A couple of hours pass.

I woke up at 5:00 A.M once again so I have time to train inside the books.

I've already done body tempering, fire tempering, and whatever I did yesterday, I still don't know what benefits I got other than feeling refreshed...

I look in my luggage and this time a completely white book was glowing.

Chase was still sleeping, I'm sure he wouldn't notice me being gone for a bit...

I open the book and was dragged into another world.

This time the world was very foggy and dark. There was a faint rumble which kept getting more and more present as the seconds went by.

I quickly scan every direction and found out where the source of the rumble is coming from, i try to take a closer look, but every ounce of my body started shaking in fear.

There was a horde of monsters running at me, all of them at an unfathomable level.

I start running in the opposite direction. They seem to be quite slow, but on pace

I ran and ran, but there was no clear objective, I was slowly getting tired and the beast horde was slowly catching up to me.

I stopped and turned around, I desperately tried to gather some power to attack the horde, but nothing was formulating in my body.

There was nothing to do, I just stood there and awaited my death.

As the horde was about to reach me I was teleported back at the starting point, essentially restarting the whole session. I quickly understood that I had to keep on running until there was a point of safety.

The run began once again, tirelessly running for a couple of hours, there was a building down the horizon, it looks like a couple of hours run from where I was. No chance I was going to make it this run. I once again awaited my death to restart the run.

Like last time, the run began again. This time I was able to make it further than my previous run, but I was still too far from the building and too tired to go on in this life. I restarted the process.

The progress in which I made was very minimum and slow. I must've restarted more than 50 times

After my 54th or 55th attempt, I finally made it to the stronghold rather than building. The beast horde suddenly disappeared, the stronghold was indeed a place where I was supposed to head to. There was a woman with extremely damaged clothing, I made my way towards her. She turned around and had a very calm face, she walked up to me and pushed her palm against my chest. I didn't even get the chance to react.

Her arm started to glow, I started to feel my consciousness slowly fading away.

I woke up in my bed.

The book has flopped over my face, I move the book to see Chase's face confused.

"Why are you reading a blank book?" Said Chase.

I had to find some bullshit excuse.

"When I look at this book I get really tired for some reason," I said.

That cleared up one of my suspicions, when I'm in the dream world, my body isn't taken there, rather my consciousness is.

"I can't seem to understand the cover of the book, what language is it written in?" Chase asks

"I couldn't tell you..." I responded.

"Let's head to breakfast?" I ask

"Sure, let me get ready," Chase responded.

Thank god he didn't look too much into it, that would be a real problem.

After getting ready we went straight to the cafeteria to have breakfast, I saw Alice and some girl next to her. I walked up to say hello.

"Hey, Alice!" I said.

"Hey Stephen, whose your friend?" said Alice

"His name is Chase, he's my roommate. And I remember you... Your Yoshino? the girl from our class?" I responded.

In a very shy manner, Yoshino says, "Yes... I remember your performance yesterday... It was splendid."

I didn't know I left a good impression on the people in my class...

"Haha, thanks!" I exclaimed.

"Why don't we sit down and eat some breakfast?" Alice remarked.

We all nodded our heads in agreement.

*In Alice's head*

Why is this chase fellow so fair? There is something wrong with him?

*Back to Stephen*

We ate breakfast and headed to our class, it was a shame that Chase was in the fire class.

We made our way to homeroom, and we decided to sit next to each other.

The rest of the students came in, along with the teacher.

"Settle down. Today is Friday, which means you will have Saturday and Sunday off, though you shouldn't. On Monday the start of the "Kings Tournament" will take place. There will be more information on that at the end of the day. All students must go to the gym 1A, there a schoolwide announcement will be made." Said Cora.

"Also, on Wednesday, we will be having an election to pick class president and vice. They will manage the students of this class and manage the reputation of this class. The rest of the period you can use to make up any work, or socialize among yourself." said Cora.

"A tournament... I wonder what kind of things will we do in it." Alice excitingly says.

"What kind of benefits does the winner come out to have?" Yoshino added.

All I was worried about was will it hamper our training sessions... I didn't come to this school to do activities as such.

