Julian's face rapidly cycled from flushed red to a bruised, sickly purple. His fingers tore frantically at Zeke's wrist, but it was like clawing at an anchor chain. The two sycophants who had been flanking him froze entirely, the elemental mana crackling over their knuckles sputtering out like dying candles. They looked at Zeke, then at Julian's dangling boots, completely paralyzed by the sheer physical anomaly unfolding before them. A boy with absolute zero magic power was effortlessly overriding an active, high-tier kinetic barrier through raw, unadulterated velocity.
"Stand down, conscript!"
The sudden, earth-shattering roar bounced violently off the obsidian pillars.
From the shadows of the primary exit archway, a senior instructor stepped into the chamber. He was a massive man with a heavily scarred face, wearing the dark tactical plate of a Vanguard drill master. With a single fluid movement, he leveled a heavy, mana-infused shock rifle directly at Zeke's head. The weapon hummed aggressively, its barrel glowing with a condensed, unstable blue plasma.
"Release Cadet Drake immediately, or you will be executed on the spot for unauthorized lethal insubordination!" the instructor bellowed, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Zeke held Julian for one more agonizing second, letting the weight of his grip sink into the legacy boy's memory. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, he released his hold.
Julian crashed heavily to the stone floor, gasping for air and clutching his bruised throat, coughing violently as his sycophants scrambled to pull him away. He glared up at Zeke with a lethal mixture of profound humiliation and deep, shivering terror.
Zeke didn't even glance back down at him. He simply stepped back into the line next to Luke, his posture completely relaxed, his hands resting loosely in his pockets.
The instructor lowered the rifle slightly, his sharp eyes sweeping over Zeke with a calculating, dangerous curiosity. He checked his digital ledger, looking at the "0 MP" stamped next to Zeke's name, then glanced back at the shattered remnants of Julian's kinetic barrier.
"Save that violence for the dirt, Zeros," the instructor growled, stowing the rifle on his back. "You want to prove who's at the top of the food chain? You'll get your chance right now. Fall in! Marching formation to the primary evaluation grounds!"
The conscripts were aggressively herded through a sequence of interlocking subterranean tunnels, the air growing progressively heavier and colder until they emerged into an absolutely colossal, open-air underground amphitheater.
The First Evaluation Field was a massive, circular arena spanning several hundred yards, bordered by towering, jagged cliffs of natural volcanic stone. Suspended high above the arena floor were several fortified viewing boxes, where high-ranking Vanguard officers and elite tactical scouts sat silently, looking down at the new batch of recruits like scientists observing test subjects.
Zeke looked up at the main observation balcony. Standing near the center, leaning casually against the reinforced railing with a clean white towel slung over his shoulder, was Cyrus. The young master caught Zeke's eye from across the distance and offered a brief, razor-sharp grin before returning to his stoic stance.
"Welcome to your first combat placement test," Commander Vance's voice boomed over the arena's central PA system, echoing off the stone walls. "The rules are simple: survival. You are not fighting each other. You are fighting the environment. Within the central trenches of this arena are active Low-Tier Abyssal Scavengers—minor demonic entities captured from the border skirmishes. You will be deployed in pairs. Neutralize the threat, or be carried out."
A heavy, grinding noise shook the arena floor as a massive steel partition wall rose from the sand, dividing the amphitheater into isolated combat zones.
"First pair! Lucas Vale and Zeke! Step into Zone Four!"
Luke let out a low, amused chuckle, adjusting the collar of his jacket as he stepped out of the crowd. "Well, look at that. They put us together. Guess the system wants to see what the freak and the zero can do."
"Don't hold back," Zeke said quietly, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with him onto the shifting red sand of Zone Four.
"Never do," Luke replied, a playful, inventive spark instantly igniting in his blue eyes.
As they crossed the threshold, the heavy iron gate slammed shut behind them. Thirty yards away, on the opposite side of the sandpit, a massive iron cage door slowly ground upward. From the pitch-black darkness of the tunnel beneath, a series of sickening, wet clicks and low, guttural growls slithered out.
Three creatures emerged into the harsh floodlights. They were grotesque, quadrupedal horrors the size of large wolves, their bodies covered in a shifting, high-density chitinous shell that looked like midnight-black volcanic glass. Their faces were entirely featureless except for a massive, vertical maw lined with rows of jagged, rotating teeth designed to crush bone.
