Five hours passed by in the blink of an eye and Big D returned, snapping Almond out of his ability production session.
“It’s time. Let’s go.”
Almond opened his eyes, but he was no longer in the room. Instead, he found himself in the night sky.
“What the hell is that?” Almond’s eyes were filled with amazement as he saw a huge theatre structure with a population of hundreds of thousands sitting and facing a giant rectangular screen in front of them 100 meters away. Discover more stories at My Virtual Library Empire
“They are the audience who wants to entertain themselves, and many of them are also parents, friends, and relatives to the thousands of participants.”
“Thousands?” Almond was taken aback. “This seems to be a rather big event. What do I have to do?”
Suddenly, fireworks shot into the sky and painted it beautifully.
The giant screen suddenly displayed people, but in thousands of small segregated sections on it, each displayed a person at a different place in some kind of wilderness.
“It’s time to go, and you’ll know what to do once you’re there. All the best. And by the way, if you want the clone ability, you’ll need to get into the top 10.”
Before Almond could say anything in response, Big D’s tail slapped his cheek, and he found himself near a riverbank in the forest under the night sky illuminated by three hazy moons—Blue, white, and light pink.
*Clank*
A magical wristband device automatically formed in his hand, and a voice sounded in his mind, along with an image.
[Academy’s Newbie Survival Event has started, and you are the 4938th Participant. Survive for 10 days, earn points, and climb ranks for better rewards. The dorms will also be allocated based on the ranking and can only be challenged to change every three months.]
[All the best, Almond Crowshade. The academy wishes you good luck.]
Almond blinked.
[Almond Crowshade]
-Points: 0
-Rank: 4938th
– Tabs –
<Leaderboard>
<Item box>
‘Item box? Seems like this wristband has spatial storage, which means we can collect things from this world, I suppose.’
Almond looked around. Everywhere were trees and greenery.
‘It looks like I am in a thick jungle, but I also saw some people in different biomes on the screen right before that cat sent me here.’
Almond started walking in the direction of the river’s flow.
*Shrush…*
Some bushes rustled ahead, and the area looked suspicious since it had particularly thick and big bushes.
‘Espada Ad Grimveil.’
*Swoosh!*
Suddenly, two things shot out of the bushes straight toward Almond.
‘Red rabbits with knives?’ Almond blinked and activated an ability sequence to be executed in his domain.
Destruction Blade Series: Orb of Obliteration—an active pure-offense area-of-attack sequence with a core component being what he called his Spatial Nano Armory Asset.
Just as the rabbits reached two meters away from Almond, two dreamy spheres enveloped both of them. Those dreamy spheres, however, had 100 to 100,000 nanometer-sized blades made of electric-charged crystal, but conducted to each other and formed utterly thin blades by condensing, now refined to maximum with Almond’s new assets that perfectly synergize elemental reaction between lightning and sand, creating glassy blades with utter sharpness and capable of conducting in lightning while buffed by Lumeir, giving it ultimate speed and lethality—all of that condensed and perfected inside the blade-shaped coating made of severance blade’s structure, a transferable and powerful spatial container to condense this idea of his.
The sphere briefly glowed golden, but in that single second, 150,000 nano-blades utterly shredded both things inside before vanishing, resulting in two blood puddles two meters away from Almond.
‘Covering a target of one meter in size and obliterating it in that pattern drains more Prana than I assumed. But I overkilled it anyway. If I can transfer a smaller sphere directly near a certain part of my target’s body, it can obliterate that part, and that would finish the job as well, yep.’
The wristband sent a beep in his mind, along with a notification.
[You have killed two Crimson Knives Rabbits. +2 points.]
“So this is how you earn points. The event’s theme is survival for ten days, so I guess the danger will increase gradually until it peaks on the 10th day,” Almond muttered as he continued walking. “Points should also increase with danger, I suppose.”
“Alright, this event is interesting.”
Almond grinned, feeling excited.
…
“Meow…”
Madam Ruby, who sat in the VIP booth at the top sections of the venue, suddenly heard a cat’s meow and smiled.
Big D sat down on her shoulder and yawned before looking at the screen showing Almond.
“Master, that was a rather good move, right?” Madam Ruby said.
“His eyes allow him to interact with the smallest things, and combining it with his lightning’s electromagnetic aspect with light, yeah, he did create a rather interesting and lethal technical asset.”
“That’s highly lethal in terms of penetration, and his sand only boosts that.” Madam Ruby nodded. “And with his space powers, those blades only get more lethal. Was creating that asset your idea? Because I feel like it’s very optimized. I’m afraid the Ability Power of that sequence is already at A-rank.”
