No! I don't want to be a Super Necromancer!

He surged forward, his muscles tightened as he pushed his body into overdrive.

But no matter how fast he ran, Damien Bloodbane was still ahead.

Jennifer Aquafrost's eyes narrowed. Her breath remained smooth, her form steady, but she too accelerated..

Ji Chen said nothing. His actions did all the talking as his speed climbed rapidly and his figure blurred along the track.

The mysterious girl, quiet as ever, leaned forward and increased her pace without a sound.

All four of them, elite among elites, were gaining speed.

But Super Soldier Damien Bloodbane had already found his rhythm.

And they could not catch him.

His breathing remained unbroken. His eyes stared forward. Each step was measured, each stride clean.

And very soon, he began to close in on the Lin Triplets.

Lin Xiu noticed first. "The E Ranker wants to overtake us?"

Lin Bao's eyes narrowed. "No way he can hold that pace."

But Damien Bloodbane didn't slow.

Step by step, he gained on them, his expression unreadable.

Then, with a subtle shift in weight and a burst of acceleration, he cleanly overtook the Lin boys, his shadow stretching out in front of them as he passed.

"Let him run. He'll collapse before the 20th lap." Lin Xiu said darkly.

Damien Bloodbane's pace didn't falter as he surged forward, gradually closing the gap between himself and the Mu Triplets.

With a controlled burst of speed, he overtook them one by one.

"Hey!!" Mu Qingxue yelped in surprise.

Damien Bloodbane's approach and burst of speed was so quietly and stealthily done that she was taken completely by surprise when he overtook her!

"No! My goddesses! Who is that cocky little bastard who dares to overtake her?"

"Bastard! Slow down and let the Mu Goddesses take the lead again!"

The spectating second year boys howled indignantly.

"Don't worry. Nobody can sustain that sort of speed burst. He'll definitely tire soon!" A second year girl said confidently.

But 15 minutes later, the field had fallen silent.

Instead of slowing down, Damien Bloodbane had impossibly increased his speed once more.

He was pulling further and further ahead, widening the gap between himself and the famed Mu Triplets!

Professor Kong Hu stared at his timer, eyes narrowing in disbelief.

"What the freaking hell?!" Professor Wu was so stunned that he hadn't touched his tea in over ten minutes, an occurrence that was as rare as seeing a two headed pig flying while singing "My Heart Will Go On".

Behind him, the two sets of triplets were also cursing at Damien Bloodbane vehemently.

The sound of pounding footsteps filled the air as the others finally responded.

With a roar of mana and competitive pride, the remaining elite students all surged forward and started to activate their mana skills, bearing down upon Damien Bloodbane like truck-kuns on steroids aiming to isekai yet another victim.

Blades of wind erupted under Ji Chen's boots.

Frost trailed Jennifer's sprinting form like a silver comet.

Flames danced behind Zhao Rui, his fire energy exploding forth and propelling him ahead like a rocket.

Even the mysterious girl shimmered into a blur, moving like a mirage with unnatural speed.

Ahead of them, the Mu Triplets and Lin Triplets also broke into higher gear, their synchronization as fluid as an ensemble performance. Their auras flared as lightning, water and wind splashed color across the track as they sprinted.

The crowd gasped. Mana signatures burst into life like a firework display.

The instructors watched with satisfaction.

"Good," one of them said with a nod. "They've finally found their pride."

"This is the energy we need," another added. "Let them chase the bar."

Ahead of them, Damien Bloodbane's eyes twitched slightly as the sonic boom of Ji Chen's wind burst reached his ears.

"…Eh?"

He looked over his shoulder to find an entire stampede of elites charging at him like a pack of angry magical beasts.

"Whoa!" Damien Bloodbane muttered under his breath. "Why are you chasing me like I kicked your dogs, stole your inheritances, and dated all your mothers all at once?!"

He sped up.

No burst of flame.

Not a shimmer of wind.

Not even the faintest flicker of mana.

Just raw speed, body and breath in perfect harmony, like a sports car engine smoothly entering top gear.

The instructors blinked.

"Is he… not using any mana?" one whispered.

"What the hell?" Professor Kong Hu couldn't believe his eyes.

All the instructors and students stared at Damien Bloodbane in stunned silence, their eyeballs tracking his every movement like they were magnetically locked onto him.

Damien Bloodbane's mouth twitched slightly as the weight of their gazes prickled against his instincts like invisible needles.

He clenched his jaw and pushed himself even harder, eager to end the run quickly and get everyone to stop staring at him.

Fifteen minutes later, Damien Bloodbane finished his fifteen kilometer run- no, sprint, one full lap ahead of the others.

"I have completed the assignment, sir." Damien Bloodbane reported to Professor Kong Hu.

His voice was calm and steady and his shirt was only mildly damp, as if he had just finished a light warm-up rather than a grueling fifteen-kilometer sprint.

Professor Bai Lian was so stunned that she instinctively reached out and pressed her fingers against Damien Bloodbane's arm, then quickly to his back, her brows furrowed in disbelief.

He was barely sweating.

"Professor!" Damien Bloodbane yelped in shock, stiffening like a statue.

The Super Soldier Basic Training Program had prepared him for war, death, and even poison resistance. But it had most definitely not prepared him for being touched by a beautiful woman in public.

"I-I'm not interested in you like that!" he blurted, leaping backward like he'd been burned, arms up defensively.

"Ah… AH! I-I didn't mean—I wasn't—!" Professor Bai Lian's face turned bright red as she snapped her hand back like she'd touched lava. "It was a reflex! I was just… just verifying your physical condition, that's all!"

Somewhere in the crowd, a student whispered, "Yeah, right. That's what I say when I accidentally grope a guy's biceps too."

"Ehm. At ease." Professor Kong Hu cleared his throat and motioned for Damien Bloodbane to wait at the side, which he complied with immediately, still looking mildly traumatized.

Within a couple of minutes, the remaining elites burst across the finish line, sweat-soaked but determined.

The Mu Triplets were second, third, and fourth. They glided in with remarkable synchronicity, their forms pristine despite the grueling run.

The mysterious girl, still unnamed by the majority, was surprisingly fifth. Her steps were quiet and graceful. But the sweat that soaked her shirt bore testimony to just how much she had exerted herself.

Ji Chen was sixth, expression calm but he was panting like an elephant in heat. The Lin Triplets followed in seventh, eighth, and ninth, their pride completely shattered.

Zhao Rui crossed tenth, scowling hard enough to boil water. Jennifer Aquafrost was eleventh, still icy and unreadable.

Fatty… eventually finished, collapsing dramatically. "I'm alive! I am alaaaivvve!!"

"Very good. Eleven of you passed the elite test. Fatty, you go and join the rest of the students. Eleven of you, follow me. We're testing your strength next!" Professor Kong Hu ordered.

"What kind of strength are we testing this time—mana or physical?" Zhao Rui asked, trying to sound casual through his wheezing.

He had placed poorly in the run and was eager to redeem himself with something that actually involved his real strength.