[Magic Mirror]
This is the theme of today's public practical combat assessment.
Although some students felt confused by this theme, most of them knew that an assessment called Magic Mirror must have been carefully designed by Professor Viktor.
If it's made by Viktor, it's guaranteed to be top quality.
Inside the academy's most magnificent lecture hall, freshmen filled with curiosity and excitement arrived one after another to participate in the Royal Magic Academy's first magic assessment of the year.
What was even more noteworthy was that this was a public assessment.
That meant that not only students, but even parents could enter the lecture hall as well, witnessing with their own eyes the true content of this practical assessment.
However, the most shocking thing of all was that the imperial empress, Claudia, had personally come to the magic academy.
She was draped in luxurious golden adornments, wearing a noble gown that perfectly accentuated her figure. Holding a fan lightly over her peach-colored lips, an untouchable aura of royal authority radiated from her.
Countless media members, eyes wide and holding magic recording stones of all kinds, crowded into the hall, scrambling to capture this moment.
Did the empress's arrival signify that the royal family held extremely high expectations for Professor Viktor's assessment?
At that moment, hazy, chaotic mist rose within the lecture hall.
Everyone's eyes followed the mist as it gradually took on a humanoid shape, first forming a black windbreaker.
Then, beneath the windbreaker, Viktor "came to life."
Dressed in that black coat, he stood tall on the stage, his expression calm.
The moment Viktor appeared, the lecture hall instantly fell silent, as if all sounds had melted away like ice.
"I am Viktor Clavenna, chief professor of the Royal Magic Academy."
"And today, I will announce here that the dungeon is officially established."
He delivered his conclusion, "This dungeon was jointly designed by myself and my teaching assistants."
As his words fell, Cocotte, seated atop a white cloud, slowly drifted over. Even in front of everyone, she still looked utterly exhausted, like someone who had lost all will to live.
Rachel, who was sitting happily in the front row and had just raised his cup to take a sip of water, nearly spat it out when he saw who it was.
'Cocotte!?'
Looking at the elf who was practically about to fall asleep on the cloud, Rachel pushed up his glasses and examined her curiously.
'What is going on? Why did Cocotte become Viktor's teaching assistant?'
Viktor had indeed applied for a new assistant and had told him that he already had a suitable candidate in mind.
Rachel had approved it because of that.
But he truly hadn't expected this.
How did Viktor, a current council member, manage to convince a former council member to become his assistant?
And it was this chronically lazy Cocotte, no less?
Rachel stared at Cocotte, whose eyes were constantly fighting each other, her face devoid of any smile, with even a hint of grievance between her brows, and his jaw practically dropped.
Her body swayed unsteadily on the cloud, as if it might give out at any moment. If not for the thin thread pulling her from behind, she probably would have already collapsed flat onto the cloud.
Forced to "boot up," Cocotte propped open her eyelids and looked hazily at the audience below.
She spotted Rachel in the front row and was just about to instinctively greet him, when a wave of drowsiness swept over her brain.
Cocotte wanted to raise her hand, but her half-asleep mind told her that by the time she had that thought, she had already greeted him.
Seeing Cocotte in such a sleepy state, Rachel seemed to understand something. Stroking his beard, he let out a soft, knowing chuckle.
Viktor pressed his palm downward, and the lecture hall returned to silence once more.
He snapped his fingers.
A rumbling sound came from the high platform as a massive mirror slowly rose up.
"This is today's assessment."
The enormous mirror reflected sunlight, scattering dazzling rainbow-colored light.
Viktor looked at the fully activated magic mirror and spread his arms toward the crowd.
"Get ready."
"Don't blink."
The instant his words fell, the demonic eyes high on the mirror suddenly snapped open.
Two beams of purple light burst forth like magic itself, violently piercing through the darkness.
The huge mirror began to shatter, countless fragments cracking apart like an icy shell. The pieces spun around the mirror frame, glittering like stars in the night sky.
That deep, night-sky black did not dissipate. Instead, under everyone's shocked gazes, it slowly spread around the entire mirror frame.
