"Alright everyone! Start your trial using your systems!" The ref haired instructor shouted loudly.
Bruce looked up just as a glowing notification appeared before his eyes.
[Do you wish to start your trial?]
[Y/N]
He was about to reply when an airhead, obviously attention-seeking, shouted at the top of his lungs.
"I, Ozai Thorne, with my S-Ranked Fire Lord class, will dominate this trial!"
Bruce blinked, then chuckled under his breath.
'Hah… Fire Lord Ozai? Don't tell me he plans to roast the avatar next.'
Shaking his head, Bruce smirked, finding his own joke funny. 'If this guy burns out early, I won't even be surprised.'
He watched as the loudmouth disappeared from the place...
Sighing, he refocused on his system.
[Do you wish to start your trial?]
[Y/N]
"Yes, System. Start my trial."
His vision darkened. His body went numb. Maybe he disappeared and was teleported like the other guy… he couldn't tell.
But when he opened his eyes, something was off. Terribly off.
He felt… small. Too small. The grass around him looked like towering trees from his perspective.
He glanced down at his body and froze.
'What?! I'm an ant?!'
He barely had time to process it when a shadow fell over him.
He looked up, only to see a slipper. A human slipper. From his tiny point of view, it looked the size of a house.
He tried, he really did, to scurry out of the shadow. But for all its 'slowness,' the foot was impossibly fast.
Squash-!
He was stepped on, his exoskeleton bursting apart as the slipper flattened him completely. The human kept walking, not even noticing.
The pain was sharp, sudden, and over in an instant.
His vision darkened once again.
[You have died]
Yet his consciousness remained. He had no body, but he could see the system panel clearly.
He didn't understand how.
'So… what's with this trial? What am I even meant to do?'
Confusion gnawed at him. Still, before he could think further, his vision returned.
And he wasn't dumb. He was starting to understand where this was going.
High chance… he'd die again.
And then...
Fwop-!
Fwop-!!
Fwop-!!!
An overwhelming sensation crashed into him.
'What's this… this… pleasure…'
"Fuck…" He groaned, looking around, but couldn't see anything.
[You have died from excess pleasure]
....
Bruce sighed in his disembodied consciousness.
'So it's confirmed. I'm just being given deaths… trial after trial… with no way of escaping them.'
'With my class, I thought I'd be told to heal a sick village, or slay millions of goblins. But instead, I'm given a trial as twisted and confusing as this…'
But he didn't waver. The mind of the No. 1 Surgeon of Earth wasn't so easily broken.
'Wait… that might be it! Maybe I can earn titles based on how long my mind can endure these deaths… Maybe that's the point!'
...
A hundred deaths later…
Bruce was completely silent. His mental fortitude hadn't wavered, but he was sick and tired of seeing the same panel:
[You have died]
He had tried to survive many times. But no matter what he did, the result was always the same... death.
'Sigh… so this isn't like those novels where the MC suddenly survives one death with a burst of determination or some hidden loophole…'
'So does this mean no matter what I try, I'll always die? Does this mean… death is fate?'
'Fate?!'
Bruce was confused as hell.
And then...
---
[Your comprehension of Death has risen to 50%!]
---
Bruce was stunned. He had never expected such a notification. But shock quickly gave way to excitement.
This… this was what he had been looking for all along!
'Finally… the opening I needed. Finally, a path to titles…'
His vision returned again. This time, his spirit was blazing, his blood, if he had one in this form, felt like it was boiling.
'About damn time!
'If I can push my comprehension of Death to 100%, I should be able to get something. Hell, maybe even before that.'