The clerk was very suspicious. Damian, however, tried to act as naturally as possible. He didn't want the man to suspect that he might be one of the potential hunters taking the entrance exam.

As soon as he stepped into the store, he didn't say anything. Instead, he simply started browsing through the items on display.

"If this guy really is one of the hunters organizing the exam, then there has to be some kind of clue inside the store…" Damian thought.

It didn't make sense for it to be as easy as just walking up to the clerk and asking questions. That would have been far too simple. Surely, it would require a little more effort to uncover what he needed.

Doing his best to appear casual, Damian scanned the merchandise.

The store sold electronics—computers, laptops, spare parts, cell phones, and the like.

As he walked past the shelves, looking over the products, Damian grew more certain that this was the right place.

The reason was simple: no one had come to bother him. Normally, in shops like this, a salesperson would have shown up by now, trying to help him find something—and more often than not, push him to spend more money than he intended.

But here, no one came. That alone was suspicious.

Damian kept inspecting every item on display, searching for some kind of hint about the exam.

Eventually, he found something. Not because of the item itself, but because of a faint trace of mana left behind by whoever had placed it there.

"They tried to hide the mana, but that won't work against me," he thought as he reached out for the object.

It was a watch. Damian furrowed his brows, puzzled by what he'd discovered.

"This store doesn't even sell watches," he realized.

And it wasn't like someone had just forgotten it there, either. The watch was neatly placed inside its own case, arranged as though it were an actual item for sale.

Damian picked it up to examine it more closely. That's when he noticed something written inside the case.

"Do not take the watch or the box. Leave them where they are."

The words were there for a reason. Other people were also participating in the exam, which meant Damian couldn't remove the object from its place.

He studied the watch closely, trying to figure out what it might mean. Aside from those words, there was nothing else written on it.

The only detail he noticed was that the watch was set to a specific time—3:30 in the afternoon.

According to what Lindy had told him, the exam started at 1 p.m. That meant there was still time left until the hour marked on the watch.

"Does this actually mean something, or am I just imagining things?" Damian wondered.

He wasn't sure if it was just a random time or if it had a hidden meaning. But for now, that was the only clue he had found on the watch.

Damian put it back where it was and searched other parts of the store, hoping to find something else. But there was nothing. Once he realized that, he decided to leave—there was no point wasting more time there.

He walked through the mall, glancing at a few stores and other places that looked interesting. It was during that walk that he came across someone.

The person was a young man who looked no older than nineteen. He approached Damian.

"Hey," the young man said. "Are you taking the hunter exam?"

A little surprised by the question, Damian replied, "Why do you ask?"

It was never a good idea to share too much information with a stranger. Damian wasn't going to answer until he knew the man's reason for asking.

"I just thought maybe we could help each other out during the exam… No reason not to, right?" the young man said.

He wasn't wrong. There was nothing in the rules saying participants couldn't work together. But was it really a good idea?

Time was ticking. From what Lindy had told him, the test ended at 4 p.m. That meant anyone who hadn't found the right location by then would be automatically disqualified.

"And do you have any information to share?" Damian asked.

He had already discovered that watch with the marked time—which he believed had to mean something. So the least this person should have was some relevant clue.

The young man seemed to think for a moment.

"Since I was the one who approached you, I'll give my information first. If you think it's useful, then you can share what you know. How about that?" the young man said.

It sounded fair. Damian agreed to the proposal and listened to what the young man had to say.

"I found a note mentioning something about a clock tower. But when I went there, the guards blocked me. I even tried sneaking in, but the place is locked up," the young man explained.

Now that was useful information. Damian liked what he heard—he was already beginning to piece things together.

"Do you know if there's more than one clock tower, or just that one?" Damian asked.

"There are actually several," the young man replied. "But they're all the same—locked and guarded."

"The information I have is crucial," Damian said. "Can we talk somewhere else?"

He intended to keep his promise—after all, the young man had shared something important with him. It was only fair to do the same.

The two of them decided to head to the rooftop of the mall. It wasn't a place people usually went, but with both of them having mana in their bodies, climbing up there was easy.

There was no one else around. From up high, Damian could see the clock towers the young man had just mentioned.

"I found a shop where the clerk was a hunter—or at least he seemed to be. Inside, I discovered a box with a watch that was set to 3:30 in the afternoon. There was also a note saying I had to leave both the watch and the box where they were. Taking them was forbidden."

The young man grew excited with that piece of information.

"Could it mean that we're supposed to go to one of the clock towers at that time?" he asked. "It makes sense, doesn't it?"

That was Damian's first thought as well. It was the most obvious explanation, but since this was only the initial test, maybe it wasn't supposed to be overly complicated.

The two of them decided to remain on the rooftop and wait for the time to come. From up there, they had a clear view of several clock towers.

"Look, there are more people waiting," the young man said, pointing at a bench near one of the towers. "They just went there all of a sudden—it looks pretty suspicious."

Damian figured there must have been multiple watches like the one he found, scattered across different shops and places, all pointing to the same time.

The reason they had chosen this location was obvious: there were several clock towers in the area. That way, the participants would be spread out, with some going to different towers. It was a way of making it less obvious.

After all, if there had been only a single tower, anyone who failed to find the marked watch could simply notice the unusual movement around it and figure out what was happening.

As soon as the clock struck 3:30 in the afternoon, Damian and the young man headed toward one of the clock towers.

Even before the appointed time—around 3:20—they noticed something strange: the guards who had been protecting the tower suddenly left, abandoning the place unguarded.

That alone revealed a lot. The two of them moved quickly to the tower.

When they reached the entrance, the young man pointed out, "This door was locked before."

But this time, it wasn't. They opened it, and as soon as they stepped inside, they found a hunter in a suit waiting for them.

"Close the door and head to the top floor," the man ordered.

This hunter was strong. Damian could tell right away he was one of the exam organizers.

They did as instructed. When they reached the upper floor of the tower, they found three others already there—participants who had also completed the first part of the test.

"Now we wait here for half an hour," Damian said quietly. "I wonder how many people will pass."

Of course, there were multiple towers, so the number of people in this one didn't reflect the total number of participants who succeeded.

And so, they waited. More people eventually arrived, and by the end of that half hour, about eighteen candidates were gathered in the tower—a decent number.

Finally, the same suited man who had spoken to them at the entrance came upstairs once the time was up.

"Everyone, listen carefully," the hunter in the suit announced. "I'll explain how the next stage of the exam will work. If you fail to pay attention or forget, that's your problem."

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