Chapter 261: Trial Secret Realm No. 0 and the Infinite Trial
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 261: Trial Secret Realm No. 0 and the Infinite Trial
If I wanted to "get some exercise" and test my progress, the best option would naturally be a fight. Within the Witch Academy, the sanctioned place for fighting was the Arena—much like that massive open-air arena where the Freshman Competition had been held.
Of course, I had better options, such as Secret Realms.
I had to admit Renata wasn't wrong; there were rare Secret Realms I didn't have the clearance to enter or hadn't even heard of. However, she couldn't deny that the public Secret Realms also held good things.
Even she wouldn't dare claim otherwise.
Although I had spent the entire week focused on runes, I hadn't ignored other subjects. For instance, I’d looked into which Secret Realms the senior sisters frequented most and which were the most popular.
Generally, after surviving three years of coursework, most students had accumulated a certain number of Mana Sources and spellbooks. Those with their own tricks or the "star students" favored by academy resources were likely even stronger.
Such students usually liked to head to a specific witch trial realm: "Trial Secret Realm No. 0." This was a massive Secret Realm provided by a graduated senior sister.
I call it "massive" because its internal space was heavily partitioned and layered; everyone who entered was placed in an independent trial space.
Inside, various monsters would spawn randomly, and one would do nothing but fight until exhaustion.
If that were all, it wouldn't be so popular. The main draw was that you could exit the realm at any time. This guaranteed safety during the trial, drastically lowering the potential cost of death or heavy injury.
Furthermore, this realm was officially supported by the academy. What did that mean? It meant the academy provided the rewards found within—though one shouldn't expect them to be amazing.
However, this realm was a stable source of Mana Sources!
This was the primary place where students with decent combat ability began to accumulate their Mana Sources.
The monsters that spawned inside were referred to as "mobs" because senior sisters with even a bit of strength could essentially one-shot them. The real challenge was the sheer number.
The enemies came in waves: first a single one, then ten, then a hundred, then a thousand, and finally ten thousand.
There were five waves in total. After clearing each wave, you received a corresponding reward.
But each successful wave only granted a single Mana Source.
This meant that no matter how powerful a senior sister was, a single clear only yielded five Mana Sources.
The realm could be challenged at any time with no limit on attempts. The only restriction was on the rewards: each wave's reward could only be claimed once per week. Once you cleared it for the week, that was it until the next. However, even without the Mana Source rewards, the academy still encouraged students to undergo the trials, offering rewards in other forms.
These were usually stone steles recording special techniques. You could take a photo or make a rubbing; if you weren't interested, you didn't have to learn them.
In truth, the academy used this method to encourage students to master more skills. After all, aside from studying Transcendent Knowledge and becoming a witch, the most important thing was mastering a craft.
When I first saw this Secret Realm, my first thought was of my roommates and my classmates.
I didn't lack those few Mana Sources, but they did. Currently, most freshmen only had the single Mana Source they received at enrollment plus the spell solidified in their gifted chest badge. That was their entire repertoire.
Still, I had some reservations. I was afraid they might take unnecessary risks and die inside, saddling themselves with resurrection debt at such a young age.
While whether they lived or died wasn't strictly my business, if I were the one who urged them to do it and they died, some people would inevitably hold a grudge against me.
I couldn't be bothered with that kind of trouble, so I decided against a direct approach. At most, I’d take my roommates to give it a try.
After all, I had a good relationship with them. I could let the information spread through them, distancing myself from the source. Later, I would "accidentally" find out and post a danger warning in the group chat.
That way, if they still went looking for death and died, they couldn't blame me. I’d just say: if you're trash, practice more; if you can't afford to die, don't play. You might as well drop out.
Leaving the library, I intended to experience this Secret Realm for myself and snag some free Mana Sources while I was at it.
I didn't drop my "Moon" identity; it saved a lot of trouble.
Arriving at the Witch Secret Realm Club, I followed protocol and joined the queue.
While waiting, I saw the entry fee for this trial realm: it actually cost one Orichalcum!
But compared to a Mana Source, it seemed worth it. Although I wasn't sure whether the market price of a Mana Source or Orichalcum was higher, a Mana Source was inherently more valuable.
Under my Spirit Vision, the internal information of a Mana Source was incredibly complex, containing techniques and a constant flow of mana. Its value would be high anywhere. Orichalcum, on the other hand... was just an expensive metal used as currency and a Transcendent material.
However, this was the Witch Academy. If Mana Sources weren't hard to get, their price wouldn't align with their actual value.
The most frustrating part was that before becoming a Transcendent Witch, there was a cap of ten thousand Mana Sources per person. This caused the value of Mana Sources to depreciate further among apprentice witches.
But for the vast majority of students, barring extraordinary circumstances, they likely wouldn't even reach a thousand, let alone ten thousand. So, the value of Mana Sources remained quite stable.
Even with this stable source of Mana Sources, I did a quick calculation: even if one persisted for ten years without fail, they’d only get about two or three thousand.
