"I'm warning you, don't try anything crazy! If a teammate dies, no matter how strong you are, you won't pass the exam!"
Sensing mana was a fundamental skill for mages, but the strength of this ability depended on personal talent and practice.
Generally speaking, mages could get a rough read on each other, much like the scouters in Dragon Ball. But when these two tried to sense Zenith, the mana capacity they saw was zero.
This was terrifying. Very few people in this world would deliberately hide their mana, and even if they did, there would still be obvious fluctuations.
To not be able to sense a single drop meant only two possibilities. The first was that the person in front of them was a magicless fraud who had somehow bluffed his way into the continent's highest-level mage exam. The other was that he was an absolute master.
Anyone with half a brain would know it was definitely the latter.
"Relax, just be good and listen to me, and I'll carry you through the first round of the exam."
Catching a bird? Piece of cake. The Stille was known for its supersonic flight, sharp senses, and decent magical and physical resistance. An ordinary person would indeed have to put in a lot of effort to catch one.
But to Zenith, none of the Stille's traits mattered. When it came to concealing mana, he could ensure not a single trace leaked out. As for speed, he had learned a future flight spell from Serie, allowing his flight speed to break Mach 2.
He had the Stille completely in the bag.
The exam took place in a dense forest. After being covered by a barrier, all the outer streams and river channels were cut off, leaving only the remaining water sources to continuously gather into the central lake.
Because they needed water, that was the most likely place for a Stille to appear.
"Boss, what's the plan? Are we heading straight for the central area?"
The random teammates very obediently acknowledged Zenith as their boss. They had no choice—these days, being weak was the original sin. Just Zenith's ability to completely mask his presence was enough for them to study for a lifetime.
"It's *I*, not *we*." Zenith waved his hand dismissively. These two noobs couldn't even defeat the monsters in the exam area, let alone the other candidates.
It wasn't worth wasting Totems of Undying on them, and it would be embarrassing if they got beaten to death. Zenith decided to stick to his original plan and dig a hole to bury them both first.
Considering that these mages often destroyed the terrain when they fought, Zenith dug straight down for two hundred blocks before stopping.
Since they were teammates after all, Zenith kindly dug out a three-bedroom, one-living-room space for them, complete with torches, fresh water, and snacks.
"Just stay here and be good. I'll come pick you up before sunset tomorrow."
Watching Zenith seal up the rock and dirt ceiling block by block, the two of them collapsed into their chairs, resigning themselves to their fate.
"I feel like we've been buried alive. This place is way too depressing."
At a depth of two hundred meters, separated by thick layers of earth and stone, even a qualified first-class mage would find it difficult to sense their mana. The only thing that could possibly threaten them was the oxygen level in this enclosed space.
"He probably forgot about that part... Do you have any way to generate oxygen?"
As if hearing their prayers, Zenith quickly dug back down. "Oh right, breathing in this kind of environment is a problem for you guys. I don't need to breathe, so I forgot about that."
*What do you mean you don't need to breathe? Are you even human?!* The two of them had ten thousand complaints they wanted to spit out, but they tactfully held them in.
Zenith continued to dig a large pit downwards and filled it with water, then built a Conduit frame inside it. "As long as you stay in the water, you'll have endless oxygen. You don't even need to submerge your whole body; soaking your feet or taking a bath works too."
Without waiting to see their reactions, he left again, leaving the two of them staring at each other in the spot, at a loss for words.
Having solved the issue of his two teammates, Zenith lightly camouflaged the area so it wouldn't be spotted at a glance.
With the Conduit there, he wasn't worried about not being able to find them later.
Anyway, it was time to secure his own bird first. There was absolutely no need to search such a massive area himself; he just needed to find Frieren. She had a high failure rate when it came to catching them.
Perhaps it was fate, or perhaps it was the inertia of the world, but Frieren's teammates were still that pair of academic best friends. When Zenith walked near them, he happened to catch the two girls fighting.
Frieren: "〒▽〒"
"Yo, Frieren, your teammates are quite energetic."
Frieren stiffly turned her head to glance at Zenith, then turned back. These two little girls were far too much trouble, forcing even the usually slacker Frieren to step up as the team captain.
Sensing an outsider approaching, the two sisters finally stopped their scuffling. The gothic girl, Lavinne, let go of Kanne's twintails, and a staff appeared in her hand as she aimed it at Zenith, on high alert.
"Well, at least you're quite cautious." Zenith raised an eyebrow. Just as he was about to continue speaking, he caught sight of a Stille flying down to the lake to drink water out of the corner of his eye.
See? Following the protagonist made everything so convenient. "I'll be taking this one."
Lavinne and the twintailed Kanne didn't make a move. They had already tried many times, and catching a Stille was no easy feat.
If this mysterious man could actually catch it, it wouldn't be a bad idea for the three of them to just gang up and snatch the bird from him.
Zenith casually walked toward the Stille. Sensing someone approaching, the bird spread its wings and instantly took to the sky, setting off a sonic boom cloud in midair.
This wasn't magic; it was achieved purely through physical strength. It truly lived up to being a creature of a fantasy world—completely defying science.
*Good thing I'm not scientific either.*
Zenith pushed off hard with his legs, the reactionary force instantly crushing the ground beneath his feet into a massive crater. He shot forward at a speed far exceeding the Stille's, quickly catching up and snatching it right out of the air.
While the two girls stared at him as if they were looking at a god, Zenith slowly descended. "Isn't this pretty simple? Frieren, you're really slacking."
Frieren actually knew this move too. She had been right there when Serie explained the supersonic flight spell to Zenith, and she had understood it on the first listen.
It was just that this spell demanded a lot from the body's physical endurance, and it was quite difficult for a mage's body to withstand the pressure of moving at the speed of sound.
Serie had a lot of bizarre spells on hand that could bypass this side effect, but Frieren didn't have that capability yet.
"That's amazing! You can actually fly that fast!" Kanne shook her twintails, her eyes turning into little stars.
"Are you Frieren's friend? Could you help us catch one? If you ever need my help with anything in the future, I'll definitely lend a hand!"
As expected of a mage fresh out of the academy, only they could say something so naive. Her eyes were practically shining with a clear, unadulterated stupidity.
In this exam, everyone was a potential opponent. The teammates you had in this round could very well be the ones eliminating you in the next.
But Zenith had to admit, he didn't dislike it. If the world was entirely filled with campers waiting to ambush people, it would truly be doomed.
"Kanne!" Lavinne walked over, grabbed Kanne by her twintails, and dragged her aside. "Don't just casually talk to strange men, it's dangerous!"
Frieren sighed. "The price for his help is very high. We'd better figure out a way ourselves. I already have a rough idea of what to do."
Obviously, the first thing that popped into Frieren's mind was having to teach Zenith magic, which was honestly more terrifying than subjugating the Demon King.
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