The hours go by nothing really happened... The gym was the same as yesterday, we did our horse stance training, then did regular exercises. The one thing that changed was the specialized training.

We entered the class and took seats on the bleachers.

"Everyone get up and line up like yesterday." said the teacher.

"Today is going to be an addition to yesterday, instead of shooting one bolt of lightning, imagine yourself shooting multiple bolts. Almost like a Gatling gun, don't stop until you've run out of mana. This is an advanced class, that's all I'm telling you. If you can't do this assignment, you'll be kicked from this class and downgraded into a B class." said the instructor.

He's the type of teacher I've been looking for, strict, doesn't care if you are better than the others, has no regard for the ones who can't excel.

Just like last time, I imagined myself shooting hundreds of bolts of lightning, but only this time, I didn't restrict myself from using the black smoke.

Just 3 minutes from the instructions given I shot hundreds if not thousands of black bolts of lightning... it went on for almost 20 minutes but I ran short.

I looked around and saw everyone looking with awe-inspired eyes... it looks like I'm no longer regarded as some sort of monster.

"Dude you are an absolute monster, what's with that mana pool and destructive power?" said the teacher.

I was regarded as a monster, but not the one that I was thinking of...

As the smoke cleared up, everyone saw the hole that I drilled through the wall.

"That's 6 Feet of tungsten, instantly drilled through." said the principal.

"You have not disappointed me yet child, what else will you bring the future?" the principal says while laughing.

"Principal, didn't you say that a variant deviant would use more mana than a normal deviant... Why was he able to go 20 minutes with that black lightning? most starting challengers won't even get to 5 minutes..." Said the instructor.

"His mana pool is just substantially larger than most people. Stephen, you'll be a pillar of mankind in the future, make sure you train adequately." Said the principal.

"Yes sir," I replied.

"Come on! 20 minutes have passed and only 1 person shot a consecutive blast, hurry up you little shits." Said the instructor.

The class went on, slowly people started to shoot consecutive bolts of lightning.

I on the other hand was trying to shoot only pure lightning, not the black-infused one.

I made some progress in that regard, I was able to shoot a small bolt of pure lightning, but it wasn't the consecutive one... I guess we have to start somewhere right?

I as I did the shot, the principal snap his head towards my direction... perhaps he saw my regular bolt...

*In the Principals head*

Not only does he have a variant type of lightning, but he also could use the regular type. That wasn't surprising... What was is that his lightning was ridiculously pure. I've never seen such pure lightning aside from when I fought alongside the archmage of lightning. This kid is a bundle of questions in one body...

"Okay, it looks like everyone was able to do the blast, looks like no ones getting kicked today. head to the first-floor gym, there is an announcement there today." said the instructor.

All the students took their time to get dressed and make their way to the gym.

The principal appearing out of nowhere saying, "Good Afternoon ladies and gentlemen, today I have some very exciting news, on Monday we will start the king's tournament. a little history lesson for all; for thousands of years, the strongest man of the human race would be picked and be named king, he is to lead his men to battle to fight against the Ethereal. Sadly due to the planet's lack of world energy, kings were getting weaker and weaker... but with the large influx of energy, the newer kings will be stronger than ever. We decided to hold the pre-selection now because the winner of this tournament will be the runner-up king after the present one were to vanish. Of course in the future another Kings Tournament will be in place, to finally set a new king, but for now, this is done as a precautionary. Back to the present time, the winner of this tournament will be the runner-up king in the future, and will automatically be placed as a captain of their class."

Everyone was a bit conflicted with what the principal said.

"In a couple of weeks, we will be sending all the classes into the wild, where they will be fighting against low-level Ethereal. This is meant as a training experience, but each class needs a captain, the winner of the tournament will instantly be the captain of their class. the rest will need to be voted. Also, the winner of course will get a large number of training materials to boost their strength. May the best challenger win." said the principal.

Everyone was riled up, everyone saw this as an opportunity to get stronger and boost their name.

This tournament seems like it will be quite large and beneficial to all, whether winning or losing.

Looks like I'll have to participate in this Tournament... This

Kings Tournament.