Chapter 35: The Second Test (a)
"The second exam will now begin!"
Not too long after Eugene finalized the purchase of his class and a skill book, the man in white, the demon in man's clothing, caught everyone's attention with his loud voice and signature elegant claps before announcing to them the beginning of the second test.
"What you've to do to pass it is quite simple."
While saying that, Sebastian snapped his finger.
Almost instantly, many portals, four times longer and eight times wider than an average Earthling, opened up close to the pillars with protruding stone that supported the raised platform on which he was sitting.
"By taking these portals, you'll appear in one of the four safe zones of the second testing grounds. From there, you must reach the third testing ground, and you'll pass the second test. Only a forest of trees is separating you from your goal."
Eugene, who could see intangible and invisible tentacles rising from Sebastian's back and stabbing the fools who had readily believed him, immediately understood that he was mixing lies with truth and concluded that the forest would've more than just trees in it.
"If you cross it within a day and reach your destination, you'll win 100 to 300 miracle points." Sebastian said, "A 100 is enough for you to live a lavish life on the tower's first floor, mate with the prettiest of girls, have sumptuous meals, drink the finest wines, and watch the greatest shows."
A look of greed appeared on many people's faces, and the desire to eat good and have sex with pretty women that they could only dream of doing filled their hearts.
Like foolish fishes, they had bit the bait that the demonic fisherman set for them.
"But only a fool would say no to more money. The faster you reach the third testing ground from the second, the more miracle points you'll earn."
Sebastian tapped his chin with his finger as if coming up with a plan to make things more difficult for the innocent lambs.
"You must note that the distance between each safe zones and the third testing ground is different. One of them is so close to it that it will only take you a minute of walking to reach it. If you're lucky, you might appear in that zone after taking one of these portals. Simple, isn't it?"
"Will it really be as simple as he said?"
Only a few disbelieved him.
"What will he gain from lying to us? It's not like he is a demon, preying on our emotion."
But most people believed him.
"If he wanted to fool us, would he tell us about the shortcut that will allow us to ace the test? You're just being paranoid and accusing an innocent man of committing a crime he never did."
"I guess I am being unreasonably suspicious of him. Sorry."
The opinion of the majority suppressed the disbelief of the majority.
Like a panicked crowd, they began rushing into the portals.
"He is really good at wordplay. With just a few sentences, he has broken up the crowd into different groups."
Eugene rolled his eyes at Sebastian, but his actions went unnoticed by the crowd.
A 100 miracle coin was truly enough for a person to live a lavish life in the tower, but only for a month.
Furthermore, the chance that they would earn that was significantly low now that they had split up into smaller groups in order to be the ones lucky enough to end up in the safe zone closest to the third testing ground.
"Greed has clouded their sense of judgment. If they had just pondered over his words with a clear mind, they would've realized that this exam… is going to be incomparably more difficult than the first and would've stuck together instead of splitting up."
"Why do you say so?"
"The difficulty level of an exam is determined by its rewards. The better the reward, the more difficult it will be. The maximum points an average examinee could earn in the first exam was 50, but that's half the points you can make for just passing the second exam with the minimum grade. That says a lot about how hard it is going to be."
"I can't believe there are people stupid enough to believe him."
Wren smacked his head in frustration after Eugene told him what he had concluded about the second exam.
"Haha." Eugene laughed at his silliness. "The early birds get all the worms. I believe that we need to reach the third testing ground within eight hours to get 300 points. If we wait here any longer, we wouldn't be acing the test."
He left Jude behind and headed towards the second portal.
"Are you just going to leave him?"
"Yes. Or would you rather princess carry him?"
"No way in hell am I going to burden my shoulders with the weight of a stranger."
Wren followed closely behind him.
They jumped into it and found their world spinning so fast that they became dizzy instantly.
They closed shut their eyes to fight off the feeling of nausea haunting them.
A hot feeling washed over them several times in an instant before they appeared in one of the safe zones surrounding the forest.
[You have appeared in the Great Cliff.]
They snapped open their eyes and took in their surrounding.
They were on top of a cliff.
There were many people and a few Ogres around them.
Some of them had finished puking while the others hadn't.
Seeing them, Wren & Eugene also failed to suppress the urge to puke their guts out.
An invisible power, which was stopping them from attacking each other, was why the monsters hadn't killed a single human so far.
In the middle of the cliff was a huge black rock.
It looked like a surfing boat but was dozens of times thicker than one.
Characters of a language unknown to Earthling and the Ogres were plenty on it.
"The clues left behind by previous examinees are in our reach, but to our misfortune, we lack the linguistic skills to read them."
Eugene sighed.
There were plenty of good guys in the tower.
They would leave behind clues for the future generation to make it easy for them to pass a test or trial.
Such clues were on the black rock, but no one understood them as they were in a language foreign to them.
"I think I can transcribe them into English."
Well, no one except for Wren.
"You can?"
Eugene looked at him with wide eyes as if he found it hard to believe that the prince of the flying island had the skills to decode ancient characters of most likely different languages.
"What? You don't believe me, I see."
Wren, although known to his people as a lazy and self-indulgent prince, was actually smart and strong.
"Just because I am a lazy prince who could get anything when on the flying island doesn't mean I failed to take in everything the "Imperial Teacher," a servant of my father, told & showed me like a sponge."
It's just that he never felt the need to express his greatness to others, and hence everyone took him for a fool.
"I can confidently say that it will only take me a couple of minutes to transcribe all the words on the stone."
There were around a hundred or so words in it, each sentence in a different language, yet he acted like he could transcribe them as quickly as he could buy cabbages from a vegetable stall owner.
"What are you waiting for then? Do awe us with your skills."
Eugene told him to do what he was boosting about already.
Wren scrutinized the characters on the stone for a few seconds only for a few minutes and succeeded in translating them to English in his mind.
"I am done transcribing the sentences carved on the stone in a foreign language."
Wren looked back at Eugene and the crowd with a raised chin as if telling them to admire him.
"It says,
"Be aware of the dangers that are hiding in the forest too tranquil.
"Waiting to ambush innocent passersby are not only monsters too green whose ears you need but also bullets too white that you need to avoid by stepping out of the sources of the noises.
"Noise is your enemy.
"Silence is your friend.
"Without courage and confidence, only fools courting death dare to fish in troubled times."
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