The mixed atmosphere continued as the students had gathered their newly acquired technique books and then met outside in the courtyard. They waited for the others, and on top of that, the students were all being checked to see if they had anything on them.
Some of the students had a few items such as snacks and books meant for entertainment that had been taken from them. When it came to searching Raze, he had quickly opened up his uniform to show he had nothing on him. He was bare for a few moments but would rather strip in front of all the others than be touched.
"The more things I see that guy do, the crazier I think he is!" Lisa mumbled. "Did we lose our match to a madman?"
While the other students were getting searched, Dame let out a small whisper to Raze, who was standing by his side.
"Did you notice, all of the other sleeping quarters of the other students are dead silent?" Dame whispered.
Raze looked over, and it was more than dead silent. It looked like it had been abandoned. Although the dark night sky had come out, the sun had only set around thirty minutes ago. It was strange for not a single soul to be outside.
If Raze was to take a guess, they had already moved, to wherever they were about to go, before them.
'Are all of the headbands going to be involved in this next assessment? I heard the academy has portals; could they be taking us to another dimension together?' His mind was starting to wonder, but he felt like it was too early for that, and what was the reason for doing it at night.'
Following the teacher, the twenty or so students walked outside of the academy and headed back down the path where they had first arrived. They soon entered the heavy, thick jungle-like trees and walked across a path. The grass had already been trodden on, and plants physically moved to the side, but it appeared as if it was done recently. A short while later, they found themselves on a separate large, open ground.
It looked quite strange as the area had no grass growing around it. It was as if the area was perfectly man-made. It was fairly large as well; the space looked like it could fill up around 1000 students if need be.
Either way, they lined up, and the three Red Headband teachers stood in front of them.
"This assessment will last a total of one month. In that amount of time, you need to become the strongest you can be, the very best you can be. You have to, in order to survive, and if you ever want to see the sunlight again."
The students were confused by that last line and started to look at each other. At that very moment, Igon lifted his foot and slammed it into the ground. The floor shook before it opened up wide. The entire area below them had dropped, disappearing.
Now all of the students were falling through into a dark abyss. Just moments after stomping his foot, the teachers had jumped back to the side, having landed on the safe land. Soon after, the flooring that had disappeared underneath them had covered back up, giving it the same appearance as before, somewhat blending in with everything around it.
"You know our orders," Igon said. "We are to leave this place; don't think too much about it."
The three teachers were off, only imagining what would happen next.
The students felt like they were falling down for a while, but what was worse was the fact that they were unable to see anything below them. They were in free fall for some time, and the screaming wasn't helping as it echoed all over the place.
"Are they freaking trying to kill us? What is going on!" Liam screamed. "I'm still a virgin, a cool virgin, but still a virgin!"
Right after saying those words, Liam and the rest felt themselves hit the floor and bounce slightly. Now there were just multiple groans of pain. The fall wasn't far enough to kill any of the students, and some of them were able to land fine, while others were rubbing themselves due to the rough landing. As they got up off the ground, they started to bump into each other. The students were complaining, but they couldn't help themselves.
"Safa, stay close to me!" Simyon yelled out and grabbed onto a hand.
"Hey, that's my hand!" Liam shouted back. "I'm already holding onto Safa's hand."
"Actually, you're holding onto me; I grabbed Safa while we were falling," Dame answered.
"What... what... what about Raze?" Liam asked in a shaky voice, remembering that he didn't like to be grabbed. But if they didn't want to lose each other, then they needed to hold onto each other to know their position.
"Don't worry, I know where Safa is as long as she is doing something," Raze hinted, not wanting to use the word magic, but if she gathered it on her finger and placed it in her pocket, he would be able to feel the flow of mana and follow it.
The first thing their group and a load of others did was explore. As they walked in the darkness, they continued to bump into each other. Even Raze had crashed into people a few times, but he had to bite his tongue. Eventually, though, their eyes were adjusting, and they could see a little better.
From the bearings, they could tell they were in a large room the same shape and size as the square above. Across the wall, though, there were several hallways that seemed to lead into different places. Due to the discoveries of the students, they found one area, a place with separate rooms and flickers of an orange glowing light. These rooms had a glowing crystal embedded into the wall. They were quite small, just large enough for a person to stretch and touch the walls on either side, but they were the perfect amount for the number of students that were there.
However, stepping out of the room led into a dark hallway, which wasn't too narrow; around five people could fit through it side by side at the same time. The hallway would loop around, and they would either be in the large dark room that they started in or branch off into multiple other dark hallways. But there was another area that was discovered.
This was a large space, almost as big as the courtyard at the academy. There could be a whole small town in the area, and the cavern wall stretched up high. Like the smaller rooms, there were several crystals running up the walls, giving a faint orange light for them all to see.
It was the only large room where they could see, but they were unable to find anything else. No exit, no other tunnels, and no other walls. Noticing this, Dame pulled the others to the side while they continued to explore.
"This is not good," Dame said. "I think I've figured out what this assessment is, and I want to be wrong, but my gut is telling me otherwise, but not even the Demonic Faction does this anymore. They're crazy if they're going this far."
