The theory test went by quickly, and many students were disheartened due to the exam's toughness. They did not expect that the questions would be so tricky that answering them perfectly without thorough knowledge was impossible.
"Eva, how did you do?" Elena asked, looking tired.
Both of them were in Eva's room waiting for Elena's cousin Ria Adler to come and spend some time together. All three of them were good friends.
"Not perfect, but I will be the top scorer," Eva smirked, but Elena had a defeated look on her face.
"Sigh, I hope it doesn't affect my rankings too much," Elena said.
On the other hand, Amelia was sleeping in her room due to the all-nighters she pulled to help Damian.
But Damian was full of energy, and he was in Ranker's dorm going to Floor 5 with Asher.
He had already seen the Ranker's dorm before, and the lavish architecture became his motivation to become a Ranker no matter what.
"Whoa, your room is even bigger than mine," Damian looked around Asher's room.
Unlike others, Asher didn't customize anything in his room, and it was pretty clean as well.
"Don't sit around," Asher opened the training room and told Damian to come in.
"Go easy on me," Damian said with a smile on his face.
As Amelia and Damian teamed up to challenge a D rank dungeon, like some others, including Asher and Alyssa, Damian had asked Asher for a spar, and Asher agreed to do so as there was no harm in training Damian.
"Close combat?" Asher asked and took out a practice weapon.
"No, I want to practice my tanking skills," Damian said as he brought out a shield.
Asher looked at Damian's stance, and he could spot the mistakes almost immediately. The current Damian was not even close to the Damian in his memories. It made sense because his current rank and experience were low, and he did not have the same drive to improve like the Damian in Asher's memories.
Asher's eyes gazed at Damian's elbow joint and footwork and swung his practice sword a few times to make Damian get used to Asher's speed.
Damian frowned due to the strength behind Asher's attack. Unlike monsters, Asher's attacks were refined to make the most of their opponents' weakness.
It was a long and difficult spar for Damian, but he realized that he was far from a good tanker. His stamina was good, but his hands kept going numb and heavy as the spar kept going on.
"Huff, huff, I can't move anymore," Damian said, lying on the floor with his body drenched with sweat.
"Wash up," Asher said while he put the sword back.
"How is your stamina better than mine?" Damian looked at Asher, but the latter just shrugged his shoulders.
************************************
Early in the morning, the teams were told to go to their respective portal points.
< Portal Point 103 >
Asher looked at his portal point and went out of the Ranker's dorm. He saw Alyssa, who was waiting for him in the lobby.
Alyssa looked at Asher, and both of them quietly went to the portal point. Neither Asher nor Alyssa talked much with each other, but as they were close to the portal points, they looked and saw some familiar faces.
Asher was calm, but someone was not. Alyssa's eyes were glaring at a certain white-haired man and the girl next to him. She grabbed the edge of her wheelchair but controlled herself. Asher noticed her reaction, but he didn't react to it.
Kevin and Elena were teaming up, while Eva teamed up with someone else. Kevin found it difficult to choose between the two as both were his friends, so Elena and Eva decided between themselves.
"Asher Greville, Alyssa Astaria, you are to go to that portal," a staff member checked and confirmed their identity.
"Please wait until we get all of this ready," the staff member said as he left them.
Kevin was having a hard time holding his temper seeing Asher. Elena, who was standing behind Kevin, also had mixed feelings. Although she still carried trauma, most of it was converted into hatred for Asher.
Eva was standing a bit far from Elena, but she could sense that the mood around Kevin and Elena was not good.
Williams did not want to be in enmity with the Grevilles, so Eva was strictly told not to act on impulse. As the heir of the Williams family, Reece Williams, Eva's older brother, was getting better from an accident, and they wanted to avoid any further trouble.
Although Eva wanted to support Elena and Kevin openly, she was smart enough not to drag the Williams family into the middle of all this.
In the faculty block, Xander was in his office handling the files related to the sudden disappearance of Erwin.
Although Farnus was quick to expel Erwin, Xander wanted to know the reason behind Erwin's sudden action.
"Doesn't make sense," Xander said to himself.
