Pull!
All of a sudden, mark was able to feel an abrupt rise in the gravitational force, which was pulling him down, slowing his movements.
Before mark had even reached the 50th meter, on this third division, an abrupt increase in the gravitational force was quite abnormal, as if the functions of this track had been deliberately changed this instance.
" The tension in the air feels off, as if the track had been tampered by an external influence to begin with! Is this what the system was warning me earlier, but still the current pull is not strong enough to make me unleash my cards. Let's see what those old timers from upper management are going to do? "
Earlierly, levi was fine and toying around with the silver coloured puppet ( Third division master ). She had almost devastated the puppets body, leaving alone it's main chunk of piece, which was about to be spitted diagonally by her bronze blade.
But all of a sudden her moves started to slow down and became a bit sluggish. Mark was able to see the pattern of her attacks more vividly than earlier.
Unlike the case where mark was only able track down her after images, he was able to see her well trained pattern of attacks, that didn't pale before a trained warrior in saber path.
The silver coloured puppet which had almost lost its parts had started to reconnect with them instantly, and appeared perfectly fine as if no such injuries were made on it earlier.
At control center, a minute earlier.
Arlong was present on the outside where as the gilldrat's father, the vice in chief was imprisoned by him, making him the next highest authority following them.
Even if the faculty finds fault with his ongoing decision, they could not voice against him after seeing the terrifying number of emperor class experts following an his command.
Gilldart after imprisoning his father he took up the role. He was sitting on top the administrative seat his father used to sit on, bossing over the others besides him.
With a number displays in the control center, gilldart was watching the test of talent more clearly than what a normal spectator could do from the stage on the flying ship, above the track.
He made a chuckle looking at the fear striken faves of the faculty personnel before him, exclaiming " His name was mark flame glory right?
If my guess is not wrong them with that doubtful face of yours, you may be thinking that the test of talents is too easy to be real.
If your thinking that there's some this amiss about this test, then your guess would probably be correct, but what the use of frowning about it now? Once you enter the test of talent, you are completely trapped within my plot, and there's only a single outcome for it... and It's your death! "
He paused for a second before looking at an aged faculty in this room, who was next in the seniority following his father. " Old gorge! Increase the tests difficulty. 1.5 multiplier this instant! "
" Sir gilldart! multiplier of 1.5! " Old gorge exclaimed out in shock.
The normal difficulty set by the rules were around 0.9–0.8 for masters test candidates and 1.0 for the candidates of the chosen ones.
Increasing it to 1.5 from the initial set 0.5 by the gilldart was too excessive as it would abruptly change the difficulty of the ongoing test.
" What are you dragging for? Do I need to repeat myself again? " Gilldart bellowed out angrily.
" Disable the safety gear call while on it. If the superiors question about it, just say that the test arrays had malfunctioned!
Sir Darius is the mastermind behind this and he expects to see no failure from our side. You know his temper right, and what will become of us if his plans were to ruined by few unworthy subordinates! "
Darius was a known figure of the upper management, and his influence even ranks top among the others. He was quite ruthless in his dealings and expects no failures from his subordinates. If such an existence were to be pissed, the resulting consequences would be terrible.
There was a rumor that one of the Darius own personnel had made a mistake in his part, which had resulted in a deviation from the original plan he wanted to narrate.
The resulting consequences were quite cruel, all the men of that personnel's family were beheaded, while the women were sold to brothels and children being send for labor.
The cruel part in it was that the one who had to do these procedures was that personnel himself.
Thinking about this case old gorge had trembled with fear. What if that Darius decides to put his hands over their families? Though the faculty were loyal to the arena, could they still abandon their family's at home, in the face of the stupid loyalty inherited from their ancestors that could extinct their lineage?
" Ancestors! Forgive this gorge for being selfish this once! " Exclaiming internally gorge placed his hand on top the lever.
The horizontal lever which was originally pushed till 0.5, was pulled till 1.5 by old gorge. Increasing the difficulty sharply, with new set of traps being installed on the track at the same time.
On the platform grounds, test track.
