Dawn broke cold and sharp over Fey Academy.
Max stood among the assembled students, breath misting in the early morning air. He'd barely slept. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the battlefield. The dying. The demons. The moment the claw descended.
And then he'd open them again to find himself sixteen years old, alive, and surrounded by kids who had no idea what was coming.
"Nervous?"
Max glanced to his side. A human girl with short auburn hair was stretching her arms, rotating her shoulders. She caught his look and grinned. "First day jitters are totally normal. I'm Kira, by the way."
"Max."
"Well, Max, try not to die out there." She said it like a joke. Like the monsters they were about to face were just another test, another hoop to jump through.
In his first life, Kira had made it to Beta class. She'd graduated, joined the human military, and died in the third wave of demon attacks defending a refugee camp.
Max looked away. "You too."
Around them, hundreds of students clustered in nervous groups across the massive training grounds. The arena was enormous—a flat expanse of packed earth surrounded by towering stone walls inscribed with glowing runes. Observation platforms jutted from the walls at regular intervals, already filling with instructors and academy officials.
Max knew this place. He'd been here before. Six years ago—or yesterday, depending on how you counted time.
His eyes swept the crowd, cataloging faces. Some he recognized. Most he didn't. Students from all three races mixed together in varying degrees of comfort. A cluster of elven students stood near the eastern wall, their movements graceful even in stillness. A group of demihumans—wolf, fox, and bear variants—were engaged in what looked like a heated debate about strategy. And everywhere, humans, the most numerous of the three races, talking, boasting, psyching themselves up.
"Quite the turnout."
The voice cut through the ambient noise like a blade. Every conversation stopped. Every head turned.
Headmaster Sebas Ross stood at the center of the arena.
Max didn't remember seeing him arrive. One moment the space had been empty. The next, he was simply *there*, as if he'd materialized from the morning air itself.
Sebas Ross was a tall man—easily six and a half feet—with sharp features that spoke of elven ancestry despite his human classification. His hair, steel-gray and pulled back into a tight tail, framed a face that could have been forty or four hundred. He wore the academy's formal robes, deep blue trimmed with silver, and his presence alone commanded absolute attention.
Max had forgotten how intimidating he was.
In his first life, Max had barely interacted with the headmaster. Gamma students rarely warranted his direct attention. But he remembered the man's reputation: former S-Rank adventurer, war hero, one of the strongest mages on the continent.
And in the final battle, he'd died holding off three Demon Generals so the evacuees could escape.
"Welcome," Sebas said, his voice carrying effortlessly across the grounds without amplification, "to your entrance examination."
A nervous ripple passed through the crowd.
"The rules are simple." Sebas raised one hand, and the air above him shimmered. An image materialized—a sprawling forest enclosed by shimmering barriers. "You will enter the Contained Zone. Inside, you will find monsters. Low-level demons, corrupted beasts, animated constructs. Your task is to survive for two hours and accumulate points through combat."
The image zoomed in, showing a massive horned creature prowling between trees.
"Each kill grants points based on the creature's strength. Teamwork is permitted but not required. You may form parties, work alone, or anything in between. However—" His expression hardened. "—sabotaging fellow students will result in immediate expulsion and possible criminal charges. We are here to test your abilities, not your capacity for cruelty."
Some students shifted uncomfortably. Others nodded, faces set with determination.
"You will be monitored at all times. If you are critically injured, you will be extracted immediately. If you surrender, you will be extracted immediately. There is no shame in recognizing your limits." Sebas's gaze swept the crowd. "But understand this: your performance today will determine your class placement, and your class placement will determine the opportunities available to you for the next six years. The resources we allocate, the instructors you train under, the missions you are assigned—all of it stems from what you prove here."
Max's jaw tightened. He'd lived through this speech before. Heard these same words and felt the same spike of anxiety, the desperate need to prove himself.
This time was different.
This time, he had Plunder.
