....
Lucien was currently in a battle.
"How dare you?! Fight me! Fight me like a man!"
The anger in his opponent's voice could be felt as the words exited his mouth.
"I refuse."
He said indifferently.
It was a fight he didn't take seriously.
He had racked up quite a few eliminations for himself due to an ambush that had gone wrong, as well as other applicants who had thought that he was an easy picking.
Because of that, he didn't feel the urgency to eliminate people.
With five eliminations it was supposedly already a passing mark considering that the Academy had four new students each year.
Even if it would rank him at the bottom of the barrel, Lucien didn't mind, in fact whether he made it into Lavender Academy came down to Arthur.
Even if he was eliminated without getting any eliminations it wouldn't matter as he was Arthur's servant—he always needed to be by his master's side at all times.
"Coward!"
He yelled before smashing his warhammer down to flatten Lucien.
{What a brute}
The voice in his head commented.
Lucien ignored it, though he had to admit that the boy he was fighting was dumb.
The applicant was naturally a musclehead, a tank, it was quite evident from his build.
Lucien simply raised his sword to stop the hammer mid—swing.
No matter how much strength the boy put behind it, Lucien did not budge, there wasn't even any sign of strain.
He was practically an immovable object.
"Well, I think we've had enough."
He said suddenly.
He pushed the hammer off, and in that short moment where his defenses were open, he pushed as much essence as he could into his hands and legs simultaneously.
He vanished, reappearing behind the burly applicant a second later,
Lucien sheathed his sword as one of his opponent's arms fell off, it was accompanied by the simultaneous breaking of all three of the applicant's balls all at once.
The applicant vanished in a shimmer of the same light that had transported them here, the shards of his orbs falling onto the ground.
He poured essence into his leg once more and took off.
Normally, humans weren't supposed to be able to move essence through their body on command, their body did it naturally.
From the fifth rank, all awakeneds could control essence in their body to a minor degree. Even at higher ranks they still could barely move essence consciously.
Lucien, however, was able to do it perfectly thanks to his Origin Skill.
His origin skill—Essence Manipulation, allowed him to perfectly direct as much essence as he wanted into a body part to temporarily increase its capabilities.
And, unlike most Origin Skills that would gradually allow the user to access its feature, his Origin Skill gave him full access as soon as he awakened.
He was among the luckiest in the world—not only did he have an Origin Skill that allowed him to do what every awakened couldn't, but it was also completely accessible from the moment he awakened.
As the protagonist, he truly was lucky.
'That took far too longer than I expected.'
He couldn't help but think.
By the time he realized what he was doing—nothing at all, just dodging meaninglessly to anger his opponent—he remembered that he still had more eliminations to get before the test was over.
After all, his performance on this exam would decided his overall position among the first years.
The people who would be kicked out would be those who performed very poorly on this test, and even then, your written exam scores could still save you.
The written exam was more or less the only one applicants had to worry about due to the fact most people preferred fighting ruthlessly without a care to sitting down in an exam.
Even if Lucien had failed, which he did believe he did, he would have still been admitted.
He was Arthur's servant, they couldn't just kick the personal servant bound to him with a vow out and leave his master in.
'Still, how did he get second.'
The thought came suddenly.
Lucien's pace slowly reduced until it slowed down to a walk. A very absent—minded walk considering the nature of the competition he was in.
'The questions he gave me and the questions that he had were the same.'
He hadn't read it actually. He had only glanced through it before taking a quick nap in the cockpit of the jet.
'How did he even get his hands on the questions?'
Lavender Academy's questions had never been leaked in the history of the institution.
Yet, Arthur had managed to get his hands on it.
And somehow, he hadn't gotten first.
'That girl is either a cheater, or smart enough to be an AI.'
His walk eventually stopped as he stood at the edge of the forest, admiring the view in front of him.
The islands.
While Lucien believed the former Arthur was a failure, he did have some regard for the current Arthur.
The man had poured hours into learning the questions and answers, surely he was aiming to be first. He even confirmed that when he saw Arthur sitting down dejectedly at the corner.
'Despite that....'
Lucien's thought process was interrupted by the sight in front of him.
There were several people swimming to the adjacent island.
"Strange."
Lucien muttered.
He dashed away.
Fights had broken out in the water, each applicant desperately wanted points.
Though, that wasn't the strange part.
The strange part was that there was someone floating on something that looked very similar to a raft.
"Strange."
He muttered again, going back to hunting for eliminations.
….
High above the islands, the sky was quiet—too quiet for the chaos below.
A sleek black aircraft cut through the clouds like a blade. Its engines hummed softly, almost respectful of the world beneath it.
Inside, a young man with blonde hair blowing in the wind stood.
The door was opened down, surprisingly he stood like an immovable object.
"Permission to jump."
He wasn't wearing a parachute.
"We're over an island, you're free to jump whenever you choose to."
The pilot said.
The young man wasted no time after that and immediately jumped out of the aircraft.
'I wonder how my little brother is doing.'