Beast Taming? Nah, Dragon Herding is Way Better! - Chapter 54

Chapter 54: The Last Trial
“Having that sort of strength… does he even need to take the exams?”

“Who knows what sort of monsters are in the academy?”

“But still… that’s crazy”

Looking at the numbers on the scoreboard, the other aspiring students and currently participants of the third trial of the academy’s entrance exams starts talking among themselves regarding the young man who acquires such rating with his strength alone, said strength making them wonder just what sort of things is this young man doing for him to grow into such level even before entering the academy.

Meanwhile, the examiners also have this sort of thoughts floating in their minds, the only difference is that they refuse to let it out no matter how hard it might be as they have a reputation to protect as one of the people fortunate and capable enough to become one of the working staff of this well renowned academy.

On the other hand, the young man who is currently the center of everyone’s attention also has this same expression on his face, not because he felt like this is too much but rather because he is quite surprised that he can control his strength to such a degree, reaching a point that he can focus the attack towards a single point, seeing that only the middle part of the metal figure melted and not its entire body.

“Number 1455, passed” after a few more moments of trying to compose himself, the lethargic examiner announces, completely forgetting to mention the other young men who had taken this part of the trial the same time as the one he is observing, this mistake not even realized by the aspiring students and the other staffs as everything just proceeds as normal a few minutes later, with the young man who shows such absurd result already disappearing from everyone’s sight and proceeding to the next trial already.

“9999…”

“Do you think that is the exact units of the attack he just did”

“Think properly, you think that is the limit of the measuring system that the academy provides? That is most likely the actual strength of that attack”

“Y-you’re right, there’s no way even the device provided by the academy fails to measure the strength of that attack, right?”

Muttering all sorts of things among themselves as they look at the repeating number on the scoreboard, the examinees feel a bit surreal from what they just witnessed, making most if not all of them absent minded even when they themselves are already taking the exams.

What they didn’t know and what the examiners opted not to tell them is the fact that this is already truly the maximum range that the device can measure, and it is even already adjusted given that they never even expected that a genius who can reach beyond a thousand units in terms of their attack power will emerge among these new students, causing them to switch some of the measuring components for the ones that the older students usually use to assess their current strength.

“Do you think we will need to adjust the device even more?” given that it already happened once now, the examiners couldn’t help but start considering the possibility of an even more absurd participant entering this room and doing something like that once again, causing who seems to be the one with the highest seniority among all these examiners to contemplate what to do next.

“Send some of the staffs to pick up some higher quality force measuring devices from the main warehouse just in case, but there’s no need to delay everything to change it for now” the one who seems to be the leader of the academy staff among those that are in this hall said, causing two of them who seems to be quite free at the moment to start rushing towards the warehouse that the person is talking about.

“There seems to be quite a lot of great seedlings in this batch” one of the examiners pointed out as she continues her job, her words earning a nod from the other examiners as it appears that they share the same thought as her as well.

———-

This time of walking around and following the path leading to the next trials, Diluc couldn’t help but feel like there are more and more people starting to pay attention towards him, some of them being people who wore barely presentable clothing, clearly a mark of them being commoners, said people looking at him with idolizing and a hint of envy in their eyes.

Another set of people looking at him are ones who are clearly showing a hostile expression towards him, as if they couldn’t wait to watch him fall just for them to enjoy putting him to his place, all of them being people with lavishly dressed self, these young men either openly provoking him with their expressions or just hiding their intent beneath a veil or false courtesy that they are showing everyone.

Having known all sorts of this façade ever since he was a child, given how much people his father and mother needs to deal with, Diluc knows exactly how he should deter this sort of people away from him, what his birth father taught to him as the most effective way of scaring the enemies into submission, something that his father likes to use often as he’s a man who prefers not to shed blood as much as possible.

With his eyes starting to show an eerie glow, Diluc reveals a smile on his face as he looks towards these people who appears to have some sort of malicious intent towards him, allowing his strength to flow out of his body to intimidate them, causing majority of these young men to feel like there is something wrong with him.

‘L-let’s avoid offending him for now’

‘Humph! Forget about it, he’s not worthy of my attention’

‘W-why am I even bothering with a peasant, this is below my status’

Averting their gazes away from him, most of the noble children reasoned to themselves with the thought of still protecting their dignity or rather face, even if it is just in their minds.

‘Weak’ the emperor-like young man said to himself as he saw all these people avoiding his gaze the moment that he lets out some of his strength, this action of theirs prompting him to remember their faces as he takes note of not to associate himself with these kinds of people, people who are more likely than not betray him just like how his parents’ ‘friends’ did to them.

‘Speaking of friends, I wonder if those bastards also have children they send here’ thinking of this, Diluc couldn’t help but look forward to entering the academy even more as he starts creating some plans in his head, plans that involves how he should progress from this point forward, along with plans of how he should exact justice for his parents and the people who fought alongside them.

As he continues to roam around his thought, free from the feeling of being observed by these nobles due to what he did previously, Diluc then finally finds himself standing in front of a massive gate spanning more than four people’s arm span in width and some five people in height, an impressive gate that seems quite out of place given that there are no walls on either side of it, along with the fact that this is already inside the academy.

It would’ve been deemed as a peculiar place already if not for the surging spatial energy right in the middle of this gate, an energy all too familiar with Diluc given how he already encountered something that feels similar but of greater intensity three times now already, all of them inside the Draconic Realms every time that a newly purchased habitat appears from what it seems is a land of nothingness.

“Welcome to the fourth and last trials, everyone, this is a trial that will test your comprehensive ability that is already pre-assessed by the other trials before this one” as a staff saw that there is already another wave of aspiring students that arrives near this spatial gate, he starts explaining with a voice loud enough to pull the attention of these students towards him, making him nod as he saw that every one of the young men he can see is now paying attention to his words.

“Well, this one is simple as well, however, quite different from the other three trials that you all had gone through…” the staff paused before snapping his fingers, creating an image of himself through the use of earth elemental mana alone, for whatever purpose the students don’t know.

“All of you are going to fight with someone beyond this spatial gate, it might be a copy of yourself, a staff, professor or someone else among the ones taking care of this academy taking interest towards you people, or someone random that roots themselves on your minds” the staff explains as he dispels the figure conjured from earth elemental mana that changes every time he mentioned a new possibility of the people that these examinees might encounter.