Greeting his friends, Logan took a seat beside Grant.
"You woke up late today," Grant said, smiling as he turned to him. "Did anything special happen with the upperclass girl you were training with last night?"
Logan stared at Grant in silence for a moment.
"No, just some sparring," he replied.
"Mhm," Grant nodded, pretending to think. "Did that sparring include a bed and the lights off?"
Logan rolled his eyes and gave him a light punch on his arm. "You know damn well it isn’t like that."
"Right, right," Grant said, stroking the place where he’d been hit while pretending to be hurt.
As Professor Li entered, Logan and Grant immediately quieted down.
While paying attention to Professor Li, Logan noticed the Alvarez group sit down on the opposite side of the class.
Seeing Derek point at him and smirk, Logan shook his head.’Seems like he really couldn’t get over my comment,’ he thought. ’Usually, he’d never be brave enough to do this so openly in class.’
After Professor Li cleared his throat, everyone in the room quieted.
"Students," he started, expressionlessly. "As you know, the day after tomorrow, you’ll be heading into a D-rank dungeon."
"You’ll be doing this in groups of three," he continued. "What matters is that you all receive the same grade."
"If someone in your group performs badly, it’s also your problem," he finished, smiling coldly.
Murmurs spread through the room as students exchanged pained glances.
’Typical,’ Logan thought, shaking his head slightly. ’I just have to pray I’m not grouped up with people like Julien or Derek.’
He feared being in a group with such people.
’If they see a chance to stab me in the back, they’ll take it.’
"Everyone can check their student accounts now," Professor Li said with a smile. "The members of your group and the details of the dungeon will be inside it."
Professor Li gestured for everyone to begin, and the room erupted into chaos.
’This’ll be something,’ Logan thought, raising his right arm to check the hologram on his watch.
He waited in silence as the message loaded up.
’Finally,’ Logan thought, narrowing his eyes as he started reading.
His eyebrows quickly raised as he looked at his team.
"What the hell?" he said, causing Grant to look at him.
"What?" Grant asked, peeking over his shoulder. "Did you get terrible teammates?"
Logan shook his head, frowning as he showed Grant his hologram.
"Damn," Grant exclaimed, letting out a whistle. "That is one hell of a group."
"What’s up?" Robert asked, also leaning over.
"He’s in a group with Livia and Derek Alvarez," Grant said loudly, attracting much attention around him.
"Ai," Robert said, showing a pained expression. "That’s not going to be a good time."
"Yup," Grant nodded, chuckling.
Logan sat still, his face darkening with a frown as he glared at Derek.
’This has to be intentional,’ he thought, turning his attention to Professor Li.
Professor Li looked through the class with a wide smile on his face, not noticing or ignoring Logan’s stare.
"I guess I’ll have to make do with it," Logan said, turning to Grant.
"Yeah, good luck with that," Grant laughed, finding the situation hilarious. "Make sure you don’t rip each other in half in there."
Logan stared daggers at Grant before Robert spoke up.
"Livia, though," Robert repeated. "Wasn’t that our region’s top scorer?"
Grant scratched his head, trying to remember, while Logan simply nodded.
"So it isn’t all bad then," Robert continued meekly, trying to lighten Logan’s mood.
Logan nodded but didn’t agree fully with Robert.
’If I’m right, Livia isn’t going to make the situation any more fun for me,’
Up until now, no one really knew who Livia was, and most hadn’t bothered to find out. Those who did figure it out, quickly realized she came from a far more powerful family — and wisely chose to stay out of it.
Looking behind him, Logan stared at a girl in completely white clothes wearing a veil.
"Teamwork is going to be practically non-existent," he muttered before shaking his head slightly as he turned back around. "Putting me with Church girl and Derek Alvarez? That’s basically a death sentence."
After a while, Professor Li cleared his throat, silencing everyone again.
"I trust everyone has figured out who their teammates will be," he started, smiling. "Now let me remind all of you, these teams are non-negotiable."
"You’ll be judged based on two factors," he said, pulling up a large hologram behind him. "First: the amount and grade of raw mana cores you collect. Second: the teamwork between group members."
A student in the front row immediately raised his hand, but Professor Li just stared at him in silence until he lowered it again.
"Each group will take two floating bots with them," Professor Li continued casually. "The bots will only activate when they detect mana or if you trigger them manually."
"Now for the dungeon itself," he said, showing an image of a colorful blue forest and icy mountains within a cave. "It’s a unique dungeon with two distinct terrains."
"This means you’ll encounter two entirely different kinds of species inside." Professor Li continued, before pulling up a list ranking all kinds of creatures.
Glancing at the list, Logan was quite surprised to see multiple C-rank creatures at the very top of it.
"You’d be well advised to stay away from the high snow peaks," Professor Li resounded firmly. "Many students have died because of their overconfidence there."
Logan gave a small nod, completely understanding that.
’I’ve heard that the gap between creatures after the E-rank is massive,’ he thought. ’At that point, they begin developing intelligence and start learning how to use mana.’
From what he remembered, at least two Bronze Cores were required to deal with one D-rank, whereas C-rank needed atleast three Silver Cores with average talent and skills.
Professor Li continued the lecture on the inside of the dungeon for another half an hour before closing up.
"You’re only getting this information because it’s your first dungeon here," he said, shaking his head disapprovingly. "We won’t give you this luxury for the dungeons after this."
"In fact, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t have told you anything about this one either," he said, clearly displeased.
’Even if that meant a few deaths here and there,’ he thought, indifferently ’That’s the only way to get solid hunters after all.’