</img>
"He charged into the Endless Trial!"
All eyes followed Ling Zhan.
On the screen,
Ling Zhan's figure flashed. When he appeared again, he was standing in a long corridor.
The corridor was packed with Sewage Poison Crabs.
Half of them were quasi-elite monsters, and the other half were ordinary monsters.
The audience knew this was probably just an "appetizer."
With Ling Zhan's abilities, he wouldn't have to break a sweat.
He'd killed a BOSS in thirty seconds. What were these appetizers by comparison?
The audience had it right.
On the screen,
Ling Zhan raised his staff once more.
"Prairie Fire!"
A dazzling red glow blossomed at the top of his staff.
The dark monster corridor was suddenly as bright as day.
The Sewage Poison Crabs, which had spent years in a damp, gloomy environment, were abruptly bathed in light.
"Roar..."
They let out furious howls, but had no choice but to shield their eyes with their pincers!
Their eyes were weak from their long habit of darkness and couldn't withstand the dazzling flames.
Then,
"Go!"
In an instant—less than three seconds—
Boom, boom, boom...
More than a dozen blazing fireballs hurtled into the monster horde!
Dozens of Sewage Poison Crabs were turned to charcoal by the terrifying heat, their lives snuffed out.
"Holy crap!"
"What am I seeing? How did Senior Ling Zhan's spell power suddenly get so much higher?!"
"Good heavens!"
At that moment, every single person in the audience
stared at the screen in shock.
Even the principals and directors on the dais were no exception. They frowned, looking as if they could hardly believe it.
"Ling Zhan used Prairie Fire before, but he could only release one fireball at most."
"But now, he can hurl more than a dozen Fireball Techniques in three seconds! This..."
"Isn't that a high-tier mage skill? How can a Jobless Freelancer do that?"
What kind of monster had City No. 1 High School produced?
The same thought crossed everyone's mind.
The teachers who specialized in teaching mages looked especially as if they'd seen a ghost.
"Elite monster stages reward experience. I did manage to combine the rewards for the second and third stages, but I didn't cancel the immediate distribution of some experience after a BOSS kill."
At that moment, King Yama Zhou casually offered this explanation.
Only then did everyone see the light.
"Right! He slaughtered thousands of elite monsters in the Ghost Pool elite stage, then killed the final BOSS!"
"With all that experience, what level is Senior Ling Zhan now?"
"Damn, as a mage, I'm officially jealous of Senior Ling Zhan's insane damage output!"
"He's a Jobless Freelancer, so he knows all the basic skills of every class!"
"After leveling up, he must've gained the corresponding four attributes and skill points, too..."
"They just aren't as numerous as the attribute points you get when leveling up in first- and second-tier classes."
But no matter how you looked at it,
there was no way ordinary monsters could stop Ling Zhan in the third stage. That was wishful thinking.
"Want to know why the third stage has a 99% death rate?"
"Keep watching."
Suddenly,
King Yama Zhou spoke in a cold voice.
His words nearly incited the crowd's anger.
Inside the Endless Trial, Ling Zhan charged to the end of the corridor.
"A barrier?"
Ling Zhan hesitated for a moment, then broke through it.
Whoosh—
A wave of heat surged over him. The air reeked of highly corrosive sulfur, nearly choking him off his feet.
Hot!
Endless heat!
The world was like a gigantic furnace, with a blood-red crescent moon hanging in the sky.
This was a small world saturated with fire elemental energy.
The trees were red, flames burning in their crowns.
The stones were black, just as wreathed in the fires of hell.
Volcanoes of every size dotted the land.
One.
Three.
Seven.
Ling Zhan was surrounded by seven volcanoes, and lava erupted from their craters now and then. The largest volcano was devoid of life. Not a blade of grass grew there.
It spewed out the most lava, too, smoke billowing like the Eight Trigrams Furnace of the Grand Supreme Elderly Lord.
Crack!
The Water-Avoiding Bead Ling Zhan had been holding suddenly shattered.
In the first stage, Ling Zhan had used Prairie Fire and Freeze to kill ten thousand ordinary Sewage Poison Crabs. Now, the very same means of killing enemies were being used against him.
The third stage of Sewage City was cold and damp.
But here,
at the end of Water City, lay another world—a sea of fire.
This was the Endless Trial!
"Hiss..."
Outside, everyone gasped.
"Could those really be real volcanoes?"
"Look, Senior Ling Zhan's hair is smoking!"
"Good heavens, it must be dozens of degrees in there! If Senior Ling Zhan weren't wearing protective gear, would he have been roasted the moment he stepped inside?"
"That's insane."
Fortunately,
though it was hot, judging by Ling Zhan's appearance, the heat wasn't enough to cause him any real harm.
"99% death rate."
"Is that it?"
"King Yama Zhou's got quite an imagination, trying to burn people to death with volcanoes."
They could only think those things.
After all, King Yama Zhou was notorious. They really... couldn't afford to offend him.
"Hey, did my eyes just play tricks on me? I thought I saw the biggest volcano move."
"That's strange. I think I saw it, too."
On the dais,
King Yama Zhou slowly rose from his seat, his expression solemn.
"Awaken."
"Flame Demon."
Roar—
An enraged howl echoed through the small world, like a bolt of divine thunder descending from the heavens.
The sound was immense, shaking the whole world.
The giant volcano had truly awakened.
The mountainside quaked, and countless boulders and torrents of lava cascaded down its massive slopes, as if the apocalypse had come.
A terrifying pressure beyond description slowly awakened.
The pressure spread outward.
The world trembled.
The volcano grew even larger, revealing itself to be a colossal humanoid beast, a thousand zhang tall.
The erupting lava was its hair.
Two enormous caves were its nostrils.
When it stood up, its thousand-zhang frame made Ling Zhan, a thousand meters away, look as tiny as an ant on the ground.
[Monster: Flame Demon Overlord]
[Level: 50]
[Skills: Pressure, Destructive Flame, Flame Breath]
[HP: ???]
[Defense: ???]
[Status: Bloodthirsty, Berserk]
[Potential: Red]
[Monster Notes: The overlord of this small world, supreme and unmatched. When enraged, it will destroy every living thing. Extremely dangerous! If you encounter the terrifying Flame Demon Overlord, death is your only fate.]
Boom!
Outside, the students, reporters, and teachers fell silent as one.
The next second,
the deathly silence erupted like a volcano.
"A level-50 Red Name!"
"That's strange! I thought Red Name monsters were weaker than Gold Name monsters?"
"That's usually true. But don't forget, Red Name BOSSes and Gold Name BOSSes compete with each other in the same secret realm!"
"That means Red Name monsters can sometimes be just as strong as Gold Name BOSSes, or even stronger!"
"But this is way too ridiculous! A level-50 Red Name BOSS in a trial secret realm for teenagers? Who the hell would believe that?"
"Looks like King Yama Zhou made this Flame Demon monster the BOSS of the trial secret realm!"
"King Yama Zhou's crazy. He must be crazy."
"This is blatant murder!"
"Good heavens, I was hoping Senior Ling Zhan would put in the work in the third stage, too. Maybe he'd even win the provincial championship."
"Hopeless."
"The monster's stats are hidden, too. This is terrifying! It looks like defeat is inevitable in a one-on-one fight!"
"Could Senior Ling Zhan die in there?"
This monster was far more difficult than anything in previous Job Transfer Trial Entrance Examinations!
It was way too overpowered!
Before you continue