"Nathan?"

"Hm?"

Samantha paused, looking down at his barely-awake form. At least, she thought he was barely awake, but she wasn't too sure.

"Everyone's gathering for breakfast," she told him. "It's suspected that the Challenge choice will be soon after."

Nathan sighed, then sat up and started dressing, then grabbed his backpack and followed her to the cafeteria. He dropped his backpack on a table, then went to the food area and started filling a tray. Once he was satisfied with his haul, he returned to the table and sat down.

The rest of his 'crew' were there – Samantha, William, Keith, Michael, Mitchell, Kendra, and the girl that Michael had been banging, a brunette named Elise who alternated between a sword and a whip for combat, depending on the situation.

She wasn't bad, and did make it into the Top 10 constantly, though Nathan had never had a class with her before then. She didn't bother him much, and he did feel she was better than the rest of the students there. From what he knew, she was a magician, too, and had been before the game began.

If eight students survived, this was the group he wanted to.

He did prefer it for all of them to survive, but knew the game didn't like that idea. The other instances of the game that had happened so far, only a rare few made it out alive. Keith did say they had the largest batch by several hundred, but it was still just a hope, Nathan knew.

At precisely nine-o'clock, everyone received a notice.

Vote on your phones. App is on the homepage. You have 5 minutes to decide between Points Battle and Survival. Majority wins. In the event of a tie, the student who has earned the most Points throughout the game so far (Nathan Hunter) will have their vote count twice, and the Challenge will be what they voted on as a result. Voting is not required, and there will be no punishment for not doing so. However, failure to vote will halve all gains during Challenge 7.

"Everyone!" Nathan jumped to his feet, and the other forty-seven students suddenly snapped their gazes to him. "Points Battle!"

"But Survival-"

"No!" Nathan looked at the protesting senior. "Think about how the game works. We know about Survival Challenges. Why do you think it told us the next Challenge will be the last? Points Battle. We'll have the opportunity for more Points from it."

Nathan sat back down, and the other students started whispering among themselves. Nathan whipped out his phone and quickly voted, then looked at the rest of his table.

"How sure of it are you?" Michael asked.

"Completely," Samantha answered.

"He has been trying to convince us of it," Keith reminded Michael. "And he did have strong arguments. I'm siding with him on this."

Keith and Samantha voted, then others, and they waited for the voting to end. At the five-minute mark, a new message appeared in their visions.

Challenge 7 will be Points Battle 25 students voted for Points Battle; 23 students voted for Survival Challenge. You have 40 minutes to enter the Dome. Any students not within the dome when 40 minutes are up will die.

Nathan read the message, then nodded and resumed eating. Once he finished, he tossed his trash and set the tray on top of the can, then grabbed his backpack and made his way to the Dome. Many of the students weren't happy, but the majority voted in favor with Nathan.

Though the messages weren't always consistent, Nathan had figured out how to read them well enough. A forty-minute wait before finding out the details of the Challenge meant it was 'easier' than the Survival Challenge. They always had short waits for tough Challenges, in his opinion.

At the forty-five minute mark, all forty-eight students were gathered in the dome, sitting on the bleachers and chatting, wondering what the Challenge would entail, and the message then appeared.

Nathan heard students groan as they read it, but a few of those annoyed sounds changed as they continued reading, so he turned his focus to the rather lengthy message. He felt they probably should have broken it up like they did the beginning messages.

