Shackles Of Reality

After that she lead us to another room that had the same pods as the ones in the virtual room. "Everyone enter the pod with your number on it" she said. "But we haven't been told what the test will be about" said a cadet. "Yeah and where are the other cadets of the first year" said another.

"What part of the test being a virtual test do you not get? Of course we're gonna meet them in the virtual world" a particularly sensible student said.

I mean how could they not get it, it was obvious we're meeting the others in the virtual world, talk about being idiots.

"Alright enough. You'll know what the test is about once you get in" said Ms Evelyn. "Bye dude" said owen. "See you in there" I said while he walked towards his pod.

With that we started to enter the pods. Entering the pod, I laid down on the comfy padding, then my entire body was covered by a black nano material that started from my legs up till my head.

To be honest, it was really creepy as I felt it moving on my skin. After which I felt the pod's cover smoothly closing. Soon I started feeling drowsy but I knew it was part of the deal so I just went with the flow and well...fell asleep...or not, I realized as I opened my eyes to find myself in a forest.

'what's with this academy and forests, I found myself in a forest during the entrance test and now in this virtual test in the forest once again' I sighed as I took awareness of my surroundings.

**3rd person POV**

Meanwhile, after all the cadets entered the pod, Ms Evelyn left there and moved on to another room where there were several instructors sitting in front of a hundreds of holograms with different landscapes and cadets scattered on them . "Hey look who it is, we've been waiting for you" said a female instructor with pink hair and red eyes, noticing Ms Evelyn entering the room.

"What waiting for me? Knowing you, it's a miracle you're here before me Gwen" replied Ms Evelyn to the petite instructor while also taking a seat. "I'll have you know that it's all in the past, I don't get late anymore" the petite instructor scoffed.

"Alright enough with your bickering, let's start the test" a man who seemed to be the leader said turning to the holograms. There were hundreds of them that there's no way one would be able to keep an eye on all of them.

But that's for mundane people and lower rankers, the instructors here were all at diamond rank, and keeping an eye on hundreds of different holograms playing simultaneously was not a big deal at all.

Watching the holograms for a few moments, the man then raised his arm and tapped on his watch before bringing it close to his face and started speaking; "Good morning cadets" he started before he continued. "By now you would have found yourselves wherever the virtual world randomly threw you, A lot of you are wondering what the test is about and how to win, so now I'll quench your curiosity".

"There are exactly one thousand, nine hundred and eighty four cadets in the virtual world, and you all will be divided into sixty teams. There'll be thirty three cadets in most teams and thirty four cadets in four teams, so your mission includes, one to eliminate members of other teams you encounter and two find the members of your team and group up with them.

So by the end of this test, there will be two rankings, one being the team rankings and the other being individual ranking. The team ranking will be decided by the number of members a team has left, the team with the least casualties will be the winner.

And for the individual rankings, it will be decided by the number of eliminations Made by each individual and if you're eliminated before eliminating anyone, then your individual rank will be decided by the order in which you're eliminated.

"The test will last five days,and I forgot to mention, your team number will be on the left side of your chest, so make sure you're always on guard. And that's all and oh the rules, you can eliminate by any means necessary and possible, this marks the begining of your one hundred and twenty hours. Good luck, you will need it" he finished.

"You know you could just tell them that five days in there is five hours in real time, at least to stop them from panicking" said Ms Evelyn. "What's the point? Besides the smart ones will realize that there's a time difference between there and the real world and even if they don't realize that, they'll come to the conclusion that their body's needs will be properly sustained. As for the dumb ones, well it'll be pretty funny" answered another instructor with a smirk.

"I forgot how you seem to enjoy children's misery Justin" said Gwen to a handsome young man with blonde hair and blue eyes, to which he replied; "Oh I assure you it's nothing like that Gwen, just that the thought of some of them will be thinking about how their body will relieve itself for five days while they're stuck inside seems funny to me".

"Which brings us back to what I said earlier, that is you being a sadist" she scoffed. "Okay it's time, let's focus on the videos" said the man who briefed about the test.

Meanwhile with Adam, after the briefing he checked his left chest, where a glaring number twenty four was plastered. "Twenty four huh, not a bad number I guess" he muttered under his breath. He began to think about strategies to adopt when in certain situations. 'first I should find a stronghold in this forest, it's one of the best places to hide, at least I didn't end up in a desert.

With that he flew up a little, careful not to fly too high and attract opponents, he then spread his gravitational field in all directions for two miles, but then he felt something enter his field, no someone and fast at that, extremely fast in fact.