After finishing his instructions to the candidates, Tarun entered the monitoring room prepared on the third floor of the training ground, where a massive screen glowed inside the darkened room.
Inside the monitoring room, the instructors in charge of evaluation were seated in place.
Tarun sat in an empty chair and muttered quietly.
“No matter how many times I see it, this technology is incredible.”
The training ground, called the essence of the Imperial Army’s Ministry of Magic Development, had real-time video transmission devices installed throughout it, with a system that allowed them to observe the situation on-site in real time.
As he quietly watched the screen, a voice came from one side.
“It’s begun.”
The stage for this training had been created by recreating the tragic day known as the Nightmare of Pontey.
The Imperial Army’s coldheartedness in using such a sorrowful piece of history was chilling enough, but—
What was even more astonishing was the degree of its reproduction.
The magical beasts implemented within moves and attacked at the same level as real ones, and the simulation was so sophisticated that someone entering it for the first time would be unable to tell whether it was reality or illusion.
The trainees on the screen also seemed flustered by the sense of realism, enough to mistake it for the real thing, but soon they began moving busily under their respective squad leaders.
“I wonder which squad will take first place this time.”
At the excited voice of another instructor, Tarun quietly remained silent.
***
Had about five minutes passed since it began?
Already, hoarse shouts were ringing out from every direction.
“Defense team, kill the slimes or stop their advance with magic!”
“Rescue team! Survivor here!!”
Amid the frantic situation, Gale calmly moved his feet and rescued the citizens hiding inside the buildings.
After running up and down through building after building, his legs were already beginning to tremble.
Gale paused to catch his breath and muttered.
“I know it’s virtual training, but... making the citizens not move at all is really too much.”
Every survivor sat collapsed on the floor, their faces locked in panic.
To rescue them, the only option was to carry each one on his back out of the building.
Survivors began gathering one by one at the rescue point that way, but—
“Huff... I’ll just... rest for a little bit!”
“There’s no time to rest. Move as hard as you can for just one hour!”
The stamina of those in the rescue team was falling rapidly.
Even while going in and out of buildings to rescue survivors, Gale carefully watched the situation at the front.
‘The defense team... is doing well.’
Gale had joined the rescue team partly because rescuing survivors was worth a high score.
But another reason was that lava slimes were not particularly powerful magical beasts.
Their weakness was that if water-attribute magic rapidly lowered their temperature, their surface would blacken and harden, stopping their movement.
After facing a few of them, the others would likely realize that dealing with them was not difficult. Anesia seemed to have realized that as well, because she began moving some members of the defense team to the rescue team.
“Those who are out of mana, or anyone who can’t use water-attribute magic, join the rescue team!”
As new personnel joined the rescue team, the movements of the existing members also began to grow more active.
While one side was working hard like that—
“Ah, this is fucking exhausting. They aren’t even actually alive, so why did they make it this hard?”
“Exactly. What kind of survivor is that? They don’t budge at all, like corpses.”
Complaints began breaking out on the other side.
Already, quite a number of candidates were sitting collapsed on the ground.
Watching them, Gale quietly hurried his steps.
After climbing a nearby tall building, Gale carefully examined the situation at the front.
In the front, black substances, no different from lava slime corpses, were piled up in layers.
The defense team was devoted to fulfilling its duty and spraying water-attribute magic, but they could not stop all the lava slimes that surged in without end.
“Damn it! A few got through!”
“I’ll handle them!”
It seemed the close-combat weapon users were dealing with the slimes leaking past the ice wall set up by the mana users. Watching that, Gale muttered inwardly.
‘It’s about to begin.’
The fact that lava slimes were weak to the water attribute was widely known, and attacking lava slimes with water-attribute magic could not exactly be called wrong.
But if there was one thing they had overlooked—
‘Blackened, hardened lava slimes aren’t dead.’
The lava slime cores that were still perfectly alive within continued burning, and once the core could no longer withstand the pressure, it eventually exploded while releasing an enormous amount of energy.
BOOM—!
As if proving that fact, a massive explosion rang out in the distance along with a tremor that shook the earth.
“Wh-what is that?!”
“Gah! The slimes exploded!”
The corpses of the lava slimes piled on the ground soon began exploding one after another.
BOOM—! BOOM—!
