Chapter 436: The Test Adapts

Lian looked between the five pillars for a few moments.

The closest pillar to him was white.

Resistance Seal.

With the start of the Convergence, the islands around them continued to slowly move, and new paths kept forming between them one after another.

Stone bridges came out from the rocks, huge chains connected two islands to each other, and gaps that had been impossible to cross a few minutes ago had now turned into direct paths.

The First Stage had kept all the participants separated from each other for almost an hour.

But now the exact opposite was happening, the entire realm was pushing them toward each other again.

He stepped onto the newly built stone bridge and walked across it for a few minutes until he heard footsteps coming from the other side.

Five people were approaching from the other side of the bridge.

Lian slowed down, but it only took a few seconds for one of them to raise his hand.

"That armor can be recognized even from two kilometers away." Kain said with a big smile and walked faster.

"I thought you would have been eliminated by now." He replied calmly and raised his armored fist.

Kain hit his own fist against it.

Clack!

"I’m Level 34, and you’re still 23, if one of us was going to be eliminated, it would make more sense for it to be you." Kain said in a completely serious tone, but his smile made it clear that even he did not believe what he was saying.

"That would make sense, unfortunately, the test made the same mistake at first."

"At first?"

"I’ll explain later."

Behind Kain, Selina and Marcus also came closer, along with two other students whom Lian only knew by face.

Selina stared at Lian’s armor for a few seconds, and her eyes moved from the black plates on his chest to the thin silver lines between the joints.

"It’s beautiful."

And Marcus had the strongest reaction after her and practically checked every part of the armor, as a heavy warrior, or what was called a tank, this armor looked amazing.

If he had something like this, he could show his best.

"Where did you buy something like this?"

"That’s not something you can just find." Kain laughed when he heard his question and then answered honestly.

"Why?"

"Well, let’s just say that the materials used to make it don’t exist on the market." Lian answered this time, and he was not lying either, finding a World Devourer Giant was not possible.

Right at that moment, the sound of shaking stone came from the left.

A huge chain stretched between two islands and another bridge connected to their path.

Three figures appeared on the new bridge.

Rindo was moving ahead of the others, with Cassian and Ethan behind him.

"Finally." They increased their speed when they saw the group.

Ethan was still several meters away when his voice became louder.

"I’m glad you weren’t eliminated." And the Student Council President calmly added.

"Personally, I thought he would be eliminated, it’s really impressive that he managed to continue this far." Ethan looked at Marcus and said sarcastically.

Marcus only gave him an empty look.

For a few moments, despite the huge chaos happening around them, the atmosphere of the group became almost like the days before.

The same people.

The same jokes.

Only one big difference existed between them and nine months ago.

They had become stronger.

They had become more mature.

And most of them had seen things that normal Academy students might never see.

Rindo gave Lian’s armor a short look, but unlike the others, he did not immediately ask about it.

"Have you seen Seraphina and the others?" Instead, he asked about the others.

"No, I found Selina and Marcus about twenty minutes ago, it probably won’t take long for the others to find each other too." As soon as he said this, Lian looked toward the sky.

Almost at the same moment, a sound came from above, the sound of large wings pushing the air with great force.

Everyone raised their heads.

A silver shadow came out from behind one of the stone pillars.

A creature with a lion-like body and two huge wings was moving through the sky.

Its feathers were bright silver and became dark gray at the edges of its wings, four black claws were pulled under its body, and its eagle-like head had two bright blue eyes.

Its body was about three meters tall and its wings had a span of more than ten meters.

Two people were sitting on the creature’s back.

Liana and Seraphina.

The silver griffin made a short circle above the bridge and then slowly came down, the wind caused by its wings spread dust all around them.

Clack!

Its four large claws landed on the stone and Liana jumped down from its back and placed her hand on the creature’s neck.

"Flying is much cooler than I thought." Liana said with satisfaction and then looked at the rest of her friends.

"When did you guys find each other?"

Lian looked at the griffin for a few moments, he had never seen this creature before, if he remembered correctly, this girl had lost both of her summons in the Special Area.

A new summon should not normally be possible unless her First Evolution had given her the ability or allowed her to summon another creature.

And compared to her previous two summons, this one was truly much more impressive.

"Is this your new summon?" He asked while his eyes were still on the silver creature.

"That’s right! I got it after my First Evolution, the First Evolution increased my summoning capacity and opened a new slot, after that I was able to complete the contract with it." Liana said with controlled pride and stroked the feathers beside the griffin’s neck.

