Gauntlet

Alastor danced away from the snake's writhing body after stabbing three new holes in it's skin.

He slid between the two heads as they both lunged for him, and used his spear to stop the heads from slamming together with him in between.

After a quick jab to the eye, the snake demon was not in a good mood.

'Not my fault your eyes are your most obvious weakness.'

He jabbed the bladed part of the spear into the ground and leapt atop the shaft, before grabbing the handle and bringing the bladed part down onto the snake's left head that was reaching for him.

He blocked the other head by jabbing the spear's haft into it's open mouth, and channeling mana through the spear.

Till now, he was only using mana for reinforcement, and it still hadn't started turning into Battle Aura.

'Disappointing.'

If an actual martial artist heard his lamenting inner thoughts of not having Battle Aura within days of sensing mana, they would surely have attacked him.

He used the snake as a practice dummy, learning to fight serpentine opponents better, instead of just killing it at once.

'It's the tail that's really annoying. Way too flexible.'

So Alastor removed that advantage entirely.

By cutting the tail off.

Immeidately, Alastor could sense that the snake's balance was off, and it was in agony.

"I'm done playing with you now."

The snake barely had time to move before both it's heads had a spear shoot through it, pinning the creature to the now-bloodied wall.

Alastor waited till the words "Level Three" appeared.

The instant the Demon Baron appeared, Alastor flung the snake's blood on his spear towards it's eyes.

As the giant Cyclops stumbled back, it felt a burning pain across it's hamstrings, before it fell to it's knees enraged.

It wildly flung it's arms about, trying to catch whatever had hurt it, as it flooded the room with demonic essence.

This was a sensing technique the Cyclops had developed on instinct, to make up for it's limited vision.

It lacked sentience, but understood that the area without demonic essence must be the aggressor.

It's crude sensing technique did find Alastor, but it was too late.

As it punched forward, Alastor leapt onto it's outstretched arm, and pierced it's eye.

'What is it with all my enemy's weak spots being the eyes?'

'I might get mistaken for having an eye fetish at this rate, unless those are things unique to Jace's world.'

The Cyclops eye glowed, as it's Sin of Wrath let it live further than it's injuries would allow it to.

In it's maw, a large amount of demonic essence was concentrated in a ball.

'Nice try.'

Alastor kicked the Cyclop's jaw shut, shattering it and also disrupting the ball of demonic essence that was forming, detonating it prematurely as the Cyclop's head blew off.

'If something cannot be perfectly controlled by you, it's not battle ready.'

He pulled the spear out of the Cyclops' eye, and prepared.

The Baron had appeared fast enough fro the snake's remains to not fully turn into demonic essence, which was why Alastor could use it's blood to blind the Cyclops early on.

The Viscount however, was taking it's sweet time, as the letters for "Level Four" formed one by one.

A shimmering round outline appeared on one wall, with the word exit inscribed in it.

'It seems I've passed.'

'So the next enemy is optional?'

'Let's do it anyway.'

'I need to know my limit after all.'

......................

As most examinees had exited their rooms or had been teleported out, only six remained in their rooms.

Illia looked on in interest at these six, finally feeling awake.

'One of them is going to Level 4 already?'

......................

One girl left the room after defeating a Demon Baron, gasping for breath as she was being healed in the same way she had when she was teleported into the room.

She looked at her room and saw the number 3 emblazoned onto the door, feeling a hint of pride as she saw most doors with 2 or 1 written on them.

"HAHAHA! That was fun!" A giant of a man emerged from a door that changed it's shape to fit him.

He was covered in blood that was still dissolving into demonic essence.

A fang was stuck in his back, but he didn't even seem to notice it while it was being removed, since it had barely pierced his skin.

"Tsk, monsters everywhere."

The girl muttered to herself.

She looked up at the man's 'Story' that only she could see, a small book hovering over his head.

She read it with interest.

'This monster is 17?? He should be 30 at least!'

She smiled as she returned the book.

'He's definitely a talent worth recruiting, along with that archer fellow.'

'Unfortunately, I was too tuckered out to see that spear user's Story.'

She did not know when she started seeing them, but she could read the Story's of people around her.

The upside?

No one ever found out what she was doing, just dismissing her as crazy.

The downside?

The stronger someone was, the less information the story would contain.

If she tried reading the Headmistress' Story, all she would get would be perhaps the colour of her socks fifteen years ago on a specific date.

She saw a few more people appear from their rooms, a golden '3' marked on their door.

'Strange. Where's the spear user?'

She heard a commotion and saw the examinee's gathering around a door.

'What's the issue over there?'

She soon found out the reason.

On the door, a big red '4' could be seen.

......................

The jump from a Baron to a Viscount was special to a demon for many reasons.

It was the first true 'Ascendant' evolution, with non sentient beings gaining true sentience and wisdom.

Those with sentience gained a full Sin ability, not just mindless demonic essence manipulation.

After this, only the evolution to Duke and above granted such a qualitative increase in strength, and existence level.

Alastor knew the opponent he was facing would be tough to beat.

He prepared to unleash a sneak attack the moment the creature was summoned.

The summoning was complete, and a form that Alastor was quite familiar with, appeared.

Alastor swung his spear at it's head immediately, but was met with nothing as his opponent fell into it's own shadow.

'A Silver Shadow huh?'

Alastor barely blocked a powerful blow from behind as the Silver Shadow swiped at him from his shadow and disappeared again.

He swung behind him beforehand to catch it off guard, but was met with nothing, as the Silver Shadow instead appeared from the shadow cast by his spear, and caught it with it's serpentine maw.

'Finally, a real challenge!'