"Alright kids, when you get my signal you go into the dungeon, easy enough?"
Zen couldn't help but feel something was wrong with the General Callen's demeanor, he seemed a bit too excited. Max who was next to him smiled strangely.
"I know what you're thinking and I agree with you, he's gonna try to screw us over pretty bad, i guess that's why they brought him here ".
Zen looked at Maximilian who was still at his side and at celia and her partner who were focused on the general, his guard was up against each and every one of them.
" You're not a very trusting person are you Zen?"
Zen looked at Maximilian confused, it seemed like he had read his intentions perfectly despite the fact that he had no killing intent or malicious thoughts whatsoever.
Maximilian couldn't help grinning wider and said
"If you tell me your ability I'll tell you mine, it's sorta related to how i can read you "
"...i didn't lie,i have no ability " answered Zen as he showed Maximilian his watch which had no stars Max looked at the blank watch and this time his smile was replaced with a look of confusion as he thought.
" That's not possible, my ability's never reacted to anyone without an ability this way, there's definitely something about his right eye.... but it should be impossible for any regular person to have a mutation with or without an ability,unless this guy is unbelievably lucky and it's not just his eye, this guy's energy is so chaotic I'm surprised he hasn't exploded yet. Not to mention that other two, something's definitely not right about them, something i can't see, but that's should be impossible there shouldn't be anything that can escape my perception, I wonder if father should know about this..."
The voice of the general suddenly interrupted his thoughts
" If I were you kids I'd brace yourselves right about now" said the general as he suddenly took a stance and a strange light filled his eyes.
"Shit" thought Maximilian as he could see what was happening and decided to warn Zen.
"Hey Zen, remember when I said that guy was gonna try and screw us over?, well you might wanna brace yourself".
Callen's body suddenly began to change as his bones began to slightly elongate and a few strands of what looked to be fur was visible on his body as he clenched his fist and held his head up to the sky. Callen took a deep breath and as his mouth opened to reveal fangs, what followed was a terrifying and shocking sound that sounded like a mixture of a roar and a howl fused into one. As the sound escaped his mouth it was followed by a pressure which blew everything in it's vicinity and stirred up the wind,blowing sand in every direction and created a mini Sandstorm that blew in the participants' general direction.
Max who had seen this coming simply sighed
"Damnit I hate this ability" and crossed his arms over his face in an attempt to shield himself. He looked over to Zen who still didn't have any visible reaction but had adopted a similar defensive stance and had dug his feet deep into the sand to anchor himself. The next second the participants were engulfed by the mini sandstorm driven by raging winds. Luckily it was quite small and passed by very quickly, lasting only about ten seconds. Once ten seconds was up and the storm passed zen opened his eyes and put his arms down, other than being covered in sand he was fine, and from what he could see,except for a few scratches and cuts and the occasional injury here and there most of the participants were more or less okay.
"Phew , that was close. Don't you just hate the lycanthropy ability" said Max who was still dusting some sand off himself and looked at most a bit entertained.
Zen ignored him and looked at where general Callen once was and saw something which shocked the group of participants . Where the general once was was a large funnel shaped pit which was created as a result of most of the sand being blown outward. At the center of the pit stood general callen with a smug smile.
The lycanthropy ability was one of the most powerful and influential transformation abilities . It shared that honour with the vampirism ability and it's creation and distribution was controlled by the lupin family although it couldn't exactly be called distribution as they kept the ability exclusively for their just like all the pioneer class ability families and like all the other top class powers excluding where Zen was from. The way this ability worked was honestly a mystery except for members of the lupin family however most transformation abilities after years of research were discovered to work by using aether to substitute the energy which the creatures possessed giving humans the ability to take similar forms. This was why transformation ability users possessed something called beast aether and some would even be able to use the skills possessed by that species however such occurrences were rare and it was almost impossible to know if one would obtain a skill as it was just like a beast gear skill, it came with the ability circuit and there was no way to know if a transformation ability circuit even had a beast skill. Also the probability of getting more than one skill was even lower. Even general Callen most likely only had one skill which was the one he had just used as the chances were just so low .
Zen suddenly felt the sun on his face and noticed his hood had fell off but didn't bother getting it as he and some of the other participants knew what that howl meant.
" Wow, i guess you kids aren't as soft as i thought, some of you might actually be pretty tough ,oh by the way that was your signal to run into the dungeon, you've got a two kilometer between you and the dungeon and i probably should have mentioned this earlier but admissions are limited so if I was you I'd be running to earn my place right about now ".
Callen's words suddenly caused an uproar in the group as the participants rushed out in droves trying to get ahead of each other, all except for three.