"The examination begins in five minutes," Sebas continued. "Use this time to prepare yourselves. Check your equipment. Center your minds. And remember—" His lips curved into something that might have been a smile. "—this academy has stood for three hundred years because we produce results. Show us that you deserve to be here."
The image vanished. Sebas's gaze lingered on the crowd for one more moment, then he turned and strode toward the observation platforms.
The moment he left, noise exploded back into the arena. Students immediately began talking, arguing, forming quick alliances. Max saw a group of elven students already moving together, their formation practiced. Nearby, three human boys were loudly declaring they'd rack up the highest kill counts.
"You going solo or looking for a party?"
Max turned. Kira was still there, one hand resting on the sword at her hip. She looked confident. Ready.
"Solo," Max said.
"Seriously? That's pretty risky for a first-timer."
"I'll manage."
Kira studied him for a moment, then shrugged. "Suit yourself. Good luck out there, Max."
She jogged off toward a group that was already forming near the arena's center—a mix of humans and one demihuman, all looking competent enough.
Max watched her go, then checked his own equipment. A standard academy sword, sturdy but unremarkable. Light leather armor designed for mobility. A small pouch with basic supplies—bandages, a stamina potion, a flare for emergencies.
In his first life, this had been all he needed to scrape into Gamma.
Now, it felt almost quaint.
Max closed his eyes and pulled up the System.
The display materialized instantly, crisp and clear.
---
[STATUS]
NAME: Maximilion Keath
RACE: Human
RANK: F
LEVEL: 1/10 (0%)
TALENTS:
- Plunder (F-Rank)
- Mana Amplification (F-Rank)
SKILLS:
- Basic Swordsmanship (Lv. 1)
- Mana Control (Lv. 2)
ATTRIBUTES:
- Strength: 8
- Agility: 7
- Endurance: 9
- Intelligence: 11
- Mana: 15
---
Max stared at the numbers. Level one. F-Rank. By every metric, he was weak.
But he had experience. Knowledge. And Plunder.
That would have to be enough.
"ONE MINUTE!"
Sebas's voice boomed across the arena. Students began moving toward the massive gate set into the northern wall—the entrance to the Contained Zone. The runes around it pulsed, growing brighter.
Max joined the flow, positioning himself near the middle of the crowd. Not too eager. Not too hesitant. Just another student trying to prove himself.
His eyes scanned the crowd one more time, and—
There.
Near the back, leaning against the arena wall like he had all the time in the world, was Beck Aristar.
Max's breath caught.
Beck looked exactly as he had last night. Bored. Half-asleep. Completely unbothered by the fact that his entire future was about to be decided. He was tall for sixteen—just over six feet—with messy dark hair and the kind of naturally athletic build that suggested he'd never had to work for it. His uniform was already rumpled despite being barely an hour old.
As Max watched, Beck yawned, covering his mouth with one hand.
Something hot and bitter twisted in Max's chest.
You could be a hero. You could save everyone. And you just don't care.
Beck's gaze drifted lazily across the crowd—and locked onto Max.
For a moment, their eyes met.
Beck's expression shifted into something warmer. He raised one hand in a casual wave, then mouthed something Max couldn't quite make out. Probably "good luck" or "don't die" or some other throwaway platitude.
Max didn't wave back.
He turned away, focusing on the gate.
"POSITIONS!"
The crowd pressed forward. The runes blazed brilliant white.
"BEGIN!"
The gate exploded open.
---
The Contained Zone was a forest.
Max had forgotten how disorienting the transition was. One moment, packed earth and stone walls. The next, towering trees and dappled sunlight filtering through dense canopy. The air smelled different—loam and moss and something faintly metallic.
Magic. The barriers maintaining this pocket dimension hummed just below the threshold of hearing.
Around him, students scattered immediately. Some charged straight ahead, weapons drawn and voices raised. Others moved cautiously into the underbrush, clearly planning to pick their battles. A few had already formed tight groups, moving together with practiced coordination.
Max broke left, sprinting into the trees.
