The Author's POV

Going down the stairs, we soon found ourselves beneath the arena grounds. Inside of a large spacious room that looked to be the size of a football stadium.

Glancing around, I couldn't help but be amazed by what I saw.

The whole room was filled with capsules. Endless amounts of capsules. If I had to estimate, I'd say at least over a couple hundred of them.

...just imagining the costs made me shudder.

Observing the capsules from the distance, I took special notice of how the capsules were arranged..

The capsules were grouped together in groups of six as they each faced outwards and were positioned in a way that they formed a circle. Behind them, large monitors with numbers displayed on the screen could be seen.

Next to the capsules, people clad in white uniforms holding onto some tablets and doing regular check-ups on the capsules were a common sight.

Staring at the scene before me, I couldn't help but be amazed.

'...so this was the VR arena.'

It was a truly spectacular sight. The machines were far bigger and more advanced than the ones in the virtual class I took at the beginning of the year with professor Thibaut. Moreover, with them being more advanced than the ones in the VR class, we didn't need to wear those tight and uncomfortable suits.

"Everyone, please look at me for a moment"

Just as I was busy admiring the underground VR area, instructor Sean, who was announcing moments before, appeared in the middle of the room as he gathered everyone's attention towards himself.

"Great"

After seeing everyone turn their attention towards himself, with a satisfied smile on his face, instructor Sean continued speaking.

"I will make this short. As most of you already know, you will soon be facing each other in the virtual world and the game that you will be playing will be the codebreaker game."

Pausing and staring at all of the first years, instructor Sean continued.

"Since I've already explained the rules of the game beforehand, I will not explain them again. This time, I will tell you a few of the things that you should be careful of"

Raising one of his fingers, instructor Sean said

"First things first, everyone that participates in the game will have their strength suppressed to G rank by default.."

Pausing and noticing that a commotion was about to erupt, raising his hand and speaking louder, instructor Sean continued speaking.

"Before you say anything, this was a decision that the academy has made in the last intra-academy tournament, and there is a specific reason as to why we chose to do it that way."

"In short, it's so that we can see the student's actual skills instead of just watching them dominating the opponents through ranks. This is so that we can provide a fair..."

As I listening to instructor Sean speak, a frown involuntarily appeared on my face.

...this completely changed the playing field.

Right now, the chances of us winning diminished by a lot. Although Jin and Amanda were skilled, if the opponents played their cards well, we could very well lose this game if we were not careful enough.

that I had previously proposed as it didn't particularly focus on brute-forcing our way towards the opponent. Moreover, as soon as

thus far, I couldn't help

...Good thing Jin changed.

imagining what would've happened if he selfishly did everything by himself almost caused me to have

when in the game is that you won't know who your opponents are until the very last moment. This was decided by the academy

are fighting against opponents in real life, chances

to instructor Sean speaking, I couldn't help

said was absolutely

if someone attacked you, chances were that you knew nothing about

that's why we decided to do

seemed to have grown more nervous due to the new developments, instructor Sean smiled kindly

experience for when you graduate from the academy. If you get nervous from just

and pointed towards the

names should be on one of

he wanted to say, instructor Sean glanced at the students for a brief moment before

to

after instructor Sean left, all of the first years

along with my group members, started looking around and checked to

had to be careful to not trip on the thick metal wires that

"Here"

the search, waving his hand, Zack pointed towards a set of

white uniform came up to us. Wearing thick-framed

be the group from class

responded for the rest

"Yes that's correct"

his head down and staring at us through the upper gap of his glasses, after a couple of seconds, the instructor turned

please enter

-Vuam! -Shuuua!

started rising from the VR

without hesitation, we quickly sat in the capsules. The capsule I was in was beside Donald and Amanda who quickly sat down to which

"huuu..."

Thereafter, staring at my group

my vision turned

the VR simulation. The tryouts will begin as soon as

to my ears. Shortly after I heard the instructor's voice, I

best

...

-Shua!

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197, Ren Dover, confirm

eyes the first thing I saw were rows upon rows of