Meanwhile, at the teleportation array plaza of Noren Academy.
A massive curtain of light overhead displayed the events unfolding within the Gray Rock Plane.
The light curtain was divided into numerous screens, broadcasting the apprentices' actions in real time.
It seemed able to sense people's attention—the more closely watched a screen was, the larger it became.
Around the plaza stood a group of dejected Wizard Apprentices.
They looked utterly bedraggled. Many still bore bloodstains, while some even retained the marks of severed necks, missing arms, and broken legs.
Yet no matter how miserable they looked, their bodies were now completely intact.
These people were the unfortunate ones who had previously "died" in Native ambushes.
Besides its obvious ability to let one leave the plane through mental power, the teleportation ring concealed another power: when its user was about to die, it would forcibly teleport them out of the plane, leaving behind a pile of shattered artificial flesh at the original location as a decoy.
This was the true manifestation of that high-ranking wizard's power. Its genuine escape ability was of an exceedingly high level, something utterly beyond the crude spatial confinement Oswaldo had deployed in the Gray Rock Plane.
The apparent withdrawal ability was merely another test for the Wizard Apprentices.
If they chose to withdraw on their own when danger struck, they could still preserve their results. But if their arrogance drove them deep into a hopeless situation and forced the compulsory escape ability to activate, it meant that the Wizard Apprentice had truly been eliminated.
Wizards did not discriminate against failure. After all, every wizard's path of study was a process of constant failure.
Failure was not frightening to wizards. So long as one could learn something new from it, it was a gain. In a sense, those