In the following moments, they were told about all the rules the examinees needed to know. The map they just saw was a collection of several maps. Each of the areas marked with numbers was the place where a set of examinees would ‘spawn’.

The numbers of these locations were there to show which group would spawn in which location. For example, the examinees whose name was on the first list would spawn in the zone marked as 1, and so on.

But that wasn’t all. As the director had already confirmed, the examinees would not be allowed to carry any outside material with them. It didn’t matter whether they were using their inventories or carrying them in backpacks. This was done in order to maintain some fairness during the exam.

Various items and consumables had been placed throughout the maps. The examinees would have to either locate these resources themselves, defeat the ones who had them, or steal from the fallen ones. It was a battle for survival.

This round would continue till there are only 10 examinees remaining from each zone. The 80 examinees would be the ones to get the opportunity to enter the prestigious academy. While the rest of them would be thrown out of there without any delay.

In this way, out of around 1600 examinees, only 80 would be selected. But the examination wouldn’t be over just then. There was another twist, the twist of the black zone, which was in the middle of all the zones.

The 80 ‘students’ would have to face off with each other in the same manner of battle royale one last time. But this time, none of them would be kicked out of the academy. This last round of the exam would be held solely in a way to rank them into different grades, ranging from S, A, B, C, and D, based on their abilities.

‘This isn’t going to be easy, is it?’

Ashton thought to himself as volunteers from the academy walked out and handed them some accessories which included a weird watch, a belt, and a chest plate. Before any of them could know what was going on, a new set of rules and instructions flashed in front of them, explaining the uses of the accessories.

“The watch you have been given has been imbued with storage expansion magic.” The director spoke, “Each watch will give you 10 storage slots which can be used to store the items you will obtain during the examination.”

However, a moment later she was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream from one of the examinees. He was grabbing onto his hand in which he had equipped the watch, as the rest of his body twisted and turned in pain.

The show went on for about a minute before the screams finally died down and the director started speaking again.

“Quite excited to test the equipment out huh?” She sniggered, while her voice was filled with sarcasm, “Thank you for being the guinea pig for the sake of others. You see, that young man had just gone through what all of you could. That is if you decided to try to place outside equipment into those watches.”

Those who were about to try and do that immediately threw their things away. None of them wanted to get themselves electrocuted by the watch.

“As for the belt, it will restrict you from using your own inventory during the exam. And last but not the least, that chest plate is your lifeline. The moment the green blinking light on it, turn red, you will get disqualified. The chest plate is programmed to take a certain amount of damage before breaking down so you need to e careful.”

With that, all of the rules and regulations were explained to them. The voice died down and so did the screen in front of them before being replaced by the map once again.

“Good luck, Ashton.” Disha mumbled as she stepped back, “I hope you will not disappoint the mistress. Especially after everything she has invested in you.”

“Yeah yeah.” Ashton waved his hands around, “I know what to do. Thanks for your concern.”

Soon a message flashed on their watches showing them the groups they belonged to and how to get to that location. Everyone rushed towards their respective gates as they wanted to get as many pieces of equipment as they could.

Gaining proper equipment would more or less solidify their survival. However, there were quite a few people like Ashton who decided to take things slow. However, these were the examinees who had confidence in their raw strength and abilities. Ashton was one of them.

‘Why waste time trying to find equipment when you can easily loot it from others..’ He thought while calmly walking towards gate number 5.