My setting is above yours!

Chapter 114 There are some things I want to talk to you about (4k6)

Following the route he remembered, Ron quickly found the spiral staircase in the center of the tower and easily strolled up, encountering almost no obstacles.

The only monsters Ron encountered in the entire tower before reaching the central spiral staircase were a few scattered ones. These weren't the Fire Knights who guarded the Scorched Earth Sanctuary during the "Potion Age," but rather a few identical corpses that looked like they had been copied and pasted.

They had no effect on Ron, and the moment they saw him, they immediately bowed down and obediently became his scoreboards.

'This is clearly different from the real world... Also, why are there only corpses everywhere?'

Ron frowned, watching the corpse in front of him obediently commit suicide, and a points token fell into his hand. He couldn't help but feel a little puzzled.

But after briefly recalling the other examinees he had seen in the prison when he left, he suddenly understood:
'Those magicians' magic catalysts are all similar emerald jewelry...Are they all necromancy magicians?'

'Plus, there are other espers who might have also chosen the [Necromantic School]... so was this monthly exam designed with different monsters assigned according to different schools of magic?'

'Furthermore, they basically don't place any enemies along the path to promotion, clearly encouraging candidates to step into higher-level examination halls...'

'It seems the higher-ups have gone to great lengths to cultivate everyone's combat experience and magical abilities according to their respective schools of thought…'

Ron seemed to be deep in thought as he stepped onto the top floor of the tower. There, he saw a familiar magic circle appear on the ground, exactly the same as the one in Moen University's Central Hub.

Stepping onto the magic circle, the dense array patterns immediately flickered with light, and a mechanical notification sounded in Ron's ear:

"To advance to the intermediate exam, please submit your scorecard."

A light screen popped up in the lower right corner of his vision, asking Ron to confirm whether to submit his points.

Having already accumulated a full thirty-five points by controlling the corpse shell, Ron had no hesitation and readily submitted three point tokens.

"Points requirements met, promotion channel activated, countdown: ten, nine, eight..."

The teleportation array lit up like a breath. In those ten countdown seconds, Ron didn't feel the dizziness of spatial teleportation. Instead, he saw everything around him turn into data bubbles, and his vision suddenly went black for a moment—

The next moment, he found himself in a town that looked somewhat familiar, randomly thrown to a corner of the town's main street.

'This is...Evening Bell City?'

Ron raised an eyebrow, looked around, and immediately dismissed his own idea.

'No, no... This is a city purely in the style of the Potions Era...'

'These buildings should be some of the more classic examples of Franzian architecture—it seems that the Franzian Empire occupies a significant portion of the data left behind by Ideal City regarding the previous era.'

As Ron was thinking this, an interface popped up in the lower right corner of his vision as he entered the intermediate exam room. A virtual map lit up on it, marked with "Promotion Path" and "Escape Point" as before.

However, this time the numbers next to the promotion path have changed—

[Points required: 32/200]

'Such a significant increase in the required points...it seems the teaching staff believes most people should stop at the intermediate level?'

'It seems the intermediate exam room will have many simulated [Hollow Monsters], so grinding for points here is actually a good option...'

Ron seemed to be deep in thought. Instead of standing foolishly in the middle of the street and revealing his weakness, he immediately rushed into a house on the side of the street and began to observe everything around him.

The strength of the monsters in the intermediate exam is unclear, and if a monster gets the first move, it could pose a threat to Ron.

Moreover, although Ron had arrived here as quickly as possible through the promotion channel, he still couldn't be sure that he was among the first group to arrive at the intermediate examination hall.

After all, he wasn't the only one in the physics department who was confident about this monthly exam.

For example, Wang Yi, and You An... Judging by their style, they would probably be even faster than Ron, clearing out all enemies in the surrounding area the moment they started their operation, whether they were examinees or monsters, and heading straight to the intermediate examination hall with their points tokens...

If he were to swagger around on the street, he might be ambushed by someone like this, and even someone as strong as Ron would likely suffer.

Instead, hide in the shadows, precisely search for and hunt down those "empty monsters," and quickly accumulate enough points to enter the advanced examination hall...

With this in mind, Ron moved through the houses, using reflected light to conceal himself, and soon encountered the first monster he had seen in the intermediate exam—

"Roar!!"

A bat-like monster, half the height of a person and sculpted from mottled stone, hovered in the air above the street, howling sharply, revealing its location in a pre-programmed sequence to lure the examinees into hunting it.