Very few people could actually stick with it for that long.
Moreover, once you graduated or finished your studies, the realm would no longer provide rewards. It wasn't that you couldn't enter, but clearing it wouldn't grant you Mana Sources anymore.
By the time they reached the upper years, senior sisters had their own methods and didn't care for five Mana Sources a week. It was a classic case of "a feast for some, a famine for others." A massive chasm existed between the seniors and the ordinary junior students.
Freshmen certainly couldn't afford the one Orichalcum entry fee. Of course, if you were capable, you could find a way, but most couldn't.
Usually, the entry fee of a Secret Realm was proportional to its danger level, but this trial realm clearly defied that rule. It had likely been exploited too much, leading to the high threshold.
Low-threshold realms didn't guarantee any practical benefits, but a high-threshold one certainly would. That was the value of this trial realm: "stable" output was its greatest merit, essentially acting as a resource handout from the academy.
As for the fee, the Witch Secret Realm Club was responsible for maintaining the realm; they couldn't be expected to lose money on it.
"Hello, you're entering Trial Secret Realm No. 0, correct? I've registered you. Just head over to the teleportation array."
The senior sister at the front desk handled the registration with practiced ease. She handed my student card back to me without even realizing I was Yang Yuehan.
I wasn't sure if this was a loophole or if it was impossible to register with someone else's card. After all, student cards were bound to Ley Line information—that stuff was practically metaphysical.
I didn't want to mess around with that.
Standing before the teleportation array once again, I had to admit I was fascinated by this technology. I even knew a Teleportation Summoning Spell, though unfortunately, I couldn't teleport myself.
As the energy of the array surged, I felt a momentary sway. Then, I found myself standing in a vast, open world.
The sky was choked with dark clouds, and the earth was scorched black. Crosses and tombstones were scattered as far as the eye could see. It looked like a massive graveyard.
Before I could even adjust to the environment or take in the atmosphere, a withered, rotting arm—little more than bone—burst from the ground nearby.
Between the atmosphere and this eerie suddenness, someone less brave might have actually been startled.
I was fine, though. I had been to that hellhole called the Fallen Land in my dreams; that was far scarier than this.
"Skeletons? And the scent of necromancy... It seems this Secret Realm is connected to the Ley Lines. A constant supply of death energy plus undead skeletons—they really are the perfect cannon fodder."
I nodded, giving the trial realm's setup a passing grade.
By now, the skeleton had crawled out. It was indeed nothing but bone, yet it carried a rotting shield and a rusted, corroded sword.
I flicked a light Wind Blade Spell at it, instantly shattering its equipment. The soulfire in its eye sockets flickered, as if instinctively "wondering" what had happened.
But upon seeing me, it simply identified me as an enemy and charged.
I’ll give it this: even though it was just a bag of bones, it was fast—comparable to an average person's sprint.
I followed up with a Fireball Spell, blowing it to smithereens. The shattered bones were beyond repair. Immediately after, ten skeletal arms reached up from the earth. Bony bodies burst through the soil, kicking up dirt, but I dispatched them easily.
I also took the opportunity to test their durability.
Assuming one Fireball Spell could kill an ordinary human, a skeleton could actually tank one standard, un-modified Fireball Spell. However, the explosion would leave it "heavily injured." Such a skeleton could then be shattered with a single heavy strike—even a stick would do. You could say one hit wasn't enough to kill, but two hits were a waste.
The durability of these undead was tuned to a very specific threshold. Even I couldn't help but scoff at it.
But for me, there was zero pressure. Next, I witnessed a spectacular sight: hundreds, then thousands of skeletons rising from the ground. It was enough to make one's skin crawl.
Of course, the consequence of my skin crawling was that they all ended up as shattered limbs and broken bones on the ground.
At this moment, I finally felt the thrill of being a summoning-type caster.
This was my first time using the high-consumption spellbook, "Shadow Legion Summoning Spell." Over a hundred mana points were consumed to manifest a shadow legion. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, standing ready before me as if awaiting my command.
Watching this massive shadow legion clash with the thousands of skeletons was a sight to behold. This kind of pure slaughter and attrition was indeed the best way to deal with swarm tactics.
It reminded me of the undead sea in my dream. If I had used this spell back then, I probably could have suppressed them.
The undead in the dream were just skeletons; their combat power couldn't even hold a candle to the ones here. Since this shadow legion was currently steamrolling these undead, those dream-skeletons would have been crushed instantly.
The only difference was that the undead in the dream could resurrect.
However, rather than killing these undead, I was more interested in the Mana Sources I’d get after finishing these waves.
The way this trial realm distributed Mana Sources was very convenient. They appeared directly in front of me and were pushed into my body by an unseen force. No outside help was needed, making it very friendly to freshmen who couldn't yet manipulate mana.
To an ordinary freshman, a Mana Source was an invisible energy body. Unless their Spirit Vision was high enough to see it, or the Mana Source was sealed in a specific container, it remained hidden.
