Ren and Rex reached the piece of land where the light pillar was. Once they got their feet on the ground, they saw the light pillar in front of them. There was nothing else on that piece of land except grass and other elevators, with some students that had also arrived there. Thankfully, no one was stupid enough to try and fight here. They just walked towards the light pillar.
"We finally made it," Rex muttered.
"Yeah, but what about the elevator? Wouldn't it be a problem since it's destroyed? Less people will be able to come here," Ren thought. But as soon as he finished the thought, he heard a sound from behind him. When he looked back, he saw the elevator somehow floating back and fixing itself, and then it started moving back to the edge.
"Well, I guess that fixes my concern then."
He looked at Rex. "Well, this is the end. I hope I see you in the next test."
Rex smiled. "Well, I don't. I'd rather team up with my other friends."
He walked away and entered the light pillar. Ren smiled a little, happy that he said his other friends, and with that, Ren entered the light pillar and got teleported back.
Light covered his vision. He closed his eyes, and once he felt like he was sitting on something, he opened them. He looked around and found himself back in the auditorium.
Not only that, he felt something strange. When he looked back at his clothes, he was dry. His clothes weren't wet from the rain. Heck, there wasn't any mud or ash, and he didn't smell like smoke.
For a second, he thought that maybe he was just in some sort of simulation. No—he shook his head. That wasn't possible. First of all, he felt the sensation of teleportation. Even though he was unfamiliar with it and this was the first time he had ever been teleported, he knew this couldn't be a simulation. So it was probably magic that cleaned him up, which was kind of considerate. They considered the fact that no one would want to smell each other after going through mud and sweat, especially for hours.
Other than that, he noticed some bruises. It seemed like they didn't heal up, so it meant getting damaged throughout the three tests was bad. Thankfully, he didn't really get hurt a lot during the first one.
He looked around and saw people getting teleported back one by one. A lot of people were already here, and many were still going through the test, so he assumed he was among the first hundred who had completed it. He then looked next to him and didn't see Kai, which meant he hadn't arrived yet. He waited for a while until light flashed beside him. When he looked, it was Kai.
"So you finally finished," Ren said from the side, startling Kai a little before he realized it was just him.
"Yeah, dude. Looks like you finished before me."
"Yeah, by a lot. So how was the test for you?"
Kai smiled and told him exactly what happened. Apparently, the worst part of the test was the rain area. He was completely lost and didn't know where to go at all. It was even worse because the rain was so heavy he couldn't activate his superpower unless he focused and produced a really powerful output, but that just drained his energy—especially since his power was constantly being weakened by the rain. It wouldn't last long, so fighting in the rain area was a nightmare.
Other than that, everything went smoothly. When he finally got out of the rain area and entered the woods, he immediately set it on fire yes, he set it on fire. Considering that everyone would be teleported back if injured, it was fine for him to use it. All his enemies and the animals in the woods got burned away, and he could walk through the burned forest without issues because his power gave him fire resistance.
As for the fire city area, it was easy again because of that same fire resistance. He just walked straight through it.
And for the elevator, he encountered two people there. They fought, one of them got eliminated, and as for the other, they didn't bother fighting each other. It would've been a waste, and anyone could've taken them out if they kept fighting there for long, so they decided to team up. Thankfully he did that, because he wasn't sure he could've passed the elevator alone.
Overall, he had major success in the test. Other than the first area, where he spent most of his time, he had a great run.
Ren smiled and told him about what he did in the test. They talked for a while, and then they waited for the announcement of the second test.
A lot of people had already returned, but not everyone at once, which seemed strange. Either they were lying about the time limit, or they purposely didn't bring everyone back so they wouldn't guess the time limit.
Stephen Blake appeared on the stage again.
"Hello everyone. Congratulations on passing the first test. A lot of you have worked hard to pass, but some of you worked harder and got here a lot earlier. Because of that, we will be starting the second test right away."
"What? How's that fair?"
"No way, why would they do that?"
A lot of complaints like that appeared all around the auditorium. They didn't know they needed to succeed in the first test to give themselves some momentum.
Ren didn't really care, considering he was one of the first to arrive and got some rest, and the same went for Kai.
Stephen didn't seem to care about the complaints and continued talking.
"The second test will be focused on skill."
Ren paid attention to what Stephen was saying.
Skill. Well, depending on what type of skills this test needed, it would be easy or hard to accomplish.
Thankfully, Stephen told them immediately what type of skills they needed.
"Obviously, skill is too wide of a concept, so we will be focusing on rescue skills."
The screen behind him changed, and it showed an image of a puppet.
"In the area that you will be teleported to, there will be a bunch of civilian puppets. You have to find them and take them to the light pillar. Be careful, after all the terrain will be tough and you will face enemies. Unlike before, in this test you don't have the option of ignoring each other. If you encounter another person, you either team up with them or fight them. And again, you are only allowed to team up with one other person. And be careful, the puppets are fragile. You could accidentally break them, so you have to use your skills or powers to complete this test."
Oh, also there's another way to finish this test early.
"You have to find the special locations around the map, and then you will know what type of event will help you complete this test early."
Before Ren or anyone else could think about that last part, they all got teleported away.