Saved a Heroine From the Brink of Death

84. First Practical

#84. First Practical

“But is it really necessary to make the two who gave me the stigmata fight on purpose?”

A curious god asked Heron a question.

“If your foresight requires a ‘one with a twisted fate’… you can have the two who gave you the stigmata guard him.”

Future vision.

The paradox of light.

Both are powerful powers representing Heron.

It would be detrimental in many ways to bring the two who have descended into stigmata into conflict.

When users of the stigmata clash with each other, divine power is consumed. And the cost of that consumption must be borne entirely by Heron.

“Do you know about twisted fate?”

“No, in all my billion years of existence… I have never seen anyone with such a fate.”

“That’s right. A twisted fate is something that goes against the law of causality. Something that shouldn’t exist exists. That’s why it’s not easy to change his fate.”

“So, are you trying to forcefully change that fate by clashing divine powers…?”

Heron nodded to his words.

“There are plenty of replacements anyway. Even if one side dies… As long as Yeomyeongja (the one with a twisted fate) survives, that’s fine. After all, the one who survives will do whatever it takes to protect Yeomyeongja until the end of the world.”

Grace, a member of the Future City Watchers.

Cynthia, who has a close relationship with Yeom Myeong-ja.

The Goddess of Light, Heron, could not see the future of which of the two would survive, because she could not see the future that concerned herself.

‘Who will survive…?’

In terms of power, the ‘Paradox of Light’ is obviously stronger than the future, but Grace’s own power was very strong.

Heron stared blankly in the direction of Earth, waiting for the end of the collision.

***

The highlight of the Academy exams, the practical test.

The first event took place today.

There are three practical exams in total over four days, and these exams are more important than any exam you have ever taken.

There are a lot of people observing, and those grading the students are very different from those during the midterm exam.

The instructors belonging to the Academy were not of a low standard, but there were those who were higher than them.

Just think of the high-level heroes from the association who came during the midterm exams. At that time, there was only one supervisor of that level… but during the final exams, the number increases even more.

Because so many people are watching and it is broadcasted, mistakes are absolutely unacceptable.

Considering the purpose of external observation of the final exam, there should not be any major problems for the cadets. If the fight gets heated, the match can be stopped immediately, and it is convenient to think that there is a force on standby to prepare for even the slightest problem.

“The level of the second-year students is unusually high this year. I don’t think it was this high last year….”

“Lee Soo-hyuk and Joo Se-rin are consistently excellent… and the new ones worth keeping an eye on are… Ha Seon-ah and So Young-hyun?”

“There is also one successor to the Shin family.”

“Cynthia?”

“Yes.”

“Was Kwon Seong’s granddaughter a second-year cadet?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm… .”

The middle-aged judge who supervised the first practical test swallowed his breath.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, on the contrary, it seems so problem-free. Until you mentioned it, I never thought there would be a successor to Kwon Sung among them.”

It was only after I realized it that I saw it.

Cynthia, the granddaughter of Kwon Seong, looked very ordinary on the outside. In other words, she was in control of her magical powers.

It wasn’t at the level of a mere cadet.

He was indeed worthy of being called the successor to Kwon Seong and the disciple of Cheon Mu Bong.

Park Young-hoon, a middle-aged, high-ranking hero, looked at Cynthia and was lost in thought.

I wonder what kind of appearance it will show?

How great will the performance be?

My curiosity was aroused.

It was the same for the other judges.

***

“We will now begin the first practical test of the Academy’s final exam.”

A man appeared on the screen and he grabbed the microphone and began to speak.

“The topic of the first practical exam in the second year is… ‘Battle with the Villain’.”

I could hear many cadets sighing at the mention of a battle with a villain.

‘A battle with a villain… It’s just like the original. Anyway, it’s going to be fun from the first episode.’

The final exams for the Academy are randomly selected.

There are battles with villains, gate conquests, and melee battles with monsters.