His body remembered this. Not the sixteen-year-old body he was currently inhabiting, but the muscle memory of six years spent fighting for his life. His footsteps were light, controlled. He wove between trees without breaking stride, eyes scanning constantly for threats.
The first monster appeared thirty seconds in.
A Shade Hound—a corrupted wolf-like creature wreathed in shadow. It lunged from behind a tree, jaws wide, claws extended.
Max's sword was already moving.
The blade caught the creature mid-leap, punching through its chest. Black ichor sprayed. The Shade Hound dissolved into smoke before it hit the ground.
Max barely slowed.
And then—
[PLUNDER ACTIVATED]
The words blazed across his vision. Max stumbled, catching himself against a tree.
[Analyzing target...]
[Roll: 47/100]
[Failure. No ability acquired.]
Max stared at the notification.
Failure?
The System had rolled. Forty-seven out of a hundred. And it had failed.
Randomly acquire, the description had said. Randomly.
Max exhaled slowly, forcing his heartbeat to steady. Right. It wasn't a guarantee. Plunder gave him a chance with every kill, but not a certainty.
Which meant he needed to kill a lot more.
A roar split the air somewhere to his right. Max turned, already moving. Through the trees, he could see flashes of light—magic. Heard the clash of steel. Other students engaging.
He needed to hunt smart. Efficiently. Cover ground, find monsters, maximize his rolls.
Max poured mana into his legs—Mana Amplification thrumming to life—and ran.
---
The next fifteen minutes were a blur.
Max cut through the forest like a scalpel, targeting isolated monsters. A pair of Corpse Crawlers—undead amalgamations of bone and rotting flesh. Three Flame Wisps—floating orbs of sentient fire. A Stone Golem that had been lumbering toward a group of struggling students.
Each kill triggered Plunder.
[Roll: 23/100] — Failure.
[Roll: 61/100] — Failure.
[Roll: 78/100] — Success.
[Skill Acquired: Darkvision (Lv. 1)]
Max blinked. His vision sharpened immediately, the shadows of the forest becoming clearer, more defined. He could see details he'd been missing—the subtle movement of creatures in the underbrush, the faint glow of mana signatures.
Useful.
He kept moving.
More monsters. More kills. The System kept rolling.
[Roll: 34/100] — Failure.
[Roll: 55/100] — Failure.
[Roll: 91/100] — Success.
[Skill Acquired: Enhanced Reflexes (Lv. 1)]
Max felt it immediately—his body responding faster, smoother. He dodged a Shade Hound's lunge without thinking, his sword finding its throat before his conscious mind even registered the threat.
The acquisition rate was low. Maybe one in every four or five kills. But every success made him stronger.
He was leveling faster than he'd thought possible.
[LEVEL UP!]
[Level 1 → Level 2]
[Attribute points allocated automatically.]
Max's muscles sang with sudden energy. His mana reserves deepened. The exhaustion creeping into his limbs evaporated.
He grinned.
This is insane.
Another roar—louder this time, deeper—echoed through the forest. Max froze, head snapping toward the sound.
That wasn't a low-level monster.
Through the trees, he could see movement. A cluster of students—maybe eight or nine—scrambling backward. Their formations were broken, panic written across their faces.
And stalking toward them, massive and wrong, was a Corrupted Treant.
Max's breath caught.
That wasn't supposed to be here.
Treants were mid-tier monsters at minimum. B-Rank threats. They weren't supposed to spawn in entrance exams—too dangerous, too likely to cause fatalities.
But there it was. Fifteen feet tall, its body a twisted mass of bark and vines, its eyes glowing sickly green. One of its branch-arms swept through the air, and a student went flying, crashing into a tree with a sickening crunch.
Max's legs were moving before he made the conscious decision.
He remembered this. Not the Treant specifically, but the *moment*. In his first timeline, several students had died in the entrance exam due to an anomaly—a monster that wasn't supposed to spawn. The instructors had chalked it up to a malfunction in the Contained Zone's magic, compensated the families, and moved on.
