Martial Online.

"Ah!"

Exclamations sounded in a classroom as the students were watching something on their phones.

It wasn't only them.

Even the teacher sat with her legs crossed and a tablet in her hands, completely engrossed in the tournament.

A male student watched the tournament on a high-class shell phone with his headphones loosely hanging around his neck.

After the match ended and the scene changed to show something completely different, he closed the shell phone and slipped it inside his trousers's pockets.

"Ugh…" He rested his head on the desk and lazily closed his eyes.

On his backpack that was dangling from his chair, there was a name sign that said, "Property of Isaac."

"Sucks, doesn't it?" His friend came over and sat on the desk next to him, patting his back in sympathy. "If we had qualified, we wouldn't have to be here taking these boring ass classes."

"Yeah, it actually does, Micah." Isaac whispered lazily as he stared blankly at the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. "The principal mustn't be too happy."

"Haha, nah, he ain't." Micah chuckled and grabbed Isaac's school textbook off the desk. "I heard a few whispers that he was apparently shouting to the teachers earlier today.

"Probably blaming them for our bad success in the tournament."

"Hah." Isaac laughed with a hint of mocking aimed at the principal.

They were all given a few free days off from school so they would be able to compete in the tournament. The principal wanted even one team from their school to reach far.

In the end, not a single student from this school got past the first round.

This school was slightly special as it was one of the guinea pigs for the new program—VR Training.

Therefore, to get better funding and resources, the principal wanted to show the success of their new program. However, it had been barely two weeks since they implemented the VR training program, so the results were still uncertain.

Ding!

At that moment, the school bell rang and signaled the end of the class.

Isaac slung the backpack over his shoulder and left the classroom with his friend.

They leaned against a wall in the hallway and opened the window to get some fresh air.

Meanwhile, all the classrooms started emptying, so the hallways were bustling with activity.

Isaac's friends watched as some cute schoolgirls walked by, but they were occupied by their phones while giggling among their friends. They had a picture of a certain purple-eyed man saved as their lock screen.

"So unfair, sigh." Micah sighed as he watched them walk away. "You watched the fight, didn't you?"

"Of course, there was nothing else to do." Isaac said and glanced at him. "Why?"

"That guy who fought Julian is apparently Rothsmith." Micah clicked his tongue and shook his head. "He is both handsome and rich. The world is so unfair."

"And gifted in Martial Online." Isaac chuckled. "Maybe he has just worked hard."

"Nah, he is born with a silver spoon in his mouth and also blessed with a godly level of talent." Micah said and pointed at them. "We are as normal as it gets. We have to work a thousand times harder than those geniuses."

"What're you getting at?" Isaac raised an eyebrow in question.

"I am saying…" Micah leaned closer and whispered. "We should quit the school and actually start catching up on geniuses."

"Are you mad?" Isaac asked with a look of disbelief. "That's the worst idea I have ever heard."

"How is it bad?" Micah asked with a pout.

"First of all, if we quit school, our parents will kick us out to the streets. I ain't kidding."

Isaac said and then raised another finger.

"Second, we're so much behind the top players of Martial Online, and we can't ever catch them unless we find some kind of golden opportunity!"

"That's the thing; I think I found our golden opportunity."

Micah said with a grin.

"This morning, before I had to leave for this shitty school, I found a traveling swordsman. I think his name was Lancelot or something."

"Lancelot?" Isaac perked up his ears and leaned in closer.

"He pointed me in the direction of the golden opportunity." Micah smiled. "He said that there is a school of swordsmanship in Amaterasu that can train us to become master swordsmen."

"I don't want to pour cold water on your head, but this sounds bogus."

Isaac said with a shake of his head. He didn't think it was anything worthwhile.

Micah firmly shook his head and said, "I found out the school's name. It was called Immortal Dojo. That place sounds incredibly mighty. That is our key to moving on from being ordinary!"

Isaac sighed and turned around to face the window. It showed his reflection, showing an average-looking young man with nothing special about him.

In the hallway, he was just another student among a hundred others.

"I am not sure about you, but I don't want to be ordinary." Micah said and witnessed everyone just walking by them as if they didn't exist.

"Julian, Ambrose, Moriarty, and Zadkiel." Micah repeated the names of the ones he wanted to catch. "Those four names are on the tongue of everyone. Don't you want to feel the same?"

"Sigh, fine, but we ain't quitting the school, not yet." Isaac said. "We'll visit this dojo and try to enroll. If it works out, then we can think about it."

"That's fine." Micah patted his friend's shoulders with a grin. "The world is not ready for us!"

Isaac rolled his eyes, as he didn't expect becoming a master swordsman to be easy. It would be incredibly difficult, with tons of hardships along the way.

…

Sizzle!

The sky was on fire with an intense blaze of orange and red. It looked like a blanket of flames had descended from outer space.

There wasn't a single cloud or sun in sight.

At the ground below, magma rose from the cracks of black rock and flowed down the mountainside.

Crack, Sizzle, Crack!

The ground continued cracking like glass, and magma gushed out in a fiery river, flowing throughout the surrounding landscape like a long snake slithering through the scorched earth.

Swoosh!

At that moment, dozens of flaming meteors appeared in the fire sky and began hurtling towards the ground.

As they rained down, the already chaotic landscape became even more apocalyptic. It was clear that this world was currently suffering from a world-ending apocalypse!

And, at that moment, on top of a strange floating block of black rock that hovered several hundred meters above the ground, a flash of light descended, and a lying man appeared.

He had his eyes closed while lying on the block of black rock while the meteors rained down around him. He looked peaceful, as if he were sleeping deeply.

After several seconds, the man's eyelids fluttered open, and he slowly sat up, taking in his surroundings.

"This is…" Ambrose looked around the apocalyptic world and whispered. "The underworld…"

He then touched his face below the nose and tried to feel if there was any blood left, but there wasn't, and even his left arm had recovered in perfect condition.

'I again bled and passed out. What's happening to me?'

Ambrose slowly stood up and looked around the apocalyptic world around him.

"God damn it…"