Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 1077: Ambiguous

With Instructor Melissa’s exam done, the students went for the next exam, which was Instructor Hale’s. He was the man who taught Stealth and Infiltration training. Throughout the year, many students hated this class. To them, it was a waste of time, learning how to walk silently and the like. They felt like it was torture, but none of them dared say anything. After all, they had all signed up for this class themselves... well, not exactly, it was a compulsory class.

Instructor Hale could be seen sitting calmly upon a branch of a tree with an expressionless face while the students gathered. His black eyes scanned through the crowd as he counted all two hundred students.

”It seems none of you have been expelled yet from the two exams,” he stated as a small smile appeared on his lips. ”I wonder how many of you will survive, as this is the third exam. The probability of those with two strikes failing has already shot up to seventy percent.” As his voice echoed, his body fell backwards from the branch, his body rotating as he landed on his feet like an agile cat.

At these words, the students immediately frowned. Those who had failed one of the two exams in the past were already panicking. Even if they failed a second exam, they couldn’t afford to fail a third.

Instructor Hale got to the point without wasting much time, as though he had things to do.

”Scattered across the forest is a peculiar Monster that is extremely sensitive to sound. They can even hear the flow of air moving naturally without disturbance, meaning that once you make a move against one, you will immediately be detected,” Instructor Hale spoke as he crossed his hands in front of his chest. ”But, if any of you learned anything I taught across an entire year, then you should be fine.” A small smile seemed to appear on his lips.

What he didn’t tell them was that the Monster was the most sound-sensitive Monster across the entire planet, capable of picking up sounds that were said to be so low that no other living species could pick them up.

They were called Echovore.

”And of course, you won’t be fighting them with any special ability or anything of the sort, aside from your weapon,” Hale continued with his instructions. ”You aren’t allowed to overpower any of them. If they detect you more than a second before you kill them, you fail. So, your opening is only a second.” He gave the final instructions, then turned and walked away without waiting for their complaints or questions.

The students were speechless. Instructor Hale had just told them the Monster was insanely sensitive to sound. They couldn’t help but wonder how they were even supposed to approach such a thing. A single second to kill it wasn’t enough; it simply wasn’t.

Instructor Hale simply stood at the side, yet nobody detected him. Although the test was hard, he wasn’t expecting any of them to kill the Monster, not even the Tenth Sun. After all, the sound detection of the Monster wasn’t an exaggeration. If abilities and the rest were allowed, then many could stand a chance.

But, just like Instructor Melissa had said, everyone didn’t possess equal talent. People like Darissa possessed more talent in this than almost literally everybody, so talent in various fields differed.

The students began to walk into the forest. They knew they didn’t have much time. They had to get to the next exam in two hours, so they needed to pass within two hours.

’I might fail this exam,’ Asher mused to himself, as that would be a first for him throughout his life.

Although he had already guessed Instructor Hale’s thoughts, a guess was a guess. Crownstar Life Rankers weren’t so easily predictable. Asher’s figure blurred as he shot into the forest, Omni Perception picking up on a Monster almost a kilometer away.

As Asher was a hundred meters away, he stopped as the Monster had detected him. It had tilted its head in his direction, staring right into his eyes. It was a massive quadrupedal beast with dense black fur, four membranous auditory organs, tiny recessed eyes, needle-like teeth, vibration-sensitive feet, and a long sensory tail constantly sampling sound. Even its bones could detect vibrations, while its skin could detect pressure fluctuations in the air.

’It seems a hundred meters is its detection limit, and even though I moved with Silent Steps, it still detected me,’ Asher thought as he stared back at the Monster.

Asher assumed the Monster must have heard his heart beating or detected the changes in airflow, and it was hard to conceal airflow changes without Astra energy. As for his heartbeat, he could reduce it to almost nothing, as Instructor Hale had taught such a skill a couple of months ago.

As Asher stood staring at the Monster, an idea suddenly popped into his mind. He no longer stared at the Monster and simply vanished from where he stood as he closed the distance between himself and another Echovore. As he approached a hundred-meter radius, he immediately stopped beyond that range.

As he stopped, Virelass immediately appeared beside him. She hummed softly as though receiving directions from Asher. She hummed one final time, then vanished from where she stood. The next moment, she appeared above the Echovore, and before the Monster could even detect what was happening, all it saw was a silver flash before its head detached from its neck.

Virelass simply teleported back to Asher’s side, then vanished into his soul.

This was Asher’s idea. Since they were allowed to use weapons, he simply sent Virelass, his soul-bound weapon, to do the job. And he hadn’t used any ability to do it. After all, Virelass could simply teleport whenever she was around Asher. It was how she always returned to Asher’sside, so Asher could simply do that.

But... Asher wasn’t sure if this would count as a pass. He was sort of bending the rules here. So, he had to wait for Instructor Hale’s verdict. If he failed, then he would try something else, as he already had another idea.

Instructor Hale had said no use of any special ability, and he technically hadn’t used any special ability since Virelass’ teleportation ability had to use a Mark as a medium. So... the rules were ambiguous in a way, and Asher was counting on that ambiguity.

”It seems kids these days love looking for shortcuts.” Instructor Hale’s voice came from the side as he stared at Asher with a light smile.

Asher’s head snapped in that direction. ’I didn’t detect him...’ he thought to himself, but he didn’t think much about it.

”If this exam really mattered, I would have failed you here, but I guess it doesn’t matter when you already applied for an early graduation,” Instructor Hale stated without a change in expression. ”Well, the rules are ambiguous for a reason.” With those final words, the man simply stopped existing, as though what Asher had been talking with had been an afterimage.

He had made the rules ambiguous because he knew some students possessed passive abilities that they couldn’t just turn off or deactivate, and it was left to them to use them to their advantage.

’I guess I passed then,’ Asher thought to himself, his body blurring through the forest as he returned to the place where he had been standing when Instructor Hale gave the earlier instructions.

Time swiftly passed as the Stealth and Infiltration exam came to an end. As this was one of the hardest classes, a whopping seventy people failed out of two hundred students, and out of those seventy people, over half of them had either failed the General Knowledge exam or the Astra Control exam. Meaning, they had hit the end of their strikes.

Once they failed the next exam... it was over for them. Even Finch himself failed this class, as the boy seemed to have zero talent for this.