Villin calmed his breathing as he stepped back a few meters, staring at the wand in front of him.

“Here goes nothing.”

As he said that, Villin’s resolve was fully formed. But a moment later he sprinted forward at his top speed, surprising all of the spectating runemasters with his action.

Villin’s plan was simple. Punch the ward as hard as he could trying to break it. Perhaps his superhuman strength would be enough to break it since it only had a few dozen runes.

This was his gamble, and just as he was half a meter away from the wand, he punched forward with all his might, not hesitating at all.

As soon as Villin’s fist hit the ward it flashed with a bright light as it was being assaulted, but Villin’s punch was too heavy. It began to penetrate the ward.

But as it did wounds began to form. The ward had turned unstable due to Villin’s interference and the magic energy was going wild, attacking the area around the breach, or well, Villin’s arm.

When Villin grasped the wand his arm was covered with blood as long cuts could be seen all over it, but a moment later Villin jumped backward dislodging his arm.

The runemasters looking at him from afar were all stunned. The ward wasn’t supposed to be quite strong, after all the objective wasn’t meant to be punched through it was meant to be altered. Even though Villin was in the youngest age group and thus had the weakest types of wards, it was still extremely surprising to see this happen.

Villin fell onto his butt once he dislodged his arm from the ward after which he grasped the wand with his other harm, after that he began to cast ‘Healium Paulatim’. After just a minute his arm looked as good as new again. But this wasn’t something that surprised the runemasters, no, instead what surprised them was how he reacted to the pain caused by the numerous cuts.

Villin acted calmly and methodically, he barely even grimaced.

But well, the runemasters didn’t have time to wonder what all had happened in the last minute as at this point the boy stood up again and charged at the ward containing the enchanting pen.

“This- How did he-” Kalob was absolutely stunned. Each of the wards utilized different runes that had to be altered in various ways. It was supposed to truly test the knowledge these people had over runes, and then they had to decide which ones to take. Between the items that were most useful to them and the wards that were easiest to breach.

After taking the enchantment pen Villin went for the chalks. Once he got those he went for the mystery backpack.

The black backpack actually had a number of objects inside. It had a teacup, a few pieces of paper, a plate, an action figure, an e- AN ACTION FIGURE!

Villin immediately knew what he wanted to do. He had been thinking of how to show his skill, and he had been thinking of how to get decent points at the third mission which was to sabotage the opposition.

Since he couldn’t move out of his area and he couldn’t use combat spells, it was obvious the runemasters hoped you would make something that would help.

He had everything he needed but still, Villin was a little apprehensive. He would need at least thirty-five minutes to make a working puppet even if it was only twenty centimeters tall and it wouldn’t have any sort of offensive power.

Unsure of what to do Villin looked at Kayley and tried to cast mentallage. It was a failure, it seemed that the barrier blocking sound also blocked mental connections.

Villin looked around before making a decision.

He didn’t have a flying spell so the ten objects above him would be very hard to get, the objects were even shrouded in mist so it was impossible to determine what he would get.

That meant there were ten objects left, after all the letter mentioned there were thirty objects around him. After thinking for a bit Villin determined they must be underground. He did have the spell ‘Syrtim Celer’ which would allow him to move underground, but since it was quicksand he would be stuck and he didn’t have any ways to get up again.

Villin couldn’t help but find that the competition wasn’t exactly fair. Even if they made the wards harder for the older contestants at least they would be able to reach all of them. Villin didn’t have that chance at all.

After sighing once Villin made a decision. Over the following seven minutes seven more wards were destroyed by Villin’s fists. At this point, all of the wards on eye-level were destroyed.

It wasn’t because he could use the items they released but instead because the first goal was to breach as many wards as possible.

Once he did this, Villin had a look at the other contestants. Next to him was Ruby, she had an enchanting pen in her hand and was trying to adjust the warding runes with said pen. Villin couldn’t see what she was doing too clearly but since she already got the enchanting pen she shouldn’t be doing too bad.

As for the others, the most someone got were two wards at this point. This was gotten by the two red robes that seemed to be close to twenty years old. Their wards were vastly more complicated but the two of them were also very skilled at wards.

About a dozen minutes had passed at this point so Villin was content. Who cared if he ‘cheated’, he was simply being resourceful, now he could go ahead and properly try to complete the second and third task.

Without delaying for too long, Villin went ahead and sat on the platform with the action figure in one of his hands and the enchanting pen in his other. And so he began to enchant his object.

It was only after another dozen minutes that the second person began to enchant, it was one of the red-robed youths that neared twenty. He opened four wards thus far, two of eye level and two from above.

Another thirty minutes passed before Villin finally laid down his enchanting pen, he only had six minutes left until the end of the competition.

In the time he was enchanting he was bothered once by other competitors. A few dozen minutes ago a piece of metal flew over to him but before it could do whatever it was designed to do Villin jumped up and punched it causing it to fall on the floor and one of the vital runes on the metal to break.

Since then, nobody bothered him.

But now, as Villin looked at his creation he only thought ‘Now it’s my turn.’