Planar Realms

The night passed by quickly, Carter had arrived after dinner and everyone in the dorms was busy reviewing all the material they could get their hands on. Carter's room had several books for him to peruse, but found that they were all foundational material that he already knew and in several cases he actually spotted mistakes by the authors. Figuring it was better to get a good nights sleep than worry about whatever was a part of the entrance exam, Carter went to bed early.

A klaxon went off and people started entering all the rooms at 4:30 am yelling, "Get your asses up it's time for the test!" Now, at 5 AM nearly 400 prospective students where standing outside in the cold predawn air and looking around in confusion.

Everyone's attention was suddenly attracted to someone being dragged out from the dorms. "What are you people doing?" Yelled a half dressed 12 year old boy, glaring at the person who'd tipped his bed over and carried him outside without even letting him get dressed. "I'll have you killed for this insult!"

"Ahem" A voice called, and everyone turned to look to the front where an old man now stood leaning on a massive staff. "As I'm sure you've heard, the School of Thought is different from other Wizarding schools. Other Wizarding schools just care about graduating as many future Wizards as possible. However, the School of Thought focuses on pursuing the highest levels of power. It has been proven time and time again one determined, talented, and lucky individual can be more powerful than entire empires! The most important thing that all these powerful people have in common is their inability to give up. Which is why the first part of the entrance examination will take place over the next month. This won't be a test about your knowledge, abilities, or family connections. No, the only requirement of this test is to survive and never give up!"

After the old man finished talking, he turned and walked slowly away while several people dressed in green robes appeared and started yelling, "MOVE!" as they conjured flaming wh.i.p.s and started whipping anyone not moving fast enough for their liking. Everyone in the group had 10 strength, 10 agility, and 10 constitution making it easy for the trainers to push everyone to their absolute limit. For the next couple of hours the group ran away from the dorm, the trainers constantly varying the speed the students had to move at to keep anyone from getting used to the pace.

Carter handled the training with ease, he'd already gone through training like this countless times in the game. After thousands of years of study, the absolute best ways to raise constitution through training had been found. You have to keep yourself at the absolute limit of your endurance constantly for a long period of time. The hardest part was the balancing act necessary to pull it off, but if done properly you can increase your constitution fairly quickly. There were multiple levels of the training, the first level making it possible to raise constitution to 20, the 2nd to 30, 3rd to 50, 4th to 75, and 5th to 100. Each successive level of training becoming more and more harsh, with the 5th level having to be completed while under 10% HP and taking constant damage.

Having completed all 5 levels of the training in the game, Carter found the first level to be a piece of cake by comparison.

Three hours into the training, only 200 students remained. "This is such a small group!" Carter overheard two of the trainers talking to each other as the ran.

"Yeah," The second trainer said even as he flicked his flaming whip into the back of a straggler. "Usually we start out with groups of several thousand but this month was really slow. I heard that some major event was going on in the capital and the clans held back their applicants for a month to attend. My guess is next month will be huge."

"Good," The first trainer said as he used his whip to separate two more applicants and send them back to the teleportation portal, "because I'm starting to wonder if anyone is going to pass this time around."

While Carter was having an easier time of the training due to his past experiences, that was a purely mental thing. His body was on fire and every step was adding fuel to the fire. "Thankfully my boots are enchanted to fit perfectly." Was Carter's only thought as he turned to follow the group off the road. The half n.a.k.e.d kid was still in the group, the instructors hadn't even allowed him to put on his shoes and he was bleeding from running on the gravel road for hours.

Every now and then Carter could hear the kid cursing, "If my dad didn't threaten to kill me if I failed I would've already ordered my guards to kill all you sadistic f.u.c.kers!"

Suddenly, the road steepened and narrowed. The group was forced to keep up the speed as they ran up the mountain side without breaks for food or water. Messages started assailing Carter telling him his strength and agility where lowered temporarily until stamina was recovered, or that if he didn't drink water within 10 hours he'd faint...

It just got worse from there, the entire group was too tired to realize that the instructors had stopped whipping people for slowing down as long as they moved faster than a walk. As they got higher and higher the trail continued to narrow until only 1 person could fit on it at a time and several people fell off the side. Trainers floated in mid air to catch those who fell and put them at the back of the group. The few who could still think immediately decided never to trip because those at the back where the first to get whipped.

"Think they'll make it to the camp?" One of the trainers asked.

"Of course, we're moving at the same speed as always. Those that can push through will make it and reap the benefits."

Unknown to them, Carter and a couple others who'd been taught how to train like this properly had already begun to benefit from the seemingly insane training regimen.

-> Title Received: Unstoppable I

-> Title Description: You have persevered through trials even the God's think are torturous.

-> Title Reward: Able to raise the Constitution Attribute to 20 through training.

The Unstoppable Title had 5 levels, each corresponding with the levels of training. Having received the title, Carter was beginning to move slightly faster as his Constitution slowly increased the longer he kept himself on the knifes edge of exhaustion.

"Oh?" The head trainer said as she saw Carter and a couple others began to pick up speed. It wasn't much faster, but enough to separate them from the rest of the group. Taking out a card connected to each of the prospective student's ID Cards she noted down 6 who'd already gained the title. The head trainer nodded and pointed out three trainers who immediately moved to supervise the small group.

Separated from the main group, Carter and 5 others were screamed at to pick up the pace even as gravity seemed to increase around them. To Carter's surprise, the kid without shoes was now running next to him. Even as the kid panted he would curse under his breath every other breath. "F.u.c.k... Cunt... Bitch... Ass... ****... Your... Moms..."

The kids words made Carter laugh and he nearly tripped before he got ahold of himself and regained his rhythm. "F.U.C.K!" Carter yelled as he was whipped for the first time.

The group of 6 ran past a permanent camp and kept going for another hour before the trainers yelled, "HALT!"

They all collapsed unto the ground, panting and sweating buckets. The trainers immediately used magic to heal their injuries before forcing them to drink revitalizing potions. When the group had rested for a while one of the trainers asked. "Do any of you know what kind of training you just underwent?"

Carter raised his hand along with three others. The trainer was the one who'd carried the half-dressed kid out and so he pointed to him with a smile. "1st level of Limit Training, it can increase our Constitution to 20, there was no need to have me run barefoot." The kid glared at the trainer who just shrugged it off.

"He's right, and that's the first part of the exam. Reaching 20 Constitution using only training within a month. Also, the faster you reach 20 Constitution the more likely you are to receive a Scholarship. For those of you who are rich assholes and don't care about money, the Elders of the Temple of Thought only recruit from among the Scholarship students. Now, you have two options. You can continue training without rest until you reach 20 Constitution, we'll make sure you don't kill yourselves. Or, you can take a break and begin again tomorrow with the rest of the group."