The holographic image spread over the entire sky, and each of the students could clearly see it.
It was mainly divided into three areas.
One of the areas was a place with dotted red lines, and just two green dots amongst the dotted lines.
One could take these red dotted lines to represent the geniuses and the green ones signifying the two Ascension Academy students in front of them.
After the area showing the dotted lines was another area denoted with trees. It was none other than the forest before the students, taking a larger portion.
Following the forest area was an area with the structure of a school, with other buildings, standing almost like a city.
That was none other than the Ascension Academy.
Now each of the students understood what they needed to do.
The academy was the end goal, and standing in the path of that goal was the forest before them.
All they needed to do was cross the forest, and the earlier they crossed the forest and appeared before the school gate, the higher their ranks and potentially more rewards.
It was an incredibly simple test, one which seemed too simple for a renowned school such as the Ascension Academy.
After the students understood, the holograph was withdrawn by them, and they both slowly floated into the air.
"Now that you all understand the objectives, I wonder who will be the first top ten amongst you?" Those were the last words of the human who instantly became a beam of light soaring away and disappearing into the distance.
"Seems like this will be an easy win for our Avian race, hahaha..." The boisterous laughter of the bird-like humanoids rang out as they slowly rose into the air with the aid of their wings and soon shot into the distance.
Because they possessed wings, it was almost an unfair advantage, but the geniuses didn’t seem to be bothered by that.
Wings alone weren’t enough to beat them in a run.
Instantly, all of the geniuses began disappearing into the forest, fading away amongst the trees.
Ryuk was about to ask whether they all wanted to stick together to cross the forest, but he closed his mouth when he saw the Fallen geniuses walking away in their own personal direction.
It was obvious what the answer was.
Each student was there for him or herself.
The earlier you get to the gate, the better.
They didn’t seem like they would be needing any teamwork.
"Well then..." A voice sounded beside Ryuk’s ear as he turned his head, finding Morgaine calmly walking away.
"See you at the front gate, Ryuk..." She said as she slowly disappeared into the forest.
Soon enough, there was only Ryuk left.
"Am I the only one who thinks this forest will be anything but normal? If we had stuck together, we would have had better advantages with greater numbers and better options to handle whatever it was. Yet every single genius all went their own ways..." Ryuk mused, wondering if he was the only sane person, but then he shrugged helplessly as he also began walking.
"Guess I’ll just have to face whatever is out there alone, just like how I’ve always done.." He mused, and his figure also faded away from the area, which was soon returned to silence.
---
STEP
STEP
STEP
The sound of hurried footsteps echoed through the area as a snow-white figure passed through the various trees with speed, his eyes directed to the front.
The figure was none other than Ryuk, and the deeper he went, the more he felt uncomfortable. Somehow, he couldn’t help but have all of his hairs standing on end.
To top it all off, he hadn’t met a single one of the geniuses all through his run that had lasted for three hours now.
A hundred geniuses in a forest which didn’t seem to be that big.
At the very least, he ought to come across a single figure, but he had yet to find anyone.
"There’s something wrong. Something really wrong..." Ryuk mused.
As if to prove his thoughts, he suddenly raised his head and found tumultuous pitch-black clouds starting to cover the entire sky.
Not long after...
PACK! PACK! PACK!
Rain began pouring down, and he couldn’t help but pause in his steps, his hand stretching out toward the rain.
"It’s raining? Why at this time of all times?" he whispered asked, but his eyes flashed when he saw the notification.
[Mana: -1!]
[Mana: -1!]
[Mana: -1!]
"So the raindrops take away mana with every drop, huh?" Ryuk mused as he stepped away from the rain and took shade under a tree to confirm his thoughts.
And just like he guessed, the notification of mana being deducted disappeared.
’Most of the geniuses will suffer from this. I have the system, and that’s why I immediately noticed the rain was draining mana. None of the geniuses have the same, so they will only wonder why they’re suddenly getting weaker.’
’Those who can fly will need mana to fly, so this automatically cancels out their advantages. Pretty genius...’
"And also, I really am not alone. Just like I guessed..." Ryuk mused.
Less than a split second later, a gigantic claw tore through Ryuk’s figure hiding beneath the tree, ripping the tree trunk into bits.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
The slashed tree was instantly sent flying toward the other trees, knocking into them and smashing them into pieces. Instantly, an area of 10 meters was cleared away of trees, and the ground 3 meters away bore long claw marks dragging across it.
The figure responsible for the attack was a 4-meter-tall tiger with steel-like paws.
Instead of a tail, it had a scorpion’s stinger dangling behind it.
Slowly raising its paw to itself, the tiger expected the sweet smell of blood, but then it found nothing.
Looking 11 meters away, it spotted a figure sitting on a tree, his curious eyes looking up and down at the tiger.
ROOOOOOOAAARRRR