A metaphorical bomb exploded in everyone's heads as they listened to Hansen's speech. Hansen didn't let them take a breather as he continued.
"Experience death. And you might get reborn to experience the feeling of death again.
How many times will you have to die agonizing deaths before you decide to call it quits to keep your sanity in check? You will be able to find the answer to that question for yourself if you decide to stay as a participant in this graduation event.
Exciting, isn't it?"
Hansen looked around and observed an eerie silence. He sighed before continuing.
"I have been the Dean of the Royal Ren for a very long time. And I have also been its student. I have seen many generations of rankers prosper and wilt away in the winds of time.
There were a few instances in the academy's history where we made use of the Sansara array to test talented rankers. Unfortunately, I have seen how the Sansara array broke some of the most talented rankers of their generation just because they came face to face with their mortality.
Death… or the premonition of it changes you. It's up to you to decide if it's good or bad.'
Hansen's listeners started looking around at each other to gain some form of psychological assurance that they were not the only ones getting nervous about the event. Hansen could understand what they were thinking, so he decided to give them some guidance.
"I can tell you that the experience of death will shake you from within. You will either start to get scared of everything around you or become motivated to do something with whatever time you got here in this world.
I cannot predict how you will react. Because the experience and its impact will differ greatly from person to person. In a way, it is even more profound than the state of epiphany itself.
I remember long ago there was one student named Jarlath Edgar who was one of the top students of Royal Ren. He became unstable after coming out of the Sansara array. Eventually, he became a cultist before suddenly disappearing from our radar."
Eren felt something click in his head when he heard the name "Jarlath Edgar". He felt like he should be able to remember this name. Then Hansen mentioned Jarlath turning into a cultist and he realized who the Sage was talking about.
'JJ Edgar! The guy who wrote that diary!'
Jarlath Edgar, aka JJ Edgar, was the same person who wrote about his experiences in his journal. This diary was later found by Eren out of sheer luck in the cultist hideout. It was through the diary that Eren learned about the existence of half-bloods. The butcher found it incredibly unbelievable that he was once a talented student of Royal Ren.
Eren didn't understand what Sage was talking about. Because whatever JJ Edgar wrote in his diary didn't make him sound like the work of a madman. In fact, he was right about most of his assumptions about half-bloods.
Hansen was too busy reminiscing about his past to care about what Eren or any of the students were thinking. He took his time to snap out of his chain of thoughts before
"Anyway… you will either drown in the pit of misery or rise from the ashes of your past self after understanding the concept of life and death up close. These are the two extremes some of you will walk towards.
This event is not for everybody. We need rankers strong of the body and strong of the mind to enter the Sansara array. That's because we don't want Jarlath Edgar happening all over again if we can avoid it.
That's why we are offering you a choice. Those who think that whatever I have said was not what you signed up for, you can opt out of the graduation event this instant."
It seemed that the students of Royal Ren were already aware of the Sansara array. None of them were surprised by Hansen's speech. None of them wanted to quit. Or more like… only those rankers who were okay with the Sansara array had been selected for this event.
The rankers belonging to the remaining four academies weren't like their Royal Ren counterparts. Some of them started discussing various things about the event with their teams.
Some even thought of quitting. But they were afraid of letting their efforts to graduate turn to waste. So Hansen gave the quitters the assurance they needed to hear.
"Rest assured that your quitting will not be held against you. You will also graduate from your respective academy. Just that you won't be offered the same benefits as those who go through with the event and complete their graduation.
There won't be any difference between you and the Novice or Ace-ranked students who graduate by meeting the bare minimum requirements. The kind that stays at the bottom even after clearing the academy.
The only advantage you will have over these members of the Bare Minimum Gang will be your ranks. And that's still something if you think about it."
Some of the quitters had ashen faces. They decided to change their decisions right away. They hadn't toiled so much just to get grouped with the lowly Novice or Ace-ranked entities.
Everyone knew what happened to such novices or Aces when they got out of the academy. They would end up becoming the average lot of rankers who had lost all their hopes of becoming high-ranking entities in their lives.
The turning average was the best-case scenario for such pass-outs. Most of them wouldn't be able to come to terms with their reality after staying in the competitive academic environment.
There were a lot of cases of Novice or Ace ranked pass-outs from the four academies turning bandits, cultists, or simply rogue rankers. Some of them got addicted to vices and lived miserable lives all their lives. It was their way of showing rebellion against the system that rejected them.
