Chapter 379
Chapter 379
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 379
Chapter Title: Entering a Competitive System (3)
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Iruki landed in the training grounds. Then, with a smirk, he approached Binder.
“Ugh!”
Even seeing Binder retreat, Iruki wasn't rushed. For him, it was already over.
“Your development was certainly clean. It was like reading a textbook.”
Cancellation analyzes the changes occurring in the opponent's Spirit Zone and reverses all vector quantities.
The effect of resetting one's omnipotence was immense, but the humiliation the opponent felt was another undeniable aspect of the spell.
“Don't be ridiculous! My development was perfect!”
As if refusing to lose, Binder cast another spell. But now, his omnipotence was being reset before he could even try.
“I know. It is perfect. Perfectly so.”
Binder's upper lip curled up like a gorilla's. Then, he suddenly looked down with a bewildered expression.
A detonation reaction was occurring below.
‘Ah!’
“It’s fine. It’s just a 10-kilobuster.”
The moment Iruki turned his back, an explosion erupted.
In the Icheonbeon system, interpersonal combat had no 'knockback' effect, so Binder wasn't sent flying. His mental energy gauge simply plummeted to zero.
He could have withstood it if he had cast a defensive spell, but against Cancellation, there was nothing he could do.
Iruki flashed a V for victory as he left the training grounds.
He had once been jeered at for being disrespectful to the loser, but in the graduate class, no one dared to mock him.
“On the first day... Cancellation.”
Their expressions were grim. Iruki had just revealed the most powerful weapon in his arsenal.
‘Is it confidence that he will never lose? Or does he have another spell prepared?’
Now that he had so brazenly revealed his ultimate move, their thoughts grew even more tangled.
“Hmm...”
Fermi watched the battle with his hands thrust in his pockets. Then, with an eye-smile, he asked his companion.
“How many seconds?”
“2 minutes and 11 seconds.”
“2 minutes and 11 seconds to put a broken glass back together.”
No matter how orthodox Binder was, analyzing a graduate-level Spirit Zone within three minutes was impossible without a savant's brain.
‘If interpersonal combat comes up in the graduation exam, that's going to be quite tricky.’
Calculations related to his ventures spun rapidly in Fermi's mind.
***
The door to the dorm room slammed shut with a thud.
Shirone, who had only just returned to his dorm after 11 PM, limply collapsed onto his bed.
“Ugh, I’m exhausted. So exhausted.”
The graduate class schedule had already entered its fourth week.
Unless there were special circumstances, most evaluations ended around noon, but even so, there was no time to rest.
The graduate class was, quite literally, the wild.
No one taught you anything; if you wanted something, you had to master it yourself.
Shirone, too, would continue training all day with his friends at the training hall after the evaluations were over.
He was still on a winning streak in interpersonal combat, and perception and judgment were also favorable subjects for Shirone.
Even when faced with terrifying situations, his mental fortitude remained unshaken, and with judgment born from superior insight, he precisely navigated his way toward the exit to survival.
However, the other students also possessed professional-level skills in at least one field.
Binder, who aimed for Dragon Thunder, received a perfect score in development and implementation, while in mental activity, the psychic-type Arin and the Zoner Dorothy drew attention.
Those with unique majors, like Pisho, steadily earned points in specialty enhancement, maintaining their ranks.
Therefore, even after rotating through six subjects four times, the fluctuations in the rankings were still minimal.
“This is much harder than I thought.”
Considering the 30-week schedule, it was still the early stages of the race.
But the fatigue Shirone felt was beyond imagination.
Every day, he had to face evaluations where a single point slip-up could cause his rank to plummet. The tension from that seeped into his personal afternoon training, leaving him completely drained by the time he returned to his dorm.
“I want to sleep. I want to sleep. Just for an hour.”
Contrary to his muttering, Shirone pushed himself up from the bed.
While other students might be heading to bed by now, he had another task.
To fulfill the condition Gaold had set.
The reason for his grueling daily training was not just to raise his rank, but also to avoid a dog's death in a potential trip to Heaven.
He had to get stronger.
And he had to develop it.
A spell powerful enough to destroy Heaven.
“Me?”
The me who's struggling, exhausted from the graduate class evaluations?
“Haha!”
Letting out a hollow laugh, Shirone sat at his desk and opened his notebook.
