Transcension Academy - Chapter 17

C17: Academy Competition (3)

This academy competition was conducted in two ways and consisted of a dungeon-type maze and a tournament between students.

The first event was none other than the dungeon maze.

<In a few minutes, the first competition will take place. All students should be ready.>

Seo-joon checked his physical condition once in a notice that resonated throughout the maze.

The first race, the dungeon maze, was simple in its rules.

Each student would be placed randomly in the maze and it would be over once they escape.

They were free to cooperate with other students or work alone; however, it was prohibited to attack other students since their fighting ability would be seen properly in the next event.

In any case, this maze had various monsters arranged in the form of dungeons. Of course, they were not real monsters because it was simply a competition and were created through augmented reality and were mainly 3 to 4 star monsters since it was a student’s competition.

The first event was similar to a raid and in the process, the students’ judgment of the situation, combat sense, and adaptability were evaluated.

As a result the Hunter Academy to which the student belongs to have their teaching abilities also evaluated. Therefore, the biggest influence on the evaluation is how quickly the students break through the maze.

It was a competition in which the earlier the students broke through, the higher their score.

<3…2…1 Start!>

At that moment, an announcement was made to announce the start of the competition.

Seo-joon rolled up the iron bar tightly and moved slowly in the high and thick intertwined walls.

“It’s a complete maze.”

Seo-joon smirked and laughed alone at the words that came out without realizing it.

‘More than that, how can I break through this?’

There was no specific way to break through the maze and there were no specific regulations in this competition either.

In a word, break down the wall of the maze. Go up the wall and see the structure of the maze at a glance. He just had to escape the fastest somehow.

Seo-joon stopped for a while and looked up at the top of the wall of the maze. It was so high that the end could be seen only when his neck was completely tilted back.

“It’s covered with a ceiling.”

It was hard to climb up the wall. No, wouldn’t it matter if he went up through the ceiling from the top?

Seo-joon walked close to the wall and struck it with the iron bar with some force.

A dull pain that came into the palm of his hand with a slight sound. It seemed that it was not just a wall made of concrete.

“In this case, breaking the ceiling is a problem, but climbing up the wall is also a problem.”

Seo-joon rubbed his hands once and erased the way to break down the wall from his head.

Of course, now that Xiang Yu’s lecture progress has exceeded 30% using the power of reverse dispersion, he thought he could do it once or twice. But it was literally once or twice.

‘If I knew this would happen, I should have checked if there was a Theseus lecture in Free Pass.’

Theseus was a hero in Greek and Roman mythology who killed the Minotaur of Crete. And the place that killed Minotaur was a labyrinth that no one could escape from.

Theseus had a history of escaping such a labyrinth.

Except for Daedalus and Icarus, who escaped by flying in the sky, he was the only survivor.

There were many tales about how he did it but if he heard it directly from the person in cause he might get some tips.

“But who knew it would be a maze-type dungeon?”

However, Seo-joon quickly shook his head because the contents of the competition were strictly private.

Of course, he knew the competition had two events and one of them was a tournament-style duel while the other was dungeon raid.

However, it was not known until the start of the competition whether the dungeon raid was a maze-type dungeon or how the tournament duel took place.

Seo-joon smirked and burst into laughter and was lost in thought again.

In this case, he had no choice but to escape the maze and Seo-joon thought of two standard ways.

One of them was luck. It was literally to pray that you walk in the right direction but that was only possible if the person was really lucky.

Using this method, it was very likely that most people would spend their entire lives in a maze.

So he had to use the second method, which was to walk with one hand attached to the wall. It was known as the left-hand method or the superior method.

This allows you to scan the entire section of the maze without duplication, so you could escape from the maze someday. However, this method was not without problems, so it was literally “someday.”

“But it’s better than luck.”

Seo-joon decided to use the left-handed method after much consideration. It was because even if it took time, it was better to be certain than simply leave it to luck.

Seo-joon was close to the left wall and touched it with his left hand.

‘Shall I go?’

Seo-joon walked slowly.

He didn’t know how long he walked but he finally saw a fork in the road, a three-pronged road consisting of left, right, and front.

Seo Jun moved to the left without worrying about the left hand method.

“What?”

Some strange sense stopped Seo-joon’s footsteps.

He didn’t know what it was but it told him that he went the wrong way.

“What’s this?”

Seo-joon couldn’t understand it.

‘Is this part of my intuition?’

At least this was the only thing Seo-joon could think of now. The sixth sense that he was learning from Chiron.

He knew it was nonsense, but now that Chiron lecture progress has exceeded 30% he vaguely thought that he might have a sharper and more sensitive sense.

“What should I do?”

Seo-joon was worried since leaving it to your senses was not that different from leaving it to your luck. However, Seo-joon wasn’t worried for long.

“I don’t know.”

Seo Jun turned right without hesitation.

After that, Seo-joon walked through the maze as his senses led. There was no hesitation in his steps and no matter how many forked paths there were, he took the direction his senses indicated without hesitation.

Nevertheless, Seo-joon did not face any special problems. The problem was that nothing special happened.

< Cho Seok-min of the Scar Academy is eliminated>

From the occasional announcements, other students seemed to meet monsters and fight.

‘Why didn’t anything happen to me?’

