The cable car, probably powered by some sort of magic from the fluctuations Alec felt, passed through the wide cave into a dark, perfectly dug tunnel before emerging out on the other side. Another similarly sized but differently shaped cave greeted them. And then, suddenly, the middle of the cable car's floor slid open. Alec jumped in place from the sudden motion before looking down.

"Deployment begins!" Professor Howard's voice appeared and fizzled out once more. Now, it had really begun. His HP bar appeared on the upper-right corner of his vision while a score counter appeared on the upper-left, showcasing a big '0'. This wasn't mind or memetic magic. It was a pure illusion, made by the masterful manipulation of light reflecting into his eyes.

'This feels too high-tech, they must've scrapped it from the ancients as always. In fact, I think the font used is the same as the one in the Alchemy Crystals,' Alec thought.

While he was busy thinking, several of the students in the cable car had gotten up and were eyeing the hole in the ground. They seemed to exchange glances for a few moments before they all jumped off. Alec didn't see how they had landed, but the height was such that any mageling would be able to do so safely.

Alec decided to wait. He felt like landing too close to the middle wouldn't be a smart choice for him. The outer rim would be bigger, and thus the density of students would lower. He could always head toward the middle if he wanted. The layout wasn't confusing, and he could commit it to memory just by looking out the window of the cable car.

A short five minutes later, he and two other students were the only ones left in the cable car when an announcement came.

"Two more minutes for the end of the line, please deploy before then, or be eliminated from the exam," Professor Howard said. Hearing this, the two remaining students jumped off the cable car, leaving Alec alone with his thoughts and the ear-grating whizz of the car's clamps scratching against the cable.

Alec stretched his arms, cracked his neck, shook his legs, and jumped out of the car. The wind kicking up his hair and jacket flailing in the wind, Alec slammed against the ground with a loud thud, kicking up dust. That was no feat of magic. Having high stats was truly absurd. With the way he had landed, he should have broken at least a bone or two, but he had simply shrugged it off as an uncomfortable feeling. It was like that of missing a step while walking down a stair, easy to deal with if he knew it coming.

Adjusting his sleeve, he looked around. He was in front of what seemed to be ruins of a temple, inside a forest similar to that in the upper academy. If he were to label it, he would have guessed the temple to be Mediterranean. Similar to Greek architecture. There were tall, doric columns, cracked or demolished, spread across the place. Broken tiles adorned the floor, occasionally lifted and thrown. As if a fierce battle had happened there. Alec could imagine a warrior lifting the huge tile off the ground – Possibly hundreds of kilograms – and throwing it at their enemies.

Still, the structure stood. With only six of its original eight columns remaining, it was steadfast against the eroding of time. Neither the cracks running across its surface nor the moss made it look less majestic. Taking a deep breath, Alec stepped inside the temple. The inside was barren. The temple was made to be a perfect square, each side approximately ten meters long. Every few steps leading to the middle of the temple, the floor rose approximately five centimeters. This created a platform overseeing the surroundings. And right in the middle of that platform was a statue.

Maybe because of time, maybe intentionally, the face of the statue had been wiped. It carried a scale, small balls of flame carved from marble sitting on both ends, perfectly balanced. While one half of the statue was ever so slightly blue, the other was read, creating an awkward duality.

'I wonder who it is. Is it some kind of deity? Well, considering this world, it probably is a real person,' Alec thought. He ascended to the platform at a leisurely pace and touched the statue. Which immediately prompted a notification screen from the illusory array.

[The Trial of Uriel.]

[Accept/Reject]

"What the fuck..." Alec muttered while looking at the notification. They had purposefully made it look like a system prompt, which had almost made him think he had gotten a mission after all the time he had spent in this world.

Still, without much thought, he accepted the trial by focusing his eyes on the 'Accept' button for a few seconds. This was an exam made for the students to take, so it wouldn't make sense for it to be too hard.

Alec felt the ground shake ever so slightly. He took a step back and noticed the temple to have reverted to a pristine state. The discolored and faded building had become pristine white again, the broken columns back to their initial state.

'Holy shit. They went all in on the illusions, didn't they?' Alec thought. While he retreated from the statue, throwing cursory glances in every direction, the shaking of the ground became even more apparent. The temple started cracking and breaking apart, rubble falling down to the exact places where they were supposed to. The temple changed shape to become the way it really was, replicating the moment of destruction perfectly.

While that all settled down, Alec heard a noise similar to that of concrete dragging across the floor. He quickly found the source of the noise to be the statue in the middle. It was moving. Its arm was twitching slightly as if there was a person inside the statue trying to make their way out. A short while later, a long, red HP bar appeared above Alec's vision. The name "Uriel the Legend" floated slightly above it.

Alec lowered his body. He had already lit an incense, so he could fully focus on using The Author's Pen.

As the statue started cracking and snow-white skin started showing from the inside, Alec started stacking enhancement spells on himself. This went on for another thirty seconds before the statue broke apart and out came a man with a scale in hand. However, just like the statue, the man lacked a face. Solid, smooth skin covering where its eyes, mouth, or nose were supposed to be.

That made Alec flinch. It was somewhere around the middle of his list of 'What the fuck is that?' list. Though, he knew not to trust that list. He had probably forgotten most of it, after all.

'What is it going to do?' Alec thought, his eyes focused on the scale. Considering the looks of the man, he was probably a mage, right? The Uriel from this world's history was one.

However, Alec's expectations were shattered by soft flesh's pitter-patter against the floor, Uriel the Legend running toward Alec, brandishing its scale.

"Shit!" Alec shouted before dodging to his side. The statue was relatively fast. If he was careless, it would catch him with some stray hits. He didn't know how much damage the thing would do to his 1565 HP points, and he didn't want to know.

As the man dashed past him, Alec quickly rolled and wrote on the ground.

[Fireball]

Ten fireballs spun to activation around Alec and launched toward the boss. However, his fireballs seemed to change direction out of nowhere and were absorbed by the scale, making it ever so slightly brighter.

'So fire doesn't work..?' Alec thought to himself. He had hoped to probe the boss' health by using some basic spells, but it didn't seem to work. 'What about magic missiles?'

He quickly wrote and dodged as soon as he was done, the scale swooshing past his face, mere centimeters away.

'This shit is too realistic.'

The magic missiles appeared around the boss, eight to be exact. Before the thing could react, they hammered against its skin, one even hitting it square on the face. Though, how effective it was? A mystery.

Still, the boss' health bar went down by a mighty 10%. Alec liked it. But it also made him frown slightly. That was too much, wasn't it? This was a boss. No matter how effective his magic missiles were, could they really take out a boss in 80 hits total?

Alec dodged left and right, the statue chased him like a little kid chasing their dad. He was slow enough for the statue to keep up, but fast enough to not get hurt. He was busy thinking. What was wrong? The occasional magic missile did its job and chipped away at the boss' health. So?

Alec's eyes settled on the boss' name.

'Uriel the Legend...'