It was filled with ideas he had come up with while pondering for the past month.
But since none of them had managed to get to the core of the problem, they were still just scribbles.
‘Let's approach this conceptually today. A spell to destroy Heaven. What could it possibly be?’
First, it would have to be a long-range spell.
Casting a wide-area destruction spell at close range would kill the mage in the aftermath.
‘No, depending on the situation, I might have to consider that too...’
Shirone jotted down 'Possibility of caster's death' in the corner of his notebook.
‘It's okay if I die. Would that open up more diverse paths?’
Mulling it over, Shirone grabbed his head.
“Ugh, I really don't know.”
The key is to use Ataraxia's amplification power.
Of that much, he was certain.
But with the Photon Cannon, which contained mass, it was extremely difficult to reach the near-light speed domain of light-based spells.
It might one day surpass the speed of sound, but even then, it wouldn't have the power to blow away Heaven.
“I'm just running in circles like a hamster on a wheel.”
Shirone wrote 'Ataraxia' and added 'Trigger' next to it.
Ataraxia's strength was undeniably its immense amplification power, but come to think of it, it had other advantages too.
First, it's particularly threatening to the beings of Heaven.
Even humans with sensitive senses are shocked by the halo, but the Mara, born from the concept of angels, feel an additional instinctive fear.
“Hmm, it could create a delay.”
Shirone put parentheses next to Ataraxia and wrote 'Delay of 1-2 seconds'.
“The most important thing is that it's a trigger.”
A spell that passes through Ataraxia is no longer governed by the mage's Spirit Zone, but by Ataraxia itself.
That was why Shirone had defined Ataraxia as a siege spell.
“Amplification. Delay. Trigger.”
These were the current three sacred treasures of Ataraxia.
“In that case, the spells I can use are...”
Shirone wrote them down sequentially.
For offensive spells, there's the Photon Cannon, Homing Photon Cannon, and Laser.
For defensive spells, there's Wide Light and Dark Sphere.
For control skills, there's Shining Impact, Shining Chain, and Slow. For movement skills, there's Blink, Teleport, Mass Teleport, Scatter Movement, and you could also classify Light Wings as a movement skill.
“That's a lot. I guess I've worked pretty hard.”
His feeling of pride was fleeting; his expression soon darkened.
No matter how varied his spells were, not a single one was capable of blowing Heaven away entirely.
No, it was an impossible task from the start.
How on earth could he, not even a certified mage, destroy Heaven?
“No! Not this, not that, none of it will work!”
Shirone drew a large X in his notebook and slammed his face onto the desk.
All he had gained from a month of research was a thread-like feeling that tickled his mind.
Even if he learned a new spell, there was a limit to what he could achieve within a year with a single element.
‘Amplification. Delay. Trigger. Time-division. Force. Fusion. And all the spells I've learned so far.’
He had to combine all of these to create something completely new.
He could be wrong, but at the same time, a strange feeling that this was the answer flowed through the channel of his insight.
‘Find it. Find it. Find a way.’
Repeating the single thought left in his mind, Shirone drifted off to sleep.
The Meaning of Survival (1)
A holiday that was more precious than anything to the graduate class.
But Shirone had to wake up at dawn, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
After the fourth week's evaluations were all finished, today was the day for the full evaluation, held six times a year.
As it was an opportunity to experience an official event from the graduation exam, it was an evaluation where they had to give their all.
Furthermore, the winner would gain 20 points, and the loser would lose 20 points.
With a whopping 40-point difference at stake, even the other students who had been engaged in psychological warfare until now would be compelled to fight with all their might.
In terms of interpersonal combat, it was a score equivalent to a 13-win streak.
In terms of specialty enhancement, it was the same as passing four items at Master difficulty.
‘Starting today, the rankings could change drastically. No, they were bound to change.’
The full evaluation being held today was the 'Survival' event.
Because the rules guaranteed a loser, depending on the outcome, one could hope for a dramatic rise in the rankings.
Especially since 'Survival' was the graduation exam version of perception and judgment—Shirone's specialty—it was a match he couldn't afford to lose.
The students would enter a massive Virtual Zone as a group.
And they would be evaluated on their mental strength—how long they could endure in an extreme situation.
Judgment was important, but mental fortitude was essential.