The lava slimes piled on top of them began flying into the sky.
WHOOOSH—!
The lava slimes flung away by the force of the explosions boasted destructive power like siege weapons and began turning Pontey into utter chaos.
When Gale looked toward the southern gathering point where the rescued survivors had gathered, the members of Squad One were knocking away the incoming slimes.
“Now! Deploy the mana Barrier and stop the slimes!”
Protecting the survivors was just as important as rescuing them.
If the evaluators were watching this situation, they would be unable to resist giving them bonus points.
‘So they did know that part was worth a lot of points. But where did Kuff go?’
The Squad One leader, who Gale had naturally assumed would be there, was nowhere to be seen.
Well, did it matter?
Gale turned his gaze again and looked toward the north, where the slimes were flooding in.
By now, most of the people in the outskirts had been rescued.
At the front, they were fiercely holding back the slimes, but—
The continuing explosions were beginning to create casualties one by one.
Because people had been pulled away to the rescue team, the weakened defensive line continued being pushed back, and before anyone realized it, half the town had been occupied by them.
At this rate, the entire town would clearly be turned into a mess by the lava slimes falling from the sky.
‘I need to hurry.’
As the situation grew worse and worse, Gale hurriedly moved his feet.
The Pontey training currently underway was a simulation created based on a real incident.
A long time after Pontey Island was destroyed by lava slimes, scholars investigated to determine why lava slimes had swarmed Pontey.
There had been various twists and turns, but in the end, they discovered the reason the lava slimes had swarmed Pontey.
It was—
“Because Vulcanus, the incarnation of fire, was enraged.”
Ordinarily, incarnations could not interfere with the present world.
Humans also could not approach them, but through sacred relics related to incarnations, it was possible to approach them indirectly.
Since long ago, humanity had prayed to incarnations and wished for blessings through such sacred relics.
But because Pontey’s governor abused Vulcanus’s power through a sacred relic, the enraged Vulcanus used the sacred relic in reverse to pour out his anger, which became the cause of Pontey’s destruction.
After that truth was revealed, the Imperial Army’s Ministry of Magic Development had recreated the incarnation’s sacred relic in the simulation with thorough historical verification as part of history education. In other words—
‘If I destroy that, I can save Pontey.’
From the beginning, Gale had been aiming for the sacred relic, busily roaming through every corner of the town, but he had been unable to find where it was.
Where is it?
As he ran, his breath rose to the tip of his throat.
If he delayed any longer here, Pontey would likely be destroyed faster than he could find the sacred relic.
After running around while even using Wind magic to lighten his body, Gale finally found a building radiating an unusual energy.
‘Found it.’
The place where Pontey’s governors once stayed.
Dumbir Mansion.
That was the root of the problem.
Gale quickly approached the building, then frowned at the appearance of an unexpected person.
In front of Dumbir Mansion, Kuff had arrived first and was killing the lava slimes gathered before the mansion.
When he found Gale, his face brightened and he said, “You came at just the right time. Take care of these things!”
“Why should I?”
Gale ran forward quickly and aimed his finger at the lava slimes within his movement path.
‘Air Bullet.’
The magic fired from Gale’s fingertip pierced the cores of the lava slimes with precision, and he avoided the fallen lava slimes before immediately rushing into Dumbir Mansion.
Watching Gale dart into the building, Kuff spat out a curse.
“That bastard... Argh... Damn it!”
He tried to follow Gale into the mansion, but he was too busy blocking the attacks of the lava slimes surrounding him.
Once Gale entered the mansion—
Heat swelled over him.
He covered his face against the heat coming from within and muttered.
‘Water Ball.’
Gale burned through half the mana he had to create thick water-attribute droplets.
He modified the mana structure of the existing Water Ball, created space inside it, and realized it in a form that wrapped around his body.
The moisture dried rapidly from the heat radiating around him, and mana drained away in real time, but only then could he breathe a little more comfortably.
Once Gale finished preparing and moved past the entrance hall toward the living room—
There, a high-purity mana stone recreating the incarnation’s sacred relic was burning fiercely.
“So this is the sacred relic.”
Gale looked at the fiercely burning mana stone as it emitted powerful mana waves.
The fact that a sacred relic had been implemented in the Pontey simulation was a secret that was not quite a secret, known by a small number of people.