"Does it have a name?" Lian examined the creature again.

"Silvercrest Gryphon."

The griffin raised its head slightly, as if it was happy to hear its own name.

"This is so cool! A real griffin! You’re really lucky that you were able to summon something like this." Kain immediately interrupted their conversation.

"...." Liana looked at him with a frown, lucky? She had lost her two summons that had been with her for two years.

In the Special Area, she and all of her friends had almost been killed many times, and the hardships they had gone through were impossible to imagine.

And now someone was saying that she was lucky to obtain this griffin? After all that suffering, this was at least something she deserved.

But she did not know this boy, in fact, none of them knew him very well and they only knew that he was Lian’s friend.

And the griffin, feeling the anger of its master, opened its mouth and growled when Kain tried to pet it.

"Okay, okay." The boy immediately moved away from it.

The others who noticed this scene burst into laughter.

Seraphina climbed down from the griffin’s back and fixed her clothes.

When her eyes fell on Lian, they stayed on the World-Devourer Bastion for a few seconds.

"It’s really beautiful, congratulations."

"Thank you." Lian accepted the congratulations with a smile, normally no one congratulated someone for getting new armor.

But all of them could see that this was not normal armor, apart from its structure, this armor gave them a very strange feeling and it was not hard to understand that it was at least Rank S armor.

But they did not waste much time and after making a decision, the group started moving again.

They passed through several newly formed paths and chose the white pillar of the Resistance Seal as their first destination.

Among the five Seals, that one was the closest to them.

Rindo moved at the front and sometimes checked the positions of the other pillars, while the Silvercrest Gryphon flew above the group and Liana watched the area around them through her summon link.

"How was the First Stage for you?" Seraphina asked to pass the time when she saw that they still had some time before reaching their destination.

"Annoying, after a few fights, the test understood that I hunt more than I fight directly, then it started creating monsters that left no tracks, hid their smell, or created fake paths." Kain said with an annoyed expression.

The test’s mechanism had also identified the way he hunted and fought, and based on that, it simulated monsters for him.

"One of them was injured, or at least it looked injured, and it even left a complete blood trail, I thought I could easily kill it and get a lot of points."

"And that’s why you followed it?" Lian asked after thinking for a moment.

"Obviously."

"Was it a trap?"

"That’s not an important part of the story." Kain pressed his lips together.

"So it was a trap." Young Vorhelm laughed.

"Yeah, it was a trap, three other monsters were waiting for me, but the point is that I’m still here and they aren’t."

"For me, it was the opposite, most of the time I did not even have to fight." Rindo said from the front.

The others looked toward him, they had almost been forced to fight, and now hearing that one of them had not been like that naturally caught their attention the most.

"Choices, two paths, three targets, limited time, and almost always a situation where choosing one meant losing the other, every time it tried to force me to choose between something more valuable and something safer."

"My stage was almost the same, but it focused more on responsibility." Cassian also nodded.

"The main problem with the test is not that it is difficult, the problem is that it understands your personality very quickly and also understands how you fight." Rindo stayed silent for a few seconds.

"Exactly, after the third monster I had to fight, they could predict my attacks." Lian nodded.

The test was not simply about forcing them to fight the monsters in front of them.

It practically identified their personalities and adapted to them, Cassian was a responsible person, Rindo had the personality of a leader and the test had targeted his decision-making.

And Kain was a hunter and the test was testing exactly that.

And what about him? He was a direct fighter, he always tried to open his path with his fists and only used strategies and plans when the enemy was too powerful for him.

And the test also did exactly that instead of wasting time, it only made his enemies stronger to see his limit.

’Interesting, so if my guess is correct, the teachers want to completely find the students and their potential through this, and find out where each person’s limit is, this also benefits the guilds, they can see the strengths and weaknesses of the Awakened they want to recruit this way.’ He thought to himself.

So this was not just a test to determine the strongest student.

"What did it send after you?" Seraphina turned her eyes toward him.

"I only needed to fight monsters, each monster was stronger than the previous one, both in Level and Rank, but none of them were strong enough to stop me, except one, a stone knight."

"A stone knight? What was different about it compared to the other monsters? A much higher Level?" Liana asked curiously.

"It wasn’t only about the Level, its Rank too... it was a Level 30 Fallen." Lian answered calmly, as if he was only stating a normal fact.

But in their eyes, this was anything but normal, and Kain and Marcus’s jaw dropped as much as possible from shock.

The others were not doing much better...