Max had always wondered if it could have been prevented.
Now he had the chance to find out.
He burst through the underbrush, sword drawn, mana already flooding his limbs.
"FALL BACK!" he shouted at the clustered students. "Get to the treeline!"
A human boy—blood streaming from a gash on his forehead—turned toward Max's voice. "It's too fast! We can't—"
"I'll distract it! Just move!"
Max didn't wait for acknowledgment. He amplified his speed, closing the distance to the Treant in seconds, and drove his blade into its leg.
The sword barely penetrated the thick bark.
The Treant's attention shifted immediately. Its massive head swiveled toward Max, and those glowing green eyes fixed on him with unmistakable malice.
Oh, this is going to hurt.
Max yanked his sword free and rolled, narrowly avoiding the branch-arm that slammed into the ground where he'd been standing. The impact cratered the earth, sending dirt and roots flying.
Behind him, the students were scrambling away. Good. That bought him time.
Not much, but some.
The Treant roared—a sound like splitting wood and grinding stone—and lunged.
Max amplified his reflexes, his new skill kicking in. The world seemed to slow just slightly, giving him the split-second he needed to see the attack coming. He ducked under a sweeping branch, slashed at the Treant's trunk, and immediately rolled left to avoid the follow-up.
His sword was doing almost nothing. The bark was too thick, too reinforced by corrupted mana. He needed a better angle, needed to hit something vital—
"HEY! UGLY!"
Max's head whipped around.
Kira was charging from the opposite side, sword raised, her face set in determined fury. Behind her, three other students—the ones she'd partnered with earlier—were spreading out, flanking the Treant.
"Kira, get back! This thing is—"
"Yeah, yeah, too dangerous, I know!" She slashed at one of the Treant's roots, drawing its attention for a brief moment. "That's why we're helping, genius!"
The Treant's head swiveled between them, confused by multiple threats.
Max's mind raced. Multiple attackers. Coordination. He could work with this.
"Aim for the joints!" he shouted. "Where the branches connect to the trunk! That's where the bark is thinnest!"
"Got it!"
The impromptu party moved in concert—not perfectly, but well enough. Kira and one of the others kept the Treant's attention, dodging its massive swings. Max and the remaining two attacked from the sides, targeting the joints he'd identified.
It was working. Slowly. The Treant was bleeding sap now, its movements growing more erratic.
But it wasn't going down.
Max's mana reserves were draining fast. Amplification wasn't cheap, and he'd been using it constantly. The other students looked exhausted, their attacks growing sloppier.
They needed to end this *now*.
The Treant reared back, roots bursting from the ground around it. Max recognized the technique instantly—Area Devastation. It would pulverize everything within twenty feet.
"SCATTER!"
The students broke, sprinting in different directions.
Max went forward.
He poured everything he had into his legs, amplifying his speed to the limit. His muscles screamed. His mana bottomed out. But he moved, closing the distance before the Treant could complete its attack.
He leaped.
His sword—wreathed in the last dregs of his amplified mana—drove straight into the Treant's glowing eye.
The creature shrieked. Its massive body convulsed, roots thrashing wildly. Max held on, twisting the blade deeper, until—
The light in its eyes died.
The Treant collapsed.
Max rode it down, hitting the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth. He rolled clear, gasping, every muscle burning.
And then—
[PLUNDER ACTIVATED]
[Analyzing target...]
[Roll: 94/100]
[Success.]
[Skill Acquired: Nature's Resilience (Lv. 3)]
[Talent Acquired: Ironbark (E-Rank)]
Max's eyes widened.
Two acquisitions. Including a talent.
[LEVEL UP!]
[Level 2 → Level 3]
[LEVEL UP!]
[Level 3 → Level 4]
Power flooded through him. His mana reserves refilled instantly, then expanded beyond what they'd been before. His skin tingled, hardening just slightly—Ironbark already integrating.
Max lay on his back, staring up at the canopy, and started laughing.
