The heavy wall of mist rolled completely apart without making a single sound.
It didn’t drift naturally with the mountain wind; it moved with a deliberate, unnatural purpose.
Slowly, a wide, sweeping stone bridge emerged from the endless white fog, extending across the abyss toward a massive, jagged mountain peak that hadn’t been visible just moments before.
Audible gasps erupted across the crowd of applicants.
“…Was that peak always sitting there?”
“It wasn’t! I swear to God, there was nothing but open sky a second ago!”
The bridge itself looked immensely ancient.
Its weathered, uneven stones were covered in thick patches of pale green moss, while a long line of broken stone statues lined both sides of the pathway.
Many of the effigies had lost their heads, arms, or torsos to the passage of centuries, leaving only the eerie, silent silhouettes of forgotten warriors standing an eternal watch over the chasm.
At the far end of the stone bridge stood a pair of towering, midnight-black gates that rose easily fifty meters into the air.
Neither gold, silver, nor precious jewels decorated their surface.
Instead, countless names were deeply carved across the dark metal, thousands upon thousands of them tightly packed together.
Lyra slowed her pace as she crossed, staring up at the monolithic structure.
“…What are all those names?”
Before anyone could answer her, the massive black gates let out a low, resonant groan.
The sound vibrated through the stone beneath her boots like a crack of distant thunder.
Then, slowly, the gates swung inward.
Beyond the black threshold lay a vast, perfectly circular stone plaza that seemed to carve itself directly into the mountain plateau.
There were no visible campus buildings and no traditional academy infrastructure.
There were only hundreds of elevated stone platforms arranged in a precise geometric pattern across an enormous, open field.
Standing dead center in the plaza was a single, elderly man dressed in plain, unadorned gray robes.
He looked remarkably ordinary… perhaps too ordinary for a place of such grandeur.
His weathered hands were clasped calmly behind his back as his ageless eyes quietly observed the arriving wave of applicants.
Yet, despite his simple appearance, not a single student dared to raise their voice.
His sheer, ambient presence made the very air in the plaza feel incredibly heavy, pressing down on their chests.
The moment the very last student stepped through the threshold, the black gates behind them violently slammed shut.
BOOM.
The deafening impact echoed across the entire valley.
Several students instinctively spun around in panic, only to drop their jaws in terror.
The towering black gates had completely vanished into thin air.
Behind them remained only a sheer, endless cliffside dropping into the white void.
There was no bridge anymore.
No mist.
No way back.
A frantic murmur rapidly spread through the crowd.
“W-Where did the entrance go?”
“Are we trapped here?.”
The elderly man in gray robes finally spoke.
“Welcome.”
His voice wasn’t loud or forced, yet every single person in the plaza heard it as clearly as if he were whispering right beside their ear.
“You have all willingly accepted Astral Academy’s invitation. You now stand firmly within the Realm of Examination.” He paused, his gaze sweeping across the hundreds of tense faces.
“Only those who successfully complete the entire examination curriculum will be permitted to enter Astral Academy proper.”
A boy near the front lines hesitantly raised his hand.
“Sir… what happens to those of us who fail the exam?”
The old man’s expression remained completely unchanged, his voice flat.
“You will be permitted to return home.” The crowd visibly relaxed, a collective sigh of relief passing through the teenagers.
Then, the old man calmly added, “…Assuming you survive.” Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
An absolute, chilling silence returned to the plaza.
A few of the wealthier students laughed nervously, desperately trying to treat the statement as a standard psychological joke meant to scare them.
But the old man didn’t offer a single smile.
“You have been carefully selected from across the lands because each of you possesses something unique,” the instructor continued.
“Be it brute strength, raw talent, hidden potential, extraordinary luck, or a specific destiny. But potential alone is entirely worthless in the real world. A Beast Master who lacks the capacity to survive holds no value. You cannot protect anything if you are dead.”
The atmosphere in the plaza grew painfully tense.
Even Kael Draven, standing prominently near the front of the crowd with his arms crossed, narrowed his disciplined eyes.
The old man lazily waved his right hand through the air.
Instantly, hundreds of glowing crystal bracelets materialized out of the ether, floating gently toward each individual student.
One of the bands stopped directly in front of Lyra.
She reached out, catching it instinctively.
The moment her fingers closed around the crystal, the bracelet wrapped itself securely around her left wrist, shrinking automatically until it formed a perfect, snug fit.
A glowing silver number materialized directly above the crystal surface:
*10*
“What exactly does the number indicate?” someone shouted from the back.
“Examination Points,” the old man answered calmly.
“Every applicant begins their trial with exactly ten points. You will gain more points by successfully overcoming the challenges presented to you. You will lose them through failure or weakness. If your point total ever reaches zero… you are instantly eliminated from the examination.”