Celia couldn't help smiling
"This man's treachery isn't too bad" however in the end she didn't really care and went out with the others with her companion .
After a while only Zen and Max were still standing in their previous position.
"Don't you wanna go? You might not make it if you don't move" said Max to Zen with a hint of playfulness
"..."
"Okay then, at least tell me why you don't wanna go "
"You didn't go " said Zen briefly.
Max simply sighed and was about to tell Zen to forget it when he replied him
"The general lied to them and in more ways than one, first of all although the pit is deep most of the sand wasn't used to attack us and simply spread around inside the pit, he used that and his complements to fool their senses and make them confident in themselves meaning they'll most likely let their guards down. Secondly there's never been a limit for admittance into the academy, mostly because there's never been a time when enough people passed to reach it, so unless something happened there's no reason for one now. Most likely that was to agitate them into running blindly"
"You're forgetting one, the domain "
"I didn't forget it's just....."
"Hmm?, looks like you got something to say "
"Something doesn't feel right about this test, I've always had good senses and even better instincts and recently something reminded me of that and I'm sure something bad is going to happen "
Ever since he had teleported to this location his body had been screaming at him and as he was no longer the influence of that entity his instincts were much clearer,so much so that it would have driven a normal person insane but Zen had been dealing with them since he was a child so he could easily handle himself when they acted up.
Max looked at Zen confused, he didn't think he was ridiculous instead he took his words seriously. Despite this he was still as casual as he been all this while. He put his hands on Zen's shoulder and spoke reassuringly
"Don't worry about it, you'll be fine, I'll make sure of it, okay Zen?"
Zen looked at the hand on his shoulder and seemed to hesitate before he said
"You'd do well to stay back".
Before any more could be said both of them heard a loud boom and looked to the direction of the sound and saw a participant who had been attacked by a large pillar of concentrated sand rising from beneath like a geyser of sand.
"Hahaha, i can't believe they forgot that were already in the dungeon's range of influence,of course there'll be traps here,well, that's my cue, see you soon Zen". After he said this Maximilian dashed forward, leaving Zen behind as he ran after the others with an increasingly rapid pace and a relaxed expression.
Zen looked on somewhat surprised by Maximilian's speed but wasn't really bothered by it Zen's eyes locked on to the location where the first unlucky person had been knocked unconscious by the geyser and with a single kick at the ground he was off with a bang and gaining fast.
Zen was moving towards where that last person had been knocked out and following the path specifically and in front of him he could see dozens of people were getting attacked by the sand and panic was forming amongst them.
Zen looked ahead and saw that Maximilian was already far ahead having overtaken countless participants and looking like he was having fun while at it.
"Seems like he has some skills, however he's clearly not a speed ability user ,but I have no time to worry about him, these attacks seem similar to landmines, if that's true then all i have to do is look around and whenever someone gets knocked out I'll take the path they took and before I reach the end there'll be someone else for me to follow behind "
With these thoughts Zen ran ahead following the trail while mimicking the steps of the participant to the best of his ability and once he had almost reached the end there had indeed been many more trails for him to follow and he immediately switched to the closest one and began following that one. Zen had to admit although he had a nearly eiditic memory it was still difficult to keep watch over so many people and he had to employ many more tactics like looking for footprints or observing the people around the general area where a trap had just gone off. This was all simple tracking skills for hunting prey that he had been taught and it seemed to work as even after a while he hadn't been hit by any traps.
Farther ahead however, Maximilian's situation was a bit perculiar. Unlike others who were trying there best to be careful he didn't seem to care about any of that,he was making bold and erratic movements like he wasn't at all worried about the traps.
Most people who were behind had already deemed him a clueless fool who would soon run out of luck however after a while Maximilian was still dancing his way around the assessment and nothing had happened, he even seemed to be having fun.
This went on for a while and the participants at the front were closing in on the pyramid when the ground suddenly began to rumble intensely. A participant suddenly lost his balance and fell, luckily he didn't set off any traps but as he looked back he suddenly let out a terrified scream that caught the attention of many of the participants who looked back to see what had caused the scream, among these was Zen and as he looked back what he saw was what resembled a raging tidal wave of sand and wind. It was a sandstorm dozens of times larger than the one created by general Callen's howl.
As Zen saw that sandstorm he immediately abandoned his previous plan and began to run at full speed overtaking multiple participants while avoiding them all, the moment he saw it he felt his body screaming at him to run and so he did, however unlike Zen most of the participants didn't seem very frightened and one even stopped to face the storm. The participants stood still and said with a little contempt
"It's just a little sand" before the skin across his arms and head began to harden becoming rocky and metallic as he raised his hand in a defensive position.