You have 15 minutes to prepare for Challenge 7 You will be separated into forty-eight instances of 1 student each. You will be restricted to the Dome. Monsters will regularly spawn through ten portals in the dome, two at each end of the basketball court and three on each side, with increasing ranking and frequency and counts as more are killed and time passes. All monsters, regardless of ranking, will reward 1 Point for killing. You will not face any new monster rankings. The Challenge will last for eight hours. You may call out two Rest Periods by saying "I wish to rest". Rest Periods will last for exactly 30 minutes each. During Rest Periods, you may access your Points Shop. When the Challenge ends, all students will be ranked and rewarded based upon how many Points they acquired. In the event of a tie, time to reach that Points amount will be used to determine who is higher in the ranking. You may earn a maximum of 15,000 Points by the end of the Challenge. In the event that you kill all monsters and earn all 15,000 possible points, you will be removed from the Challenge immediately and placed at the next-highest available spot. You may, at any time, exit from the Challenge by calling out "Trigger end". This will immediately remove you from the Challenge, though your ranking will not be affected, and once everyone has finished, you will be ranked according to how many Points you earned during the Challenge. The sixteen students who earned the least amount of Points (dead students will count as having earned 0 Points, and thus, be included in this count) will die. If sixteen students manage to die during the Challenge outside of the ranking's punishment, all other students will be removed and ranked.

Nathan finished reading the message, then rubbed his temples before reading it again. Why didn't it get split up into three or four separate messages? It was too damn long for that. It didn't affect his comprehension, but he knew it'd trip up other students.

He was right, though – the Challenge offered an immense amount of Points. Not only that, but it offered stuff the Survival Challenge likely wouldn't – Rest Periods and the opportunity to use the Points Shop when it shouldn't have been possible.

It was also their first solo Challenge, but they were still competing against each other.

"Sixteen of us have to die!" Someone called out. "You really think that's a good trade-off for being able to earn Points?"

"Moron," Nathan said, and Samantha put a hand on his arm. "What? He is."

"What Nathan means," Samantha looked at him. "Is that you're a moron for not having realized yet that the Challenge would've required that death count, even if we went with Survival. We lost seventy-two students in the last Survival Challenge, don't forget. The game likely wants us at thirty-two students for the Final Challenge."

Which told Nathan one very crucial piece of information if that was right.

If his assessment that the Final Challenge was exactly the same for all of the tutorial games, then every game had thirty-two students at the final match. And six or less survived it. That wasn't a difficulty measure based on the System killing them, that was a difficulty measure of the actual Challenge itself.

Instead of dwelling on that, Nathan pulled up his Points Shop. He had nearly 6,000 Points and was going to be earning at least as much in the next Challenge. He could use them all up with comfort.

Points Shop 5,715 1 Stat Point: 8 Points 1 Skill Point: 20 Points Food Restock: 25 Points Drinks Restock: 25 Points Toiletries Restock: 25 Points Medical Restock (Basic): 25 Points Food Restock (II): 30 Points* Mana Potion (20 Mana): 40 Points Health Potion (50 Health): 40 Points Mana Regen Decrease (5): 50 Points* Health Regen Decrease (5): 50 Points* Weapon Level 6 Upgrade: 50 Points Medical Restock (Adv.): 50 Points Item Drop: 50 Points Weapon Repair Kit: 50 Points Weapon Mod Upgrade: 50 Points Item Drop (II): 60 Points* Weapon Modification: 100 Points Weapon Level 12 Upgrade: 110 Points Additional Weapon (II): 150 Points

The items that had asterisks beside their costs were the items that opened up with him holding 5,000 Points at once. He hadn't bought them yet, though he felt it was probably a good idea to buy the two Decreases. The 5 after their names made him wonder what that was about, which he discovered as soon as he purchased one – it was how many of it he could buy.

After using it and determining that it decreased the delay between regenerations, he bought all five of each, and used them, his regens decreasing by two hundred fifty seconds each; fifty seconds per decrease.

Then, he bought some Mana Potions and Health Potions, to bring himself back up to full. After that, he was pretty much done, and still had about 3,000 Points left. He had a couple of Skills he could still buy – he didn't unlock anything at Level 70, to his dismay – but neither would help during the Challenge. Item Drop was useless at that point as it was simply a restock of a set list of items he could pick from, much like Food Restock and Medical Restock. He could always increase a few more of his Skills, or invest into more Stat Points, but he was confident he didn't need them.

There was always his sword. Deciding that he probably wouldn't be able to keep it a secret any longer, he pulled it out of his Inventory and equipped it.

"Not hiding it anymore?" Samantha asked.

