When Alex opened his eyes again, he was in a flat plain, with a few trees in the distance and a hot sun in the middle of the sky.
"Welcome to the arena. You guys are currently in a separate dimension... There will be a few challenges ahead of you. And don't worry, you won't be harmed.
Just complete all the tasks, and you'll be transported back to the real world. Make sure to complete all the tasks!"
As Miss Amy's voice disappeared, Alex took his first step forward, then another—all the way until he finally reached the first challenge ahead of him.
It was just a straw dummy painted with a bold red letter saying 'fireball me' right on top of its body.
"Focus on your mana and think of a fire element... Re-arrange it into a triangle..."
Alex could feel a surge of mana in the air, all rapidly being sucked up as it traveled through the mana tunnels within his body.
The three fire elements were slowly gathering together, forming a triangular shape as the mana forcefully maintained its shape.
Despite what felt like forever, only a few seconds had passed as a flame suddenly appeared above Alex's head.
It began rapidly condensing until it couldn't become any smaller, then rapidly expanded from a marble ball to the size of a fist.
With the last few drops of mana he could gather with his body, he directed the ball of flames right at the dummy.
"Boom!"
With a loud explosion, the dummy catches on fire as a number gets projected into the air.
"I mean... 70 isn't that bad... C's get degrees." Alex murmured to himself as he sat down on the dirt road.
Closing his eyes, he entered into a meditation state, solely focusing on regaining all the lost mana in his body.
This time, he could feel the mana tunnel having expanded slightly, just barely faster than before, as he recovered most of his mana.
As Alex stood back up and resumed walking forward, he soon encountered the next dummy right ahead of him.
This time, the dummy had a blue sign that said 'Water me."
With the same process as earlier, a ball of water appeared above Alex's head as he directed his mana to force the water element together.
Feeling the size was about right, he redirected the ball of water right at the dummy, causing it to snap in half as another score appeared.
"Only 63? Fuck."
Alex didn't sit down this time, opting to recharge his mana naturally as he walked towards the next challenge.
He could feel his brain was feeling a little drained, almost having a headache that prevented him from meditating.
"I need to stop using all of my mana... It's regenerating so slowly."
As the third dummy appeared in Alex's view, it had a white letter that said, "Wind me."
This time, Alex didn't bother with having the spell be carefully crafted, arranging the wind element into a triangular shape before throwing it.
As the wind blade flew right at the dummy, it gave him an 80 despite spending the least amount of effort on the wind spell.
"Really? That's the one that I get a high score on?"
After thinking for a bit, he quickly realized why he had scored so high. The wind element was one of the easiest elements to arrange and pull with his limited mana.
Speaking of mana, Alex was forced to sit back down, entering into meditation to recover all the lost mana.
As the mana regeneration began to speed up, he could feel a faint headache hitting him in small waves.
After feeling his body was fully charged, he exited the meditation as a wave of drowsiness soon hit him in the head next.
"Come on, I have to finish this."
Resuming walking again, Alex soon arrived at his next challenge. A challenge that completely stunned him in place.
A giant rock golem was in the distance, slowly walking closer and closer towards him along the dirt path.
"Crap."
Not wasting any more time, Alex immediately took a few steps back before starting to cast his ball of flame.
As the ball of flame reached half its size, he was forced to throw it prematurely as the golem had gotten way too close for comfort.
Only a small scratch was done to the golem as the dust settled, causing Alex to run further back to give himself more time.
"There has to be a way to beat this... What element counters Earth?"
With every second ticking past, Alex suddenly had an idea in his head as his body slowly regained most of his mana.
Water elements began rapidly gathering around Alex. But rather than making it into a ball shape, he shot it straight toward the golem.
The water beam flew right towards the golem, doing zero damage as it only gave the rock golem a little shower.
"Come on, please work..."
His mind was constantly shifting the wind and water elements into a snowflake pattern he had learned from the textbook, causing the temperature in the air to drop rapidly.
A layer of ice was starting to form on the wet grass nearby. But more importantly, every joint of the golem's body was being hindered.
It was barely moving as the temperature continued to decrease, sending a shiver down Alex's spine as he continued to re-arrange the elements into snowflakes.
"Shit!"
Just as the water was about to solidify into ice completely, Alex's mana pool ran completely dry.
The golem immediately breaks free within seconds, shattering all of the ice Alex had made as it became fully enraged.
He immediately turned around, running away from the golem to create some distance between himself and the golem.
"There's got to be a way to beat this stupid golem... wait!"
