Chapter 71: Are you freaking insane?!

[Begin!]

The unexpectedly loud announcement created a small moment of pause before each student rushed into action.

Some attacked their neighbours to eliminate the competition at the start of the exam while others focused attacks on those running towards the crates.

There were even a few that immediately left the platforms and ran away from the impending battles.

It was clear that the Mendolesa students would have an advantage in the initial stage of the exam before weapons came into play.

Sophie did have a new palm technique up her sleeve, but her spider appendages were more than enough to block any stray attacks.

Her main plan was to just grab a random crate and immediately flee towards the jungle and look for shelter near a location with fresh water.

Unfortunately, she did not seem to be the only one with this idea as several other shadowy figures shot towards the crates in the blink of an eye.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she could seem one figure aiming an attack right at her legs.

Clang!

Sophie blocked the swipe of a Mendolesa warrior with her spider legs before turning around and launching a fierce kick towards his stomach.

The poor warrior flew backwards before crashing into the ground with a resounding thud.

"Damn!" Sophie growled.

That counterattack had cost her a few precious seconds, but it was enough for the other students to grab a crate each and shoot towards the forest.

There were only twenty crates and after the initial grabbing, only five crates remained.

Sophie rushed towards the smallest crate in the corner of the pile and picked it up in her hands before fleeing away from the battling students.

"Stop them!" came a random voice.

Various beams, spells and attacks came hurtling towards her direction, but Sophie started circulating qi in the strange pattern according to the teachings of the Rsychosis Art.

Sophie's body begun to blur slightly and the shadow of an identical copy of her image could be seen faintly at the side of her location.

The attacks missed frequently and eventually the students just shifted their target to the other easier to hit opponents.

Sophie ran and ran as fast as her legs could carry her until the sounds of the battlefield faded away into the distance.

She leaned against a nearby tree and began to exhale slowly to calm down her racing heart.

Sophie was now surrounded by a dense jungle with a faint mist hovering over the canopy and hot air blowing against her face.

The crate held tightly in her hands was only the size of a small backpack, but Sophie looked forward to seeing the contents within.

It was important to find a safe location before opening it up to see what was inside.

There was a bubbling noise from a nearby stream, so Sophie headed towards its direction to get a fresh supply of water to quench her thirst.

Sophie dipped her hands into the stream and felt the refreshingly cool sensation of water touching her fingertips.

It would have been foolish to attempt to grab all of the items in the meadow and Sophie was quite satisfied with her haul.

"I wonder how the other girls are faring," Sophie whispered to herself.

She did not have to be too concerned as Rachel and Qiana had both decided to give up on fighting for the supplies in their respective zones and just headed into the jungle to search for water and food.

Although Astrid decided to take quite a different approach when compared to her other roommates...

(Astrid's POV)

Dozens of students ran towards the loot crates in the middle of the meadow but just as the quickest ones were about to grab a crate....

"Ignire Ignis Malum!" came a low growl.

An enormous fireball was shot at the center of the supplies and a resounding boom was heard before an explosion turned all of the goods into ash.

The students near the heart of the explosion were all instantly eliminated and those on the outskirts of the blast could not help but vent their fury.

"Son of a bitch!"

"Why would you blow up all of the supplies?!"

"Are you fucking insane?"

Maniac laughter echoed around the meadow as Astrid unsheathed her claws and leapt into the air before launching spell after spell.

Shrieks of pain and fear could be heard from a distance as well as the telling flashes of golden light which signified a barrier's deployment.

(Transport Ship 13 - Central Monitoring Room)

In a spacious room in the middle of the transport ship, there were several figures frantically rushing from one holographic screen to another.

"Keep a look on the beasts in quadrants delta, alpha and omega."

"Sir! We already have seen two hundred thousand eliminations in the first hour!"

"Send in reinforcements to the hospital ward.... the competition this year is particularly fierce."

It was a chaotic mess as several test administrators scrambled around to handle all the various issues that had cropped up since the exam begun.

The hospital wards had to be run smoothly as the barrier devices would only activate upon the detection of a fatal blow so students could still be terribly injured or brought to the verge of death.

The first couple of days would have the bulk of the eliminations as the students fought one another for supplies and control of vantage points.

Typically, there would be a lull in violence until the zone began to gradually shrink and the candidates would be forced into a smaller area.

Each barrier device acted as a tracker which allowed the satellites in the exoplanet's atmosphere to capture and relay their location in real time.

This also allowed university scouts to pull up the feed of specific students to monitor them closely which would help in making the decision whether to send an offer or not.

There was a luxurious room located at the back of the monitoring hall where all four of the university representative scouts were located.

Atlas University's scout was a young man with a skinny appearance and greasy hair.

He was constantly checking his wristband and every single one of his camera feeds showed the footage of a young noble.

Darren was as a commoner who was lucky enough to have been admitted to a side branch of Atlas University and joined the scouting team upon graduation.

He had to carefully monitor and give preference to the noble children under the orders of the higher ups.

The Servies scout for Mer University was an elderly creature with greenish hair and seemed to be much smaller than the average member of her race.

She resembled a wise old lady in a pixie's body.

But the arcane runes that constantly flashed under the surface of her skin were quite threatening.

Her name was Adriana Greenhorn and she was also the dean of the frost mage department at Mer University.

The Quafes scout for Tantibus University was transformed into his natural liquid form and happily swishing from side to side in a bowl.

While the screens in front of him were randomly cycling through different students.

Zrudread University's scout was by far the most relaxed out of the four and was leaning back on his chair while sharpening his claws lazily with a knife.

Selvon Girze was the boot camp instructor for the freshman students of the main branch and was a massive nine-foot-tall Mendolesa warrior.

The most striking detail about him was the fact that all of his screens were blank except for one that was playing the latest drama produced by B.Y.T Entertainment.

His nonchalant mood caught the eye of Darren who could not resist curiously asking him a question,

"Are there no students that you need to keep an eye on?"

The Mendolesa warrior just bared his fangs and spat out a short sentence,

"We judge our seedlings based on their strength using the results of the test only."

"My interest only lies in the top three hundred."