Another student frowned, looking around at his peers.
“So we’re supposed to fight each other for points?”
“If you find it necessary,” the old man replied vaguely, offering neither a direct yes nor a no.
The crowd shifted uneasily, eyes darting left and right as teenagers began to view their neighbors as immediate threats.
Lyra glanced down at her wrist, staring at the glowing number ten.
It seemed simple enough on paper.
Then, Myrmor’s voice echoed sharply in her mind.
“Do not underestimate the weight of those numbers, Lyra.”
‘I wasn’t planning to,’ she thought back grimly.
“Good.”
The elderly instructor slowly raised his right hand toward the sky.
“The first trial… begins now.”
The ground beneath their feet violently trembled.
The elevated stone platforms scattered across the plaza began to light up one after another, ancient, glowing runes covering every inch of their weathered surfaces.
The ambient air itself began to distort and warp with heavy spiritual pressure.
Several students stepped back in sheer panic, drawing their weapons.
“What is happening?!”
A deafening, earth-shaking chorus of roars answered them from the perimeter.
It wasn’t just one beast.
It was hundreds of them.
The dense, ancient forest surrounding the open plaza instantly came alive with terrifying energy.
Large flocks of birds scattered frantically into the sky as the massive trees shook violently.
Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed from every single direction, vibrating through the stone floor.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Then, bursting through the tree line, dozens of savage beasts emerged into the light.
Stone Wolves with razor-sharp rocky hides, massive Iron-Horn Boars with gleaming tusks, sleek Shadow Panthers blending into the darkness, and aggressive Flame Lizards dripping sparks from their jaws.
“Summon! Summon your beasts!” students screamed across the plaza as the entire area erupted into pure, unadulterated chaos.
“Everyone remain calm! Form defensive lines!” a student tried to shout over the din.
But before anyone could organize a cohesive strategy, one of the Stone Wolves lunged forward with terrifying speed.
A male student screamed in terror, his newly awakened Beast Soul barely materializing in time to block the snapping jaws before both user and beast were violently thrown across the stone floor by the sheer impact.
Another wild beast charged into the fray from the left, then another from the right.
Within mere seconds, the organized plaza descended into a chaotic, bloody battlefield.
Lyra took a calculated step backward, then another, keeping her back toward one of the unlit stone pillars.
‘…Myrmor.’
“I am here, Lyra.”
*What do I do?
How do I fight this many?*
“Do exactly what you have already begun to learn,”the ant instructed calmly.
Lyra took a deep, stabilizing breath, forcing the rising panic out of her chest as she watched a Shadow Panther sprint past.
Observe.
Adapt.
Survive.
Myrmor said nothing more, leaving her to navigate the madness herself.
Near the front lines, Kael Draven finally moved.
The magnificent, towering phantom of the Heavenly Dragon Emperor erupted into existence behind him with a brilliant flash of blue light.
With one casual, devastating swing of its enormous tail, the celestial beast blasted three charging Stone Wolves completely across the plaza, shattering their rocky armor instantly.
The surrounding students stared in absolute awe.
“So strong…”
“He didn’t even use a skill, he defeated them instantly!”
Kael didn’t look the least bit proud or relieved.
To a genius of his caliber, handling beasts of this level was merely a routine expectation.
Meanwhile, on the outer edge of the chaos, Lyra wasn’t engaging in any fights.
She was watching everything with absolute focus.
As her eyes darted across the battlefield, she noticed something incredibly strange about the wild creatures.
The beasts weren’t actually attacking the students in random, feral bursts.
Their movements, their flanking maneuvers, and their attack timings… were systematically coordinated.
It was almost as though an invisible commander was directing their lines from the shadows.
Her amber eyes narrowed in deep thought.
‘…That’s intentional.
They’re testing us.’
Before she could process the thought further, a sharp, terrified cry echoed from the center of the fray behind her.
“Get away! Ah!”
“Mira!” Lyra gasped, spinning around instantly.
The cheerful, auburn-haired girl she had met on the mountain path had taken a heavy hit and fallen hard to the stone floor.
A massive, enraged Iron-Horn Boar was already tensing its muscles, preparing to charge straight toward her prone body.
Its deadly, metallic tusks gleamed sharply under the afternoon sun.
Mira’s own wolf beast soul had been knocked aside by a different strike, struggling to reform its shape.
She wouldn’t be able to dodge the incoming impact in time.
Without a single second of hesitation, Lyra sprinted forward.
Her legs burned, but she ran faster than she ever had during her morning neighborhood drills, heading straight toward the trajectory of the charging beast.