2026-03-16 16:18:20The Secret Realm pulsed with primal energy. Dense forests gave way to rocky canyons, which opened into misty swamplands. Magical beasts prowled every corner—some cautious, others aggressive. Most candidates moved carefully, hunting the weakest prey first.
Harry and Rose moved like a storm.
"Level 2 Shadow Panthers ahead," Harry said calmly, studying the system markers in his vision. "Three of them."
Rose hefted her hammer, eyes gleaming. "Easy."
The panthers never stood a chance. Rose's Hammer of Judgment crashed down with devastating force, obliterating two instantly. The third tried to flee, but Rose's agility—now enhanced to 16 after leveling up—allowed her to close the distance in seconds. One swing. Done.
[Experience Gained: Shadow Panther Level 2 × 3]
[Points Earned: 90]
[Total Points: 1,240]
Harry grinned. They'd been in the realm for barely an hour.
"Let's keep moving," he said. "We need to find stronger prey."
Miles away, in a tower overlooking the Secret Realm, a dozen examiners sat before crystalline viewing screens. Each screen displayed different candidates, tracking their progress through magical surveillance.
Professor Walsh monitored the main display, which showed aggregate statistics. Suddenly, his eyebrows shot up.
"Someone just hit 1,500 points," he announced.
The other examiners looked up sharply.
"Already?" A woman in pristine white robes—Examiner Catherine Moore from the Imperial Royal Beast Academy—leaned forward. "Show me."
The screen shifted, focusing on a familiar figure. John Klein stood triumphantly over the corpse of a Level 3 Ironback Bear, his Legendary angel hovering behind him. His five-person team celebrated around him.
"Ah, the Klein heir," Catherine said with satisfaction. "Excellent progress. A team of six with a Legendary beast leading them—exactly the kind of student the Imperial Academy seeks."
"Impressive," agreed another examiner neutrally.
But Professor Walsh frowned, studying a different screen. "That's odd."
"What is?" Catherine asked.
"This candidate here." Walsh pointed to a secondary display showing Harry and Rose. "His score just jumped to 1,650. He's alone except for his contracted beast."
Catherine's expression soured immediately. "That's the expelled Klein bastard, isn't it? The one with the unranked trash creature?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then he's clearly cheating," Catherine interrupted sharply. "There's no possible way someone with an unranked beast could accumulate points faster than a team with a Legendary angel. He must be exploiting some loophole in the scoring system."
"That's a serious accusation without evidence," another examiner said—an elderly man in plain brown robes. His badge identified him as Examiner Richard Stone from Holy Mountain Beast Academy.
Catherine's eyes flashed with irritation. "Are you defending him, Stone? How typical of Holy Mountain—always coddling the weak and making excuses for mediocrity."
"I'm defending fairness," Richard replied calmly. "The system tracks kills automatically. It can't be fooled or manipulated. If his score is rising, he's earning it legitimately."
"Impossible," Catherine snapped. "An unranked beast couldn't kill anything above Level 1. The math doesn't work."
"Perhaps the beast isn't unranked," Richard suggested.
"Oh please." Catherine's laugh was cruel and dismissive. "Next you'll tell me she's secretly Mythic-grade. Face reality, Stone. Your academy has been declining for decades precisely because you accept this kind of mediocrity. Meanwhile, the Imperial Academy maintains standards. We would never accept a cheater like this boy, regardless of his methods."
"The Imperial Academy also turned away the Three Heroes of the Northern Campaign before they became legends," Richard said mildly. "Standards can blind as easily as they guide."
Catherine's face reddened. "How dare you—"
"Enough." Professor Walsh's voice cut through the argument. As chief examiner, his word was final. "There is currently no evidence of rule violations. We will continue monitoring. If actual proof of cheating emerges, we'll act. Until then, both candidates proceed normally."
Catherine's jaw clenched, but she nodded curtly. Her eyes remained fixed on Harry's screen, filled with suspicion and disdain.
Richard Stone said nothing more, but a small smile played at his lips as he watched the expelled boy and his "trash" beast tear through a pack of Level 3 Flame Wolves.
[Rose has leveled up! Level 2 → Level 3]
[Rose has leveled up! Level 3 → Level 4]
[Rose has leveled up! Level 4 → Level 5]
The notifications came rapidly. Each kill brought more experience, and Rose's growth was exponential. Harry checked her status panel as they moved deeper into the forest.
[BEAST STATUS PANEL]
Name: Rose
Current Level: 5
Rank: Immortal
Attributes:
Strength: 27
Agility: 25
Spirit: 19
Constitution: 32
Intelligence: 20
Skills:
[Hammer of Judgment] - AOE damage increased. Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.
[Divine Bloodline - Dual Activation] - Duration increased to 90 seconds. Cooldown decreased.
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: Crushing Blow] - Single-target attack dealing 300% weapon damage. Guaranteed critical hit.
"Master, I feel amazing," Rose said, flexing her fingers around the hammer's handle. "I'm getting stronger so fast."
"That's because you're fighting enemies above your level," Harry explained, remembering game mechanics from his previous life—wait, no, from... strategy books? The memory felt strange, but the knowledge was solid. "Defeating higher-level beasts gives bonus experience."
