Chapter 242 The match begins  

"For the first stage, which is the battles between your own classmates, the teams would be chosen randomly. Whenever your matches are about to start, you'll be teleported from here to a new location. If you die or get a serious injury, you'll be teleported here. We'll be monitoring your performance from here." Professor Osborn said, "After each match your mana and physical condition would be restored to prime, so don't make any reservations and just give it your all every time."

"Even though this test is just to evaluate your basic performance, make sure your first impressions aren't bad." Professor Freya reminded everyone.

When all the students were busy preparing for themselves or mocking the guys dressed weirdly, Rio just closed his eyes and laid down on the ground. He was thinking about what kinds of fights there would be in this scenario.

In the there was something similar to this event too, but that was a survival and monster hunting test, but now that was changed to this dungeon destroying game. How or why, Rio didn't bother thinking. There had been so many changes in the academy arcs with his interference, so plotline diversion of this level wasn't even worth investigating.

In the , during this VR test, Amaya was the one who won the game. She had made an alliance with Valtor from the beginning and they acted on that deal for a while. But in the end when the chance for victor was between these two, Amaya with her brains, was able to steal the points from Valtor, before the timer ran out. Leon in that test was in fifth position, with Moksh taking the third place and Katherine in fourth place.

Yet not Rio wasn't sure anymore.

This test which was supposed to be a solo survival test had turned into a team match. If it was a solo match, he was sure to win easily and even show the vast difference of level he has with all the other students. Yet now with the team match, he couldn't be sure.

If fate pulled a shit and all he got were chickens, while the other side got the top rankers, then the best he could do is to make both sides lose. After all, he could either defend his castle or destroy theirs, it couldn't be both. Unless he pulled out some secret cards of his, exposing whom this early for just this, would be wasteful.

'But if that happens, let's just hope I get someone who can stay alive for a little time, until I can destroy the other team.' Rio thought and glanced at his hand, where the academy watch lit up.

Soon every student's watches lit up and they all teleported out from the Quantum Hub. In that empty white space dozens of projection displays and many drones appeared instead. All of them showing feeds from various places where every student was transported to. The matches of all the classes for the first stage would happen simultaneously so the staff don't have to waste time on it.

[Simulation starts 3 .. 2 .. 1 ] [We wish you a wonderful experience.]

Rio read the notifications on his display and then a blinding light enveloped his sense.

After some time he blinked his eyes several times as the sudden shift in the environment around him was blinding them. Currently he was standing in an open hall. Surrounded by large pillars, in between all those was a floating ball of purple energy ?? which he could guess as the castle core that professors spoke about.

Clear sky and sunlight was bathing the entire area into a beautiful sight. The smell of trees and soil wafted into his nostrils, giving a refreshing calm feeling to the mind. Looking up he could see the birds flying in the sky and hear their chirping. Rio moved forwards and touched a pillar nearby, feeling the sense of touch he nodded his head.

He closed his fists and punched the pillar with half his strength, feeling the stinging pain on his knuckles, he smiled a little. 'Looks like she didn't mess with anything after all.'

"Let's check mana and aura too."

He thought, as he waved his hand and a small arc of air left from his hand, slashing at the pillar, leaving its mark and some cracks on the surface.

'So around 40 percent' Rio said in his heart as he felt the mana in his body. Which wasn't even half of what he had outside.

Next up, he coated his leg in aura and gave a kick to the pillar, blasting it into pieces.

'Huh, did they not change aura.' Rio thought as he felt his aura rank was still the same as before. But then he understood, after all, aura mainly depended on training and mastery of everyone's physical body itself, unlike mana which could always be boosted by ranking up using pills and elixirs.

'No blessings huh' Rio said, as he tried to channel the blessing 'Master of Magic' to see if he could gather mana from the air faster to recover himself, but found that he couldn't use them here.

'Hela, can you hear me?'

[... ]

'No response, meaning she's not around either.'

"Can't believe they can do all this just with codes, data and algorithms. Right system?" [...]

'No response, did it _ ah no you're muted, got it.' Rio said, breathing a sigh of relief, "For a second I thought you'd be so useless to go offline every time I enter VR.' Rio said and shook his head. magic

(Bastard) system, who was muted and insulted for no reason, could only curse in its mind and note down this point to ask for judgment later.

While Rio was busy checking about all his senses and powers, behind him 14 other students appeared. Seeing him they all tried to do the same too.

Not destroying the pillar nearby, but just channeling their mana to see what was the effect of equal restrictions on them. Everyone's mana for this test was sealed around the newly D- rank awakener. Meaning at the limit of 30 or nearby to that level, atleast.

(They could call upon their world system to see all these details still, but the world system only shows real numbers and status, not the ones allowed inside the VR.)

After running his various tests and thinking up which spells he could use with this limited mana, or which technique would be more suitable to deal with what situation, he turned around and looked at the other students, and he could just curse the fate after seeing them.

It was so bad that he didn't even recognize them from the . All of them were extras or just nobodys who appeared in one chapter just to die. Or people who were only ever mentioned in academy arcs and then disappeared from the novel completely, as if the author forgot about their existence.

'When shit like this happens to me, I think of killing the protagonist and taking all his luck.' Rio said in his heart and sighed.

He was surprised not to find any one of his friends or even the other strong characters but he also knew this shit was random and no one did this to mess with him. After all, professor Freya, Thaddeus and Jorvik were there. He at least knew these oldies won't be going against him.

As Rio kept staring at every student, they were all staring at him too. After all, everyone knew who he was and since he was in their team they were all excited about it.

Since Rio always trained alone in the room in his free time or booked the private chambers using Merit Points, no one had seen him much outside. Even in the training class of professor Thaddeus, he was one of the few who passed the test and trained separately. But seeing his records back then and witnessing the few spars he'd have with his sister and princess every now and then in Miss Freya's class, they were all aware of his strength. So without even asking or saying anything, he instantly became the de facto leader of their group.

Seeing them all silent and just staring at him, Rio just shook his head and started his introduction. "My name's Rio. I'm a swordsman. And I can act as the main damage dealer for this team."

Hearing him, all of them understood and started introducing themselves and what role they could play in this match.

After some time, Rio remembered all their names and could identify them a little. Not all of them were useless, a few could come to be of help, if they're as good as they say.

The teams for this stage were divided into 15 vs 15. So since one class had around 300 students, it would be 10 matches a class, and 50 matches in total.

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A/N - I know it got dragged out but promise this was the last.