Ron was hiding in a house by the street, but as soon as he got close to the bat-like monster, it inexplicably discovered him and slammed him against the low wall in front of him with a whirlwind.

'What kind of monster is this? I've never seen one like it before... How did it find me?'

'By sound?'

Ron pondered for a moment, then saw the monster conjure another whirlwind, but instead of dodging, he met it head-on with his bare body.

[The "Setting: Fantasy Dissolution" is being eroded by a slight "mystical influence."]

[Performance impairment: 8%]

'Trace amount... eight percent... roughly equivalent to a Sequence 8 extraordinary being?'

Having determined the monster's strength, Ron no longer held back. He casually activated [Vector Manipulation], whipping up a pebble that easily shattered the bat-like monster.

After killing the monster, a significantly darker-colored points token fell into Ron's hands, and the points requirement on the screen in the lower right corner of his vision also increased by 3 points.

'A Sequence 8 extraordinary creature is worth about three points... Looks like I'll be able to advance directly to the advanced examination hall soon.'

Just as Ron had thought, although he was cautious and kept his actions hidden, avoiding contact with any examinees and only ambushing monsters roaming the town, his efficiency was somewhat lacking...

However, because there were enough monsters, Ron still managed to collect enough points to advance to the advanced examination hall in about half an hour.

'As expected, they were all Sequence 8 extraordinary beings; dealing with them was easy...'

Ron weighed the heavy string of points tokens in his hand, worried that they would be difficult to carry, so he simply found a rough cloth sack in a house and put them in it. Carrying the half-sack of points tokens, he hurried towards the advancement passage.

Before he even reached the promotion path marked on the map, Ron saw clusters of data bubbles light up in the middle of the street not far away, which then reformed into human figures.

'What a coincidence... I ran into someone who came to the intermediate exam hall through the promotion pathway?'

He paused slightly, instinctively ducking into a nearby house. Looking again at the figures, he spotted a rather familiar one—

It was that group of magician examinees who had been taking the exam with Ron, the ones who had so loudly proclaimed their collaboration! However, their hastily formed exam group was noticeably smaller than it had been in the lower-level exam halls; at least half of them had disappeared…

Looking closely at the candidates who were now calmly entering the intermediate exam hall, Ron suddenly felt a little amused. The prediction he had made earlier had come true in just half an hour.

These magicians never intended for superpowered individuals from the same examination hall to come to the intermediate examination hall. The vast majority of them wore extremely obvious magic catalysts, clearly indicating that they were all magicians...

Only a few candidates who hadn't worn the magic catalyst arrived at the intermediate exam hall with them. Their hands were bound by illusory ropes constructed by magic, and they were roughly pushed and shoved into the middle of the street.

"Did you really have to go this far?!"

The superpowered individuals who had been shoved into the middle of the street were furious, their faces flushed. One of them couldn't help but say:
"This is just a monthly exam! Even if you don't want to give us points and let us leave, you could just kill us and make us withdraw from the exam. We'd accept getting zero points because we're not good enough. What do you mean by treating it like this?"

He looked at the magicians who had been quite friendly before, but now wore arrogant expressions, seemingly too lazy to pay them any attention, and his tone was full of incomprehension:

"Tie us up and use us as bait to lure and kill the 'hollow monsters' in the intermediate exam? How could you come up with such a method... Don't you think this is incredibly offensive?"

Someone spoke up, and the others, equally indignant, shouted loudly:
"We'll see each other all the time, and we'll still be classmates... It's just a monthly exam!"

"You used magic to seal our superpowers and maliciously imprisoned us, sending us to our deaths, even if it was just in the simulated reality of the [Hollow Battlefield]. This completely violates the Ideal City's Personal Freedom Act!"

"You fucking idiots, you better watch out... Do you know I have connections? My father is a city councilor!"

Listening to the superpowered individuals' incessant chatter and curses, the magician, who had previously been advocating for cooperation and mutual benefit and seemed quite gentle, now casually picked at his ear, looked at them, and sneered:
"We see each other all the time, right? Classmate?"

"Ha, if it weren't for the [D District Vacuum], people like you from the bottom wouldn't even have the right to know we exist... You think you're worthy of being called our classmates?"

As he spoke, a hint of resentment crept into his tone:
"The entire history of Ideal City was written by us magicians. Every brick, every tile, every blade of grass in Ideal City was built by our ancestors..."