[TARGET DETECTED: LOW-TIER ABYSSAL SCAVENGER (CRITTER-CLASS)]
[ESTIMATED THREAT LEVEL: E-RANK]
[SYSTEM DATA: REINFORCED CHITIN, KINETIC IMPACT RESISTANCE]
"Three of them," Luke analyzed, his strategic mind instantly calculating the trajectories as the scavengers began to circle, their claws digging deep into the red sand. "Zeke, take the one on the left. I'll handle the center and the right."
Before the words had even fully left Luke's mouth, the center scavenger let out a piercing, sonic screech and lunged forward, its jaw unhinging as it launched itself directly toward Luke's chest.
Luke didn't flinch. He didn't pull out a weapon or cast a standard elemental spell. Instead, his blue eyes flared with a brilliant, deep cosmic light as his Creation ability activated.
In a fraction of a second, Luke didn't just manifest an object—he completely re-engineered the air around him. With a quiet, sharp hum, a flawless, translucent crystalline tower shield materialized out of thin air, anchored firmly to his left forearm. The shield wasn't made of steel or standard mana; it was composed of a highly condensed, synchronized kinetic-nullifying lattice.
BOOM.
The scavenger slammed violently into the crystalline shield. The immense momentum of the creature's strike was instantly absorbed, converted into zero-point kinetic energy, and entirely neutralized. The beast bounced off the flawless surface, completely disoriented.
"My turn," Luke smiled.
With his right hand, he made a quick, pulling motion. The system observers in the viewing boxes leaned forward, their eyes widening as they watched his mana reading fluctuate wildly. To the scanners, it looked like he was copying a high-tier armament spell, but in reality, he was forging something entirely original from his own mind.
A sleek, heavy-caliber mechanical gauntlet materialized over his right arm, pulsing with an unstable, white-hot plasma core. Luke stepped forward, driving the compressed gauntlet straight into the disoriented scavenger's featureless face.
BANG!
The plasma discharge exploded outward in a localized cone, completely vaporizing the creature's head and sending its smoking, headless torso skidding across the red sand.
Meanwhile, the third scavenger had capitalized on the distraction, sprinting at terrifying speed toward Luke's exposed right flank, its rotating teeth inches from his thigh.
"Luke, drop," Zeke's voice cut through the explosion.
Without a single moment of hesitation, Luke dropped flat onto the sand, trusting his friend entirely.
The scavenger sailed directly over Luke's head, its maw snapping shut on empty air—only to find Zeke already standing in its trajectory.
Zeke had dropped his stance low, his legs anchored into the arena floor like deep roots. He didn't possess an active plasma gauntlet or a crystalline shield. His MP sat at an absolute, unmoving zero. But deep within his physical container, his Level 5 attributes locked into place, and he channeled his raw, tightly compressed Qi directly into his right fist, creating a micro-vacuum around his knuckles.
He threw a straight, textbook punch.
The scavenger, relying on its high-density kinetic-resistant chitin, didn't attempt to dodge. It drove its heavy skull straight toward Zeke's fist, intending to shatter his human bones.
The moment Zeke's fist made contact with the creature's volcanic shell, the air in Zone Four completely imploded.
CRACK-SHATTER!
It wasn't a dull thud of flesh against armor. It was the terrifying, explosive sound of a high-velocity kinetic shockwave transferring entirely into a solid object. The compressed Qi detonated upon impact, bypassing the external chitin entirely and sending a devastating vibrational wave straight through the scavenger's internal structure.
The creature's entire body instantly ballooned outward before violently bursting, its reinforced shell shattering into thousands of tiny, harmless black fragments that rained down onto the sand.
A sharp, golden notification chimed directly inside Zeke's skull.
[HIGH-INTENSITY COMBAT ENGAGEMENT: SUCCESSFUL]
[TARGET NEUTRALIZED: ABYSSAL SCAVENGER]
[EXP ACQUIRED: +400]
[CURRENT STATUS: LEVEL 5 (400/3000 EXP)]
Zeke pulled his hand back, shaking a few stray black shards off his training wraps, his breathing completely unhurried.
Luke pushed himself up from the sand, his casual jacket covered in dust, but his eyes were wide with genuine, deep appreciation. He looked at the crater where the scavenger had just existed, then looked back at Zeke's unmarred fist.
"Man," Luke laughed, a huge, inventive grin breaking across his face as he slung an arm over Zeke's shoulder. "I don't know what kind of insane gym routine you ran in the lower districts, Zeke, but you are definitely not a Zero."
Up in the main observation box, Commander Vance stared down at the red sand of Zone Four, his fingers tightening against his digital ledger until the plastic groaned. Below him, two unranked, unaffiliated teenagers had just obliterated an E-Rank combat trial in less than twelve seconds without using a single recognized military spell.
The circus had officially begun.