Chapter 104: The Entry Trial

Swoosh!

Ray was quickly transported to the simulated world.

"Jeez, can’t the transportation be something simple?" He nearly barfed at the process.

Not to mention the blinding golden light was so unnecessary.

Who in the world would make such a flashy move when they needed to transport elsewhere?

Talk about being wasteful!

While he was silently complaining, his eyes didn’t stop gazing around the surroundings.

Everywhere were trees that covered the line of sight. He tried to use his perception to scan further, only to realize it was limited at a fixed distance.

’Is this a restriction?’ Ray reckoned it was probably Margaret’s work to prevent those with higher perception from having an advantage.

She strived for equality, but this kind of restriction seriously goes against that principle.

Did she really think everything could be perfectly balanced?

Those who tried often stumbled or were depicted as the villain for trying to fix something in a balanced manner.

There was never an absolute balance, only the effort to help maintain the balance.

’Oh well, I need to get to the high ground.’ Ray thought to himself and immediately activated the Feral Movement to climb up the tree.

His movement was nimble and swift.

It appeared as if only a gust of wind had occurred.

To prevent being spotted or letting anyone know someone was here, he purposely avoided the use of teleportation.

Although teleportation was amazing, it left behind a small mana residual that could be detected.

So far, he had been able to take his enemies by surprise because they didn’t know he was capable of such teleportation.

However, with the possibility that every movement of his was being spectated, he decided to conceal the majority of his strength if possible.

This wasn’t him trying to stay low-key, but rather trying to survive by giving little to zero information.

His strength wasn’t absolute, and with someone like Leonard’s present, he absolutely could not afford to slip up.

The portal outbreak incident was just very recent. It might have been resolved, but Leonard’s memories were definitely still fresh.

’Ugh, I don’t even recall there being an entry trial this early on.’ Ray cursed silently. From the novel he recalled, the entry trial indeed existed, but it was never revealed at the welcome ceremony.

If anything, it was considered a midterm and was mainly used to determine which student qualified for an exchange meeting with another academy.

Yes, the Crestellan Academy was the best, but that didn’t mean it was the only academy.

How ridiculous would that be?

A world this big and only one academy was available?

If people seriously thought that way, their brain might need to get checked for sure.

"Hmm, I don’t recognize this place." He was already certain the environment was probably something new, but it didn’t hurt to at least hope he explored the map previously.

Nevertheless, this eagle scope just confirmed that he would need to learn where he was.

Was he on the outer edge, inner edge, center edge, or somewhere exposed?

Too many questions...

The only thing that Ray currently knew was the bright board in the sky.

"Looks like some tryhards have already completed some of the easier missions." He muttered.

The first three missions at the top were relatively easy and were almost replaced constantly due to how frequently they were done.

Meanwhile, the middle three missions were somewhat harder and took a while to complete. This was because the requirement for completion was more tedious.

And in the last three missions, it was considered the most difficult but also the most rewarding ones.

A total of nine missions, and students were allowed to choose whichever missions they wished to complete.

There was a leaderboard ranking system too, but the first ten places had seven of them concealing their names.

The only ones that didn’t hide their names were first place, third place, and fifth place.

Fifth place was someone Ray would never forget: the protagonist William.

The third place was someone named Dorothy, and first place was called Phoebe.

’Who the hell are they?’ Ray scratched his head.

They definitely weren’t the heroines; otherwise, he would have remembered their names. Even the face could be remembered since the author described their appearance quite vividly.

It was also why he was able to recognize Samantha at first glance.

"Broke Sam is either second or fourth place based on this ranking." He highly doubted the heroine wouldn’t make it to the top 10.

After all, the other students were all background characters meant to add up the numbers to create the illusion of a large scale.

Just when Ray was curious about the first and third place, his eyes suddenly narrowed.

SHOOSH!

Without hesitation, he left the tree branch he was standing on and jumped to the other side.

Sure enough, the position he was on originally was soon blasted by water bullets.

"Tsk, you’ve managed to dodge that?" From the middle level of another tree, a female student clicked their tongue in dissatisfaction.

Their stealth and silent ambush attack had missed completely.

How in the world did he sense the danger?

No, did he even sense her presence?

That shouldn’t be the case!

No matter the answer, the female student had already lost the element of surprise, so she no longer resorted to using a light attack.

Instead, she went full blasting mode in hopes of eliminating him.

Although the missions were prioritized, eliminating Raymond would bring her directly to the golden advancement.

’Another crazy lunatic...’ Ray rolled his eyes and continued to use the Feral Movement to avoid the female student’s attack.

With his swift, nimble speed, the female student’s patience thinned.

"Are you some kind of rat?" The female student hissed and decided to cast AoE spells.

"Let’s see how you dodge this." She began to chant the large AoE spells to cover the whole surroundings.

"How stupid." It was precisely at that moment Ray changed his trajectory and charged straight at her.

"Casting a long AoE spell? Did you think I’d just sit back and wait for you to be finished?" He snickered and appeared close to her.

"N-No..." The female student’s face turned pale.