The skeletons had varied weapons. Some used swords while others used spears or even bows. That made the fight much harder for William. While fighting in close range with the skeletons, he had to keep his attention on the ones with bows.

A hit by an arrow would hurt a lot. It wasn’t a good thing to get hurt during the first hours of the exam, as it would lower his chances of passing the first part.

However, even with the numerical advantage, the skeletons were still too weak compared to William. All of his sword slashes had tremendous force behind them, and the skeletons couldn’t withstand it.

One even tried to block with its shield, but it was destroyed instantly, and the skeleton met the same fate. As for the arrows coming his way, William’s reflexes were so great that he dodged or deflected them using his sword.

Every single one of the skeletons perished against him. He didn’t receive a single blow. William smiled when he saw the EXP notifications and looked at the ring shining with a green light on his finger.

Things were going in the right direction for him, at least during the first part of the exam.

‘There are like 11 hours until it ends, so I cannot get lazy!’ William reminded himself.

The worst part for him was traversing that place. It consisted mostly of hallways with no room for a proper fight, and it had many different paths to follow, meaning it was easy to get lost.

Eventually, William arrived at an open area. It was a large room with a high ceiling and enough space for a proper fight. In fact, it was quite big. It reminded William of an arena, like the ones gladiators used—though gladiators didn’t fight in creepy dungeons, or did they?

William stepped into the open area, and that’s when he saw a coffin in the middle of the room. That was not a great sign.

“I’ve played enough RPGs to know that this is shaping up to be a boss fight,” William said.

One didn’t need to be particularly clever to realize the room held a more powerful creature than the skeletons he had faced before.

Then, as William got close enough, the coffin lid creaked open. From within, an undead creature emerged.

Unlike the skeletons, this one had skin! It looked like a mummy with a long robe and a golden staff in its hands.

William tried to discern some information about the creature, like its level, but it didn’t work. He could only see the levels of very weak creatures like the skeletons. His proficiency wasn’t high enough yet to see higher levels.

But William could sense its power! Gorn had said the most accurate way of gauging an enemy’s strength was through its aura. The aura this undead creature emanated was decent, but it was still weaker compared to William’s.

His recent boosts in attributes, with a total of 20 points added to all of them, had turned him into a completely different beast.

That essentially doubled his attributes, so his actual power was far beyond what those creatures possessed. He wasn’t scared of them. William jumped into the arena, sword in hand.

One of the things he considered was using his skills to boost his attributes even further, but it was wise to conserve mana and only use them if strictly necessary. William believed his power without the skills was enough to fight against that creature.

With that in mind, he dashed toward the creature, his image a blur. The undead creature wasn’t as simple as the skeletons from before. It waved its staff and created runes that cast dark energy toward William.

He jumped to the side to avoid the attack. The ground where the dark energy hit started to melt. William was glad he had managed to avoid such a devastating attack.

But now it was his turn to fight back. William didn’t have any actual combat skills, only self-buffs, but with his high attributes, even normal slashes from his sword caused tremendous damage. He swung his sword right at the undead’s arm, trying to cut off the arm holding the staff.

The undead floated away from the attack, avoiding it completely. Then, it cast yet another spell. This time, the dark energy shapeshifted into ropes, binding William in place.

“Damn!” he cursed.

With his movements restrained like that, he would become an easy target for the undead’s other spells. That was not ideal.

However, William was not the kind of person to give up easily. He didn’t want to use any skills, but he had to in this situation.

He drew a few runes in the air and then activated them! The runic symbols appeared on his body, and he shone with a blue light.

“Kinetic Burst!”

William’s body surged forward like a battering ram! The force behind the advance was so great that the magical ropes binding his body snapped. The undead was not expecting that! William, with his sword in hand, took advantage of the propulsion from Kinetic Burst and cut the undead creature in half!

[+400 EXP]

It was dead. William wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead with his hand. “That was dangerous.”

Without a spell to break free from those ropes, William’s situation would have been much different, and he likely would have lost that fight.

But thankfully, that wasn’t the case. He looked around to see if he spotted more enemies or even one of the other participants, but there was nothing around him. So, he continued his exploration.

—

While all of that was happening, Tholfnir was floating above the forest with a crystal orb in hand. With it, he could see everything that was happening in the test. Tholfnir saw the fight between William and the undead creature.

“This young man is quite impressive… His body is far stronger than anyone else… And his aptitude test had that strange color too…”

After witnessing such a display of skill, Tholfnir made a mental note to pay close attention to William and what he would accomplish in the future.

—

William encountered the first participant in one of the hallways right after fighting the undead creature. It was a noble, judging by his attire. The young man saw William and how his ring had a green light.

“Hey,” the noble said, scorn in his voice, “you can just give me the mana in your ring without a fight, so let’s get this over with.”

The noble was confident in his skills and wasn’t scared of William. One reason was that William didn’t look like a noble.

To him, commoners had far less magical training and therefore couldn’t win against him in a fight. William also saw the green light emanating from the noble’s ring, but he wasn’t the type—or rather, stupid enough—to waste time talking with his adversary.

He dashed forward and attacked the noble. The speed at which his body moved shocked the noble, whose eyes went wide with despair.

It was impossible to dodge. William cut the noble on the arm, making sure the wound wasn’t deep enough to cause permanent damage or disqualify him from the exam.

“Stop it!” the noble screamed, begging for his life. “I’ll just give you my points, don’t hurt me!”

The noble transferred all of his points to William and walked away. It was wiser that way. At least his wounds weren’t so bad that he wouldn’t be able to earn back his points. What he didn’t want was to be beaten up so badly by William that he couldn’t fight anymore.

William now had a lot of points, but that was just the beginning of the exam!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep