A Formidable Foe, Lv.3!

Do I dare?

This single question directly irritated Ron into a laugh.

Youan Hansen.

He hadn't expected that while he hadn't yet experienced firsthand whether the current provisional number-one was strong, he would first get a taste of just how thick the guy's skin was...

It truly was harder than anything in the world.

Clearly, it was he himself who had paid hired killers before the College Entrance Exam to assassinate him in secret.

Yet now he was saying things like "find a way to eliminate the influence of all other examinees and duel you one-on-one"—

Have you no shame?

Why didn't he put on this attitude before, instead of saying such things only after discovering their rankings were right next to each other and that a battle between them was inevitable?

Ron had no intention of watching Youan gild his own lily and put on a sanctimonious act.

"I've never heard of your ability being [Psychological Suggestion], nor will I be directly brainwashed by this single sentence of yours."

He simply let out a sneer, tearing away Youan's fig leaf without a trace of mercy:

"Acting all righteous over the phone won't change what has already happened.

All the assassins who wanted to kill me have already been dealt with by me. I don't consider letting them come give me trouble ahead of time to be any sort of 'fairness'..."

As he spoke, Ron made a sudden expression of sudden realization, as if he had just remembered something, and said with sarcastic inflection:

"Oh... I remember now. You're the youngest son of Moen University's vice-president, a young master from District A. Your fairness really is a bit different from other people's."

Listening to Ron's taunting words, Youan did not show any ferocious attitude like those other pampered young masters.

Instead, he wore a faint smile, seeming completely unconcerned about everything Ron had said:

"It seems you've misunderstood something, Ron—I never asked anyone to assassinate you."

His tone was calm, without any concealment:

"The assassination attempts against you came from my father... While such behavior is unseemly, it belongs to the tacit understanding of covert transactions between mega-corps.

What he did definitely did not exceed the rules of the shadows."

"Deng Yin previously wanted to obtain the sector authority for [Prometheus] by relying on the results of 'that experiment', but he failed in the end...

Since he failed and left Moen University, he shouldn't have come back."

As he spoke, a trace of sincerity crept into his tone:

"You have every right to blame my father for assassinating you, but all of this started with your teacher's injustice in the first place.

He treated you as a chess piece to restart the experiment, as a stepping stone—

Perhaps before hating me, you should carefully consider whether your relationship with your teacher is truly as good as you imagine..."

Whitewashing, distortion, smearing, fabrication...

What a practiced public relations tactic. As expected of a young master from District A, these methods came to him completely naturally.

Yet Ron's brain was functioning just fine. Facing an enemy of this sort who was clearly irreconcilable, how could he possibly listen to his glib chatter and attempt at sowing discord?

"What gibberish are you spouting?"

He merely sneered, completely ignoring Youan's lengthy discourse, and interrupted:

"Could it be that because the one who commissioned my assassination is your old man, it changes the fact that you're a bastard?"

Youan, interrupted by Ron, stiffened slightly, clearly finding it hard to maintain his smile.

He fell silent for a moment, and Ron could even hear his noticeably heavier breathing...

Ron's blunt attack just now had clearly dealt a fair bit of psychological damage to Youan.

What was going on... This guy hadn't cracked at all a moment ago, so why was he acting so sensitive now?

Ron thought of the extravagant and dissolute lives of the wealthy in District A and District B, and then recalled the advanced age of Moen University's vice-president, an age that could well be considered a ripe old age.

Could it be... that he had really hit the nail on the head?

With a somewhat odd expression, Ron looked at Youan, whose face had darkened, and listened as he spoke in a noticeably colder and stiffer tone:

"Originally, I wanted to get to know you better. I thought that even after I beat you, we could try to be friends..."

"After all, we're both future students of Moen University, and we're both applying to the Department of Physics. There will be many times in our daily lives where we'll have use for each other..."

"But now it seems you don't respect me at all."

"I just can't be bothered to deal with a clumsy white lotus." Ron retorted.

"Then let's settle this with real combat."

Youan sighed, looking at Ron with an indifferent gaze:

"You'll understand why I am number one..."

Before he could finish, however, Ron directly hung up the phone, cutting off Youan's final words right in his mouth and turning them into a ball of pent-up anger that had nowhere to go.

"Ron..."

Youan clenched his fingers until they turned pale white, the gravity around him churning...

In a fit of anger, he actually overturned the Preparation Hall where he was currently located!

Unlike Youan, who was angered to the point of breaking his defense, Ron wore a somewhat solemn expression at this moment, calmly recalling all the intelligence he had on Youan.

Although his aura hadn't wavered in the slightest during his call with Youan, acting as if he completely disregarded the fellow, in reality he knew very well that Youan was undoubtedly his biggest enemy in this College Entrance Exam.

After all... it was impossible for Ron not to take Youan seriously, seeing as he was a "great demon king" who had locked down the first place right from the start of the exam, firmly sitting atop that top spot with not a single examinee daring to challenge him successfully.

Especially after facing Beck and clearly understanding just what level of standard the examinees at the very top of the rankings possessed, a trace of anxiety welled up deep inside Ron.

To be honest... if he hadn't known Beck's weakness, he would only have been able to fight Beck to a standstill without employing the [Corpse Collector] profession.

Indeed, if it turned into a war of attrition, once Ron's [Vector Manipulation] was completely worn down, Beck could easily win on the strength of his formidable physique, which rivaled that of a physical enhancement superpowered.

Then... how was Ron supposed to defeat Youan, who was clearly even stronger than Beck?

If he remembered correctly, Youan was a [Gravity Control] superpowered...

According to all his performances in those live stream clips Ron had watched, this person's ability should be able to manipulate the "gravity" between objects, making it larger or smaller, exhibiting manifestations quite similar to [Vector Manipulation].

However, although [Gravity Control] was indeed very strong and quite similar to [Vector Manipulation], its ability model was clearly weaker than [Vector Manipulation]...

Even though he was currently only Lv.2, and many capabilities of [Vector Manipulation] were still restricted and unable to be fully released—

"Gravity," as a kind of "vector," happened to be one of the vectors Ron could barely control through [Vector Manipulation] right now!

In other words, everything Youan could accomplish using [Gravity Manipulation], Ron could do as well.

Now, with Ron holding the complete upper-hand over Youan's superpowers, plus the fact that Youan was actually nothing more than a Lv.2 himself and had yet to reach the level of Lv.3...

Under these circumstances... When he really thought about it, Ron couldn't even find a reason why he might lose.

Youan's threat might even be smaller than Beck's had been in his preconceptions!

After all, Ron genuinely had no way to stop Beck's instantaneous movement...

Could it really be this simple?

Ron furrowed his brow tightly. Reason told him that based on all the information he possessed, Youan was indeed his complete inferior, yet intuition told him it was definitely not so...

After all, his ability might have been kept relatively secret before, but after defeating Beck, it was impossible for word not to have reached Youan's ears.

For Youan to still be this confident... presumably, he possessed ample assurance of defeating Ron.

Ron pondered for a moment and searched online for videos of Youan again, yet he still couldn't find any instance of Youan displaying power that exceeded [Gravity Control].

He hasn't revealed his trump card...

I can only assume his trump card is capable of defeating the abilities I've displayed.

Yet if that's the case... how am I supposed to beat him?

When defeating Beck, he had already used every single ability he could possibly expose...

No.

Perhaps there was still one desperate measure...

Ron's gaze shifted to the Dimensional Update Manual.

[Ability Overload]

[This setting is bound to the superpowered. Loading this setting will overload the transcendent abilities you use, releasing the full potential of that ability and optimizing its ability model.

However, when you overload superpowers that your computational power cannot control, you will be powerless to control the ability model and trigger a computational power overload.]

This was a setting Ron had always kept sealed away previously, one that would trigger a computational power overload the moment it was loaded.

Perhaps... it could serve as a temporary trump card.

After reaching Lv.2, training his Personal Reality for a period of time, and thoroughly growing accustomed to this power, Ron had never attempted to control an overloaded [Vector Manipulation].

After all, in the real world, if he really overloaded it once, he would have to overload his "Ability Limiter" at the same time as overloading his computational power...

At that point, to say nothing of the physical damage, simply restricting his ability once more would be troublesome enough, requiring him to ask Deng Yin to adjust the parameters for ages.

Right now, however...

In the Virtual Reality, even if he overloaded it to the max, the worst that would happen was logging out of the Virtual Reality and coming back in to refresh his status, without any major lingering effects at all.

If he remembered correctly, he had heard that the College Entrance Exam Committee offered a discount on the first Resurrection Coin, costing only fifty thousand Credit Points...

Ron immediately dialed Kevin's number, and the call was answered the moment it rang:

"Holy crap! Junior Brother, you are seriously too awesome!"

Kevin's face on the call projection was full of excitement:

"You actually went and beat the number three... Number three!

Do you know you're already in the top three of the College Entrance Exam? You're simply invincible!"

"Stop, stop, stop." Watching Kevin, who was chattering away and about to heap endless praise upon him, Ron directly put a stop to his junior-brother-worshipping behavior.

"Senior Brother, I called you for business... I've already fought my way to the third spot. My bets should have already earned a fair bit of money, right?

Where's my share now?"

"Your share?" Kevin made a brief calculation. "About sixty thousand... Never mind, seventy thousand! I'm transferring seventy thousand straight to your account!"

Seventy thousand...

That was already enough for him to pay off all his student loans, leaving over three hundred thousand to use when he went to university!

A fifty-thousand-credit Resurrection Coin was completely acceptable!

Feeling a slight pang in his wallet, Ron made up his mind, exchanged a few perfunctory words with Kevin, and hung up the phone. He took a deep breath and loaded [Ability Overload] without the slightest hesitation.

Instantly, an extremely sharp "beep-beep" sound came from the "Ability Limiter" on the back of his neck. The warning light flashed frantically before finally turning into a steady, unyielding red glow—

Ron could feel his Personal Reality expanding. The power that had originally been reined in and held completely within the palm of his hand began to churn once more...

This churning power was far more formidable than before—so formidable that even though Ron tried to control it the moment he overloaded the ability, he was utterly powerless to keep it under his control.

He could only barely demarcate a boundary, encompassing a stretch of ruins in the distance within it, and then watched as the vectors within it churned in a completely irregular manner...

Everything floated up and fell back down, violently colliding and shattering against one another at high speed before being sucked into a whirlwind generated out of thin air.

Flashes of plasma burst outward from within the boundary, accompanied by incomprehensible sonic booms...

Amidst this chaotic flurry of demonic forces, lasting barely two or three seconds, Ron's ability completely overloaded, and everything came to an absolute halt.

Due to the computational power overload, he collapsed straight to the ground, unable even to lift a single finger.

However...

With merely a thought, he exited the Simulated Reality.

Under the astonished gaze of the invigilator, he rapidly purchased a Resurrection Coin and once more entered the simulated "Hollow Battlefield"...

The Data Bubble condensed into human form, and Ron felt his state fully restored to its peak, a corner of his mouth couldn't help but curl upward.

With that kind of power, with that kind of lethality...

Even if Youan really possessed some trump card, even if he had attained the ability level of Lv.3—

Under that kind of chaotic tempest, he would never be able to survive!

This power... was enough!

Confidence filled Ron's heart as he silently watched the countdown at the bottom of the leaderboard, awaiting the next "Peak Contest."

Soon, the countdown returned to zero once more...

Ron loaded up the fully repaired [Superpowered] setting and once more appeared within the familiar "Hollow Battlefield."

Only this time, all the examinees appearing in this arena retreated repeatedly upon seeing Ron, as if they had run into some sort of taboo.

Before long, they had all fled to the other side of the battlefield, hiding themselves away and vanishing from sight.

Had Youan really managed to find a way to persuade these people not to participate in the battle...

With considerable interest, Ron looked far off into the distance. A somewhat slender yet noticeably arrogant youth was slowly walking over.

His strides weren't large, but his speed was conspicuously fast.

As he drew closer, Ron noticed that although he was walking, he was actually treading on empty air, his feet never touching the ground at all...

He had simply eliminated gravity and let gravity pull him forward, "flying" over in this manner!

"I didn't expect you would actually dare to come."

Youan looked at Ron, who stood his ground without dodging, and a playful hook touched the corner of his mouth.

"It seems you have no appreciation whatsoever for the gap between us."

"The gap?" Ron let out a scoff. "There is a gap indeed... At least now, that position you occupy without the virtue to hold it should be given to me."

"It seems you truly don't understand the gap between us."

Youan calmly spread his hands, and everything within a radius of dozens of meters suddenly floated upward, seemingly falling entirely under his control—

"The number one spot is currently in the hands of someone like me, a Lv.3 [Gravity Control] superpowered, whereas you are nothing more than a mere Lv.2..."

Flying sand and tumbling stones condensed into a mass, transforming into a gigantic meteorite sphere tens of meters in diameter.

"If you feel you possess this capability, then defeat me..."

The next moment, carrying the immense, crushing force to shatter everything, it smashed fiercely toward Ron!

"And take it yourself!"