AN: Sorry for the late Chapter. School stuff. I hope you enjoy the Chapter though.

----

A few moments earlier— within the arena all eyes still remained on the screens that displayed multiple regions.

The camera views kept changing, displaying multiple students either fighting amongst themselves for beast cores, or trying to kill the beasts themselves.

"If I do say, the quality of students this year feels unusually high." One of the special guests said. He sat within a lavish room above the arena, but below where the director sat.

Multiple other guests could be seen within the room, each one of them wearing special masks to hide their identities.

"Quality?" One of the other guests folded his arms. "No! There are monsters among them."

"Yes—" A female guest responded. She leaned forward slightly. "Several students have already exceeded my expectations— But if I had to choose. . . I would go with those three in particular."

She gestured towards three screens that displayed three different students, each engaged in different fights of their own.

One of them was Amy. Her long sword moved gracefully through the air as she sliced at the beast she was fighting.

Her movement was fluid and elegant, like a flowing stream. It almost looked like she was performing a dance.

But that wasn’t what captured the attention of the special guests.

Instead, it was her mutation type.

Glowing stars numbering up to a dozen surrounded her, orbiting around her as though she was the sun itself.

Whenever she gestured with her hand, the stars would shoot forward at blinding speeds, before shooting a hole through her enemies, killing them immediately.

"What a truly special mutation type she has." The female guest muttered.

The rest of the guest nodded then shifted their attention towards the next screen.

This one displayed a male student, with rough long brown hair. Unlike Amy, his style of fighting was more beastly.

He used his bare hands to brutally tear the beasts apart and each time he did, a dangerous grin could be seen on his face.

The shocking part about it all was that he hadn’t used his mutation type since the start of the ranking events. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

All this chaos he was causing— was just him using his brute strength.

The next screen showed another female student with bright green eyes. Her hair was of the same colour as her eyes except they looked like vines— a beautiful green, that stretched downwards to her back.

She didn’t engage in close combat.

Instead, long vines would grow beneath the beasts and wrap themselves around them tightly, before sprouting bright red flowers that would explode.

But what made her special was that even if she got injured, those vines would sprout white flowers that could heal her.

Not only healing, but there were other colours of flowers that did different things as well.

"They truly are monsters," One of the other guests whispered.

"It’s good that they’re this strong," another said with a stern voice. "At least we know their strength will come in handy Incase those. . . Beings, decide to attack again."

The rest of the guests flinched slightly, but nodded in agreement.

"HEY! What the hell happened there!?" A student suddenly shouted, pointing at one of the screens.

Every head in the arena turned to see what he was pointing at.

A blank screen.

The Director’s eyes narrowed slightly.

He turned and glanced at a woman wearing a black suit who stood beside him.

She nodded. "I will check it out."

She turned, but before she could leave the screen flickered back to life.

Every eye in the arena widened, their mouths left agape by the scene before them.

A single student with golden hair was on his knees. Before him, a massive crater that dug deep into the ground.

It looked as though a massive astroid had collided with the earth leaving a massive wound in its wake.

The arena instantly broke into a wave of murmurs.

"Can anyone explain what exactly is happening?"

"I’m as confused as you are—"

"I watched the whole thing!" The student who drew the attention to the screen suddenly said. "He was fighting a whole nest of D rank beasts and he killed them effortlessly—"

"What??"

"Are you sure that’s what you saw?"

"Yes! And that’s not all—" the student continued. "The leader of the nest was a C rank beast. He was fighting on par with the beast, then— he activated an ability and the screens suddenly went blank."

Everyone paused, digesting the words of the student.

"So you’re telling me a student— a first year student no less— was capable of all this. . . Destruction?"

Even the instructors appeared shocked at this point.

"Does anyone know that student?"

"No, I’ve never seen him before."

"If he was this talented, it should’ve been easy to know about him—"

"Or was he hiding his capabilities this whole time!"

Instructor Sylvia smiled, watching the rest of the instructors bicker.

She turned and focused her attention back on the screen, mainly the golden-haired student.

"Theon..." She whispered softly.

She would like if she said she wasn’t shocked by what she saw. Theon had of course also told her about his second awakening, but she didn’t know he had grown strong to this level.

Meanwhile, above the stands the Director’s eyes narrowed at the screen as well.

"Who is that student?" He asked.

"I don’t know—" the woman beside him adjusted her glasses. "But I will run a background check on him right now!"

The Director nodded, then his gaze shifted towards a brown-haired woman who had tied her hair into a ponytail. She as well also had her attention on the screens, but the moment she noticed the Director’s gaze, she turned and glared at him.

Their eyes met each other, then— she released a mischievous smile before turning her gaze back to the screen.

"Is that the student she was talking about?" The director pondered silently.

Meanwhile, the brown-haired woman still kept her eyes on the screen, her smile not leaving her face.

"This brat—" she whispered. "You keep surpassing my expectations each time I see you."

-----

Meanwhile, unaware of the storm he had caused outside Theon stood still, his eyes focused on the golden semi-transparent screen in front of him.

[Quest Alert]

[Phase One Initiated]

[Current Region: Crimson Wastes]

[Objective 1: Collect 20 E rank Beast Cores, 10 D rank Beast Cores and 1 C rank Beast Cores]

[Objective II: Find 2 Academy Tokens]

[E rank Beast Cores: 20/20]

[D rank Beast Cores: 10/10]

[C rank Beast Cores: 1/1]

[Academy Tokens: 2/2]

[Time Remaining: 00:05:42]

[Rewards: The gods will be pleased]

[Penalty: Host loses right as the successor of Zeus, Nyx and Hades]

"Well," Theon whispered. "I guess I’m done here!"

He lowered himself and sat softly on the crimson sand.

After killing the C rank beast, he had to wait a while to restore his lost essence.

After recovering what he felt was enough, he began his search for the Academy tokens.

He wouldn’t be lying, they were hard to find— extremely so, but luckily he met with a group of students who had been lucky enough to find an academy token.

Their bad luck though, started the moment Theon spotted them.

He beat them quite easily of course then took the academy token, but not before asking how they found it.

They were hesitant at first, but seeing as they couldn’t do much against him, they told him that they used their essence as a radar to find the tokens.

Theon felt like slapping himself for not thinking about that much sooner. It was much easier to find the academy token after receiving the "advice" from the students he had "stolen" from.

"The first round should be over right about now," Theon sighed, standing to his feet and dusting off the crimson sand that clung to his uniform.

[Time remaining: 00:00:03]

His body began to glow softly seeing the timer go down slowly.

[... 00:00:02]

[... 00:00:01]

[... 00:00:00]

"...."

-------