Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 645 Fear Resistance Test
As expected, the second round of assessment lasted less than two minutes before the first wave of eliminations was quickly determined.

The doors of more than ten rooms opened one after another, and a team of staff members in laboratory robes entered, dragging the screaming recruits out... These unfortunate guys were pale and bluish, their noses and tears were everywhere, and their steps were so unsteady that they could not walk on their own, and they could barely stand up with the support of two people.

They were quickly given a dose of medicine and helped to rest and recover in the sunshade on the other side.

Sek roughly counted them and immediately felt a tightness in his heart. There were nearly half of the twenty rooms in the long row, and the elimination rate was as high as half. Wouldn't even fewer people be selected in the end?
I subconsciously turned to look at Baler and found that he didn't look too good either.

But it was too late for the two to figure out why... The officer in charge of calling out the numbers held the roster and called out both of their names at the same time.

"Baller! Sek..."

"Here!" The second batch of new recruits responded in unison, dragging their weak legs as they stepped into the barracks.

The heavy door slammed shut from the outside. Sek squinted and stood there for a moment before using the faint light filtering through the crack in the door to examine the dark room. The room seemed small, but it was actually a long, narrow building that stretched far into the distance. Without light, the inside was completely invisible.

Moreover, there was no extra furnishing in the room. After scrambling along the wall, he finally found the mechanical lever that marked its abandonment. As long as he pulled it down hard, the locked door would open.

Sai Ke felt he was fully prepared. Whether a muscular warrior or a mysterious mage in black robes emerged from the unseen room, he was determined to grit his teeth and endure until the five-minute assessment was over.

Just as he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, pressing his back tightly against the door, a deep voice from a middle-aged man suddenly came from above his head... There was even an alchemical loudspeaker installed in this dark room?

"Soldiers who have entered the room to participate in the assessment, please strictly follow my instructions to complete the assigned tasks. Your every move is under surveillance... Alright, everyone please take five steps forward."

As Sek obediently strode forward, he suddenly heard another strange noise amidst the hissing of the alchemical horn... it seemed to be a thick iron chain being dragged across the concrete ground.

“There is a chair in front of each of you. Find your place and sit down immediately… No matter what happens next, you must not get up from your chair for five minutes unless you decide to give up.”

Sek leaned forward slightly, reached out and touched a wooden chair with a backrest. He immediately moved and sat down, straightening his back.

"The assessment begins!"

The magic lamp above his head suddenly lit up with a dim yellow light. Sek squinted for a few seconds to adjust his eyes and immediately realized that the wall directly opposite him was actually a movable door panel, and the metal hinges in the corner were slowly turning... The sound of chains he had just heard came from there.

What's inside?
Before Cyk could relax his stiff body, the sliding door suddenly rose rapidly, and a gigantic bear, so large it almost filled the entire room, roared out and was about to pounce on Cyk in an instant.

Awooo—Awooo!

With a gaping maw big enough to swallow half his body right in front of him, when he came to his senses, he felt as if something was blocking his throat. For some reason, he couldn't even scream or cry for help. The fear and despair from the depths of his soul seemed to materialize at this moment. A chill ran up his spine and straight to his head, and his scalp began to tingle.

At the same time, almost simultaneously, the sounds of heavy objects falling to the ground came from the adjacent rooms on both sides. Even through the brick walls, the screams and cries of his comrades pierced his ears like needles. The levers on the walls creaked and groaned... Someone fled from their seat to the door, frantically pulling the lever to open it. Sek remained seated... but cold sweat had completely soaked his clothes, and his hands, gripping the armrests tightly, were twisted and white from excessive force.

The giant bear roared and pounced at him repeatedly, but its body seemed to be firmly bound by an invisible chain, unable to cross the almost face-to-face distance and truly tear the human soldier in front of it to shreds.

That invisible iron chain became Cyke's last lifeline; the creaking sound of the metal being forcibly stretched and pulled was extremely eerie.

But for some reason, under this extreme fear, Sek did not choose to close his eyes and resign himself to fate... His subconscious seemed to be telling him that the terrifying behemoth less than half a meter away from him would not cause him any harm, and neither the military nor the government would arbitrarily harm the lives of soldiers.

He remained frozen, his eyes wide as he stared blankly at the giant bear roaring at him, his mind flashing with images of his people and relatives who had died tragically at the hands of the demon lizardmen. He endured those five minutes, which felt like an eternity.

As the officer's voice blared again from the alchemical loudspeaker overhead, the mechanism of the movable door panel turned once more, and the giant bear was slowly dragged back inside.

"The assessment is over. You may all stand up now... Congratulations on passing the second round of testing."

Sek slowly stood up and found his legs as heavy as lead. He moved to the door lever while holding onto the wall and used his exhausted body to pull the lever.

The door of the house swung open with a bang, and blinding sunlight streamed in. Only then did Sek breathe a sigh of relief, feeling as if he had been reborn.

The room that Baler entered was a few spaces away from his, but they walked out at almost the same time... It seems that he also passed the test smoothly.

Pale, bluish faces, cold sweat soaking the front and back of their dark uniforms, and equally leaden, unsteady, and heavy steps... their experiences in their respective dark rooms seemed identical.

As usual, they were given a dose of a sweet-tasting calming potion and then helped by staff to a sunshade to rest temporarily. There were about two or three more groups of new recruits waiting for subsequent tests.

“That monster was fake…” Baler looked around and, finding no one paying attention to the two of them, cautiously leaned close to Sek’s ear and whispered, “I was stunned at first, and only came to my senses at the last moment and realized the problem.”

He paused, then pointed to his nose. "Have you noticed that such a ferocious, mutated beast, locked in a room alone with us, doesn't emit even the slightest bit of the stench of a wild animal? That's almost impossible... Even if they've been raised and domesticated for years, and someone is always responsible for washing and cleaning them, they shouldn't be completely devoid of any smell from eating or excrement."

Sai Ke was stunned for a moment upon hearing this, then suddenly realized... Damn it! He hadn't noticed such an obvious clue, and all his father's decades of careful nurturing and hunting training, who died protecting his people, had been wasted.

He clenched his fists, dejectedly stammering, "I...I didn't notice."

Baler raised his hand and patted his shoulder, gently comforting him, "At least we made it through. We didn't wet our pants or give up halfway, and we didn't bring shame to the tribe."

It remains to be seen what terrifying and bizarre trials await them in the final round of testing.

(End of this chapter)