The Greatest Awakener: Ruler Of Time And Portals.

The mysterious light source had activated once more illuminating the entirety of the world. The recently awoken animals had started their hunt. Shrill cries and howls echoed in the valley.

All three of them had gotten up from their sleep. They were eating near a conjured fire as the cold here was stringent. Even they, awakeners, felt a bit chilly.

Sudden sounds of countless footsteps reached them. From what they could gauge, there seened to be a group of people running towards them.

They were proven correct as several figures were rushing towards them. The tallest of them arrived first. He said in a hurried hoarse voice,"We have a deal for you. There are a group of people chasing us but we are only slightly weaker than them. With the addition of you three, we would be able to kill them. You can have the kills and the points but please help us."

His voice had a genuine pleading undertone. All of the members looked at them with a eyes that begged for assistance. The situation however was a ridiculous one, hence Nicolas decided to use Simulation to see what would happen if he accepted their proposal.

The time in the real world stopped, his eyes blurring out and opening to a new view.

In the view, Nicolas agreed to help them and knowing their own power, Flumen and Clairant didn't object either. So, all of them waited for the group's enemies to arrive and they did. It was actually a smaller one, consisting only of 4 memebers. They looked pleased to find to see them presumably because they could now get more points. The group that had asked for help and the new one chanted spells, albiet not at each other but at him and his companions.

"As expected, they truly are scheming." Nicolas thought, his face twitching.

Their schemes didn't hold much water though as it took no more than a minute for them to be obliterated by Clairant and Flumen.

The vision ended.

The tall member of the group said,"Please, they must be getting closer." His face looked terrified as he pleaded.

"I accept," as Nicolas said this, their faces lit up but in a matter of seconds their hidden smirks turned into blatant fear as roaring waves of flames burned their lower bodies "your death that is.".

"Go ahead and finish them." Nicolas coldly uttered while looking towards Clairant and Flumen. They were a quite shocked by his decisive killing but didn't question him and swiftly ended the members' lives.

A sudden revelation hit them, the group only had 6 members but they had gotten more than 400 points in total. These peope had killed a lot of contestants, a significant lot.

At that exact moment, a new group of 4 arrived. And seeing the lying corpses of their allies reconstruct and teleport to the real world, their faces contorted in shock. They turned tails and ran as if the devil was chasing their back. Their speed, however, was nothing compared to the spells that Clairant and Flumen launched. They too were met with the same fate as their allies.

"You are quite ruthless, I must say," Clairant said looking at Nicolas "but that is a good attitude to have in this test."

"We should explore more. Now that I have gone through so much, rank 100 is the least I would be content with." Flumen said with determination and firmness, his eyes burning with resolve.

••••••

The sky had started to darken, their whole day had been spent battling beasts and killing contestants. Flumen and Clairant had added hundreds of points to their tally while Nicolas had accumulated more than 10 beast cores. Almost every minute of theirs was filled with battle. This arduousness had had an effect on their minds.

Their tiring movement finally stopped when they discovered a place they could rest at. It was a small hill with a blunt terrain and no nearby monsters. The three awakeners made their tents and finally were able to take a break.

•••••••

In the real world, there were tumultuous discussions taking place every second. Each moment, thousands of blogs and articles about the Ranking Phenomenon were posted. In one particulaly popular blog, the discussion was specially heated.

@Polar#456 : Is he really an unranked participant! He must be cheating. Even some arcanist-grade tier-1 mages aren't this powerful.

@Astran-love(0) : I can smell envy coming from you, @Polar#456. Are you really doubting the world governmant's ability? Stop making a fool of yourself.

@678_is_my_lucky_number : Do you all not have any knowledge of our own kingdom? One of them is obviously Clairant Echohart, the young master of Echohart clan. How the hell you don' know THAT?

@oink_oink123 : They are just in denial, probably didn't even awaken.

••••••

Port city of Ramiel

A small ship could be seen approaching the shore of the city, it was filled with numerous packages. As it stopped the people onboard started to exit through the gangplank. There were surprsingly only 4 people including the captain.

The persons mixed in with the crowd. None of them were talking with each other. Out of the blue, the docked ship exploded into smithereans shending shockwaves through the entire area. The surroundings were thrown into an uproar, there was unrest among them as they ran in all directions trying to get out of the vicinity.

The people that had come out of the ship quickly entered a restaurant as if nothing had happened. The explosion had made the interior of the place empty. The 4 people sat on a table. They were dressed in the same white dress, all of them male. Their face was completely and unnaturally nonchalant. Their face, posture, uniform— was all same. The only difference was that one of them had an azure star on his uniform.

This person stretched out one of his fingers towards the camera, a blackish line of mist shot out, destroying it. As the camera was destroyed, the 4 people's appearance changed drastically.

They became smaller, barely the height of a teenager. Their white uniform changed into a red one with black borders, and their hair grew longer and eyes matched their dress. The star was the same color however.

One of them spoke while looking towards the person wearing the star on his uniform,"Sir, was the explosion necessary? Won't it attract the attention of the mage association and the monarchy?"

"They have been informed already of our arrival, this explosion can be used to inundate them while we use a silenced teleporatation gate to get close to it." He answered, a contemplative look in his eye.

"As the report entailed, it was detected in the southern parts of this kingdom." A third one added.

"Department Prime had commanded us to complete this mission as soon as possible. I have heard this mission was given directly by his eminence and that failure will lead to our execution." The fourth said, dread written all over his face.

"Enough. We must teleport before the local authorities arrive." Their leader said authoritatively.

He flicked his hands 3 tines and a ball fell out from his bracelet. He place the ball in his palm and squished it. Countless orange particles started to flow out from within and took the form of a triangular portal. The eccentric group entered through it.