Instead of a system window appearing before Shen, a gigantic one appeared in the skies. An overly excited male high-pitched voice came from everywhere, reading the window's contents.

Demonstration #1 of 5: Pathfinders

Welcome, talents, to the First-Class Talent Summit!

You are all first-class talents. That means you can do the impossible. It affects everything in your life but becomes more pronounced when there's a death threat.

So, if you fail this demonstration, you'll die!

Everyone knows you can fight, but we'll start with something different—not that we mind seeing you obliterate each other later.

Find your way to the next meeting point within 10 Standard hours!

Where is it? How far is it? Can you get there alone, or do you need help?

You don't know! Just as you won't know some things about the Void when you venture forth to protect the Multiverse Alliance!

This is your first demonstration: show us that the Alliance's trust in your talent isn't misplaced!

Failing means death, but you are forbidden from attacking each other. Disobeying the rules also means death.

Ah, almost forgot! You can wield your weapons but can't attack non-talents, either! Even if, say, a kraken tries to eat you or a random stranger attempts to behead you, you are only allowed to protect yourself. No counter-attacking!

Well, what are you waiting for?

What?! Prizes? Am I a joke to you? Why should you gain anything for getting somewhere in time? This is basic manners!

Go, go, go!

Shen raised an eyebrow at it. He didn't believe the death threat. Liya had said these people were hypocrites but also that they liked to keep a façade. Outright killing whoever couldn't get to some random place would be a disgrace.

Of course, management might have changed their minds about ot, but he guessed the threat was only there to help the participants' talent come to bear. Liya had done something similar during his training.

Not that he would bet his life on it, of course.

Unfortunately, seeing through the lie made it ineffective on him. He didn't believe his life was at risk, so his talent would get no "bonus." To make matters worse, he couldn't deploy his aura to find his way because it would be considered an attack if it touched someone else. So, he could only try to blindly find his way.

The most obvious way of doing so was going up to see further—or down, in case his destination was underwater. He would try up first.

Shen jumped into the skies and used his qi to fly higher and higher.

The first place he would visit would be where the giant system window was. Other talents would probably head there, too. While being unable to attack each other didn't mean trusting each other, Liya had also mentioned betrayal wouldn't be tolerated. He could try to reach an agreement with other people to search for the next meeting point together and didn't have to be overly cautious about them.

He moved as fast as he could.

The infinity-edger "spoke" as soon as he made himself known. It wasn't true speech, but rather, Reality reassembled itself in a way that made others just know what he wanted them to know. Liya couldn't even explain it better than that; she only knew that that's how it worked.

It was another demonstration of power.

Liya was discreetly analyzing her chair with her very limitedly deployed domain. A-rank enchantment was always nice to review. Now, experiencing a Realization being used like that was even more enlightening. She etched the memory on his mind. She might learn something about it when she reached A-rank.

'The host is called Discontinuity,' Liya suddenly knew. 'His race has no phenotypes, but after observation, he found himself more in line with biological males. He warmly welcomes us.'

"Thank you," Liya replied.

Almost everyone replied, too. Except for three C-ranks, everyone was B-rank or stronger. There were even nothing less than five A-ranks. At their levels, they could speak over each other without losing any information on the exchange.

Discontinuity mentally nodded—as before, Liya just knew he had—and a "pillar" made of twenty-two holographical spheres appeared in the middle of the chair circle. Each sphere showed a talent, and the angle one was looking from didn't affect what they could see.

A moment later, they all saw the message the participants did. Then, Liya knew something she hadn't known an instant ago.

'Discontinuity tells us that we don't need to worry; the talents won't die once the time is up. The is also no meeting point to reach. The first demonstration is for the talents, not everyone else. A lesson of futileness to humble them. He wants them to understand their talent is useless if they don't thread the right Path or pursue an impossible goal.'

So, Liya concluded, the asshole was wasting their time.

The arrogant ones would only grow annoyed and dismiss the lesson. Whoever was humble would grow humbler, but it might actually be a disservice to talents. The multiverse was unforgiven, and too much timidity might hinder their growth.

Not that she would share her opinion. While etiquette let her say anything as long as she wasn't too aggressive, she had nothing to gain by speaking her mind. Demonstrations couldn't be changed after they started. Instead, she would be seen as a complainer, and no one likes complainers.

Suddenly, she knew something new.

'Now, Discontinuity says one master refused the summons to the Summit. He has already killed the traitors. To decrease his humiliation of being ignored, he'll provide every one of us with our A-rank chair after the Summit. The top-performing talent will receive the empty A-rank armchair and his S-rank armchair. He hopes this will be enough to wash his shame.'

So, he was already playing this annoying game. If he wanted to display his power and riches by giving them the chairs—they were A-rank and, thus, expensive—he could just do it. There was no reason to go through all that.

