The Greatest Awakener: Ruler Of Time And Portals.

The walls of the room they were in started to twist and turn radically. Like pieces of a machine, the wall parts began to separate and then assimilate again. As this reorientation was completed, the empty, undecorated room had turned into something else.

The room was painted a dull hue of red, with five dispensers attached to its walls. As they were immersed in the observation of this new room, the ring on their bands attracted their attention. The message, same:

[Anomaly has been detected, three contestants have entered the instance at once. The instance has been upgraded to intermediate grade.

Clearing of the instance will yield each contestant 1000 points and a random piece of equipment. Good luck!]

"Three people? Who's the third one?" Nicolas thought, apprehensive of the stranger that was with them.

A cadence of verses started to emanate from behind the dispensers, the voice mechanical. Evincing feelings heartfelt, In thy mind, I smelt. With guile, you must write, Taking me as your guide. Else, prepare to face the spite.

As the citation ended, a ball fell out from one of the dispensers. A line of text revealed itself on the wall:

"Crafter of nightmares, destroyer of dreams. One with a dragon's might, the luminous king...."

"A puzzle once more, I am fed up with these puzzles. We are mages, test us with combat!" Flumen said in a complaining tone, his mouth like a desiccated flower petal.

Nicolas ignored the complaints of his puerile companion as he worked to decode the poem's meaning.

"It is essentially asking us to write using astuteness and with the help of our knowledge," Nicolas said to Flumen.

"It's like the fill-in-the-blanks we got in theory class, we just have to write the answer on the ball and put it back in the dispenser," Flumen remarked, his gaze carrying a sense of understanding.

He added cheerfully, "The first one is simple. It's Grimscite Meganheart, the 14th monarch of the Meganheart dynasty, and the ancestor of his majesty."

Grimscite Meganheart was one of, if not the greatest and most famous rulers of Valtheris, known worldwide for his feat of slaying an ice dragon and rescuing the civilians tormented by the creature. He was one of the people everyone knew about, no matter the place.

Nicolas too was cognizant of the answer. The reason for his silence was that the question brought the memories of Suharita to mind. He missed her soothing voice and effervescent personality. She was the reason he had gained his current confidence. Her entry had made his meaningless life meaningful, his insecurity turning into confidence and depression into optimism. If she was together with him, no challenge however strenuous could make him cower.

Noticing the sudden reverie of Nicolas, Flumen decided to give the answer himself. Using the short, curvy dagger he carried with him, the youngster carved 'Grimscite' on the ball and threw it inside the hole it came from.

A chime sounded as a new line of text surfaced, a ball shooting out from the second dispenser.

"The rarest of all, the one that stands forever tall. Use it and suffer 18 waves of klime, such is the power of...

"Time," the pair shouted at the same time, Nicolas finally out of his reverie.

This again was a simple one. Klime was a backlash a mage faced when using high-grade spells; it disturbed the mana channels, causing the caster to feel immense pain. 18 Klime was an amount only the power of time could result in.

"These puzzles have been surprisingly easy. It feels like the instance has become easier instead of the opposite," Nicolas thought, taken aback by the simplicity of the puzzles.

Flumen swiftly carved the word 'time' on the ball and put it in the dispenser.

A third line of text showed itself: "The hardest gain, a pain to attain. With thorns of steel grows the plant of..."

Nicolas was utterly dumbfounded by the question. To prepare for the Aethercrest Academy Entrance Examination, Nicolas had studied over a thousand mystic plants and herbs, but not once had he heard of a plant with steel thorns. He looked towards Flumen and noticed his eyes had lit up.

"Haykeel, it's the Haykeel Parevon found on the highest peaks of Albatheno Range," he said while looking towards Nicolas like a child with high grades looks towards his parents for praise.

"How do you even know that?" Nicolas asked in confusion, perplexed by both the strangely niche question asked and the fact that Flumen knew the answer to it.

"I had taken a magical botany course when I was in the compulsory training camp," he replied, proud that he had outdone Nicolas.

Flumen picked up the ball, carved the answer, and put it back in. This action led to a sudden quake, and the walls once again started to rearrange.

The new atmosphere was just as somber as the previous one. There was an elegant and lifelike statue attached to a wall, that of a graceful woman. The carving was done in such a way that made the figure seem virtually real. She appeared to be in her early 20s, possessing a voluptuous body and eyes that could charm the coldest hearts. The eyes themselves were unblemished, but they could see some sort of red paint used to illustrate blood that had flown from them.

A sudden outage of light broke their observation. A mellow tune started playing, the notes similar to a Tuniot's. The music melted into their ears; it had a very calming effect on their minds. However, it soon started to turn into something disturbing. Each note hurt their ear and mind, like the music contained a latent poison that had started to act.

The pair of acquaintances condensed their mana into a dense ball and used it to cover their ears, but the music's harm only aggravated. The situation had become such that they could not even think straight, the fear of death and unattainment of their goals consuming their mind and soul. They wanted to live, and this want had made them hysterical.

Nicolas desperately used his destructive spells to try to smash the walls and find the source of this dreadful tune, but the walls of this room seemed to resist even the strongest magic. He even tried to use the past analysis skill on the statue, but for the first time, it failed to work. The magic, which same-rank mages could not even hope to escape from, had not even dented the walls.

Flumen, equally desperate, started to attack the statue, believing it to be the cause of their predicament. The result? Equally fruitless.

The two had entered the instance, pleased at their luck, their aspirations grand, but reality had struck hard.

Blood had started to flow out of their ears, and their eyes had become reddened. Death seemed to be the only solace from this torture, but they would rather face this predicament than find that solace.

