Chapter 386

Elijah then shared the various rules of the academy with them, giving the parents and students a full rundown of what would be the consequence of breaking them.

Afterward, they were led by Martin to their various assigned rooms where they would spend the next week in solo study with him on the fundamentals of magic.

Their curriculum was similar to what Darius had taught his five Apprentices, but these students only got the general version which was far less detailed.

After this one-week period, there was an Awakening Ceremony where certain high-quality resources were used to stimulate the latent magical talent in the students to help them awaken.

This was to speed up the natural awakening process and with the kind of resources used, it had a guaranteed 100% success rate.

Of course, it would have been not only easier but also more effective to use Darius' Awakening Scrolls, but this would also be foolish.

The kind of talents it could grant a person should not be widespread which was why it was being sold so thinly.

Despite all of the students receiving the same resources the differences between the classes quickly became apparent.

Those from the Common Class awoke 1-2 elements, those from the Elite Class awoke 2-3 elements, with two of them even being lucky enough to awaken pinnacle elements as their primary elements.

As for the Master Class, the boy awoke 3 elements, a pinnacle one as his primary, as well as two rare elements, whereas the girl managed to awake 4 elements, a pinnacle one for her primary and secondary element.

2 weeks later, Safemoon Academy held an even larger recruitment for the Battle Corps and the attendance was far more massive, the elimination also far more brutal.

Since these kids were already sparked, apart from the first stage where talent and potential were tested, they also had to fight in a short tournament to decide which 150 students would be admitted.

That would be the total enrollment for the Safemoon Academy every year, a maximum of 200 students. 150 in the Battle Corps and 50 for the Mage Academy.

This was an efficient system that would likely last for months and years on end, assuming Safemoon City itself lasted that long.

.........

The five Apprentices stood before the huge entrance that led to the Wood element dungeon of their city. On the side, many new members of the Safemoon Adventurer's Guild were also entering periodically in large groups, numbering between 20 to 50, which left the teenagers shocked.

They had discovered during their studies beforehand that the dungeon was supposed to be tough and required a huge group to make survival possible, but they had no option as Darius stated they would have to clear it both alone and in a group.

Very wisely, they decided to go as a group first to scout out the situation and gauge how much they could do. As such, they braced themselves and entered much to the shock of onlookers who had believed they were waiting for the rest of their group.

Upon entry, they were admitted to the first rest area. Here, there were some chairs and tables that they could sit on, and they could either chat, eat or just rest until they felt ready.

Unlike typical dungeons, there was a small staircase on the side that would allow them to simply exit at any time. This was also true for the rest of the checkpoints. Those further in even had beds, healing pools, and some useful herbs for detoxification and the like.

These were all implemented by Xela who Darius had left in charge of managing the Dungeon Core. Xela had taught it many things, especially how to maximize the use of adventures spelunking its depths, how to tell apart those who were from the city and those unaffiliated, and how to deal with each party.

After all, Safemoon City's dungeon was open to all. It was how most of those in the outer city could afford their daily bread as they were prohibited from doing business inside the city.

Although most of them were rich to be able to afford such villas, and they came here to have early access to the high-quality goods for the purpose of reselling elsewhere at hiked-up prices to make a profit, the dungeon was also really good.

Ever since Darius had transmuted that little core, it had become something new and far more unique. Right now, it had already upgraded to a medium dungeon, granting it an extra 2 floors.

It had more aggregate monsters than all other similar level dungeons and the number of resources dropped was about 250% higher.

This meant that those who ventured through this dungeon would come out with almost three times the haul they could have made in any medium-size wood element dungeon anywhere else.

That was why people bothered to try their luck. The portal in the outer section especially was extremely busy as many paid the price to travel from afar to come and spelunk its depths, even some poor Masters who were unaffiliated with any particular group.

Of course, since Xela had separated the two groups, the survival rates of both were vastly different as well. More than 10% of outsiders lost their lives in the dungeon - mostly due to misinformation - yet only about a dozen of the 10,000+ adventurers who had been registered under Safemoon's Adventure Guild had been killed.

Of course, such a rate was far lower than other dungeons out there, which pushed more and more to rush in and register. Extra reward with lower risks... does the attraction value need to be stated?

Xela had done this not to be calculating but because she couldn't bear to let so many die, so she had made things far more lenient while allowing the core to give more out to those who came because she knew their city was tough.

With this, they would be able to support themselves, without going hungry, right?

It was not a loss of the Dungeon Core since it got far more Soul Energy per death compared to any other. In fact, too many deaths would see it grow too fast, unable to keep up with its changes.

It was a strange scenario that was quite perfect on all sides, all done by Xela herself.

She obviously hadn't planned for this outcome, leaving one to wonder whether the one who had assigned this task had foreseen this.

Ha, but that was impossible...or was it?