Rebirth: The Shadow Of Greed

... " 3, 2, 1, start!" They were ready for the trials!

The first wave was easy enough, the same grotesque monsters swarmed out of the gates as the slowly populated the field attempting to reach the egg at the end, this batch of students after watching the previous batches before them, they had already prepared to a certain degree. Some of the students had analyzed the matches so much that they had already pre-set traps before the monsters even came out.

The monsters charged frantically towards the students, on one instance a student set up a wall filled with spikes and he stood concealed at the other side of the lane, once the monsters ran past him, all he had to do was activate his shield and send them flying into the spikes defeating them entirely. 

In David's lane, he activated his stone form as he physically went to hold the monsters back, smiling he was confident that his stone form wouldn't take much damage. As he held the monsters back, he noticed his hp started dropping.

"What the heck!" David panicked, he didn't expect that to happen and viciously hurled the monsters back before taking out his shield. 

"To let you know, we didn't really factor in your defensive capabilities in the system, but it's good to know we'll improve it upon on the real exams. For now, just do your best, we will give you your scores accordingly. " 

An examiner spoke through the S.A.D letting the students all know, while he sat in his own cold sweat while looking at the chief examiner staring daggers at him. 

"How could all of you forget to factor in defensive manifests? it's like you're too lazy to even think through the scenarios. Next, you're going to tell me you forgot how to use your brains. Damn it!"

The Chief examiner shouted at his staff. The examiners were a third-party service, brought in by the academy. When providing a service it was obvious that they had to have a certain degree of professionalism.  

"Sorry boss, it won't happen again!" 

David shrugged his shoulders as he prepared for the worst, although his rock form couldn't provide much defence, he still could use it for its offensive capabilities. Rock spikes grew from his fists as he started swinging wildly killing the monsters that came near him. 

Vero easily swung his shield bludgeoning the monsters into the afterlife, increasing his size he could easily kick the monsters away and back to the gate it was utter devastation in his lane. The past year wasn't in vain, Vero had truly learned to protect something with his body and what a professor had told him previously had stuck with him.

"The best defence is a great offence." 

Vero had been learning how to efficiently use his humongous size to take out enemies in order to defend his targets. By swinging and kicking he sent monsters flying left and right, by contrast, Odrunn's lane seemed to be very peaceful. 

Odrunn hadn't even put on his gauntlets yet as he was strolling through the monsters that appeared and snapping their necks with his strength, it was the most efficient way to kill the monsters and it didn't take up too much strength from him. Occasionally, he would grab the body of a monster to block a hit from another one. The examiners and the professors were shocked at what Odrunn was doing, being shocked was an understatement, they were shocked at what Vero was doing, but what Odrunn was doing was completely inconceivable. 

----

Back in the control room, a loud sigh could be heard. 

"Uh-oh"

one of the examiners let slip an uh-oh before covering his mouth and looking back at the screen, praying that the chief examiner wouldn't take notice of it at all. 

"What do you mean by uh-oh" 

It was too late, the chief examiner was already beside the examiner as he questioned the uh-oh that escaped. 

"Well... boss... you see..." 

"Stop your yammering and get to the point! What did you do this time." 

"Well... this batch, the number of students who failed at the earlier stages are much more than the other stages..." 

The examiner said slowly

"So? that's quite common, in some cases there are weaker students in the detail in some cases there are stronger students. What are you getting at?" 

"Well... the issue is... because the other details are more balanced, everyone is killing the monsters at roughly the same rate, it's set so that when someone clears the monsters... the next batch will spawn immediately..." 

The chief examiner scratched his head as he replied impatiently. 

"So what! that's a normal thing! this makes so the students won't have to wait, what's the problem here?" 

"We thought that the students from the vanguards wouldn't clear the monsters so quickly so..." 

The examiner trailed off before he could even finish what he had to say. 

"You! You didn't set it so after killing the monsters within the lane, but you got lazy and set it as a global thing? The reason so many people are failing so quickly is because of the few of them killing the monsters so quickly that they were overrun?" 

The chief examiner did a facepalm as he grabbed the collar of the examiner. His blood pressure had reached the top and he was about to blow. 

"Fix it! this round, we will announce the results later and be fair to those that failed, but for the subsequent rounds, we have to fix it so this doesn't happen again!" 

-----

The students who failed left the lanes dejectedly as the rest who haven't failed were still struggling, even David was fatigued, he was doing something that was totally against his original style, by right with his manifest he wouldn't even care about his defence and just rush headlong into battle, but this trial made him use his brains made him learn to avoid and learn to use his shield to block off incoming attacks. 

It was the 9th wave, most of the students had been eliminated, David was hanging on by the edge of his teeth, while Odrunn and Vero were still having a good time in their own world. The next wave had spawned and it was silence in the arena.