"This can't happen. The moment I got time as an affinity, I was ecstatic. I thought I would finally be able to get to the reality, finally learn about me. The journey has just begun, numerous people depend upon me. Suharita, Emilia, Draven, and my guardians, I will have to leave everyone alone." Blood had started to flow out of Nicolas' mouth, his breathing had become shallow, and movement, a pain.

"I can't die like this, this is too pathetic. There must be some way out of this. Please, Nicolas, think." The youngster forced himself to think, to find, to discover some sort of hint, to escape this impasse.

The unbearable pain had made the two fall to the ground, their minds too disturbed to maintain locomotion. His eyes started wandering, his gaze landing at the statue's feet, where the schematics of dried blood had been drawn.

"There is blood, but how come the sculptor did not make a wound? Did he make a mistake?" Nicolas thought, but his mind started to wander somewhere else as he could not afford to waste time on such trivialities.

"Wait! Tune, wound, scar." Nicolas was reminded of the verses of the first poem.

'Cease? It will, but not soon. Only when it leaves a scar, Only when comes the noon.'

"The poem was talking about a jarring tune and that it will cease when the noon comes and a scar is left. It's already past noon, so only the scar is remaining."

Nicolas used the statue to make himself stand up, and he started to use his saber to carve a scar on the statue. His arm strength resulting in immense pain, but he pulled through. The statue now had a scar.

The torturous tune finally ceased, Nicolas' face displaying a look of pure relief.

Twenty minutes ago

Room no. 999A, a horde of shrieking ox-like monsters was wreaking havoc in the room while trying to attack someone. That someone had a sword in his hand, which was like the bane of the monsters, each attack taking one of them down.

He and his sword moved simultaneously, each movement graceful, like a swordmaster had taken control of the youngster's soul. Magic was not even needed to decimate the monsters. As the fight finished, corpses lay sprawled across the floor of the giant room.

As the sword-wielder was about to exit the room, its door shut tight. A ring came for his band.

[Anomaly has been detected, three contestants have entered the instance at once. The instance has been upgraded to intermediate grade.

Clearing of the instance will yield each contestant a thousand points and a random piece of equipment. Good luck!]

"Three! But as far as I know, two contestants already upgraded it to a middle-grade one, so shouldn't 3 have made it even higher?" The youngster's musings were broken by a growl.

A 3-meter long alligator charged at the boy, its mouth open to attack. The youngster's lips parted, but instead of chants, what came out was a supersonic soundwave that directly penetrated into the beast's ear, its nose scrunching up and face contorting.

Taking advantage of the moment, he fired a Piercing Icicle at the beast. The sharp rectangular piece of ice shot at the beast, the disorientation caused by the soundwave making it unable to dodge.

The abdomen of the beast was cut through, leaving a shallow wound.

"This is definitely an elite-rank beast, what have I gotten myself into?" The awakener thought with apprehension.

Having overcome the sound disturbance, the alligator swung his tail forward, causing multiple high-pressure jet sprays to eject from his tail. As the youngster worked to evade the attacks, the beast approached him rapidly.

No sooner had the beast got in his range than the awakener had dodged all the attacks. He started to cast the Hurricane spell. The rotating mass of water currents disconcerted the beast, trapping it in its grasp. The frivolous tides inflicted a variety of cuts and bruises on the slender body of the reptile. The monster tried all it could to get itself out of this vortex, utilizing every magic spell in its arsenal, but in vain.

As the writhing alligator stopped moving, a bell sounded, and this time a pair of alligators manifested, their teeth exposed and bodies as long as the previous one.

One of them started to slither its way to the boy while the other flapped its tail harshly at the ground, the ground starting to tremble violently, making it hard for the awakener to stand.

He chanted the Earth Wall spell but controlled the mana to only produce a pole-like wall. He clung to it, stabilizing his body. The alligator had come close to him; it started to cast a barrage of jet sprays—some aimed at him and some at the pole.

He used the pole to swing his body around and was able to dodge the attacks, but the pole itself had started to thin due to the countless sprays it endured. Soon it would be completely destroyed.

As soon as the alligator stopped for a brief moment to recover its mana, the boy chanted the Fire Orb spell, aiming it at the alligator who was causing the earth to quake. If he could end this alligator's life, the other would be at his disposal. The blazing orb of flames whizzed through the air, striking the alligator. Though it tried to evade the spell, the insane speed of the attack did not allow it to.

The fiery flames burned the alligator's mouth, causing it to howl around in pain. Seeing its companion in danger, the other alligator ejected jet sprays to douse the fire, but the jet sprays were met with a newly formed Earth Wall.

The alligator quickly slithered around the Earth Wall. While this was happening, the awakener shot a Glacial Lance at the burning aligator using a significant portion of his mana. A huge meteoric mass of ice launched in the face of the beast, the combination of fire and ice dealing excruciating pain and damage to the monster.

The other aligator who had come to the rescue launched sprays of water to put ou the fire but it was too late, the beast had losf its breath and laid lifeless. The remaining aligator looked enraged and shout of its mouth an insanely thick water spray.

Panicking, the awakener hastily casted the Flamethrower spell. The beast's and the human's spells met, the latter's proving to be superior. The bursting flames vapourised the gushes of water before they could extinguish the flame.

While the beast needed to focus to continue its spell use, he didn't and therefore maneuvered to the rear of the beast.

Using his entire body's strength, he slashed at the aliagator's backside with his sword. The terrifyingly sharp sword lacerated its entire tail. A torrent of blood started to surge out of the beast as it shrieked in unrelenting anguish. The copious blood law making it succumb to the ultimate fate, death.

The pair of aligators vanished and a bell sounded once again. This time, 3 menacing aligators stood before him.