I walked out of the dark tunnel and into the Zone.
It was incredible. One second I was inside an office building, and the next, I was standing in the middle of a fake city. The System had created an entire city block out of thin air. There were concrete buildings, parked cars, and streetlights. The sky above was cloudy.
I looked down the street at pure chaos.
The exam had already started. The other applicants were running around, shouting and fighting. The System Constructs were muscular men made of gray clay.
I watched the elites go to work. A girl in a sponsored blue suit shot a massive beam of ice from her hands, freezing three Constructs to the wall. A guy in heavy armor charged forward, smashing Constructs into pieces with a giant hammer. They were fast, powerful, and showing off for the cameras hidden around the Zone.
Then I watched the desperate adults. They were struggling. A man in a dirty jacket tried to punch a Construct, but the Construct grabbed his arm and threw him into a parked car. The man hit the ground hard. A red light flashed above his head and he vanished. The System had teleported him out. He failed.
I stayed near the entrance. My Agility stat was 6, and my stamina was terrible. If I tried to run down the street, I would be out of breath in twenty seconds.
I started walking at a comfortable pace.
Up ahead, I saw Leo. He was fighting a Construct near a fake bus stop. He was jumping around, dodging punches, and waiting for his Kinetic Punch Blessing to charge up. He was working really hard and sweating a lot.
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I walked past him. I didn't want to get involved.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned my head.
A Construct had spawned from an alleyway. It was staring right at me. It raised its fists and charged. It was fast. It covered the distance between us in seconds.
If that Construct hit me, my Level 1 Health Points would drop to zero instantly. I would fail the exam and get kicked out.
I opened my Status Screen in my mind and looked at my Blessing Points.
BP: 20/20.
I needed to stop the Construct, but I couldn't use a big attack. I couldn't blast it with wind or freeze it solid. That would cost too much BP. I had to be smart and use the absolute minimum amount of effort.
I looked at the sides of its head, right where its ears would be.
Even though Constructs are made of clay, the System builds them to function like humans. They have internal organs and inner ears that control their balance.
The Construct now only five feet away pulled its arm back to punch me in the face.
I used my S-Tier Blessing, Master of the Elements.
I targeted the tiny pockets of air inside the Construct's inner ears and rapidly increased the atmospheric pressure in those tiny spaces, making the air incredibly heavy.
Cost: 1 BP.
The effect was instant.
The Construct's sense of balance was completely destroyed. It tried to take another step, but its brain thought the ground was suddenly tilted sideways.
The Construct missed its punch entirely, stumbled, its legs twisting awkwardly and violently threw up on the concrete, then collapsed onto its side. It twitched on the ground, unable to figure out which way was up.
I stepped over it and kept walking.
I knew the HRC proctors were watching through the cameras. I wondered if they even understood what I just did.