However, Seo-joon has never met a monster before.

‘Is my intuition avoiding them?

No way.

‘If it’s really like that, what’s going to happen when I reach 100% and learn bone metamorphosis?’

Could he even predict the future? Will he know when an enemy attacks him before it happens?

Seo-joon laughed in vain because he felt it was too exaggerated and turned his eyes to the side without realizing it.

Seo-joon shook his head once again at the scene and thought it couldn’t be possible.

“Bro, be careful. You don’t know when and where the monster will pop out.”

It was because he couldn’t meet the monsters, but he met Lee Min-ki, whom he got to know in the waiting room.

He guessed that he would be young from his student-like atmosphere, but he was actually a high school student at the age of 19 but to Seo-joon he was still a young student.

There was nothing special about why Seo-joon went around with Min-ki, because Min-ki, whom he ran into by chance, followed Seo-joon.

‘I didn’t expect this guy to be on the right.’

To be exact, it was Min-ki who first turned to the right and Seo-joon ran into him shortly after.

“You too?”

He was a little surprised when he found Min-ki.

“Yeah.”

Of course, Min-ki was even more surprised.

Anyway, Seo-joon and Min-ki were wary of each other because all the students were competitors but attacking other students in the first competition, the maze, was a stark violation of the rules.

Seo-joon realized the fact and soon relieved his guard.

“Of course.”

Then Seo-joon passed Min-gi without any special action.

“Excuse me…”

But Min-ki called Seo-joon.

When Seo-joon looked at Min-ki, Min-ki hesitated for a while and opened his mouth.

“Would you like to go with me?”

Seo-joon was a little surprised.

Attacking other students is a strict violation of the rules and although there are no restrictions on cooperating, Seo-joon and Min-ki were complete strangers.

“Isn’t it better to go with students from the same academy rather than me who is a stranger?”

When Seo-joon asked, Min-ki hesitated slightly and replied.

“Oh, that’s…I participated by myself.”

Only then did Seo-joon realize that there was another academy that had only one student participating.

“But why with me?”

“I thought you were competing alone and I think it’s better for the weak to join forces.”

‘Am I weak?’

Seo-joon tilted his head at Min-ki’s words.

Of course, Seo-joon could have been weak. Although it was a competition that was treated as the fourth division, it was a place where promising students from each academy participated.

No matter how many lectures from the Transcension Academy Seo-joon he could still be weak. However, the problem was that Seo-joon never showed his combat ability.

“Oh, yes.”

However, Seo-joon could understand Min-ki’s words quickly.

It was because of his appearance that Min-ki approached him, who was a student from Dream Academy that Min-ki had never heard of before.

It’s also been less than a month since he joined the academy and his weapon was a construction site iron bar so he didn’t look impressive at all.

Seo-joon thought that this might be the reason why Min-ki approached him in the waiting room.

Seo-joon smiled and turned his back.

‘I don’t like it.’

“Come on, let’s go together.”

Nevertheless, Min-ki did not give up and to be honest Seo-joon was a little embarrassed.

“No, I don’t want to.”

“People like us need to work together to escape the maze.”

There was a scuffle for a while.

“By the way, you’ve been confident about your walk since earlier, what do you know about it?”

The scuffle had come so far and Seo-joon glanced at Min-ki once.

In fact, Seo-joon could have left Min-ki if he wanted to. However, the reason why he left him alone was because he was not bored listening to Min-ki talking.

Seo-joon had nothing to do because he didn’t meet monsters already, and Min-ki’s sociability was enough to fill the gap.

Because he found out that Min-ki’s parents died and that he lives with his younger sister who is 10 years old.

He found out about Min-ki’s situation, which he didn’t even want to know, but it was somehow worth listening to.

‘Maybe that’s why.’

Seo-joon laughed and said to Min-ki.

“I’m just following my senses.”

“No wonder····If you do that in the maze, you’ll be in trouble. I know how to escape the maze well, so I’ll take the lead from now on.”

Min-ki then took a step forward and stood in front of Seo-joon.

Seo-joon watched Min-ki’s behavior for a moment because he was curious about how he would escape.

Then Min-ki clung to the left wall.

“If you just hold the left wall like this, you can escape the maze.”

Seo-joon shook his head and said,

“It takes too long. I’ll just go as I feel.”

“What? Then you’ll get lost no matter what.”

“Then we will go separately.”

“But…”

Seo-joon walked away without hesitation.

“Hey! Let’s go together!”

It was the very moment when Min-ki followed Seo-joon.

“Is it here?”

“Why are you walking so fast? What?”

At that moment, Seo-joon stopped walking and suddenly pushed the wall of the maze next to him.

“What are you doing all of a sudden?”

At that moment the sound of fanfare reverberated throughout the maze.

<The first person to exit the dungeon maze appeared>

<Time: 27 minutes and 12 seconds.>

<The shortest breakthrough time ever was: 1 hour 4 minutes 34 seconds.>

<It’s a new record!>

Then a large electronic display came up to the sky and names began to be written.

<First place: Kim Seo-joon>

<2nd place: Lee Min-ki>

“…?”

After being absent-minded for such a long time, Min-ki suddenly came to his senses and looked around many times.

“What?!?!?!?”

He started to panic.