Many candidates who knew about it had tried to destroy it, but only one person had ever actually succeeded.
The genius swordsman Lucius Malika, who had been at the same training camp as Gale in his previous life, was the only one.
‘Smashing something this precious just like that... He wasn’t sane either.’
Fwoosh.
The mana stone flashed as if it were not an object of this world.
Even at a glance, its hardness was clearly extraordinary.
But the smile never left Gale’s face.
‘If I absorb all this, I can reach the 3rd Tier easily.’
The reason Gale had moved so busily to find the mana stone was to absorb the high-purity mana dwelling within it.
However, accepting such high-purity mana into his body as it was would be no different from suicide.
He needed preparation in order to absorb it.
At that moment, Kuff’s voice came from behind him.
“Haa... Haa... Don’t touch that. It’s mine.”
Kuff was suffering from the mana waves pouring out of the mana stone, yet he somehow managed to smile.
He had come in with his bare body and no preparation at all.
Watching him suffer, Gale took one step back.
“Go ahead, then.”
“Move!”
Before long, Kuff rushed past Gale and swung his sword straight at the mana stone.
“Haaap!!”
Kuff swung his sword with a determined expression.
But the mana stone merely repelled his sword with ease.
“Damn it...! Why is it this hard...?!”
In the case of a high-purity mana stone, its hardness alone was comparable to an actual sacred relic.
Unless one could break through the mana waves surrounding it, even touching the mana stone was impossible.
Knowing that, Gale let out a sigh as he watched Kuff continue his pointless effort.
“With swordsmanship like that, you won’t even come close if you beat at it for ten years.”
“Shut up...! A commoner should just stand there and watch.”
Perhaps realizing that swinging his sword normally could not break the mana stone,
Kuff brought up a magic circle in one hand and implanted it directly into his sword.
Then blue energy wavered around the sword, and soon it began emitting a cold chill.
Gale watched the sight with interest and muttered inwardly.
‘So that’s the famous magic swordsmanship of House Granz.’
After smugly casting magic swordsmanship, Kuff swung his sword at the sacred relic with all his might.
“Uaaaaaah!! Break already!!”
But no matter how many times he swung, the mana stone did not budge.
Despairing, Kuff collapsed onto the floor.
Under the mana waves pouring out without rest, he exhaled hot breaths.
“Are you done?”
“...Damn it, why won’t it break...?!”
Gale looked at Kuff, exhausted and collapsed on the floor, and thought.
He was someone who would someday become a member of the Golden Dawn Society.
‘When I think of that, I want to kill him right here and now, but....’
Gale turned his head, and his gaze touched the real-time video transmission device embedded in a corner of the ceiling.
The real-time video transmission device did not show intangible forces such as mana waves or sound, but it captured and recorded actions accurately.
‘The problem is that the instructors are probably watching right now.’
Gale sighed and approached Kuff.
“Move. You’re in the way.”
“Haa... Haa... You think you can break that?”
To Gale, who had a genius-level talent for handling mana, the mana stone burning fiercely before his eyes appeared as a mass of pure mana.
Gale smacked his lips and slipped a hand into the subspace pouch at his waist.
‘They said personal weapons are allowed in the training camp, so it shouldn’t be a problem.’
What Gale drew from the pouch was the jewel sword Tyrant, which he had previously received from Count Orhan.
The sword itself had no lethal ability, but 5th Tier magic slept within it.
When he drew the sword and gently poured mana into it, the magic formula embedded inside faintly surfaced.
Tyrant meant ruler, despot.
And this sword contained magic that suited that meaning perfectly.
5th Tier magic: Spatial Domination.
Spatial Domination was magic that seized control of the space around the caster in exchange for burning up all the mana the caster possessed, allowing the caster to freely manipulate the mana within it.
‘There’s no second chance. I have to absorb it all at once.’
Gale closed his eyes and poured mana into Tyrant, activating the engraved magic formula.
Soon, it began to tremble roughly, emitting a blue light.
The thickness of the Water Ball thinned, and he gradually began to feel the hot wind around him.
After completing every preparation, Gale gripped Tyrant in both hands and said in a small voice, “Dominate, Tyrant.”
When he pulled the trigger holding back the release of the magic—
In that instant, intense light burst from the jewel sword, and his vision was dyed white.