"Of course," Liya replied.

Most were with her, but a few said Discontinuity didn't need to do this, while others said it wasn't enough. Discontinuity mentally shook its non-existence head and insisted.

'Now that this matter is taken care of, he says we're free to mingle with each other. We have ten Standard hours. He must attend to other matters but will leave a wisp of consciousness here to watch over everything and save any endangered talent. He'll return when the demonstration's time is up.'

Then, Reality stopped crying; Discontinuity was gone.

Liya sighed as she stood up. Her armchair's enchantment still affected her and everyone else as she moved around.

The drow and high elves were allies, so she went to talk to the high elf first.

As expected, Shen met seven other participants in the skies. Each one came from a different race, and he Inspected them.

Going by rank, they were:

A C-rank high elf. He was blond, his hair went to his shoulder, and he had emerald green eyes. He looked both twenty and ageless. He was wearing a green and golden robe—the only one besides Shen who wore anything;

A C-rank asaan, a subspecies of water elemental. The water it was made of kept flowing. It looked like a muscular humanoid dude;

A D-rank sulvor. It looked like a ball of mud;

A D-rank sulkor treant. It was a hundred-feet-tall twenty-feet-wide humanoid moving tree with seven arms and three legs;

A D-rank malu, a living moon. It was also moon-sized. The white sphere floated above them all, enormous, affecting the world's gravity and the sea level by its size alone;

An E-rank omnispider. It looked like a tarantula of titanic proportions, only it was "glitched," like in a videogame. As Shen looked at it, two superimposed spiders kept changing their position vector. They didn't rotate but felt as if they stood in all directions at once, yet he could only perceive one every instant;

And, most surprising of all, an F-rank moon butterfly. Yes, F-rank. It had no body except a neon blue silhouette for wings that released shining white dust.

The butterfly was almost as weird as the omnispider. Despite its low rank, it seemed to ignore spacetime. It kept beating its wings, and while it looked as if it was smoothly moving through the air, it reached too far to be accurate. It even landed on the living moon once. Yet, despite the moon not being too close to them—it occupied the skies but didn't want to kill them by mistake—Shen could still see the butterfly as if it was beside him.

Shen hadn't known there would be different ranks among the participants. It was even more unexpected that they would be kept together. Yet, here he was.

He only hoped he didn't need to fight any C-rank, or he would likely die a dog's death.

"Hello," the moon was the first to speak. It had no mouth, but her voice sounded like a female temptress. "I'm bigger than you, can see further, and move better. I'll take a look around with the little one. Be right back."

With that, she moved away, the butterfly still on its surface.

The moon was D-rank like Shen and should not be able to move much faster than him, but she did. He felt very subtle Concept emanations that he recognized as coming from gravity. The moon was taking advantage of the planet's gravitational field to move faster than it should be possible.

Instants later, he couldn't see it anymore.

The remaining six beings looked at each other. Well, Shen didn't know if the omnispider or mud ball were looking at him, but he guessed so.

"If they bring bad news," the high elf said, his voice deep and pleasant to the ears, "I'll organize our group to search for clues at a lower altitude. The asaan is welcome to provide expertise when we discuss underwater exploration."

The high elf was C-rank, so no one had any objections to him taking control. He could move faster than them all, after all, so his help was invaluable, and he apparently would only help if he was in control. Having the water elemental, the other C-rank, assist was obviously a good move, too.

In general, Shen was pleased with them. They weren't wasting any time with needless pleasantries. As far as everyone was concerned, their life was at risk, and time was short.

He kept silent. He had nothing to say that could help. Waiting for the moon and butterfly to scout the skies would be better than trying anything himself. After that, he could only do his best to investigate and hope it worked.

There were still ten hours remaining, and if, in the end, no one produced results, he would just stick to the moon. The malu had the highest odds of finding anything if it could see well from that high up. If she sought to betray them, she would leave for the right place at the last moment.

The mud ball wasn't as patient as the others present.

"I'm hungry," it said in a child's voice. "Hungry, hungry, hungry. Can I eat you? Any of you? A piece? A little piece? A bite? I can pay! I pay, pay, pay! I'm hungry. Please. Hungry."

The treant actually replied. "Few leaves," he said with a voice much deeper and older than the high elf's. Contrary to popular belief, he spoke at a regular pace. In fact, it looked like he didn't like speaking at all, as he skipped some words. "Owe me favor."

"Alright, alright!" the mud ball agreed at once. "So hungry! Two leaves! No, three! Four will do! Yes, four! Four, four, four!"

Four of the treant leaves left his body and floated to the mud ball. It showed no mouth as it spoke or enveloped the leaves. It did burp afterward, though.

No one else said or did anything. They just waited.