The black void was like a massive vortex, devouring the light of the sky and swallowing everything into darkness.
It was as if the world had lost all its colors. Sky and earth vanished into pitch-black emptiness, as though falling into an endless void.
Within this empty darkness, a mysterious purple hue began to spread.
Boundless, ghostly violet swallowed everyone whole, like a gigantic monster drawing them all inside.
In the next moment, the pitch-black curtain shattered. The once-dark world seemed to welcome dawn, and everything reappeared before everyone's eyes.
However, what lay before them was completely different from what they had expected.
The world ahead was like a bizarre puzzle, pieced together from countless different scenes, chaotic and absurd.
The once-still sun looked like a sealed giant, half fused with a curved, incomplete moon, forming a strange smiling face hanging in the sky.
Everyone couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath.
Cracks split open between fragments of space. The entire world looked like shattered glass, countless broken lines barely connected, slicing apart the land and the sky.
Stars and clouds were mixed together beneath a vast gray sky, while fissures tore straight upward from the ground, ripping through the gray.
The land beneath people's feet twisted and warped.
This was clearly a flat grassland, yet beyond the fractured ground lay rugged mountain paths and bottomless deep valleys.
Gale-force winds surged up from the valley floor, sweeping away the lush green of the grassland and drifting toward a land of thunder and raging flames.
In the blink of an eye, all of this shattered again.
These phenomena left everyone stunned. All the students and professors stared at the world before them, frozen in place, mouths agape, unable to utter a single word.
Even Rachel narrowed his eyes, examining the extreme surroundings. Stroking his beard, a faint ripple stirred in his heart.
This space was simply too bizarre.
This was absolutely not an illusion that an ordinary fourth-tier mage could create.
Before everyone's eyes, the surrounding world began to spin rapidly like a vortex. The strange sky gradually merged into one, and the land beneath their feet stretched outward, crossing the fissures and stitching itself together.
As if standing at the boundary where dreams and reality intertwined, the entire world suddenly surged like the sea.
In the blink of an eye, an entire city rose up from the ground within the space.
This transformation shocked everyone even more.
Inside the bustling city, all kinds of demi-humans, elves, and humans moved busily through the streets.
They greeted each other warmly, friendly smiles on their faces.
Various shops and vendors lined the wide streets, their shouts and calls ringing endlessly.
Children played joyfully on the roads, and passersby looked on with pleasant expressions, without the slightest annoyance.
Everyone who had entered felt as though they had arrived in another country, another city.
As if they could live freely and comfortably here.
This scene made some people recall the magical dungeon they had experienced during Viktor's public lecture.
That world had felt more like something Viktor created simply to showcase his overwhelming power.
That earlier world had only featured a blazing sun, lush forests, and an abundance of magical elements combined together.
But the world they were in now felt far more real.
So real that those who had entered couldn't tell whether they were in reality or inside an illusion.
———
Claudia stood in the very center of the street. At that moment, a carriage came around a corner and headed straight toward her.
A guard happened to turn his head, saw the approaching carriage, and immediately cried out in alarm, "Your Majesty, watch out!"
He lunged forward, trying to stop the carriage.
But the carriage continued straight ahead as if nothing were there. The catgirl driving it smiled contentedly, gently stroking the horse and urging it onward, as if she had never seen Claudia standing in the middle of the street.
Finally, the carriage passed straight through Claudia's body.
It felt like a gentle breeze brushing past her, a strange force tugging at her.
At that moment, everyone's eyes widened in shock.
'What was that carriage just now?'
'It was like it had passed through a ghost!'
Claudia raised her hand, feeling the airflow and the breeze brushing past her. She could clearly sense that both the world around her and she herself truly existed.
The empress lifted her hand, feeling the movement of the air and the touch of the breeze.
She could clearly feel that the surrounding world was indeed real.
She herself was also within a world that felt just like reality.
But the bustling people on the street seemed as if they had never seen her, completely indifferent to her existence.
They couldn't even touch her, nor could she affect them in any way.
Feeling what was unfolding before her, Claudia couldn't help but ask, "Those people… what exactly are they?"