around to find an orc standing behind me.

There was no monster illusion here... so, a race change? Of all the races available, an orc?

"Can I help you?"

"That's my spot."

"I'm sorry?"

What was this? When I'd entered the waiting room there had been six people, and I'd joined as the seventh. One had gone in since, leaving only five ahead of me. Which meant this orc I'd never seen before had absolutely no business being in front of me.

"What are you talking about? You got here after I did."

"My spot. Move."

"Are you serious right now—"

I glanced past the hulking orc. Every single one of the people behind him, levels visibly lower than mine, was frowning with one shoulder hunched, grimacing.

Had he been strong-arming his way up the line this whole time I'd been waiting?

As I stared at them, the orc seemed to decide I'd finally caught on, and shoved past me.

"Get lost quietly."

"Unbelievable."

I had no idea how strong this orc bastard was, but I was no pushover either. Mages weren't called the scourge of the meta for nothing. A 3rd Advancement mage could go toe-to-toe with the knights of an entire kingdom. A mere orc like this—

Wait. Calm down.

I slid the staff back into its slot. Lily had clearly warned that if anyone started a fight in the waiting room, Uncle Inom would go you bastard! Lily said strange things sometimes, but she wouldn't be joking about something like this. Even if it wasn't Uncle Inom himself, some kind of countermeasure had to be in place.

And yet this orc had cut in front of several people without a hint of retribution...

Maybe because it never turned into a real fight?

"Hey."

"Krruk. What now."

The orc, on his way to scope out his next opening, turned his head. Maybe it was his ugly face, but he looked even more vicious up close.

Does he actually enjoy the game with a face like that?

"Why are you just walking away? I wasn't done talking."

"You wanna die?"

Thud! Thud! The orc stomped the floor and closed the distance until he was right in my face, red eyes glaring down at me.

Not yet, huh?

"You change your race and your brain goes rocky too? Where are your manners? A piece of trash like you doesn't even know where you belong in line?"

"You insect!"

The orc pulled out a double-bladed axe with speed that defied his bulk. Its frost-blue edge gleamed across the waiting room as the axe came down toward the mage—

FWOOSH!

...Before his prayer could finish, he turned into sand.

"?!"

The statue?

It was the statue. The one that had been standing silently at the center, tall enough to brush the ceiling. As the statue shifted its hand with a grinding grrrrrk, the hulking orc collapsed into a pile of sand roughly his own size.

The people ahead of me in line, who had been grinding their teeth and studiously pretending this had nothing to do with them, now stared at the statue in open shock.

The waiting room fell silent, save for the soft hiss of scattering sand. And when every gaze in the room had fixed on the statue, its mouth opened.

《That bastard.》

"\"\"......\"\"\""

The statue's mouth closed.

At long last, after the endless wait, I had entered the castle.

The entrance exam's difficulty was 2nd Stage. The conditions were exactly as shown on the broadcast, and since I was a mage, I chose a staff and a crossbow — the crossbow being a weapon anyone could land shots with as long as their aim was decent, class be damned.

Not to mention Lily herself had cleared it with a crossbow.

Still, though...

I rolled my ankles lightly and channeled mana into a test spell.

"Hmm."

Surprisingly, almost no difference at all.

People had been saying stats would be nerfed to one percent, that skills wouldn't fire properly — but experiencing it firsthand, nothing felt particularly diminished. If anything, the physical side of things felt enhanced.

"Are they calibrating it to each person's level?"

There was, undeniably, an uncrossable gulf between rankers and ordinary users. To properly judge talent, adjustments had to be made. We couldn't use our own weapons, but frankly, using the provided ones was probably better for people like us anyway.

"Alright! Let's do this!"

"...?"

This is the exam?

I stood there dumbfounded for a moment before one of the users who'd failed earlier approached from across the room.

"You died too, I see. How far did you get?"

"I killed one gatekeeper, then died."

The 2nd Stage gatekeeper required a full three crossbow bolts to bring down. Chip damage just made it drain blood and heal, so I had to throw everything I had just to finish one off — and then I gloriously perished to the other two gatekeepers.

"What?! You killed a gatekeeper?"

"Wait, a gatekeeper?!"

"Are you a ranker or something?!"

The man stumbled backward with a strangled gasp, and the other users rushed over in astonishment, clamoring to know my strategy.

...Excuse me? Weren't you all looking pretty capable just a minute ago?

"Look, I only killed one... The real rankers have probably already cleared it by now."

"Obviously the absolute top rankers are out of the discussion. Look over there — there's a list of clears."

In the direction the man pointed stood a crimson stone tablet, a single roster carved into its surface.

Familiar names, nearly all of them. Except one that was somehow half-familiar and half-not.

A name sitting proudly at the very top, above a crowd of countless rankers.

"Who the hell is Beriad?"