Outside the pod, the supervisors started to get worried when they saw that the bar remained red even after filling up.
"What's going on? Why hasn't it sent him there like the rest?" The supervisor with worm-like hairs asked the people on lab coats.
"It would seem this candidate has a very high mental resistance," One of them replied.
"What?! There's no way in hell he is supposed to be able to resist a brain inducer of this level!" The supervisor with the Rhino horns voiced out.
"We don't know, but the machine seems to be having trouble sending his consciousness there. That's the only reason we can come up with," Another one of them answered again.
"It must be dysfunctional then,"
While they were arguing, Gradier Xanatus stared at the pod with a confounded look, 'Him being able to resist this... Not even special class candidates can do this... What is he?'
While everyone was in their thoughts of confusion, the bar suddenly turned green.
"Um?"
Everyone stared at the pod and sighed in relief a second after.
'Looks like he wasn't able to resist it in the end,' Gradier Xanatus said internally.
"Check if his brain waves are okay... Any sign of irregularity?" Gradier Xanatus asked.
Trooinn!
A holographic scan of Gustav's brain appeared in mid-air.
"He's... Perfectly fine," One of the people on lab coats voiced out.
Gustav found himself inside the same world he saw on the holographic projection within the small room where the supervisors stayed.
As far as his eyes could see, everywhere was set ablaze. The ground, the mountain, the trees, the skies, the birds, they all blazed with yellow and green fire.
In front of him was a path also laced with fire. Gustav was standing on fire, but surprisingly, he didn't feel hot or uncomfortable in any way. Still, to walk ahead, one would also have to walk on a path of fire.
'Parts of this projection is an illusion, and parts of it are also real... Walking on the wrong side of the ground will get a person burnt,' Gustav said internally. He immediately figured out that he was probably stepping on the illusionary part of the fire. However, once he started walking, he would need to watch out for the real parts so he wouldn't get burnt.
'This will be fun,' Gustav smirked.
Just as he was about to take a step forward, the system messaged him.
("I shall now return your stats back to normal,")
Before Gustav could react to that, he noticed his vision changing.
Things became clearer, and in a manner of seconds, most of the fire around him had turned transparent.
He looked down and noticed that he was standing on transparent yellow and green fire.
Some parts of the path ahead of him still had a normal-looking green and yellow fire burning on the ground, while others were transparent.
No one needed to tell Gustav before he figured out that the transparent fires were illusionary while the normal ones were real.
Sigh!
'So much for having fun...' Gustav said Internally as he began to walk forward.
He thought this was going to be a little challenging, but with his stats returning to normal, he saw through everything.
'I guess I should just go find the exit now,' Gustav muttered while dashing forward.
[Dash has been activated]
Swoosh!
He moved across the blazing grounds with speed.
Sometimes he was on the left, and other times he would move to the right.
"He got in thirty minutes after the rest of the participants. Shouldn't we give him a little more time?" The supervisor with grey hair questioned while staring at the timer on the top right corner of the room.
"He won't be needing that," Gradier Xanatus replied and pointed at a particular part of the split screens where Gustav could be seen dashing across a blazing field.
-"What in the world?"
-"He's accurately dodging all the real fires and running through the illusionary fires?"
The supervisors were gobsmacked when they saw him.
The large holographic projection had thousands of split screens based on the number of the participants, so they hadn't seen Gustav earlier. Nevertheless, Gradier Xanatus could spot Gustav the instant his consciousness got tossed into that world.
Other participants showcased on the screens were moving quite slowly because it wasn't easy to differentiate between reality and illusion. If they were hasty, their virtual body made from their consciousness would be burnt to ashes.
It was just like a game. If their bodies were burnt to ashes, they would respawn several thousand feet behind from where their bodies burnt, and this would waste more of their time.
In thirty minutes, more than a hundred participants had been burnt to ashes once or twice and had to do it over.
Since the use of bloodline abilities was allowed, some had gotten ahead of others since their ability made it easy for them to scale through the region of blazing grounds. However, the ground wasn't the only thing within this world to worry about.
The participants would find out the hard way that other things would give them difficulty. Even their ability wouldn't give them an easy pass when they encounter such situations.
Gustav kept running across the field, dodging the fires. When he got to a particular point, he could see different participants moving ahead slowly.
They heard the sound of the wind behind and turned around with a look of surprise.
-"What is he doing?
-"Doesn't he know that he shouldn't be moving so quickly around here?"
There were about six of them within the vicinity. The participants looked like they formed some kind of group as they slowly moved forward after studying a particular area properly.
"Hey, you're gonna get roasted if you keep moving forward like that," One of them voiced out as Gustav closed in on them.
They happened to be passing the only part that was blazing with illusionary fire at the moment so, Gustav had to slow down and move according to their speed.