It was hard to tell how much time had passed.
Everyone finally snapped out of their daze, their faces full of utter disbelief.
"Ah?"
Amidst the crowd, Zhou Tianqi stood with a pale face, staring fixedly at the name "Qin Chen" displayed on the dungeon's light curtain.
He muttered to himself, "Impossible, impossible, it must be fake."
As he spoke, he staggered backward involuntarily.
How could a trash-tier, squishy Mage class with lower stats than him possibly clear a Calamity Level dungeon?
"The dungeon must have bugged out, it has to be!"
Suddenly, like a drowning man clutching at a straw, Zhou Tianqi cried out loudly.
With that thought, he hurriedly rushed over to where the proctoring teacher was stationed.
"Teacher, there's a problem with the Calamity Level dungeon."
Zhou Tianqi said anxiously to the teacher.
The proctoring teacher finally glanced at Zhou Tianqi, a flash of complexity crossing his expression, along with a hint of pity, as if he were looking at an absolute fool.
The Calamity Level dungeon had been created by several top-tier figures in the school specifically to cultivate students.
It was impossible for such an error to occur.
He was already aware of the bet Zhou Tianqi had made with Qin Chen earlier.
There had been wagered duels between students before, which he considered entirely normal.
If young people weren't competitive and eager to win, could they even be called young people?
Therefore, the school generally encouraged student sparring in secret to foster martial prowess.
In his eyes, Zhou Tianqi's current behavior could be summed up in four words: a sore loser!
Ignoring Zhou Tianqi's frantic rambling, the proctoring teacher instead stared intensely at the two bold characters "Qin Chen" on the dungeon light curtain.
This was a Calamity Level dungeon, after all.
For a student to actually clear it—what a monstrously gifted genius that must take.
After all, in the hundred-year history of the school, not a single student had ever managed to clear this Calamity Level dungeon.
"Qin Chen?"
The proctoring teacher suddenly found the name somewhat familiar.
He abruptly recalled that this was the student who used to rank first in his grade.
He had been hailed as the most talented student in the entire grade.
Unfortunately, during the Awakening Ceremony, he unexpectedly awakened only a trash-tier Mage class, leaving everyone deeply disappointed.
From then on, he gradually faded from people's attention.
Upon hearing the news back then, he had felt a deep sense of regret for quite a while.
Such a fine sapling, wasted.
Yet looking at it now...
At this thought, the proctoring teacher's breathing suddenly grew somewhat hurried.
Everyone must have been misled by the Awakening Stone.
Qin Chen's Mage class might simply be an illusion.
He was still that immensely talented young genius.
And this first-ever clearance of the Calamity Level dungeon was perhaps this young man's ultimate statement.
He was using this opportunity to shout out to the world once more:
"Don't bully a young man for being poor; thirty years east of the river, thirty years west!"
...
Meanwhile, in the Principal's Office at Jidi Academy.
The white-haired principal, wearing a pair of reading glasses, furrowed his brow as he looked over the student roster in his hands, pondering the upcoming competition with neighboring Zhenbei Academy in a few days' time.
This was an essential event held by the two academies prior to every national college entrance examination.
It was a contest to see which academy cultivated students of higher quality.
Jidi Academy had already lost the previous year, and they absolutely could not afford to lose again this time.
Otherwise, Jidi Academy would lose all face, and he, as the principal, would have nowhere to hide his old face.
He vividly remembered the obnoxious expression on the principal of Zhenbei Academy's face after the last match, practically reaching up to the heavens.
Truly hateful!
Because of that, he had been the butt of jokes in the principals' circle for a long time, unable to hold his head high among colleagues, friends, and old classmates.
Fortunately, this batch of seniors did yield a few rather decent talents.
Especially Su Li, the daughter of his old friend, who was not only blessed with extraordinary talent but had also awakened a hidden class, and was even specially recruited in advance by Longyuan Martial Arts University.
With her around, he finally had a bit more confidence in Jidi Academy's upcoming competition.
However...
He had also heard that Zhenbei Academy had produced a few impressive talents in this cohort as well.
And he only had Su Li as his trump card.
Although there were a few other students with decent talent in his own academy, they were still a tier below Su Li.
Adding them to the lineup felt somewhat unreliable.
He lacked confidence in securing victory in the competition this time.
The principal let out a helpless sigh.
If only this cohort had produced one more genius whose talent matched Su Li's.
Then he wouldn't have to agonize over this so much.
Over the past few days, he felt as though he had lost countless strands of hair worrying about this matter, practically going bald on the spot.
Thinking of Su Li naturally brought another boy to mind.
The child of his old friend Su Boyue—Qin Chen.
Whenever he thought of Qin Chen, a profound sense of regret washed over him. Such a brilliant sapling, brimming with talent, ruined simply because he awakened a trash-tier Mage class.
How unfair the heavens could be.
If Qin Chen had awakened a hidden class just like Su Li—even if it weren't exceptionally rare—he would surely have carved out a remarkable path of his own.
And he wouldn't be as agonizingly stressed as he was today.
He could simply send both Qin Chen and Su Li into the arena, and this year's competition would be safely in the bag.
Why did it have to be the trash-tier Mage class?
The principal sighed helplessly.
Dreams were wonderful, but reality was bone-chilling.
He picked up the student roster he had already reviewed countless times, adjusted his reading glasses, and continued scanning the names one by one.
Aside from Su Li, he needed to pick out two more students with suitable strength and talent.
Right at that moment, a dark red pillar of light soared straight into the sky, unleashing a powerful wave of energy.
Feeling this aura, the principal jerked up from his desk chair.
His expression changed drastically as he hurriedly looked toward the source of the energy fluctuations.
He instantly recognized this as an anomaly originating from the school's dungeon location.
The dungeon had been perfectly fine; why would it suddenly change?
The principal's face filled with suspicion and speculation.
He and several close friends had built this dungeon together, so logically, nothing should have gone wrong with it.
Besides, why did this dark red pillar of light look so familiar?
He seemed to recall that it was originally programmed to appear only upon a first-time clearance, and only for a Calamity Level dungeon at that.
He remembered designing this Calamity Level dungeon out of a sense of dark humor, simply to crush the confidence of graduating students and let them know that there was always someone better, and heavens beyond the skies.
It was meant as a wake-up call, giving them an early taste of the terrifying reality of actual combat against Fierce Beasts so they wouldn't become arrogant and complacent.
To make the difficulty as high as possible, he had even designed a persistent abnormal attribute debuff in the boss area; ordinary people couldn't even survive a minute inside, and coupled with an invincible Big-Headed Baby boss, no one should have been able to pass it at all.
"No, I'd better go take a look. With the college entrance exams approaching, it wouldn't do for something to go wrong."
The principal muttered to himself.
With that thought, he ripped off his reading glasses, tossed them onto the desk, leaped straight through the window into the air, and sprinted at top speed toward the dungeon.
At the same time, from various areas across the campus, several other powerful auras erupted and hurtled toward the dungeon as well.