SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 510: Final Trial [II]

Kaelen.

Althea.

Eryndor.

Selara.

All four directors were present.

That alone tightened the entire place.

They were not here to decorate the stage. They were here because this was the practical final exam, and they wanted every student under their watch.

Kaelen stepped forward first.

He did not need to raise his voice. The hall listened the moment he began to speak.

"Good morning, first-year students."

His tone was cold, stripped of ceremony.

"If you pass the practical exam today, you will finally become second-year students. You will also have one less year of the Academy left ahead of you."

No one spoke.

"All of you already know the basis of today’s exam," Kaelen continued. "You will be sent to one of the Academy’s hunting grounds. Once there, you will hunt a monster and bring it back."

A brief pause.

"One monster. Not several low-level ones."

That alone killed more than a few hopeful thoughts in the crowd.

"We want to see how far you have grown this year. Because of that, I encourage you to hunt something worthy of being called your target."

The atmosphere shifted. Nervousness sharpened into real tension.

Without warning, Kaelen raised one hand and snapped his fingers.

A ripple of mana spread through the hall.

Dozens upon dozens of bracelets appeared in the air at once, suspended above the students like metal stars waiting to fall. They were silver, thin, lined with faint runes that pulsed softly across the surface.

A wave of murmurs passed through the room.

Kaelen let them look for only a breath before speaking again.

"These are items created with the cooperation of the Great Family Dvergar."

That single name drew even more attention. No one in the room failed to understand the value behind that.

"They are designed to teleport you back to the Academy Gate if you are about to receive a fatal blow. If that happens, you will fail the exam."

His voice did not rise. The coldness in it slid across the hall cleanly enough to make more than one student stiffen.

"You will remain focused at all times."

The bracelets descended at once, each one moving toward a student with unnatural precision. Trafalgar caught his easily and fastened it around his wrist without much thought. Around him, others did the same.

Kaelen continued.

"You are allowed to form groups in order to hunt. We also value teamwork, coordination, and the ability of different classes to adapt together to changing situations."

That caused a different reaction. Some students relaxed. Others started glancing around at once, already measuring who they wanted near them.

"It is not permitted to fight other students," Kaelen said. "This is not a competition to see who kills the most. Respect the rule."

The way he said it made the room feel colder.

More than a few students felt a chill run across their skin.

Kaelen raised one hand again, and a massive projection unfolded above the assembly, spreading through the air until it dominated the entire hall. The murmurs disappeared almost at once. What appeared overhead was not a simple sketch or a rough outline, but a full map of the hunting grounds, detailed enough to make the scale of the place clear at a glance. Mountain ranges cut across one side of the terrain like jagged teeth. Dense forests occupied a broad central stretch. A wide lake shimmered under the projection’s light, its waters marked as a zone inhabited by monsters, while farther out, a smaller desert region broke the landscape into yet another kind of battlefield. Every section suggested different dangers, different prey, and different routes, forcing anyone with a functioning brain to start calculating immediately.

"This is the area," Kaelen said, his tone as cold and steady as before. "It is large. There are mountains, forests, a lake populated by monsters, and a small desert sector. Different species inhabit different regions."

His voice did not need force to dominate the room. The sheer size of the map had already done most of the work for him. Students stared upward, some trying to trace routes in their heads, others already weighing which terrain suited them best. Those with more experience understood the problem immediately. A bad choice of direction could waste time, mana, and effort before the real fight even began.

"This is the map," Kaelen continued. "You have five seconds to memorize it."

That was when the tension sharpened.

The room did not erupt into noise, but the pressure shifted all the same. A few students stiffened. Others narrowed their focus so hard it was almost visible. Five seconds was nothing for a map of that size, and everyone there knew it. There was no point memorizing every detail. The only choice was to prioritize, landmarks, terrain changes, the shortest routes into the more dangerous zones, the safest ways back if things went wrong. The students who hesitated were already behind.

Trafalgar lifted his head and took it in with a single focused sweep. The mountain routes stood out first, then the forests, then the lake and the desert. He marked the transitions between regions almost instinctively, along with the paths most people would probably choose and the ones fewer would dare take. That alone was enough. In a place like this, knowing where others would go mattered almost as much as knowing where the monsters were.

Five seconds passed.

The projection vanished.

A faint current of frustration moved through the hall, subtle but easy to notice. Some students looked annoyed, others unsettled, and a few had the expression of people already regretting every decision they had not yet made. Kaelen, of course, did not care in the slightest.

"Good luck."

The words had barely left his mouth when the entire hall was swallowed by light.

Teleportation devoured the room in an instant. The Academy, the balcony, the voices, the pressure of hundreds of students packed together, everything disappeared beneath the surge of mana. For a brief moment there was only distortion, a cold, weightless pull through folded space, the strange sensation of the body being seized and moved without any regard for comfort.

When the world took shape again, Trafalgar’s boots were planted on solid ground.

The air had changed completely. Gone was the polished stone and enclosed atmosphere of the grand hall. Here the wind carried the smell of earth, wild mana, and open space. The hunting grounds stretched around him, with none of the Academy’s order left in sight. It felt familiar enough to stir an old memory.

Trafalgar let his gaze move over the terrain, already measuring it.

’Similar to the first time, huh,’ he thought.

His hand went up ready to summon Maledicta, and the corner of his mouth lifted just a fraction.

’Though this time, I really am going for first place.’