(A/N Big thanks to everyone for the Power stones and Golden tickets, they mean a lot. As usual, please don't hesitate to comment or drop a review. ENJOY)

---------------------------------

His eyes took in the footstep; it was subtle, very subtle, and that told him his prey was smart and covering his tracks, but he was quite unlucky; Orion's spatial senses could detect the most minute of things.

He crouched briefly, touching the soil. It was firm and dry.

'Oh, you're mine, ' Orion thought with a smirk, his eyes glowing.

Activating Protocol, faint lines of light formed across his vision — movement threads, minor mana fluctuations, traces of presence, paired with his spatial senses, his mind directly manufactured his prey's path.

He could see the faint outline of his arrival, his actions, and his methods of covering his tracks. It unfolded before Orion like the replay of a faded film.

Orion watched as the boy jumped on a tree and started moving, his eyes and senses picking out the minor lacerations of his feet on the bark of the tree, how he turned around, struggling to pick a direction, and how his feet jumped off a branch after deciding.

Orion slowly stood up from his crouch and started trailing after the boy.

He willed his mana and fast-forwarded protocol; this was too slow for his liking; he watched as the vision sped up, his own pace increasing accordingly.

He wasn't proficient enough in protocol to arrive at his goal in record time, even fast-forwarding was enough to give him subtle headaches, but that was part of the grind in proficiency.

If he wanted direct results, he could simply look in the past at the cost of immense mana, but no, that was far from efficient.

He willed it to be faster, and faster it went. He was used to the headaches; he could handle them for a whole 24 hours if need be.

And then he felt it, his prey had appeared, his senses had registered the boy in his range.

He no longer held back, blasting off directly towards him.

Orion was very close when the boy finally registered the presence of someone after him.

The boy's head snapped back to find Orion in another tree behind him. He had short silver hair and an averagely handsome /cute face.

The boy's eyes widened in shock before settling into a solemn realisation.

For Orion to sneak up to him so close without him sensing meant this foe was either very good at hiding or fast enough to catch him off guard.

He dropped his stance, raising his fist in preparation for a showdown.

The boy's eyes flickered towards his surroundings. He couldn't jump to conclusions; Orion could be with a group for all he knew.

On Orion's part, he was conflicted. From when he'd gotten info about this trial, he'd known he'd have to personally eliminate people, and he was quite aware they were out for that year and were probably going to be stigmatised.

He knew, but right now, he was just understanding, and it didn't help that the boy before him probably deserved to study in this academy. From all the actions he'd seen the boy take, he could tell he was quite smart, and he had done his best so far; he was simply unlucky.

He was feeling pity, and his expression said it all.

The boy noticed his expression and sneered.

"Well, aren't you prideful? I'm guessing you're one of those Magnum 1 losers, huh." The boy said with a scowl, his stance not dropping.

'Well, that just helped my conscience, ' Orion thought with a chuckle.

'Besides, pity or not, I've even killed without batting an eye, ruining someone's dream shouldn't be so bad, especially when they're an asshole.' Orion thought.

His gaze turned cold.

"No w-" The boy started, before he saw Orion vanish.

His eyes immediately widened, alarms ringing in his head.

His neck turned frantically in search of Orion,

'He knows Aether step?' The boy thought in panic.

'Screw this, I have to run, ' He thought, mana gathering in his leg to escape.

Before he could move one step, Orion appeared in front of him, fist raised and heading directly for his face.

The boy's mind worked as fast as he could, but he knew, not definitively, but something told him, if the punch landed, he'd be out cold and then his sigil point would be gone, or maybe the boy would pity him like he did earlier. A boy could dream.

Considering how he'd spoken to the boy, he knew there was no chance of the latter, and so he poured as much mana into his right hand as possible, which was where his stone was and threw it as far as possible.

He could sense his stone if lost; his adversary couldn't.

Orion's fist landed on the boy, and he watched as the boy crumpled down and fainted, blood seeping from his nose.

'He's definitely going to feel that when he wakes up, ' Orion thought with a chuckle.

Orion turned his gaze towards the direction the stone was thrown and smirked.

He had to give it to the boy, asshole or not, he did the next best thing he could.

If Orion wasn't Orion, it'd take forever to search for the stone and considering they were on a time limit, most wouldn't want to risk it.

But like Orion had thought earlier, the boy was quite unlucky.

His spatial senses mapped out the terrain and immediately located the stone.

He snapped his fingers, and the stone appeared in his palm. This action was a variant of the Aether step; the skill was originally meant to make him teleport and traverse a certain distance, but his Temporal Distortion skill gave him unparalleled control over space. Tweaking a skill to designate another target was fairly easy.

He brought the stones together and merged them. He saw how the stones fused together to form one stone with two points written on it.

He turned to the fainted boy and saw how he faded out of the trial.

'One down, more to come'

(A/N Power Stones people. Please encourage my work.)

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.