The instructor raised his hand for silence, and the students immediately kept quiet.
"There is one absolute rule you must follow during this operation," The instructor’s tone suddenly turned deadly serious as he continued.
"You are strictly forbidden from killing each other. Competition for kills is expected but if you kill, you would immediately be killed. We have multiple surveillance around the area, so don’t think you can get away with it."
He let that warning hang in the air for a moment before he continued "We’re approximately forty-five minutes from the drop point. Many of you have never faced genuinely life-or-death combat against intelligent human opponents. This will be different from fighting dimensional beasts. Stay alert, trust your training, and remember that your life is the most important."
With those final words, the instructor made his way back toward the cockpit.
The students were nervous and excited as they checked their weapons and readied themselves for the upcoming battle.
Levi sat quietly in his window seat, his expression was calm as he thought about about the entire mission.
On the surface, they were eliminating the dark cultivators base and remove a threat to Federation citizens. On a deeper level, it was also a training exercise that would give Elite Class students real combat experience against human opponents in a relatively controlled environment where instructors could intervene if things went too badly wrong. And on a political level, it was probably meant to send a message to the Ancient Ground of Dark Matter.
Levi immediately brought out the chip for the Celestial Slaughter Art and started to consume the knowledge within.
The flight continued smoothly for another forty minutes, the aircraft started to slow down, as it began to drop from its original altitude.
The instructor’s voice rang out through the cabin speakers. "We have arrived at the deployment zone. The coordinates has been transmitted to your watches. The portal entrance is located approximately five kilometers from your drop point. Remember the rules: no killing fellow students, collect the left ear from every dark cultivator you eliminate, and return to this location within twelve hours for extraction. Good luck."
Immediately these words came out from his mouth, the students seat belt suddenly unlocked with a click.
"Eh?"
In that instant, the entire floor of the aircraft suddenly opened up, dropping the entire student to the ground.
"AAAAAHHHHH!"
"What the fuck!?"
"Are you trying to kill us!?"
Screams erupted from dozens of students as they suddenly found themselves falling through the air!
Some students screamed ws though they were being killed while others remained compose as they managed to adjust themselves, activating techniques to slow their descent
Levi face changed when the floor gave way but once he saw the ground was just a 100 meters away, he sighed in relief.
He adjusted himself and let himself free fall.
Luna was the most excited as she squeaked happily with her tongue out in the air and her arms spread.
As the ground rushed up to meet him, he didn’t react and simply let himself meet the ground.
"BANG!"
The ground shattered and dust rose of the air as Levi landed with his knees bent. His combat suit lit up as it absorbed and dissolve most of energy from the fall.
He still felt the shock travel through his legs and up his spine, but it was manageable, like jumping off a tall wall rather than falling from a very high cliff.
He straightened his back and looked around. Most of the students had managed to land successfully.
The more skilled or those with advantageous Astra Soul abilities had touched down gracefully. Those with less experience or weaker techniques had hit the ground hard, some stumbling and rolling.
A handful of students had scraped knees or twisted ankles from poor landings, but nobody appeared seriously injured. The instructors had clearly calculated the drop height carefully enough to be challenging and separate the skilled from the unskilled, but not so high that it would cause significant casualties.
However, what truly caught Levi’s attention, however, were the top ten Elite Class students. They hadn’t landed at all. Instead, they were still floating in the air!
Some had wings, one student had brilliant golden eagle wings sprouting from his back, another had bat-like wings of crystallized shadow. One girl was standing on a floating platform made of compressed ice that hung motionless in the air beneath her feet.
Another student was levitating through telekinesis as his weapon was underneath his feet.
But the most shocking sight was the number one ranked Elite Class student, Aldric Frostborne. He was simply floating with no visible technique, no manifested Astra Soul projection, nor wings.
He just floated in the air as if gravity simply didn’t apply to him, his silver hair and ice-blue robes moving gently in the breeze.
"Fiend Warrior," Levi muttered with married eyes.
Only cultivators who had broken through to the Fiend Warrior realm gained the ability to completely defy gravity and fly through pure willpower and energy control.
The fact that Aldric could float so effortlessly meant he was already a FiendWarrior!
Levi couldn’t help but imagine just how broken the Core Students would be
But that was a concern for the future. Right now, he had a mission to complete and points to earn.
The students’ holo-watches all lit up simultaneously, displaying glowing arrows that pointed in a specific direction.
Most students immediately began rushing in that direction quickly to start accumulating kills before others could steal all the best opportunities.
Levi didn’t follow them and simply walked towards another direction.
Several students who noticed his odd behavior gave him confused or looks of disdain clearly thinking he was simply a coward and was afraid for his life.
Levi found a massive tree and activated his Thunder Step briefly to leap upward, landing lightly on a sturdy branch about twenty meters off the ground.
He sat cross-legged with his back against the trunk and pulled the Celestial Slaughter Art chip from his ring. Luna poked her head out of his pocket and climbed the branch as she sniffed around the place.
Levi simply scratched behind her ears gently and focused his attention on the combat technique.