At the center of the auditorium—
The teleportation gate twisted, and four students stumbled out of the white light, looking battered and exhausted.
The healers who had been waiting rushed forward to cast recovery spells.
Madeleine Shaw stepped up in her red high heels. She adjusted her glasses, flipped through the record book in her hands, and then stopped.
"Grade: E," she said flatly. "I'm sorry. Your team has failed."
"Teacher! Please let us try again—this time we definitely—"
The student spoke anxiously, only to tear his wound open again as pain shot through him.
"You've already failed."
"There are only a few minutes left. Prepare for the retest next year."
Madeleine's cold voice cut him off. She didn't even look at the resentment burning in his eyes.
As the assessment drew to a close and all participating students had returned, the atmosphere became much more relaxed.
"Finally over. Barely passed with a D rating—thank the Goddess for her blessing!"
"By the way, why haven't we seen that handsome guy yet?"
"Handsome guy? Which one?"
"The one from the Armory. His name was Ca… something."
"Caelan Grey? I don't think he plans to show up."
"What do you mean?"
"He's dead last in the academy. Coming would just be a waste of time. Probably knows it himself and decided to skip."
"I heard he went to the Armory early this morning. He's probably still hiding in there now…"
The teleportation gate used for the graduation assessment was borrowed from the military.
The target Instance difficulty was E-rank.
Assessment grades, from highest to lowest, were:
SSS, SS, S, A, B, C, D, E, F.
Students could freely form teams of up to four people. As long as they cleared the Instance with a D-grade or above, they passed. It wasn't considered particularly difficult.
Yet every year, quite a few students still failed.
With Caelan Grey's bottom-ranked strength, passing this assessment normally would be extremely difficult—
no one was willing to team up with him.
Just as everyone assumed he had forfeited, a voice came from the entrance.
"I'm not late, am I?"
Madeleine glanced at the late-arriving Caelan. Without comment, she said in a businesslike tone,
"You have five minutes left. After that, the military will reclaim the gate."
She flipped through the roster quickly, about to write something down, when she frowned at the sight of Caelan standing alone, a sword hanging at his waist.
"Where are your teammates?"
"I don't have any," Caelan shook his head. "This assessment—I'm going in alone."
"Are you sure?" Madeleine's tone sharpened.
"This isn't a joke. Although it's only an assessment and there's no danger to your life, it determines whether you can graduate. The difficulty isn't trivial. You only have five minutes—miss this and you'll wait another year."
"I'm sure."
Caelan's gaze passed over Madeleine and fixed on the teleportation gate standing in the void, wrapped in sacred white light.
"This assessment… I'm enough on my own."
The surrounding students immediately erupted into chatter.
"Who's this guy? Showing up late is one thing, but what a big mouth!"
"Yeah—'I'm enough on my own'? Is his class Drunkard? Did he down a few shots of brandy and start talking nonsense?"
"Or maybe he's a follower of the Dream God—still not awake yet."
Soon, someone recognized him, and the mockery grew sharper.
"That's not nonsense. Don't you recognize Caelan Grey, the academy's dead last? He knows he's too weak for anyone to team up with him, so he's saying that to comfort himself."
"Oh, it's him! Then yeah, one person is enough—after all, the result's the same."
"Five minutes? I bet he won't even last until time's up. Hahaha!"
Madeleine cast a cold glance at the crowd. The students immediately shut up and lowered their heads.
"I'll ask one last time. You're confirming—just you?"
Caelan said nothing more.
Instead, he answered with action.
He walked steadily toward the teleportation gate.
Under the gazes of spectators—some curious, some disdainful—he stepped into the white light.
His figure vanished instantly.
The white light flashed.
In the next moment, the world before him changed completely.
[Instance: Empire Watch]
[Difficulty: E-Rank]
[Description:]
Even the greatest empires eventually decay. The rebels slew their king and all his guards. Unwilling to fade into death, the fallen king formed a pact with the Master of Shadows. The rotting, broken royal court is filled with "life" once more… or perhaps something else entirely?
Caelan appeared on a ruined battlefield buried in wind and sand.
Broken stone structures jutted half-buried from the dunes. Scattered across the ground were silver-white plate armor and shattered helmets in a medieval style, radiating an eerie sense of wrongness that did not belong to the present world.
At the center of the ruins, only one towering castle remained intact, standing tall against the sands.
Above the castle, a blurry, misshapen silhouette waited in silent vigilance.
"So that's the final boss?"
Caelan's gaze swept across the desolate scenery before settling on the grotesque figure atop the castle—
a presence that practically had "I AM THE BOSS" written across its forehead.
"The condition to clear the Instance is to eliminate all monsters…"
His eyes shifted to the nearest creatures—ugly figures in armor, wielding broken swords.
[Name: Ruins Guardian]
[Level: 2]
[Skills: Charge, Heavy Strike]
[Description:]
Creatures born from decayed guards whose rotting flesh fused with shadow elements after the empire's fall. Despicable rebels— the empire shall rise again!
After games merged with reality, Instances appeared all over the world.
[Empire Watch] was considered relatively simple and had been brought under military control early on.
These guardians were monsters from a fallen world. Low in intelligence, they attacked blindly—perfect for beginners to practice combat techniques.
That was why this Instance had been chosen as the graduation test.
The only real challenge lay in the king within the castle, which was why the academy recommended team participation.
But Caelan didn't give it a second thought.
"Looks like this graduation assessment is even easier than I expected."
He drew the longsword at his waist.
The guardians lurched forward, charging at him. When they closed to just a few meters, their speed suddenly increased.
[Charge]
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sword flashed.
The sharp blade effortlessly cleaved through the decayed armor.
The flesh beneath dissolved into black smoke and vanished.
These monsters were even weaker than he had anticipated. Caelan felt that the system-granted skills were completely unnecessary.
The weapon in his hand was one he had forged himself.
Although forging swords had begun as a system task, Caelan had poured genuine care into it.
This blade had been made specifically for himself and enchanted at great expense. In terms of durability and lethality, it was already exceptional.
Coupled with years of relentless sword-technique practice, he could easily strike enemy weak points and trigger critical hits.
With just these two factors alone—
He was already more than capable of clearing this Instance.