Otherwise, freshmen could only check their Mana Source count on their phones via the student card's link to the Ley Line information.
I’d been able to see them all along, so I almost forgot others couldn't. These Mana Sources were given so silently that I worried freshmen might not even realize they’d received them.
Based on my current understanding of this realm, if a freshman—take my roommates, for example—tried this, the first wave should be simple. If they got killed in the first wave, they might as well drop out of the academy.
The second wave would be the hurdle. Their main limitation was their Mana Source count. A single Mana Source took an entire day to recover; no matter how many you had, they all took a full day to refill. If they didn't have many, they couldn't keep casting. If they couldn't cast, they had no combat power...
In that sense, the advantage of transformation or summoning spells in clearing these realms became obvious.
It seemed there was a reason why most of the spellbooks provided to the class monitors during the competition were transformation-based.
With such means, one could constantly accumulate resources in the Secret Realms and stay ahead of the curve. Truly convenient.
By now, the Shadow Legion Summoning Spell was starting to feel a bit stretched thin against ten thousand undead. Although each individual in the shadow legion was much stronger than a skeleton, they were being suppressed by sheer numbers—brutally so.
Though they were still killing enemies, they were gradually buckling under the massive onslaught. After all, the shadow legion from this spell was just a magical effect.
Even using a high-consumption summoning spellbook wasn't enough to clear this trial easily. In terms of difficulty, I had to give this Secret Realm credit.
Of course, if I kept spamming the Shadow Legion Summoning Spell, I could clear it, but what about the cost?
It cost over a hundred mana per cast. With that kind of consumption threshold, what freshman could possibly clear this?
This was ten thousand undead. Even if I used the Elf Blessing, my arms would get tired just from the sheer amount of killing.
Unless I used Fire Rain Domain, but that wasn't worth it. Other spells, including my three derived Evocation spells, also had non-negligible costs.
So, if I ignored consumption, I could clear it easily. But when I had to consider consumption and maximizing efficiency, I found myself in a bit of a bind.
I lacked a low-cost, high-speed map-clearing method.
Ultimately, as they closed in, I chose the most primitive way: using basic Evocation spells. I mainly wanted to test the combat memories I had acquired from the Ley Lines.
I could have tried body arts here too, but I hadn't mastered them yet—I only had the theory. To avoid any accidents, I chose the conservative route for the final cleanup.
By the time it was all over, I had consumed quite a bit of energy.
This made me realize that at my current stage, wars of attrition and being swamped by numbers were my visible weaknesses.
However, I was very satisfied with the combat techniques. It was experience—combat experience—the kind of optimal skill that usually took a long time to summarize. I only needed to refine it slightly to make it my own.
Once everything was finished, all five Mana Sources were in my possession.
At that moment, an interface similar to a Ley Line operating system popped up in front of me.
"Wait... this realm... Infinite Trial Mode?"
I looked at the information. I didn't start it blindly but checked what it meant.
Trial Secret Realm No. 0 only gave rewards once a week. If you cleared all the trials, you could unlock Infinite Trial Mode. In this mode, undead would pour out endlessly until the trialer was forced to exit. The explanation specifically noted to "act within your means" and thoughtfully listed the costs of resurrection and the various materials required.
Besides this Infinite Trial, the interface also had a leaderboard function.
The leaderboards recorded rankings for clear speed and the number of kills in the Infinite Trial.
I instinctively clicked on the speed ranking and saw that the person in first place had a time of under six seconds!
Six seconds!
What did that even mean?
There were five waves in total with intervals between them. This person must have literally flipped the earth upside down with a massive bombardment.
What level of combat power was that?
Thinking of this, I swallowed hard. My previous confidence vanished instantly. As expected, the Witch Academy was full of hidden masters...
At the very least, I wasn't sure I could clear five waves in six seconds. Even Fire Rain Domain couldn't do it.
While I might be able to hit sub-ten seconds if I pushed myself, such an extreme time was likely beyond me.
I swallowed again and closed the speed ranking, then opened the kill count leaderboard for the Infinite Trial. This count was based on the highest number of kills in a single attempt.
The first page was a solid wall of million-plus counts!
A million... The first thing that came to mind was that "Myriad Methods Book"!
But everyone had a mana cap. Even at the maximum of ten thousand, to kill a million meant that, on average, every point of mana had to kill ten undead!
Even with recovery potions and charging alchemy items, that was still incredible.
Killing a million... the number alone was intimidating.
Once the Infinite Trial began, the only outcome was being forced out of the realm. There was no turning back.
I closed my eyes and pondered for a moment. Then, I opened them, looked at the words "Infinite Trial," and clicked start without hesitation.
I had underestimated this Secret Realm after all. If you counted the Infinite Trial, then the number of people who had truly "cleared" this realm was zero. No wonder it was called Trial Secret Realm No. 0. It was a perfect place to cultivate certain things.
Only this kind of pressure could perhaps bring me new inspiration.