Chapter 78: Conan Returns
A boy with brown hair and similarly colored eyes walked up to the Academy’s gate with a calm, almost blank look on his face.
A face now completely devoid of the scars that were there previously riddling it.
He looked up at the high gates and let out a sigh before looking down at what he was wearing.
According to the old man, inventing something was one thing, the most important part was presentation.
And he’d be damned if he let his greatest creation walk into the Academy’s admission test underdressed.
Thus, Conan was wearing am outfit that was both presentable and fit for moving around freely during combat.
It was an outfit similar to Adrian’s, a white shirt, black tail coat and black pants with similar colored shoes.
"This still feels surreal," Conan muttered as he placed a hand over his chest, feeling no heartbeat within.
His heart was an organ that had long been scrapped, now powered by something else entirely.
With another sigh, he walked forward, going through the gates just as the other candidates were.
He walked forward for a while until he noticed a Queue which he quickly joined.
Around him, some candidates were chatting nervously, whilst others appeared completely confident, almost as if them making it into the academy was already set in stone.
Conan stayed in the quickly moving line and it was soon his turn.
"Next."
A voice called him forward.
One of the professors sat at a long desk near the entrance, registering participants and assigning them their initial tokens.
"All right," the professor said, barely glancing up as he handed over a small circular device, "this will record your performance. Don’t lose it."
With that, he called out to the next candidate.
"Next!"
Conan, meanwhile, continued forward with the other candidates, but they didn’t head towards the Academy’s main building.
Instead, they soon arrived at a large open field and waiting there was a blonde woman with tanned skin and golden eyes.
She quietly looked at them without saying anything, calmly waiting for the rest, which would take quite a while.
In the mean time, Conan decided to use one of his new ’features’.
Focusing on the woman before them, his eyes suddenly started glowing and before him, multiple interfaces suddenly appeared.
{Scan Initiated!}
One of the interfaces showed before disappearing, replaced by another.
{Scan successful, displaying target’s parameters.}
{Rank: S-rank
Mana Type: Lightning
Spirit: ????
Threat Level: Extremely high, do not engage!}
{Activating ???? Module.}
{??? Failed, target’s rank is too high.}
Conan sighed as he looked at the screens before dismissing them all,
"Figured as much," he muttered, referring to the fact that he couldn’t use one of his most powerful modules on her.
Not that he expected it to work in the first place.
After all, she was multiple ranks above him, even with the ’upgrade’ he got, but it was fine.
Besides, he already had ’it’ as one of his modules, so he didn’t need a duplicate.
***
It took a few minutes, but the candidates finally completely gathered and the woman finally addressed them.
"Welcome to the Imperial Spirit Academy," She said, clearly not used to giving speeches like these, but none dared interrupt.
"My name is irrelevant to you all," she continued, "especially to those who will fail, so until you make it into the academy, you are mere maggots with no importance."
The woman then raised a hand, and the ground behind her trembled faintly before a massive formation of light lit up behind her, stretching far beyond what the eye could fully perceive.
The light soon took shape, forming a dense forest behind her, causing some eyes to widen in awe.
"The test is simple," she continued after the forest was fully formed and she lifted three fingers, "survive, adapt and earn enough points to make it into the academy."
She lowered her hand.
"The devices you were given will record everything, from combat to the decisions you make, and points will be granted accordingly."
She then gazes at each their faces before asking, "any questions?"
At first, no one seemed interested in asking anything, or rather, they were too scared to.
But one of the candidates raised a hand nervously.
"W-What about withdrawal?"
"You may withdraw," she looked directly at the candidate before calmly responding, "if you break your token, but that’s where your points end, and there will be no extra points for you."
The candidate then put his hand back down.
The woman waited calmly for another question, but since there was none, she continued.
"Time limit," she continued, "is six hours, and at the end of that time, those who meet the required score... will be admitted."
"Points are not shared," she added one last thing ,"If you lose your token, you lose everything you’ve gained but if you manage to break another candidate’s token, you automatically gain their points."
This told them one thing, they were allowed to go against each other, in other words,
Conflict between participants permitted. Possibly even encouraged.
Or at least that’s the conclusion most came to, but the woman didn’t clarify or disprove anything, she just waited for her words to settle before adding,
"The professors will not interfere unless absolutely necessary," she said, "or if things go too far."
"But don’t think for a second that we’ll save your asses if you deliberately put yourself in danger," she added before they could get the wrong idea, "overestimating yourself WILL lead to your death and none of us will interfere."
"If that’s understood," she looked at them one last time before saying, "begin!"
With that, she suddenly disappeared, leaving the students in silence for a while as they hesitated for a second, but one suddenly activated their element and immediately rushed in.
As if a domino waiting for the first piece to fall, chaos immediately erupted and the candidates rushed into the forest.
Conan looked at them go for a while before sighing, "let’s impress my benefactor."
With his words, an interface suddenly appeared before him again and his brown eyes immediately became golden.
{Lightning Module activated.}
Arcs of lightning suddenly appeared in his eyes, and the next second,
BOOM!