The moonlight was bewitching. Apart from the abnormal blood-red moon, everything seemed to have fallen into darkness.
Li Chen sat quietly by the window, thinking about what had happened over the past few days. From his enrollment to the start of his studies, everything had gotten on track.
He gazed at the red moon, lost in thought.
Suddenly, his consciousness was pulled into darkness. He had experienced this sensation twice before, so it did not frighten him. Instead, he felt strangely calm.
"Am I back again?" Li Chen looked impassively at the White Door standing open in the darkness and the Six Doors, which had been closed for who knew how long.
He did not know why he alone could come here. He did not even understand where these things had come from or how they had pulled him into the darkness.
As the bell rang, that strangely alluring aura surrounded him again, as if inviting him to step onto the white staircase and continue forward.
But this time, he refused its invitation and began moving through the darkness instead. He wanted to see what kind of place this was.
The white aura surrounding him seemed to sense his refusal and stopped circling him. The entire white staircase instantly dimmed.
Li Chen raised his eyes slightly and looked at the doors of different colors. Ever since his awakening, he had been able to sense the energy lurking in his body. Perhaps it came from these things.
He walked toward the Green Door. He could sense a lush aura of life on it, countless times stronger than the energy he had sensed in the Secret Realm before.
"The aura of life," Li Chen murmured, gently stroking the Green Door.
He then walked toward the other doors. He could clearly sense a terrifying aura on each one, though they were all different.
Life, violence, space—and two others from which he could sense no aura at all, like two lifeless doors.
But when he approached the last, the Black Door, his heart began to pound, beating violently. For some reason, Li Chen could feel himself growing excited, even a little restless.
He looked at the pitch-black door. An extraordinarily eerie scene was carved into it: countless chains bound a masked man, his body suspended in the air as if all the chains had pierced through him. The masked man's eyes in the carving seemed devoid of emotion, half indifferent and half crazed. He stared straight ahead, as if he could see Li Chen standing not far from the door.
All of this was merely carved into the door, yet Li Chen could feel his heart pounding more violently with every step he took toward it, until the pain felt as though it were battering his chest.
"What exactly is in there? It's actually making my heart ache, and even making me restless." Li Chen frowned, his eyes full of curiosity. He paid no attention to the pain in his body; he could still endure it.
Suddenly, a whisper sounded in his ear. A faint black mist floated above the Black Door, like a demon tempting him to keep walking forward. But the open White Door also seemed to notice where Li Chen was now.
A beam of white light instantly shone on Li Chen, and the whisper vanished.
At that moment, eyeballs began appearing one after another on the Red Door. They shot red light directly at the Black Door, and a Blood-Red Rune instantly surrounded it, sealing away the aura it had released a moment before.
Crack~
A breaking sound rang out, and Li Chen was instantly flung out of the dark space.
It was as though no time had passed. The blood-red moon was still there, and he was still sitting by the window. Nothing had changed.
But the questions in his heart kept multiplying.
Like the black mist at the border, they hung over his heart.
Time passed quickly, and before they knew it, the morning's theory classes were over.
Li Chen and the others walked across Student Island in the Secret Realm.
Jianping carried his case on his back and teased, "Su Baozi, was that pretty medic from yesterday good-looking?"
Su Zhe said nothing, silently eating the buns he had just bought instead.
"Don't tease him. Yesterday in the infirmary, someone took a photo of his butt and used it as an example. I'm afraid it's probably already up on the template used by those students with healing abilities," Li Chen said with a smile.
Su Zhe immediately protested, shouting, "No way!!"
The group bickered all the way to the eight doors in the Secret Realm.
Li Chen frowned, somewhat surprised. He had not expected the Special Class to have lost so many people in just one day. It seemed they had been unable to keep up, or had been pushed out.
"Chen-ge, I noticed a lot of people from the class are gone. Even those guys who looked so arrogant before seem to have left. They didn't die in there yesterday, did they?" Su Zhe whispered darkly.
Li Chen said nothing. Su Zhe might not have guessed wrong; perhaps they really had died in there yesterday, though it was probably unlikely.
After all, deaths were still rare at the academy.
Jianping spoke up. "Those people were probably defeated and pushed out. The Elimination System."
He took out his phone. On the Canglan Academy Official Website, a mysterious person had challenged someone in their class and taken their Special Class qualification. The same thing was still happening on the website.
People had already begun to make their moves after just one day.
This also showed that who knew how many students were now watching their Special Class.
"Brother Ping, then why haven't they challenged me? I'm ranked last right now. Doesn't that make me the weakest?" Su Zhe asked in confusion.
Jianping seemed unwilling to discourage him. "Maybe they didn't notice you in fiftieth place," he said mildly.
Su Zhe: "..."
Li Chen naturally heard every word. He thought to himself, The elimination matches have already started. Looks like I'll have to work harder. If someone else beats me and pushes me out, I won't get those 1,000 Study Points. That won't do.
Just then, Meng Xi and Luo Lin walked over as well. They looked exceptionally sharp today, both wearing short trench coats and tight black shorts.
They seemed to have dressed light for action. After what had happened yesterday, they had no choice but to do so.
"Damn, you two look sharp!"
Su Zhe stared at them, almost drooling.
Luo Lin smiled. She was no longer shy as she had been yesterday, though her gaze seemed to drift toward Li Chen inadvertently. "Today, we should still enter Jungle Island and get a thorough grasp of it first!"
Li Chen and the others nodded slightly. They had the same idea.
They all wanted to go back in and fight those Tree Demons again. This time, they would definitely not be as passive as they had been yesterday.