Zen, Max and celia turned around just in time to see this and with varying emotions and reasons had the same thought.
"What a fool".
The moment the sand touched the skin on the boy's hand he felt something was wrong but it was too late to flee. His arrogant expression was suddenly replaced with one of agony as he was consumed by the storm and his screams of agony reverberated across the desert. A few seconds later a small area of the storm turned red due to the blood mist before returning back to normal.
The previously calm participants were suddenly overcome with terror and began to throw caution to the wind as they ran for their lives.
Miles back general Callen was looking at the wave of sand and wind that had appeared out of nowhere in shock, this dungeon had been examined multiple times and the danger was very limited whether inside or outside, there weren't even any beasts inside so he was unable to make heads or tails of the situation, it was almost like the dungeon was forcing them to enter.
He quickly decided that he couldn't let this go on before he lost all control of this assessment.
General Callen suddenly kicked off the ground with a force that blew the sand beneath his fist as he launched himself toward the storm. He quickly ran at a speed that made what the participants were doing look like a light stroll and in a matter of minutes he was directly behind the wave of sand and with a kick he was off as he launched himself into the sky and with an air of confidence he clenched his fist, the fabric around his arm rapidly expanded as his arm bulged and contorted into a large claw shape reminiscent of a beast as he used his ability and struck at the storm.
The next moment his confident smile disappeared as a grinding sound could be heard from inside the storm where his arm was, the next second he could see sparks flying from the storm and terrified he quickly retracted arm and was somehow able to propel himself backward in mid-air away from the storm before crashing into the ground.
Shakily standing up he looked at his arm which was mutilated and even showing bones in several places.
" Wh- what the hell is this,i feel like I was put through a fucking meat grinder. Ah no matter I'll just...Aaaaaahh!!!" . Callen had attempted heal his arm but as he did but as he moved his aether to his arm he was unable to heal and was instead assaulted with a wave of pain. He suddenly felt like there was a strange force blocking him from healing his hand and when he had attempted forcing his way through it the strange energy started causing chaotically attacking him from the inside and wreaking havoc on his body, unable to deal with the pain callen fell unconscious.
Thirty seconds later his watch detected he was unconscious and the emergency transport function on his watch activated, He was suddenly bathed in a bright light and thirty seconds later he was teleported away from that place.
Meanwhile the participants were still running for their dear lives, although some of them with high ranked abilities had tried different ways to stop or even survive the storm but all of them had met the same fate as the first one, this had all contributed to the increased fear and panic among the participants as some of them had even begun tripping or pushing each other in an attempt to buy more time for themselves and unfortunately one of such people behind Zen ran up to him and pushed him over
"Get out of my way trash". He said with an arrogant tone.
Zen looked down at where he was about to fall and his instincts which had been yelling at him all this time suddenly got so unbearable that it was maddening, knowing what that meant he decided to do something risky.
Zen suddenly thrust his hand down and using his fingers performed a basic flip . As soon as Zen landed,a large pillar of sand suddenly rose up so close directly behind him that he could feel the wind behind him being stirred up and was sure there would be a mark on his hoodie.
He was about to breath a sigh of relief when he suddenly saw a strange glowing symbol beneath him exactly where he was standing. His instincts suddenly spiked once more and knowing he had no time to escape he swiftly decided to shell up bringing his arms close to his chest and keeping his head low.
The large piller of sand rose up violently and slammed against Zen with the force of a raging bull but somehow Zen managed to hold on as the raging winds and sands rushed against him. A few seconds later the pillar receded revealing Zen who was huffing and panting and covered in sand but had somehow managed to withstand it.
"H-how? You should be dead" . Zen looked to where the voice had come from and saw the person who had pushed him in staring at him like he was a monster.
Zen honestly didn't care what he had to say, and although it would only seem reasonable to throw this guy into the storm so he couldn't bother him again there wasn't enough time for that so Zen simply ran off, towards the dungeon.
As Zen was running he couldn't help feeling like something was wrong with what just happened there, it was almost like the dungeon was targeting him.
After a while Zen realized that all the people in front of him had already entered the dungeon and all those behind him had met their end, other than Maximilian who had waited at the gate for Zen.
"Look out" yelled Max and when Zen looked back he understood why, the storm was only about two feet behind him,if he stopped now he'd be grounded into dust in less than a second.
Zen ran closer and closer to the glowing dungeon gate and when he was close enough he leaped forward into it and Max did the same
Suddenly remembering something Maximilian yelled out
"Wait" and tried to grab hold of Zen but it was too late, they had both vanished into the gate and the storm almost as if noticing this suddenly vanished into thin air just a few steps away from the dungeon leaving the vast desert completely empty.