Chapter 57: Whoever It Is, I’ll Be Waiting!!
Nevertheless, Bruce, after disappearing, found himself standing in the middle of another dry savannah.
The air was thick with heat. The faint shimmer of mirage rippled above the horizon. Around him stretched a sea of yellowing grass, half-dry shrubs, and sparse, twisted trees that looked like they had fought too long against the wind.
Apart from these, nothing else was in sight.
The place was vast, too vast. The kind of empty that made sound echo.
Though Ozai had bribed Bale to send both of them into the same zone, they weren’t dropped side by side. The simulation had scattered everyone evenly across the region, keeping a wide radius between each recruit.
Still, Bale had slipped Ozai something more valuable than proximity: coordinates. With them, Ozai could slowly close the distance between them, tracking Bruce’s position step by step. Even then, the scale of the terrain was massive. It would take him at least a day or two of travel to reach Bruce’s location, even at full speed.
Meanwhile, Bruce stood alone, his black hair rustling faintly in the wind as he scanned his surroundings.
Dry wind brushed against his face, carrying the faint smell of dust and distant vegetation.
He narrowed his eyes.
There was no movement. No sound of beasts. No hint of danger.
"Where are the beasts I’m supposed to hunt?" he thought with mild frustration, his gaze sweeping across the empty plain. "This savannah looks almost deserted to me..."
He closed his eyes briefly and tried extending his awareness: his instinctive A-Rank perception, but quickly exhaled through his nose in disappointment.
In the real world, his Life Glance and Death Glance could pierce miles, tracing life force and danger with terrifying precision. But this was a virtual construct.
Here, the life force wasn’t real, just coded mana illusions designed to simulate existence. Even his most refined detection abilities couldn’t fully latch onto something that didn’t truly live.
It was unsettling.
He could feel faint distortions of artificial mana in the air, but nothing consistent. Nothing that told him where prey or danger might lie.
"So this is what it feels like to be blind in battle," he muttered under his breath.
He frowned slightly, scanning the horizon again.
The silence of the savannah was almost mocking.
Sighing, Bruce remembered something Bale had mentioned earlier.
Letting out another breath, he brought his wrist close to his mouth and muttered, "Map."
At once, the smart bracelet responded. From a small pinhole on its side, light spewed outward and formed a faintly glowing holographic map before him.
Lines shimmered in the air, outlining the simulated terrain. Various symbols flickered. small patches of color marking landmarks and regions.
These represented the territories of mutant beasts.
Only the territorial boundaries were visible, not the precise hideouts. That was intentional—part of the test. The recruits had been told they would have to locate the hyenas’ dens and the other beasts’ lairs themselves if they wanted to score higher points.
All across the projection, tiny red dots blinked intermittently, each one marking the position of another recruit. Every dot was spaced evenly, ensuring the same starting distance between participants.
Bruce’s gaze lingered on one particular section of the hologram.
He frowned.
Among all the dots, one stood out. It was far away, nearly a whole territory across from his current position. But unlike the rest, which stayed mostly still, this one was moving.
And it was heading straight toward him.
A quiet sense of unease crept up his spine.
"Tch," he clicked his tongue softly, narrowing his eyes. "Someone’s already moving toward me? That’s... too fast."
He didn’t need to think twice about who it might be.
’Ozai?’
His instincts whispered it, though he didn’t want to admit it. Even he himself wasn’t sure why that thought came so naturally, why his gut immediately suspected Ozai.
Maybe it was the arrogance in the man’s eyes earlier, or the faint tension Bruce had felt ever since the trial began. Whatever the reason, his intuition was clear.
Still, he didn’t move. He didn’t panic.
’Whoever it is,’ he thought, his expression steady, ’they’ll find me waiting.’
He wasn’t afraid, there was no reason to. After all, no one taking this trial was in his level, not Ozai, Not Sophie, not even the white haired girl... He might be A-rank like all of them. But he still outclassed all of them as his class didn’t follow the norm.
Meanwhile he looked at the dot moving to him and speculated: ’The distance between us is still vast. At this pace, it would take at least a day or maybe two for the other person to reach my position.’
Bruce’s lips curved into a faint, cold smile.
"Make sure to kill beasts and gather points for me while you’re on your way," he muttered under his breath. "Or else that’ll be too bad."
The breeze carried his words away, dissolving them into the emptiness of the plains.
He had never actually killed another human before—not directly. Sure, he’d fought, injured, and subdued people when necessary. But taking a life? That was something different. Something heavier.
And yet, he knew that day would come sooner or later.
The world outside didn’t care about morality. In the Outlands, hesitation could cost you everything.
’What better place to practice the art of fighting... and killing... than here?’ he mused quietly, eyes glinting beneath the sunlight.
In this VR world, the pain was real. The fear was real. But the blood wasn’t.
That made it perfect.
Perfect to learn. Perfect to harden the heart.
He exhaled once, steady and calm. Whoever was approaching him clearly wasn’t coming with friendly intentions. Charging so confidently through multiple beast territories without hesitation—whoever it was had strength, or at least the arrogance to believe they did.
But Bruce couldn’t care less.
’Come if you want,’ he thought flatly. ’You’ll only make my job easier.’
Then, after a brief pause, he lifted his gaze and looked around.
The savannah stretched endlessly before him—quiet, dry, and golden. The faint hum of mana in the air was the only reminder that this was a virtual construct, not the real world.
As he moved through the tall grass, another thought crossed his mind—one that Bale had also mentioned before the test.
Hunger.
He smirked slightly. Some of the recruits were probably already worrying about food. But that was needless panic. The system had accounted for that.
An E-Rank awakened could easily last seven days without food, and most of the participants here were E-Rank or above. At worst, they would feel mild fatigue. It wouldn’t be enough to hinder anyone seriously.
However, water was another story. Even in a simulation, the thirst mechanic had been left active to mimic reality. They would need to find drinkable water sources scattered across the terrain—streams, oases, or condensed mana pools—just like in a real Outland expedition.
Still, no one had dared to ask Bale how they were supposed to get it.
That would’ve been ridiculous—like a student asking the invigilator for answers during an exam.
This entire trial was built to simulate the unpredictable cruelty of the world outside the walls.
No shortcuts. It was all part of the test,
a test they had to survive before earning the right to be called Adventurers.