Mark was accessing his surroundings before he take a step forward. Though the things he learned while walking through the track were few, it had let him understand more in depth about the functions of the track itself.
First, the same tile wouldn't necessarily trigger a trap for the second time, if stepped on.
Secondly, the tiles do not unleash their trap unless a foreign particle touched it's surface.
The debris of the division master did not triggered traps when it has fallen on the floor, but got triggered when stepped over by mark.
Thirdly, a person could not avoid the traps by jumping over the tiles to cover large areas on the floor at once. His shadow itself would become that foreign particle to trigger the trap.
Lastly, there were few tiles which did not activate any traps to begin with, as if they were present for the tester to rest on.
Though mark could use his darkness law or even the laws of space to wipe out the occurance of the traps, activated through the third assumption, he did not dared to do it so.
As the arena with hundreds of millenniums of history may already had taken note on this case itself, to prevent it's testers from cheating through such inappropriate means.
It took approximately two minutes for our mark, to access the situation and recollect the things he needed to remember, before heading out for the next tile present before him.
" Ah! This should be resting tile then! "
The tile did not triggered any unusual effect shortly, making him to assume it for a resting tile. But never had he imagined that the trap which was about to unfold was not that of the smaller ones he met previously, and was taking some time before it unleashed it's effects.
Without making any noticeable noises, few black coloured balls of the size of a finger had appeared around him, suspending in the mid air releasing a dense amount of dangerous vibes out its surface.
" These balls... explosives! " Mark had instantly jumped above the floor, on reflex, to avoid being caught in the explosion he had predicted to come.
But contrary to his expectations, there was no such explosions produced this instance, but a colourless net was being manifested instantly above his head, which was positioned few seconds away from his trajectory, before they both intercept with each other.
Since mark was on air, he couldn't possibly change his trajectory in mid air. With his grand master cultivation, which was lower than that of an aura lord, he wasn't able fly out of this predicament and prevent himself from being caught by the net manifesting above.
When mark was pondering about the way to escape out this predicament, he found a suspending explosives which was quite closer to the net itself, and decide to make a bold move by thrusting his body down under the shock waves produced during the explosion itself.
Mark used the scabbard of his blade and pushed the black coloured explosives to the net before he probably intercept with the net shortly.
Boom!
The explosive had been nearly cleaved to half, like an apple by these knife like threads on the net. The explosive had turned to molten red before it explode violently, generating a high intensity of shock waves from it.
The resulting shock waves had abrubly pushed our mark down wards, and him landing over the tile subsequently.
Though it was a gamble to begin with, it played out well.
If the explosive had failed to explode before he probably intercept with the net.
His body would not only been caught by the net, but at the same time the explosive would had also imparted a heavy damage to him, after being entrapped in the net along with his body to begin with.
But if the explosive had exploded well before he could actually reach the net, the generated shock waves would not be enough for his goal.
Though it had played out as how he expected it to be, he had made a minor error in his calculation, that costed him heavily.
As he had landed on the tile next to the one which had triggered that trap earlier, making a next set of trap being activated at once, subsequently.
Whirl!
Several metal chains started popping out the floor and had roughly engulfed our mark within the dome shaped encirclement of them.
Grab!
When mark was on guard against these chains, a black coloured rope which had originated after the chains, had whirled around his leg, and tightly held his lower body at that still position.
After his lower half of the body was held tightly by this chain, the others encircling chains started make their way to mark, one after the other and held him tightly, thoroughly immobilizing his entire body, before a disaster was about to befall his body.
Though mark had not decided to bring up his mana to the peripheral limbs for consolidating his pure mana to empower his entire body and breaking free of this encompasment of chains. These chains were continuously absorbing his mana passively, at a lower rate, and was few minutes short at sucking dry his mana.
Whoosh!
Three daggers that were releasing blue colored auras around them were manifesting at a distance, before they could head straight to his vital organs.
Mark could very well judge the fate of him, if these daggers were to pierce out through his body. At best he would die instantly on spot or look at his pitiful self before his soul leave hos mortal body slowly.
Author's notes:
Characters added :
Old gorge : a senior faculty staff of the platform number seven's control center.