"Are… Are the beasts gone?" Tessie stuttered when her eyes met with those of her crush.

Ever since she saw Blake beat Vlad with so much ease, she had been getting a tingling feeling in her heart anytime she saw. The problem was that the aura Blake emitted any time he was in class always made those trying to approach reconsider their actions.

​​

Also, she was rank 47 and she wasn't sure about how Blake would react when a low ranker approached him. That was why she was surprised that her prince charming came to save her at her time of need, but

(AN: As you, all know their badges have many functions which include displaying the owner's rank on its surface. That was how the leader of the oppressors stated his team was stronger than there's.)

"Sorry love..." Blake said apologetically as he knocked out the girl. He felt like Jack the reaper instead of being her prince charming.

When Blake lifted her in his hands, he couldn't help but admire her silky jet-black hair and feel her smooth beige skin. Although she wasn't a flirtatious stunner like Camilla, she was a gentle beauty.

[Remember you don't have much time, so please focus!] The system's words snapped Blake out of his reverie. He carried her and quickly dashed towards the area the battle had occurred.

'It's time to test this out.' Blake said as he brought out his katana from his dimensional space.

While they were watching the episode between both teams, they had come with a theory about the exercise; According to the system the survival exercise was meant to teach the students how to survive from both beasts and their fellow humans, and that led to the idea that what mattered was which team lasted longer.

It meant that if all teams except one were to be wiped out, there would be no need for the exercise to last any longer, which meant for his team to win the exercise they could either wait for the other teams to get wiped out or he could speed up the process by eliminating them but this brought about a question. How was he meant to eliminate them without killing them?

According to what the principal said they were allowed to do whatever they wanted, but they shouldn't kill one another, also he mentioned there was a possibility that the professors wouldn't make it in time so he was afraid of killing a student by mistake.

"She's too pretty for this." Blake had planned on stabbing her to carry out the test, but after seeing her gentle pretty face, he decided to pick another guinea pig since they were many. "Let's move over to the oppressors," Blake said as he walked up to the unconscious leader.

[The principal said only those in life-threatening situations will be saved, which means we can stab them let bleed out, and get saved by a professor, but we don't have much time waste. We have to make sure that anyone knocked down is crippled in order to prevent them from rising again and it requires us to look for a way to eliminate them quickly.] Blake could swear that for a moment the system sounded like a psychopath.

[From my deduction, there should be a mechanism the school must have placed to ensure that the students don't die from instant attacks giving the professors time to save them. So, you should give them a killing blow.]

"How sure are you?" Blake was stunned by the system's words. There were just a lot of things that could go wrong.

[There are two things that could happen, either our plan works or you become wanted by the empire to kill a student, then you end up hiding in the jungle and surviving on beast meat. There's absolutely nothing to lose.] The system said with an ironic smile.

Blake was regretting why he bothered to ask, but he decided to get this over with and leave the area. "Here I go..." Blake said as he stabbed the katana at the leader's heart, but before it could pierce its body the leader's badge glowed and a barrier blocked the Blade.

"Guess you were correct..." Blake said.

[I am always correct.] Blake couldn't deny its words but it would hurt his pride to admit it, so he decided to be silent.

Just a second after the barrier protected the leader, professor Vadik the darkness mastery professor appeared, then he disappeared with the student.

"That answers our question." Blake thought as he went over to the next student and did the same thing. After waiting for the next student to be warped away by the professor that he went to the next.

After Blake had repeated the same procedure for the third time, the professor couldn't help but speak up.

"I would really appreciate it if you do this quickly so that I can get this over with." Blake could feel the frustration behind his emotionless expression.

"Sorry…" Blake couldn't help but scratch his head as he laughed sheepishly.

[Why do you always keep doing this to me.] The system face-palmed.

'As is if anyone knows you exist.' Blake retorted.

After 'crippling' them and the professor had taken them out, Blake quickly stored the corpse of the sklades and quickly went out of the area, because the system had already alerted him of the beasts that were making their way towards his location.

The only reason he had the confidence to attack both the beasts and students was that he had the system that prevented both humans and beasts from taking him by surprise, if not he wouldn't have even had the guts to watch that episode.

…

In the principal's office.

"As expected of the rank 1." Through an array that allowed all everyone in the school including those in the normal class to watch how the exercise was going, Principal Lovren had seen everything that had occurred, from when Blake began spying on both teams till when he had knocked out the last student.

"Seems I was wrong in thinking he was behind the rest of the students in the elite class." Principal Lovren was more than pleased with his performance.

When all the action was over, Principal Lovren shut off the live feed and contacted Prince Bryon.

"Your Highness…" Lovren bowed before he continued. "His performance was more than splendid, only if the other students could learn from the exercise instead of extorting from each other."

"Well, I am not too surprised because it was as expected," Bryon said with a smile.

"As expected?" The Principal said with a confused expression.

"Have you heard of the E rank adventurer Zero?"

"You mean the one that slew the elite ranked knox?" His expression change from confused to shocked.

"Yes, that's him." Prince Bryon replied.

"…" Principal Lovren was shocked to the core, not only was he an E rank adventurer, Blake was a first-year who was meant to be weak and inexperienced. He wanted to make be sure his ears were not failing him, but he didn't dare to ask the prince to repeat his words.

…

Principal Lovren wasn't the only one shocked, except for professor Vadik every other professor was astonished by Blake's performance.

The normal reaction they saw in previous years when the students were put against beasts, was fear, but all of Blake's actions were done with confidence and precision. It was quite disappointing that the newly formed elite class were no different from the reaction those in the normal class would have, but Blake's action made almost all of them nod in satisfaction.

…

Back to the forest.

With the help of the system's detection ability, Blake had managed to evade the beasts that were coming his way and returned to their camp.

'Today's harvest wasn't that great, but it should be enough for today.' Blake sighed. Now that he was in the forest, he didn't have the concealed space to fall back on in case he was out of beast cores, but he could do nothing about it.

"You're back?" His arrival alerted the whole team, but they soon calmed down when they saw that it was Blake.

"While you were gone, we think we came up with a theory..." Luciano said with a calm tone, but it managed to pique Blake's interest.

"Am all ears..." Blake sat crossed-legged.

(AN: Remember to vote and feel free to give the Lord of Xtraordinary Impulse a befitting gift. 😉)