This is not the end. Even in battles with villains, there are specific items such as rescuing hostages and destroying villains.

“The core content of this ‘Battle with the Villain’ is ‘Annihilation’. Battle dolls that play the role of the villains will appear. If a certain amount of damage is inflicted on a battle doll, it will be retired and points will be awarded to the attacker.”

The host took a breath and continued speaking.

“Villains are classified into beginner/intermediate/advanced levels, with beginner being the weakest and advanced being the strongest. Skills correspond to the heroes of each level. The points you get when retiring a battle doll are proportional to your skill.”

Battle dolls of beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.

This doll is the work of world-class puppeteer Raidman, who has reached the highest level of hero.

That’s why no one was surprised when the doll had the power of a hero. Everyone knew this fact.

The host snapped his fingers.

Then, the screen of the scoreboard changed and a scoreboard appeared. On that scoreboard were written the points earned for capturing beginner, intermediate, and advanced combat dolls.

Beginner: 1 to 3 p

Intermediate: 10 – 30 p

Advanced: 100 ~ 300 p

This phenomenon occurs because the skills of battle dolls differ even within a rank.

In reality, not all high-level heroes have the same skills. I heard that they intentionally made the skills of the battle dolls different to instill this in the cadets.

‘In fact, it was made so that you wouldn’t catch the higher-level ones. It doesn’t make sense to hunt the higher-level ones at the cadet level in the first place.’

“Villain Battle – Annihilation”

This event has often appeared as part of the Academy exams, but so far no one has caught a high-level combat doll here.

Up to the intermediate level, you could somehow combine your strength to subdue them, or there were cases where one outstanding prospect came up with a plan to capture them, but the upper level is not weak enough to be affected by such things.

That’s why the score of 100 to 300 p made sense.

In fact, it’s like giving points for catching hundreds of beginners and tens of intermediates at once. Assuming you can catch the advanced ones, if you catch just one of them, you’ve already won the championship.

‘Even Lee Soo-hyuk… couldn’t catch a high-level hero.’

Suddenly, the content of the original work came to mind.

Lee Soo-hyuk showed an incredible performance in this test and made his presence felt in the eyes of the judges.

It was an action to raise the price and sign a contract with the guild on better terms. The judges knew that too. But they had no choice but to pass it over. That’s how amazing Lee Soo-hyuk was.

‘I pushed a combat doll that was supposed to be a high-level villain… to the brink of retirement. Thinking back now, it’s really unbelievable.’

It wasn’t just Lee Soo-hyuk’s skills that won. He used other fighting dolls.

Using the distraction trait obtained by using the Hidden Piece ‘Predation’, I made several intermediate-level combat dolls and advanced-level combat dolls collide with each other. Unfortunately, the distraction did not work on the advanced-level combat dolls. This is because their mental barriers are much stronger than those of the intermediate-level ones.

‘But Lee Soo-hyuk is different now. Instead of the Hidden Piece he was supposed to obtain in the original, he became a half-dragon. Maybe… he might be able to catch a higher-level hero.’

Half dragon.

But it is half the Yong-in tribe.

The Dragon Race is a tribe of people descended from the Dragon Race, known as the lords of magic and possessing enormous magical powers that allow them to control all sorts of phenomena.

If you unleash all that power, even the current Cynthia won’t be a good match for you.

The chance that Lee Soo-hyuk got was so absurdly fraudulent.

‘I could use the seal of command to hit him in the back of the head during a critical situation… but that won’t work because the other heroes will find out. I guess I’ll just have to hope that Sia can defeat Lee Soo-hyuk with pure skill.’

Of course I wanted Cynthia to win first place, but wishing for something doesn’t make it happen.

Because she had a powerful enemy in front of her, Lee Soo-hyuk.

but….

For some reason, I had a feeling that Cynthia was going to show me something.

It seemed like he would impress upon everyone his incredible abilities that went beyond their expectations.

“Then… the test begins!”

The cadets spread out throughout the testing center began to move.