"Uh, you good?"
Kira appeared above him, offering a hand. She looked concerned. "You just killed a freaking Treant and now you're laughing. Should I be worried?"
Max took her hand, letting her pull him up. "I'm fine. Just\... adrenaline."
"Yeah, well, that was insane." She looked back at the fallen Treant, then at Max. "Where'd you learn to fight like that?"
*Six years of hell.*
"Practice," Max said.
"Right." Kira didn't look entirely convinced, but she let it drop. "Well, thanks for the save. We'd be paste without you."
The other students were gathering, checking themselves for injuries. One of them—a demihuman with rabbit ears—was staring at Max like he'd just sprouted wings.
"That thing was at least B-Rank," she said quietly. "How did you—"
"Luck," Max interrupted. "And teamwork. We all did it."
"You killed it," Kira pointed out.
Max shrugged. He could already see the gears turning in their heads, the reassessment of who he was and what he was capable of.
This was a complication. He'd wanted to prove himself enough to reach Alpha class, but not stand out so much that people started asking questions.
Too late now.
A chime echoed through the forest—magical, resonant. Sebas's voice followed immediately after, carried on the wind.
"The examination is concluded. All students will be teleported to the arena in ten seconds."
Max exhaled slowly.
Two hours. It had felt like twenty minutes.
The world shimmered around him—
---
—and he was back in the arena.
Students materialized in clusters, appearing in flashes of light across the packed earth. Some looked triumphant, weapons raised. Others looked shell-shocked, bleeding, supported by their teammates.
Max scanned the crowd automatically, cataloging.
Most were exhausted. A few looked like they'd barely fought at all. And near the back, leaning casually against the wall like he'd just returned from a pleasant stroll, was Beck.
His uniform wasn't even dirty.
Max's jaw tightened.
Sebas Ross stood at the center of the arena once more, his expression unreadable. He waited until the last student materialized, then raised one hand.
Silence fell immediately.
"You have completed the entrance examination," he said. "Your performances have been recorded and analyzed. Class placements will be announced tomorrow at noon in the Grand Hall."
A murmur rippled through the crowd—disappointment at having to wait, relief that it was over, nervous speculation about results.
Sebas's gaze swept across them all. "You fought well. Some of you exceeded expectations. Others\... have room for growth."
His eyes lingered on certain students for just a fraction of a second longer than others.
Max felt the weight of that gaze pass over him.
"Rest tonight. Tomorrow, your futures begin in earnest."
With that, Sebas turned and strode from the arena, his robes billowing behind him.
The moment he was gone, chaos erupted. Students talking, arguing, comparing kill counts. A few were already celebrating, convinced they'd made Alpha. Others looked despondent.
Max stood still, letting the noise wash over him.
He pulled up his Status.
---
[STATUS]
NAME: Maximilion Keath
RACE: Human
RANK: F+
LEVEL: 4/10 (78%)
TALENTS:
- Plunder (F-Rank)
- Mana Amplification (F-Rank)
- Ironbark (E-Rank)
SKILLS:
- Basic Swordsmanship (Lv. 3)
- Mana Control (Lv. 4)
- Darkvision (Lv. 1)
- Enhanced Reflexes (Lv. 1)
- Nature's Resilience (Lv. 3)
ATTRIBUTES:
- Strength: 12
- Agility: 11
- Endurance: 15
- Intelligence: 13
- Mana: 22
---
Four levels. Three new skills. One new talent.
All from a single exam.
Max closed the display, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
This was just the beginning. One test. One day.
He had six years to prepare for the end of the world.
And for the first time since waking up in this second chance, he felt something he hadn't felt in what seemed like lifetimes.
Hope.
He turned, weaving through the crowd toward the dorm assignments posted near the gate.
Tomorrow, the results would come. Tomorrow, he'd find out if he'd made Alpha.
But tonight?
Tonight, he'd rest.
Because tomorrow was just the start.
And Max had a lot of killing to do.