“A+ rank,” Big D lazily said before adding, “And I didn’t help in anything except for pushing him and explaining basics. Whatever assets you will see are all that he came up with by using various aspects of his elemental arsenal, the use of his rather unique Intent, and his ideas.”
Big D slapped Madam Ruby’s cheek and said in a pleased tone. “The boy you brought is worth our time and effort.”
“I am very glad to hear that.” Madam Ruby smiled, appearing very jolly. “Don’t spoil more of him to me, Master. I want to watch him as he shows his abilities.”
…
Almond encountered more Crimson Knives Rabbits in the next half an hour, but he killed all of them physically with a wooden sword instead of using Prana and continued.
‘I became way more powerful in terms of combat power and arsenal, but one thing changed,’ Almond sighed as he got out of the forest and saw a big green highland plain with flame-horned bull-like monsters with crystal patterns on their bodies roaming and grazing.’
Almond’s eyes flickered. ‘Their stats are higher than mine, except for Arcane Constitution.’
[Infernal Crystal Bull]
-Lifeform Rank: Mortal
-Ability Power (AP): D+
-Prana Sea: 50
-Soul Sea: 30
-Stats:
— Body Constitution: 38
— Mental Constitution: 28
— Soul Constitution: 30
— Arcane Constitution: 25
‘That reminds me that I am curious about the AP of my current abilities.’ Almond blinked as he watched the bulls and retreated behind a tree.
‘Now then, how should I move about?’ Almond looked at his Prana Sea and fell into thought.
‘I still have my Soul Sea filled so I can recover my Prana Sea once fully, but after that, it’d need me an hour to recover my Soul Sea fully.’
‘My mythical rank talent recovers my stamina and health, but don’t recover Prana. Big D, you better be right about my innate talent adapting soon.’
On Earth, he never lacked Mana, so his powerful attacks and movements could be spammed in a way. However, most of his Primary Class was sealed, and his Mythical-rank talent wasn’t speeding his soul energy recovery, which was a must to refine wild Prana into a liquified one.
Moreover, his abilities were a bit draining, so he couldn’t use them all the time, which was why he only used wild Prana for some self-enchanting sequence and physically killed 32 Crimson Knives Rabbits in the past half an hour.
‘As far my eyes can see, there are over a hundred bulls. Mhmmm, I guess it’s time to form a strategy as well as a new sequence,’ Almond grinned. ‘Yep. Time to execute that idea into a proper ability.’
…
“Wait, you didn’t give him the basic soul art yet?!” Madam Ruby exclaimed and frowned. “How is he going to keep up with others then? With basic soul art, he can at least recover his Prana faster.”
“I also didn’t give him any Prana Art yet,” Big D lazily said.
“…” Madam Ruby was speechless. “Is that what you meant by pushing him?”
“He is the type that learns and blooms when pushed to limits,” Big D grinned. “Some of his powers need to evolve.”
Madam Ruby turned to Almond, a weak smile forming on her face. “He is going to get…fucked. I have no other way to say this. You fucked him, Master. He won’t even survive the third day now.”
“Now, now, hold your horses, lass. Just watch, and you will know,” Big D’s crystal eyes glinted as he watched Almond forming a barrier with wild Prana around him and entering a focused state.
“Abilities fueled by wild Prana aren’t as strong because wild Prana can’t be empowered by one’s Arcane Constitution. But what if his Arcane Constitution is powerful, compared to the top participants of this event, his abilities are already strong, and he can create new abilities in jiffies, and he is someone who can wrestle away control of wild Prana from any place and make it his?”
“W-What?” Madam Ruby’s eyes trembled, and she turned to Big D, her eyes intense. “Don’t tell me…”
“He is an Arcane Champion, but keep this a secret for now.”
Madam Ruby stood up in shock, her eyes looking at Almond turning very hot.
“I only thought his will was high compared to people his age, and send his tremendously high affinity with space and talents of sword and innate talent from memories I read, but I didn’t know he was also an Arcane Champion…”
“I wish I could read his memories completely like you, Master.” Madam Ruby sat down and composed herself, but the glint in her eyes didn’t wane.
“You still have a long way to go before you can break Grimworld’s encryptions that hide notifications and other Girmworld Tutorial-related information from people of other layers.”
“Anyway, it looks like Almond finished his strategy and cooking a new magic sequence.” Big D grinned as he saw Almond entering the highland filled with Infernal Crystal Bulls. “Let’s see how he goes about this.”