An idea suddenly popped into his mind as he noticed that the rock golem's main weakness was its short legs.
With the golem closing the gap, Alex quickly burned half of the mana he just recovered as earth elements began rapidly gathering towards him.
A large hole suddenly appeared in the ground as he continuously pulled all the earth's elements away from the ground into the air.
He wasn't making any patterns with it, just using his raw mana to create a bigger and bigger hole in the ground.
Just as the rock golem was about to catch Alex, it fell right into the hole he had made. A few inches away from grabbing onto his body.
After failing several times to reach Alex with its hand, the golem soon started to realize it was stuck on the ground.
It started smashing the dirt below to push itself up, going higher and higher. But Alex wasn't just going to let the golem free itself.
He quickly began to use the rest of his mana to redirect all of the earth elements right at the golem, fully burying the golem's leg as it began to solidify.
Soon, the golem became completely immobilized underneath, its legs trapped in the solid dirt as every slam in frustration only solidified it even more.
"Whew, that was a close one."
Alex quickly began to meditate just out of reach from the golem, catching up with his mana as the ground continued to shake from all the smashing.
After he recovered most of his mana, he took a little short break to let the headache go away on its own.
There was now just one last step. One that he could do without needing to worry about running away.
He started casting one wide blades after another, chipping away at the golem until the line slowly transformed into a crack on its head.
Just as he was about to cast a water ball to expand inside the golem, it suddenly disappeared as a score appeared.
"10? Are you joking? I spent all that effort just to get a 10. You can't be serious."
In complete disbelief, Alex angrily sat back down to meditate on all his mana before walking down the path.
But rather than another challenge he had hoped for, it was the end of the journey as a leaderboard appeared.
The entire leaderboard was full of 100s, with the only difference between each person in the leaderboard being the time differences.
Not a single person's name was recognizable except Justin, who managed to get 10th place with a 100.
"Rigged score..." Alex murmured as a light appeared before his eyes, forcing him to close his eyes.
---
When Alex could see again, he was back in the arena with half of the class, all waiting for the others to come out.
"Hey Justin, how do you get 10th place?"
Alex curiously asked as he approached Justin, who was standing on the side with the teacher the whole time.
"It's just a burst test. It only considers damage and the time it takes to complete it... I already fought that thing hundreds of times."
"I see... Thanks."
Alex quickly thanked Justin before heading over to the exit to wait for his sisters.
A few minutes later...
As everyone started to come out of the exit, Alex started to get a little worried as Sophia and Mary still hadn't shown up.
"Miss Amy, how long does this test usually take?" Alex curiously asked.
"About ten to twenty minutes... But there is a hard cap of thirty minutes if they don't finish in time."
"Thank you."
After taking a seat nearby, he waited and waited as classes that were behind them earlier started to come out.
"Hey Alex, what's your score?"
A female voice suddenly appeared from behind, causing Alex to turn towards it. Camille was right behind him, with her three other friends standing right next to her.
"My score? It's not that good." Alex replied as he turned his attention back to the exit, not wanting to tell them his disaster score.
Just as Camille was about to ask again, Evelyn quickly dragged her aside, whispering something to her before coming back.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to ask that earlier."
Camille's sudden apology confused Alex a little, but he quickly realized what Evelyn had told her.
"It's fine... I'm going to get used to it sooner or later." Alex murmured the last part to himself.
With the giant clock on the ceiling ticking more and more, Mary finally emerged from the exit.
Although her clothes were full of dirt, there weren't any bruises on her body at all. She looked to be perfectly fine as he let out a sigh of relief.
"Brother! I beat the golem!" Mary excitedly yelled as she ran right into Alex's arms.
"Nice, that's good to hear... Is your leg okay?" Alex quietly asked, noticing the slightly awkward posture
"Yeah, I'm fine..."
Seeing Mary blush a little, he quickly realized her weird posture wasn't because of the arena challenge.
"What score did you get?" Alex softly asked, gently brushing the dried dirt off her back and her legs.
"I got 80, 80, 80, and 50!" Mary replied, her excitement quickly replaced by a sense of embarrassment as she said the last score.
"That's amazing! That's like three times my score." Alex complimented.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I really mean it... Ahem, let's go sit down and wait for Sophia."
The two of them headed back to the bench to meet up with Sophia's friends, whose faces looked a little jealous as they sat down together.
"Mary, you really got that score?" Luna curiously asked, as everyone nearby overheard her answer.
"Yeah, what did you guys get?" Mary curiously asked back.
"I got——"