“The exercise you’ll be tackling is an E-ranked Mixed dungeon, also known as [Golem’s Nest],” the professor said while the students listened anxiously. He then signaled to Anthem beside him, who brought his hand forward as if casting a spell, prompting us to turn around. A huge cave entrance had suddenly appeared.
What kind of skill…
The entrance to the dungeon had appeared, and everyone looked at it in awe, surprised that they couldn’t even see through the illusion. Mixed dungeons were a type of dungeon that didn’t follow the natural order of sequences when it came to floors. The moment you enter, it’s possible to suddenly end up on the 30th floor, and instead of proceeding to the 31st on the next one, you might jump to the 10th floor or somewhere else entirely. Even the difficulty was randomly distributed among the floors, so you couldn’t let your guard down, even when entering the first floor. Only after the dungeon deemed your power ‘adequate’ could you tackle the bottom floors, which were much harder than the rest, due to the presence of ‘boss’ level mana beasts.
“This practical exercise is meant to simulate what happens in the real world, so we will only act as observers. Of course, if at any time you believe you cannot continue, you can use your watch to teleport back here,” he continued to explain, gauging the students' reactions. Though they claimed they would only be observing, it’s not like they could enter the dungeon themselves, as it would simply reject them. Since it was an E-ranked dungeon, the upper limit would be rank E; anything above that, and you’d just be stuck on the first floor.
I tapped on my watch as I listened, confirming the ‘teleport’ feature he was talking about. I didn’t feel any mana coming from the watch itself, so my guess was that the watch acted as a beacon, giving the professor an exact coordinate to allow him to teleport a student. We’d used a similar tactic for strategic retreats during the war, though we didn’t use watches.
“You will have six hours to tackle the dungeon; after that, everyone will be forcefully teleported back here. You will then be evaluated by the number of mana cores you’ve collected. Although we call this an exercise, this is real. The possibility and danger of death are very much real,” Professor Pierce said with a grim expression, causing tensions to rise as the students tried to calm their nerves. It was good to be cautious, but being too cautious could also be a disadvantage. Despite this, the professor continued,
“Beware of the words that come from the bottomless abyss. Should anyone succumb to the devils, they will immediately be expelled from the academy. We’ll give you the next ten minutes to prepare. Good luck.” He concluded in a much louder tone. The students immediately dispersed and started to talk among their teams as they prepared to tackle the dungeon.
“I thought devils were a myth,” Roran said by my side, looking at the professor with a confused expression. My teammates, including Lily, looked at him in amazement. They seemed to have gone beyond thinking he was ignorant or stupid—it was as if their brains had stopped working for a moment.
Devils. They shouldn’t be confused with the demons who were currently at war with the kingdom of Eza; these were a completely different species. No one has ever seen a devil—not now, and not in the next ten years. An existence often compared to divinity—an enemy of the gods themselves.
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“Well, if you’ve never been knocked out cold in a dungeon, then you’ll never get the chance to speak to one,” I said, trying to explain. The chances of getting knocked out in a dungeon and still making it out alive weren’t really that great, but for the unfortunate few who did wake up, they suddenly came back with a massive boost in power.
“A contract with a devil doesn’t sound too bad if you can become the strongest,” Rin said, holding her chin as if thinking carefully. Well, that’s if you don’t mind being a servant for the rest of your life.
“D-don’t joke around like that,” Ruby retorted, looking at her with worry.
“Heeh, what’s wrong with that? Well, I guess one of us here wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if I did,” she said, staring at me, causing everyone else to look at me. What does she take me for? I was offended she thought so little of me. In the first place, I hadn’t even killed that many people with my own hands.
“Um, excuse me,” a student suddenly called out to us, causing us to shift our attention. He approached us with a large group of students following behind, and after a quick glance, I recognized them as our classmates. Two students stepped forward, a boy and a girl, and they anxiously looked at me.
“What’s wrong, Casper?” I asked the boy who’d spoken first, causing him to flinch as he slowly cleared his throat. He was the student Dante wanted to elect as vice leader, and after a small vote with the other students, his name was submitted as one of my right-hand men, along with the girl next to him.
“I was thinking we could strategize with the rest of the class to help each other out. If this is a mixed dungeon, chances are we will run into a lot of students from the ‘second’ floor onward,” Casper explained as the students behind him nodded in support. He wasn’t wrong. Though the dungeon might throw all of us onto different floors at first, it would start mixing us up as we progressed further.
“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. As the professor said, this is meant to simulate the real world. We shouldn’t see each other as fellow classmates but as clanmates. We’ll proceed with the MX Protocols as we’ve learned from class. Therefore, I will not take action against any student from our class even if they attack or steal cores from our classmates. That’s just how it is,” I said, making sure even the students trying to spy on us from the other classes also heard my statement.
Whatever happens inside a dungeon stays in the dungeon. There aren’t any cameras watching anyone, so it’s a free-for-all. Even the so-called MX Protocols are nothing but words on paper. Plus, this wasn't really an inter-class competition. There was a reason why selecting a class leader wasn't compulsory till the end of the month. Inter-class competitions would only occur from next month onward. As Casper looked at me with a somewhat frustrated expression, I added,
“Well, if you feel like you’re struggling, you can team up with at least one other team from our class. I don’t advise anything beyond that.”
“Right.” He nodded at my words, and the students around us all started to disperse. That additional rule I added wasn’t really for everyone in our class. Because of Dante’s demise, there was a team with only three students, so I wanted to give them a fair chance. After the incident, I was able to talk to the staff so they would allow me to swap a few students into the three-man team. As a result, it’s probably the second or third-strongest team in our class.
“Um, hey Ian, I think the professor wants to talk to you,” Lily suddenly said by my side, causing the rest of my team to turn around in surprise. She had been standing there the whole time, but they hadn’t even sensed her. I had just exposed our strategy while one of our strongest would-be opponents was standing in front of us. What an annoying skill. I acted like I was already aware of her presence and turned to her.
“Who told you that?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, it’s Anthem. They’re calling all the class leaders,” she explained as she pointed toward her head. Thought communication? It was a special skill that went for billions on the market. Yes, billions. I shuddered as I walked away from my team, thinking of just how many more bizarre skills I would see from the Dragnoks.
“I will be back.”