For Shirone, failing to score points here would put him at a disadvantage for the rest of the schedule.
Shirone met up with Nade and Iruki, left the building, and headed for the training grounds where the large Virtual Zone was located.
Many students had already gathered.
They were still competitors, but the initial awkwardness was no longer there.
Moreover, they had more or less identified friend from foe.
While it was hard to get along with Screamer, Pony, and Ruman, he got along quite well with Maya and Aider.
He had a neutral relationship with Dorothy, Suabi, and Pisho, and the Class One students didn't even glance at Class Three.
Once all the graduate students had gathered, Colley had them line up by class and checked each person's eyes.
As this was rumored to be the most dangerous and harsh event among all the full evaluations, his face was also filled with gravity.
“Today's full evaluation event is Survival. Before we begin, I will explain the rules. First, we will divide into teams. Based on the line drawn over there, the right side is the Red Team, and the left side is the Blue Team.”
A line was drawn in the wide open space leading to the Virtual Zone.
“Once the teams are decided, everyone will enter the Virtual Zone. The survival program consists of 7 stages and will last for a total of 50 minutes. The moment the final survivor emerges, the team's victory or defeat will be decided, regardless of any subsequent results. In other words, the team with the final survivor takes the overall victory, and the losing team will have 20 points deducted.”
Boyle raised his hand.
“What's the criteria for deciding the teams?”
“You can go to whichever team you want.”
Pandora asked.
“Uh, excuse me... aren't we supposed to make it 15 versus 15?”
“That doesn't matter. It's fine even if all 30 of you are on one team.”
The atmosphere in Class Three grew chilly. Some students even looked left and right as if to say, ‘Is this for real?’
‘If all 30 are on one team, there's no competition. What kind of ridiculous rule is this?’
Of course, no one would actually suggest forming a 30-person team to live or die together.
After all, the graduate class was a place where everyone was hell-bent on getting an edge over their opponents.
But they had to think about the meaning of this rule.
Considering the operating principles of the graduate class so far, it wasn't just a competitive system for earning points and raising ranks.
It was structured so that advantages and disadvantages were determined by what position you took among your competitors and how accurately you assessed others' abilities.
Iruki said.
“In a real party, a mage's position is absolute. It seems this full evaluation is no exception.”
If the mage falters, the party is annihilated. That was common sense known even to third-rate adventurers.
You couldn't pass the graduation exam just by casting powerful spells and having an excellent Spirit Zone.
How intelligently you judged and solidified your position among your competitors was also an unseen evaluation criterion.
“We will now decide the teams. You have 10 minutes. Anyone who fails to decide in time will be considered to have abstained. Go to the team you want.”
As Colley's words fell, the 30 students flinched as if they'd been stunned.
Someone must have been the first to flinch, but it was an unpleasantly fast reaction, the culprit impossible to pinpoint.
They needed to think carefully.
A rule where you could earn the 20-point victory bonus even if only one of your teammates survived.
Therefore, for students who weren't confident in the survival event, the key was which team they joined.
In a way, this was a test of true survival ability.
That's why those confident in their mental fortitude had to move first.
A few were already thinking of taking the lead.
However, choosing between the meaningless Red and Blue was subtly weighing on their minds.
‘What was the win ratio between the Blue and Red teams so far?’
It was a kind of jinx.
“Well, I’ll choose first.”
Shirone was the first to move.
Since his goal was to be the final survivor, he didn't need to worry about anyone else's choice.
As Shirone walked over to the Red Team, the crowd finally stirred.
The next to move were, of course, Nade and Iruki.
Shirone's group was on the Red Team.
With this key piece of information gathered, the minds of the remaining 27 students began to race.
“Hmm, in that case, shall I go to the Blue Team?”
At Fermi's voice, everyone turned to look at him. As he confidently strode forward, Fermi's group followed behind him.
Arriving at the center of the Blue Team's area, Fermi looked back at Shirone and gave him a playful eye-smile.
Shirone did not smile back. He couldn't tell what thoughts lay behind that narrow-eyed gaze.
Finally, the moment the remaining students had been waiting for had arrived.
The teams were now split between the formidable newcomers of Class Three and Fermi's group, which had never lost the top spot in the final evaluations.
Which side had the higher chance of winning?
From now on, it was a matter of choice.