The whole thing didn't make sense to him at all. Even if Erwin was a mole planted in World Academy by someone, he would not attack Asher but rather defend the person he was working for.
And the look on his face after he had attacked Asher was a look of fear and shock.
*Knock* *Knock*
Noticing that someone had come, Xander left the matter for now.
****************************
At Portal Point 78,
Venessa was waiting for her teammate to arrive. Like some other people, she had chosen to enter a D Rank dungeon.
She was confident that with someone's help, she could kill E Rank monsters. She only needed to kill more than ten such beasts to come in the Top 15. As she was confident in her theory test, her goal was to be in the Top 10.
"Where is that girl?" She had no idea why her teammate was late.
While waiting for her teammate, she saw Sam Allister, who was teaming up with Matthew, talking with a green-haired boy.
"Teaming up with such people, you truly are nothing much, Sam Allister," Gavin mocked Sam, who was ignoring him.
"Say that after the rankings are revealed," Sam said and ignored Gavin, who did the same.
Although Neville and Allister were friendly with each other, it was not the case for Sam. He was not respected by Gavin and his brother Jack Allister. But as they didn't care about him, Sam himself didn't care much about them.
His father had told him not to interfere in his brother's plans, so he was going to do what he wanted for now without getting entangled with them.
Venessa turned her head and saw a girl running towards her.
"Ah, I'm so sorry, I woke up late today!" the girl started panicking while talking to Venessa.
Seeing that the girl was apologetic and she was the only one who wanted to team up with her in the whole class, she decided to leave the matter alone. Due to the fact that Venessa sat with Alyssa, she was also ignored by the rest of the students. But due to her fiery personality, no one really tried to mess with her.
"Don't worry, we still have time," Vanessa said as both of them went to their portal points.
"You are entering a D Rank dungeon. You can choose one of the swords from here," the staff member pointed at the weapons.
"And if you want, you can take more high-quality weapons, but they will cost GP," he said.
"Give me a sword for 500 GP and a mana-gathering locket for 400 GP," Asher said, and the staff member quickly gave him a good quality sword that he could use.
A mana-gathering locket was a must-have for all mages. Usually, high-ranking mages would make big staffs or rings that helped them output their mana better, but some preferred having an external source of mana to fuel their spells better than them.
Unlike staffs and rings, such lockets were used by beginners or people with less experience in weaving a spell and handling multiple complexities at once.
"You can step in. Your safety advisor is already present in front of the dungeon," the staff member said as Asher and Alyssa both stepped into the portal.
After using the portal, both of them found themselves in rather dry terrain, but it was still in Somaria, as long-range teleportation was not possible with those portals.
"Asher Greville and Alyssa Astaria," a 1-Star Professor saw both of them and gave them a bracelet that was the nano armor, which would act as a defensive armor for them.
"This can handle at least two attacks from the D Rank Boss Monster, but I would still advise not to fight such monsters as they are far more powerful than E Rank beasts," he said, looking at Asher.
"A senior year student would accompany you guys inside the Dungeon, and if he deems the situation dangerous, he will act and kill the monster, and you will stop the exploration at that point." He explained.
"We will look at the monster's corpse you collected to make sure that both of you get the rankings you deserve," he said and turned back, starting with the senior year student and explaining to him some stuff.
"Let's go in," Asher and Alyssa wore the bracelet.
Alyssa stood up and hovered in the air, and the Professor's expression showed that he disliked Alyssa clearly.
Asher, with a sword on his waist, entered as Alyssa entered the dungeon.
"Go with them and make sure that girl-" the Professor was saying something, but he turned towards the blue dungeon gate immediately.
His face went pale. He immediately dashed towards the gate, but his entry was denied.
"Dammit, Yellow Gate, inform the Principal immediately. Bring someone who could read runes,"
"Tell me the requirements immediately!!" His words made the staff member run in panic.
"Who was the damn bastard that didn't check that this Dungeon Gate was fresh?" He was cursing his luck that the Dungeon Defect happened to the one dungeon where the heir of the Greville family had entered.
It was a moment of crisis as it meant that this dungeon had become a C Rank Dungeon, and if they could not rescue Asher, and the worst happened, this would be the biggest crisis for the World Academy.
