UNLIMITED SPEED

“Get ready to move out!” Lady Sophie’s voice rang out towards all in the room, while Noah collected the potion to store it. This of course caught the attention of the three experts, but they didn’t say anything, after all, it was his choice to utilize it or not.

The now small group of five lined up in front of the woman, ready to move out. Their eyes, although sharp still held some tiredness.

The door opened and the eight of them exited the room to arrive inside the hallway that led to the massive hall. By this point no one marveled at the beauty of that place, their minds were focused solely on the trials they were about to take part in.

Once again being at the forefront of the group, Noah casually swept his gaze on the other groups around them. The hallway was more silent than ever, and surprisingly their group had the lowest amount of individuals still participating.

‘Weren’t they supposed to be the really good experts,’ Noah thought in disdain, recalling the man that had tried to make a fool of him on their first day in the room. ．

Now only one male apart from Noah remained, the others being females. The mind trial had been brutal to the others, as some almost died from the sheer amount of pressure they experienced. Or were outright traumatized by the scenes that portrayed their greatest fears.

Some saw themselves die in the illusions, while some saw their loved ones brutally killed. In short, the things seen and experienced by the various experts were different and raised to a level of difficulty that surpassed what Noah experienced.

Then again, Noah remained a very extraordinary expert, he had survived his soul core being split in two. An event that would translate as certain death to the others.

They eventually arrived inside the massive hall, and they didn’t hesitate to run towards the pulpit in the distance.

Once again Lady Edna stood atop the pulpit, smiling at the arriving groups. The tier 1 experts were the last to arrive and were also the largest group, numbering about two thousand.

The tier 2’s were the second-largest measuring at a bit over one-thousand-two-hundred. Of course, the tier 3’s were the smallest numbering a bit more than four hundred.

“Good day young aspirants, I trust you all rested well,” Lady Edna started, sweeping her gaze on the experts.

“You have arrived at the third day of the trials. And I’m sure you all know today will be focused on your mana cores and pools,” she continued.

“The test will be simple, you are to cast as many spells as you can before running out of mana,” she stated.

“It not much of a trial since no one would be disqualified in this stage, rather it is simply for us to see how much you can manage your reserves,” she continued, her words bringing unimaginable relief to the ears of her audience.

Seeing their relieved expressions, Lady Edna explained further. “If any amongst you understands what mana cores or mana pools are you’ll realize that there’s really no trial able to test them that wouldn’t outright kill you.’

“For tier 3’s, by seeing the color and shape of your mana core we can estimate how strong you are, but there isn’t any need to disqualify you on that basis. After all, you’ve survived the first two days.”

“And for you tier 2’s and 1’s, you’re still young, and finding a test that would be able to range how big of a mana pool you have is almost impossible. So we settled with just watching you cast low ranked spells,” she explained,

The experts listening to her couldn’t help but nod at her words when they processed them. Individuals were different, and so were things like their mana cores or even soul cores. Disqualifying them based on their cores or pools would be akin to disqualifying people because their fingers were shaped differently or too long or short.

Details like that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

“The test will happen here and will last for twelve hours in total. You’ll have one-hour breaks between the three, three-hour sessions,” she explained. This of course shocked the listening experts.

“Yes three hours each,” she affirmed. “The real test would be to minimize the amount of mana needed to cast a spell, while still making it potent. You all will be given a training dummy to attack, and it will feature a point-based system measuring how powerful the spell you threw at it was.”

“Although you won’t be disqualified for not meeting the base damage point, I assure you that not meeting it will be the reason for the downfall of some individuals tomorrow,” she explained, dropping a hint for the race that would happen on the last day.

Needless to say, theories on what that meant appeared and disappeared in the minds of many, as they wondered what would happen but couldn’t conclude since none knew how the race would be.

“I shall proceed to show you an example,” she announced pulling them out of their thoughts.

Waving her hands, the aspirants watched in awe as a large brown dummy, towering over 30m in height and in the shape of a human emerged from a series of orange inscribed circles that appeared on the floor.

“You might want to stand back,” Lady Edna announced pointing her left hand at the stationary dummy.

Needless to say, excitement bubbled in the minds of every single expert present there, not even the various group leaders managed to stay calm inwardly. A series of inscriptions lit up beneath the aspirants huddled up together in their various categories, and thin barriers whitish-gray in color emerged from the inscriptions preparing them for the event to occur.

The dummy being more than five kilometers from the experts lit up with golden inscriptions, but nothing happened.

“This is the weakest spell in my arsenal, and I believe even the others will consider it weak,” Lady Edna said as she poured mana into the said spell.

A magical circle expanded on her palm, and the aspirants watched as flames begin to spin in front of that blue circle.

The small ball of flames started as orange and continued to condense until it turned yellow. By this point, the air around her had started to vanish from the sheer heat the spell produced.

A whirling sound continued to spread out as the small ball of flames no larger than a basketball continued to spin madly, eventually turning green. The floor boiled, but yellow inscriptions shone on them to defend their material from the heat.

Noah felt mesmerized at the sight of green flames, while also feeling danger. An incredible amount. Actually, his instincts raged at the sight of that attack.

With the ever getting louder whirling sound reaching a state that would be capable of rupturing the ears of even the tier 3’s if not for the barrier standing all around them, everything fell silent immediately the flames turned blue.

At this point, Noah felt the darkness of death hang over him, he felt certain that nothing within his arsenal except the spell able to bring him to tier 4 would be able to help him. The transformation barely lasted three seconds, but it felt like hours to the watching expert.

The small ball of flames soon changed form and stood in the shape of an arrow no longer than 2m. At that sight, everyone quickly placed their focus on the dummy, knowing what was to come.

A thin streak of blue light shot towards the dummy at speeds Noah couldn’t follow even after empowering his mind!

Immediately the attack arrived on the dummy, the most terrifying explosion Noah had ever experienced up close occurred, as the entire room went blinding white. This was all the weaker experts could see before the entire place shook so violently that they had to crouch to keep their balance.

For the first time in a while, Noah didn’t just feel terror, he believed he would die at that moment.