"I'll probably need it during the Final Challenge," Nathan shrugged. "Keith will probably need his familiar, too."

Keith frowned, but didn't comment, knowing Nathan was right.

Nathan returned his focus to the Points Shop, investing 1,350 Points into his Shadow Sword, confirming when it reached Level 20 that it would unlock the Weapon Upgrade for it again. That made him curious about the Return Knife, since it had the Level 28 Maximum. He swiftly began inputting Points into upgrading it, and as soon as he reached Level 10, he unlocked Weapon Upgrade.

On a hunch, he purchased it, then viewed its status.

Return Knife II Level 1 Always returns to the owner's sheath. Return Cooldown: 20 seconds (minus 1 per Level of this Skill, minimum of 1 second) Damage Bonus: 1 per Level of this weapon Maximum Level: 18

The maximum Level decreased, but it retained its cooldown, as if it were at Level 11 of the weapon. Not only that, but it had a small bonus to damage as well. He decided to leave it as it was.

Despite being confident that he'd manage to come out with a total completion on the Challenge, Nathan opened up his backpack and checked the medical kit. He'd only used a couple of things from it so far, so it didn't need restocking, much to his relief.

Deciding that he was done, and could save the last 1,265 Points for if he needed it during the Challenge, along with whatever else he earned there, Nathan sat back and relaxed. His classmates were probably investing into Stat Points and Skill Points, but he didn't mind.

Even if they ended up with higher stats than him – which he knew several of them already had – they still wouldn't beat him. He was the best, in terms of Skill. Sighing, he wished he had his preferred weapon, the one he specialized with the most. He wasn't sure how effective it would be against Health, but it would at least make him more comfortable.

The timer ticked down to zero, and Nathan found himself alone save for the ten portals in the Dome, exactly how the notice said they would be.

Standing, he jumped off the bleachers, drawing his sword and swiftly cutting through a nearby monster.

Two hours passed before Nathan even began to feel tired, and another passed before he called for a rest. The monsters that had been summoned remained, but no new ones came through, so he killed them and took a seat by his backpack, resting and rehydrating.

Thirty minutes after the called Rest Period, the portals began to spawn more monsters, and Nathan returned to fighting, calling for his second rest after another hour of fighting. He was nearly done, judging by the 13,986 Points he had earned from the fight so far.

After the second Rest Period ended, Nathan returned to fighting. Using the sword made it a lot easier to kill monsters for him and dealt more damage than simply punching them. It also let him do a lot more and use a lot less stamina.

At just-over five and a half hours, Nathan killed the last Nine-Pointer in the room and promptly found himself in the neutral instance.

You have completed Challenge 7! +14 Stat Points, +14 Skill Points, +1,400 Points. You may not leave the Dome until everyone has finished.

Nathan dismissed the notification, then found something dropping onto him, sending him crashing to the ground from the surprise impact.

"Ow," Keith muttered, then quickly scrambled to his feet. "Damn! You beat me!"

"By a few seconds," Nathan snorted, then looked around.

There were a few other students there, but he guessed that they had given up partway through.

"You finished while in the air?" Nathan returned his gaze to the mage.

"I'd gotten thrown by one of the monsters," Keith nodded. "Right before one of my attacks struck it. I was going to use my flight magics, but you kind of acted as a cushion before I could."

Nathan rolled his eyes, then walked over to the bleachers. His backpack had returned with him. He flicked his sword a few times, the sheer speed causing the blood to leave it, then he sheathed the weapon and sat down, opening up his backpack to pull out some food.

"So?" Nathan looked at the four resting students.

"We definitely didn't beat you," one of them said. "Here's hoping we managed to go fast enough that we aren't in the bottom."

Nathan shrugged, then waited. A little less than two and a half hours later, the dozen students still in the Challenge were forcefully returned to the students who had either completed it or quit partway through. No deaths.

He supposed it was only natural, after the System had made a point to mock anyone who died during it with the notice with the details of the Challenge.

As soon as everyone had been returned, they all received a notice informing them to gather in the MPR within the next thirty minutes, and so they made their way down there.