[Total Points: 4,780]
They'd long since passed John's team without even trying.
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CHAPTER 79 PART 2
The first was a young woman standing near the window with her arms crossed and her weight balanced on her back foot, the posture of someone who assessed threats before she assessed people. Sienna Reyes. Her hair was cut short, practical, and her eyes carried the patient stillness of deep water. Behind her, barely visible in the room's dim light, a shape shimmered, her contracted beast, a Frost Ice Phoenix called Frostwing, whose aura radiated cold so controlled that it never quite reached the furniture but made the air taste like winter.The second was a young man sprawled across two chairs with his boots on the table and his hands behind his head, radiating the kind of confidence that usually preceded a spectacular failure. Damon Ellery. Tall, broad shouldered, with the build of someone whose beast did most of the fighting while he did most of the talking. His War Treant stood behind him like a living fortress, bark skinned and massive, its root system curling across the stone floor.
CHAPTER 79 PART 1
Harry had not finished folding his second shirt when the knock came.It was not a knock that waited for permission. The door opened three seconds later, and Elias Cho stood in the frame looking like a man who had slept exactly zero hours and made peace with that fact."General Cole is outside. You leave in four minutes."Harry looked at the half packed bag on his bed, then at Rose, who was already standing with the hammer materialized and her posture perfectly composed, as if she had known this was coming before the door opened."Four minutes," Harry repeated."Three now," Elias corrected, and disappeared.They were in the air before Harry's brain fully caught up with his body.General Cole's guardian beast defied every reference point Harry possessed. The system panel flickered when he tried to scan it, returning fragmented data that amounted to almost nothing, a name, Skyrender, and a classification so heavily redacted that the display looked like a page of blacked out text. The cre
CHAPTER 78
Red markers highlighted completed sections, forming an almost continuous line across the map. Almost."Every other section has been conquered. Military forces cleared them over the past decade at significant cost in lives and resources. But one section remains open." Cole enlarged a single point on the map, a pulsing gray marker surrounded by red. "This node sits at the most critical junction in the entire defense network. Without it, the barrier has a gap. And through that gap, Outer Domain demons enter our territory every single day."Harry studied the marker. "Why hasn't the military closed it?""Because the Land of Trial at this node is classified as Abyssal difficulty. The highest tier recognized." Cole's voice carried the weight of someone who had lost people to those words. "And because Abyssal Trials impose entry restrictions that no amount of military force can circumvent. Specifically, this one requires a team of exactly three Beast Masters, all at Awakening Tier Five or belo
CHAPTER 77
The Southern Command Mansion corridors smelled like polished stone and authority. Elias Cho walked two steps ahead of Harry, his posture so rigid that it looked painful, as if the man's spine had been replaced with an iron rod somewhere between the plaza and the front entrance. He had not spoken a single word since they left the ceremony grounds.Harry followed in silence, Rose walking beside him with the hammer dismissed and her hands folded behind her back. She had sensed the shift in atmosphere the moment they crossed the mansion's threshold and adjusted accordingly, pulling her aura inward until she radiated nothing more threatening than a well dressed young woman with unusual eyes.Elias stopped before a set of heavy oak doors, knocked twice, and stepped aside."Through here, Mr. Klein. They're expecting you."Harry pushed the doors open and read the room in two seconds.City Lord Marcus White stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back, occupying the kind of position a m
CHAPTER 76 PART 2
Beside him, Seraphiel had gone very still. While everyone else had been watching the rankings climb from the bottom, she had been scanning the entire list from top to bottom, searching for one specific name. She had checked every position from last place to second.Harry Klein's name was not on the list.Which meant it could only be in one place.The screen resolved its final line.First Place: Harry Klein. 42,600 points. Potential Evaluation: SSS.The plaza did not erupt. It detonated.Noise crashed from every direction at once as hundreds of voices collided in shock and disbelief. Students grabbed each other's arms and pointed at the screen. Spectators who had been leaning against walls pushed forward to get a closer look. Someone near the front dropped their drink, and the glass shattered on the stone without anyone noticing."Forty two thousand?""That's five figures. That's a five figure score.""Count the digits again. Count them again!""Is that real? Is that actually real?""S
CHAPTER 76 PART 1
The white light spat them back into the city plaza like the Trial Space was glad to be rid of them.Harry blinked against the sudden brightness of open sky after hours of fog and crimson shadow. Rose materialized beside him, hammer resting casually on her shoulder, looking no worse than someone returning from an afternoon stroll. The plaza was already crowded, hundreds of students and spectators milling around the massive display screen mounted above the registration platform, waiting for results to populate.Harry barely had time to orient himself before a figure cut through the crowd toward him with the kind of urgency that turned heads.Elias Cho looked like a man who had sprinted from the monitoring station to the plaza without stopping to catch his breath. His uniform was rumpled, his hair disheveled, and a coffee stain darkened the left toe of his boot. But his eyes were electric, burning with the kind of energy that bureaucrats were not supposed to possess."Harry Klein." Elias
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