In the forest, a three-person team was heading toward the supply point tower.
"According to the map we got from the supply crate, we should be close to the finish line by now, right?"
"Yeah, but we still have half a day left. Want to find some wild Pokémon to farm points?"
"Wild Pokémon are getting harder to find. At first, they'd attack us on sight, but now they smell us and scatter. Unless we go after other examinees' points."
"Hmm, I think we'd better not. It'd be good enough just not to get farmed ourselves."
"Right. Yesterday I saw a seeded player's Pokémon take down one as strong as ours in just two moves. We can't mess with them, only hide."
"Let's grab the supplies and head straight for the finish line. We don't want to get eliminated at the last moment."
They could already see the white tower in the distance and moved forward cautiously.
Suddenly,
One of them shivered.
"Do you guys feel it getting colder?" He looked down and saw his wristband's energy slowly dropping. He jolted in alarm.
"Someone's attacking us. Who?!"
The two teammates scanned their surroundings warily and finally noticed something wrong.
"Over there—why is it freezing?!"
"That's not right. This is the Forest Primeval Zone, not the Frost Forest Primeval Zone, right?"
Just then,
A golden giant bird flew overhead, and they caught a glimpse of a figure lying on its back.
"Is that bird... the referee's bird?"
"What's going on?"
Roars like demonic howls echoed through the area. The three didn't dare stay any longer and fled in panic.
In the forest,
An ice storm raged.
Wherever the ice tornado passed, massive trees were stripped bare, leaving only naked trunks in the blink of an eye.
On the golden bird, the referee lay stunned. "Damn, is this the kind of destruction an entry-level Pokémon can cause? Are Su Hao's two Pokémon frozen into popsicles?"
He slapped himself hard. "Why is it that every examinee I root for never makes it to the end?"
Not far away,
A puppet on strings used its psychic power to envelop itself and Old Chen, floating into the air.
Seeing the scene in the distance, Old Chen was also shocked.
That Ice Ning... no, the inheritor of that style—are they all this strong?
Below,
In the frost forest,
"Ah-choo!"
Su Hao sneezed.
Looking around, everything was covered in ice shards. Even moving to a different spot wasn't easy.
Thankfully, he was far enough away, and the sturdy trees blocked the storm.
In the distance,
The ice storm howled, and the sound of ice shards breaking kept coming.
"Guardian: Hold On!"
He had discussed with Silkworm Baby how to handle large-scale attacks before.
They'd come up with several different strategies.
But at this moment, Su Hao could only trust Silkworm Baby's judgment and, through their contract, gave it a mental boost of encouragement.
Two seconds, three seconds...
Su Hao silently counted the time.
Suddenly,
Whoosh—
A faint sound of a blade cutting through a tree trunk came.
...
In the forest, Silkworm Baby leaped between trees, with ice tornadoes chasing from behind, getting closer and closer.
It suddenly stopped.
Its mouth bit into several white threads it had spun, connecting its spiritual energy and altering their properties.
Using the backward momentum from its charge, it yanked hard.
The white threads that had been spread all around—except for a few snapped directly by the ice tornadoes—suddenly turned into razor-sharp silk ropes, tightening backward in an instant.
Silently,
Thick tree trunks were sliced clean through, and the ice spikes on the ground were severed in a single line.
The white seal controlling the ice tornadoes was startled, and the next moment, the sharp threads swept across its body.
Pfft—
The white seal and the small conch were flung high into the air, deep wounds appearing on their bodies as the threads dragged them backward.
Ice Ning was also yanked into the air, a faint yellow glow flickering on her shield, but it let her see the sharp threads tightening around her.
"Use tail blade!"
The white seal gritted its teeth, its tail glowing white, and slashed down.
Clang!
The tail blade cut through the sharp threads, and the small conch wrapped Ice Ning in a water current, fleeing without hesitation.
An energy ball flew from deep within the frost forest, intercepted by an ice spike the white seal roared out.
Without control, the ice tornadoes dissolved into pure spiritual energy, fading into the air.
The ice storm quickly dissipated.
Su Hao peeked out from behind a tree, saw Silkworm Baby beating the downed seal, and directed Little Fire Crow to finish it off.
Just then,
Rings of light enveloped the white seal, and in less than a second, that massive seal vanished from sight of the one person and two Pokémon.
After a moment of shock, Su Hao realized.
"Is that... a summon? So that's how it works."
"Gu no!"
Silkworm Baby, unwilling to give up, shot a thread to the treetop, but there was no one in sight.
It was only then that the trees, cut in half at the waist, slowly... crashed down under the lingering force of the blast.
Boom!!!
Dust filled the air.
The surveillance feed went black, and so did King Zhou's face.
In the distant sky,
Looking at the forest, now white and collapsed in patches,
Two referees, each clinging to their Pokémon's neck, stared at each other and finally asked:
"Is this really a high school exam venue?"
...
On the first floor of the monitoring center, in the rest hall.
The hall was filled with the constant sound of slurping noodles.
Examinees who had endured hunger and cold in the Forest Primeval Zone for over two days finished their noodles, and some just sat there and fell asleep.
A noodle-eating guy had five empty bowls stacked on his table, tears of emotion streaming down his face.
It was from the spice.
He looked up at a familiar classmate who just sat down across from him and couldn't help asking, "How'd you do? What's your score?"
But the examinee across from him was dejected, unable to feel any warmth even from the hot noodle soup.
"I got eliminated!"
He gritted his teeth. "There's this guy who's clearly super strong, but he loves ambushing and sneaking around. Who knows how many people he's taken out! He's a total demon!"
"A demon? Ice Ning or Lin Mingzheng?"
"Definitely not Ice Ning."
An examinee who had arrived earlier nodded toward the corner.
There, Ice Ning, with a "stay away" aura, had a white seal wrapped in layers of medical bandages lying beside her.
Looking pretty miserable.
"Then it must be Lin Mingzheng. As expected, Young Master Lin is stronger."
"No, that demon's name is Su Hao. He has a Silkworm Baby that appears out of nowhere."
"Su Hao...?"
Some examinees who hadn't experienced it were skeptical.
Wasn't that guy just a student from An City? He wasn't even a seeded player!
These must be excuses from weaklings who got eliminated!
Pathetic!
Suddenly,
The hall stirred.
A figure walked in with two Pokémon.
The noodle-eating guy saw the classmate across from him freeze instantly, silently pick up his bowl, and walk away.
"Hey, what's wrong..."
He didn't understand.
Then he heard a low gasp from another table:
"Su Hao, that demon, is here!"