Zenith approached with slow, measured steps. She had long black hair, piercing red eyes, and wore a white and blue pleated skirt with a matching academy blazer. Adrian walked on her left, while metallic armored Viktor flanked her right.

Lucian was casually sitting on a nearby stone, with Elira and Sera standing on his left and right like sentinels.

Seeing them approaching from a distance, Lucian kept a completely deadpan expression and started whistling a random, off-key tune. His eyes briefly darted toward Adrian, doing a quick scan.

What a joke, Lucian chuckled inwardly.

Mommy’s boy is still wearing all that worthless jewelry.

Adrian’s hands and neck were covered in multiple glowing rings, bracelets, and chains. It was blatantly obvious to anyone watching that he relied way more on expensive magical artifacts than his own raw talent.

Tension instantly spiked in the atmosphere. The surrounding students completely abandoned their own team-building, their eyes glued to the six of them.

Everyone naturally assumed Zenith was here to recruit Elira and Sera. However, Zenith’s eyes were not weak. She knew exactly who the strongest person in the room was.

"Lucian Valemont..." She spoke with a friendly manner, stopping right in front of him.

"Would you like to team up with us?"

"Huh..."

Without even bothering to stand up, Lucian casually shoved a hand into his pocket.

"Ah... sorry, Miss...?"

For a few agonizing seconds, he just sat there playing dumb, intentionally stretching out his little performance despite knowing exactly who was standing in front of him.

"I mean... Miss Korr, right?"

Seeing his utterly dismissive tone, Adrian couldn’t hold back. Before Zenith could even respond, he exploded.

"Hey, you fucker! How dare you disrespect our captain like that?!"

Elira’s hands balled into fists, her aura radiating a murderous chill.

Aww... looks like I fired up the puppy a little, Lucian thought playfully.

Completely ignoring Adrian’s existence, Lucian just looked away and went right back to whistling his annoying deadpan tune.

ಠ_ಠ

"You arrogant prick! You dare—!" Adrian roared, taking an aggressive step forward.

Zenith didn’t move her body, she just shot a single, freezing side-glance straight at Adrian.

"Stand. Down. Adrian."

his face flushed with humiliation as he immediately gritted his teeth and pulled his foot back like an obedient dog.

"I apologize on behalf of my teammate," Zenith said, giving a light bow of her head.

"Oh, no, no. Don’t worry about it. It happens sometimes," Lucian waved it off casually, playing his dismissive role perfectly.

"So, would you like to—"

"Ah, I’ll have to humbly decline," he cut her off smoothly while gesturing with his chin over her shoulder. "As you can see behind you, the other half of my party has already arrived."

Footsteps approached from the rear as Kaelen, Zeri, and Lyria smoothly pushed through the tense crowd to join them.

Zenith turned her head slightly, her crimson eyes scanning the three newcomers. though her face showed no reaction, remaining an absolute poker face.

"I see. Kaelen Nebryss and Lyria Draven, Very well, then..." She turned around with her perfect posture.

"Perhaps some other time."

Lucian simply sat there cross-legged, a faint, amused smile lingering on his lips as he watched her walk away.

But just as she took a few steps, Zenith threw one last, lingering glance over her shoulder. It wasn’t a glare. It wasn’t an overt threat. Yet, the sheer, suffocating intensity hiding in those crimson eyes made Lucian tense up as a cold sweat broke across his skin .

An instant realization hit him.

Maybe being this arrogant isn’t always a good idea...

Lyria approached, watching Zenith walk away.

"Ah... Zenith Korr. I figured she would approach you eventually."

Lucian sighed.

"Well, she is gone now... and we should get moving too."

From behind, Elira muttered coldly,

"I don’t like that lapdog’s attitude one bit."

"You mean Adrian?"

Her eyes widened slightly. "You know him?"

"Yeah. He’s my stepbrother."

Sera looked stunned.

"Really? Oho... no wonder he was trying to pick a fight so eagerly."

"Yeah, well, his personality has always been like that from the start."

Just then, the crowd of students started moving forward as they got the final signal from Professor Magnus.

"Um... guys, we should get moving too..." Kaelen murmured.

Lucian stood up and took the lead as his newly assembled party followed right behind him.

"Alright everyone, let’s get some action, now shall we?"

Standing beside Kaelen, Zeri yawned widely and leaned her entire weight onto Kaelen’s short body from behind.

"Hey, Kae... I’m sleepy... give me a piggyback ride to the dungeon...’kay?"

Before he could even respond, she was already out cold.

Zzzzz...

"W-What?! No! Walk on your own! Zeri, wake up—!"

Despite his protests, Zeri just let her body go completely loose over his shoulders. The poor guy had no choice but to grab her by the legs and haul her all the way toward the Nether Dungeon’s gate.

...

..

.

A little while later, all two hundred students stood ready in their teams. One by one, the parties marched straight into the dark mouth of the dungeon. Some students hadn’t even stepped in yet, shivering nervously at the entrance, while others confidently walked right into the pitch-black darkness.

Even after walking for a bit, nobody could see a damn thing in the dark. Then, fire lanterns started appearing on the cave walls. Slowly, everyone moved toward the light.

When the light grew brighter, they finally saw what was waiting for them on the first floor.

It was a massively wide and towering structure, stretching almost five hundred meters high and just as wide. It looked like a giant, translucent glass door, though there was no doorknob because, obviously, it was a solid wall.

On the other side of that wall, countless laborers — more like slaves — were working tirelessly, extracting mana crystals from the cavern rocks. None of them even bothered to glance toward the students. It was as if they knew from experience that very few people ever managed to cross this barrier anyway, so there was no point paying attention. They just kept their heads down and worked.

"Look at that..." sera muttered while touching her finger to the wall, she could see her reflection clearly.

Off to the sides, both left and right, several teams were already throwing heavy punches and spells at the surface of the wall. The underground clearing was incredibly huge that Forget two hundred students, nah — even if there were one thousand, they could easily pick their own breaking points without bumping into each other. The wall’s span was just that massive.

A team from black mire was trying to forcefully tear the wall apart in a very bizarre, barbaric way.

Seeing them, Lucian just shook his head slightly.

Well, good luck with that.

However if breaking the wall was really that easy, the slaves on the other side wouldn’t still be trapped. It was obvious this wasn’t just a simple translucent barrier. It was called the ’Wall of Play’ for a reason.

A sudden noise erupted close by, immediately catching the eyes of everyone, including Lucian’s group.

"Aaahhhhh!"

One student recoiled, losing his footing and crashing onto the ground.

He pointed toward the wall with a trembling hand, his expression warped by sheer horror.

"S-something’s there... It’s a ghost!"