"You superpowered individuals have only reached your current status because of preferential policies. It's bad enough that we don't allow you to pay taxes to us magicians according to ancient methods, but now you want to be on equal footing with us, to study magic with us, and to tarnish the truth—"

"Think beautifully!"

He kicked the examinee who was cursing him and claimed to have powerful connections, sending him rolling several times on the street, writhing on the ground and screaming in pain.

"You have connections...you even have city councilors...do you think we're those 'magicians' who do the dirty work at the bottom of the association and call themselves masters and apprentices?"

"The hardships I was supposed to endure were all suffered by my great-great-grandfather back when Ideal City was first built... So what if your family has a worthless member of parliament?"

“Go back a few generations, [α] would all have to call me an ancestor and comrade-in-arms! What’s the difference between you, a congressman, and a lackey?”

He spoke arrogantly, but the magician beside him couldn't help himself and gently patted his shoulder, whispering:

"Keep quiet... It won't look good if this gets out, and your dad will scold you again."

Someone nearby advised, "Don't waste time on these people... We need to hurry up and earn some points in the intermediate exam room. Don't forget that [Hidden Purple] told us beforehand that we can't go to the advanced exam room. We can't waste our time in the intermediate exam room..."

"Furthermore, that person previously requested that we dampen the arrogance of the superpowered individuals in this exam, and we'd get association points for it—"

"Don't let a small gain lead to a big loss, or the rankings will be snatched by those superpowered individuals who weren't stopped."

After hearing this, the leading magician calmed down and humbly apologized to them:

"I'm sorry, everyone... I acted impulsively."

After that, he fell silent and devoted himself to constructing some kind of magic that could control the human body, dragging these poor superhumans along the streets in an attempt to lure away any potential "hollow monsters"...

Having witnessed everything from the shadows, Ron couldn't help but frown, a hint of confusion in his heart.

Although he knew these magicians were not easy to get along with, often quite arrogant, relying on their noble bloodline and unwilling to have in-depth contact with others...

Ron was able to receive a certain degree of equal treatment among magicians because he was mistakenly identified as a natural psychic who could "possess a heroic spirit" and was a genius capable of using magic.

But in Ron's previous understanding, these were just minor conflicts and frictions that wouldn't have a significant impact.

But now it seems... these magicians' malice towards superpowered individuals is really too much!
'Their behavior makes it seem as if they truly believe they are inherently superior...'

Ron thought to himself, feeling somewhat bewildered:
'It's like...they think they should be on the same level as the superhumans of the [Potion Era]...they don't treat superhumans and ordinary people as equals!'

That's why they were so ruthless in the monthly exam, catching these superpowered individuals who were willing to accept them and truly treated them as classmates completely off guard...

'This is really strange... It wasn't this serious before the magicians were exposed, but now that they're in the public eye, there seems to be even more class division and an attempt to separate upper and lower classes...'

Is this a subtle influence from the "Mysterious Revival" DLC?

Ron pondered in his mind, recalling the key points of the magicians' words:
'No, that's not right...it's not just about the overall environment!'

"[That person]...is someone who instructed them to suppress those with superpowers, secretly manipulating the situation, attempting to influence the entry of magicians into the world and their integration into the Ideal City, completely severing the ties between magicians and those with superpowers, and elevating the status of magicians to a higher level!"

Who is it? A certain Grand-ranked magician?

Ron was puzzled, but didn't dwell on it.

After all, this matter is not important to him right now, and even if he finds out who is behind it, it will not help him in his monthly exam for the time being.

However, something interesting was indeed revealed in the words of these magicians—

'【Hidden Purple】Why did you tell these magicians in advance that they couldn't go to the advanced examination hall...?'

'Has he decided to completely empty the advanced examination hall, kicking all the candidates who have advanced to the advanced hall out of the [Void Battlefield]?'

'So confident? A [mysterious] sequence's extraordinary abilities shouldn't possess such widespread destructive power… What special trump card does he have?'

'No... If I rush into the advanced examination room like this, I might really be caught off guard by Wang Yi's trump card...'

'It seems we need to find a way to extract this information from these people.'

With this thought in mind, Ron no longer hid in the shadows of the roadside houses. Instead, after making some simple preparations and using his personal reality to envelop all the magicians, he calmly stepped out of the houses and stood before the group of magicians.

"Ladies and gentlemen... well, dear magicians."

He thought for a moment, then gave a harmless smile and said gently:

"There are some things I'd like to discuss with you."

(End of this chapter)