Chapter 56: The Golden Sun Appears
Deep winter quietly arrived, and while the students gained rare leisure time from their intense studies and competition, the streets and alleys of Coleman City were hardly visible with any academy students during this approaching holiday period.
The senior students were busy preparing for exams, hoping to secure good rankings in next year’s arena ranking battles. Although Coleman Academy had no homework during holidays, the holidays would only make them busier.
While the senior students were overwhelmed with work, the junior students weren’t much better off, especially the newly enrolled freshmen who hadn’t yet been officially confirmed. They were even more intense and fierce in their competition than the seniors, packing the training grounds full—a first occurrence.
The reason was simple: tomorrow would determine the fate of these new students, deciding whether they’d become the shining new stars who captured the crown before everyone’s eyes, or remain mediocre nobodies who could only look up at those crown-winners throughout their academic year.
The Crown Cup was a team-based competition, placing all teams into the same secret realm to compete against each other and determine the strongest. This meant every team member would share in both glory and defeat.
After reading the competition rules, Tilisa thought she was playing a battle royale game.
With rules like these, wouldn’t the rankings be heavily diluted? After all, even battle royales had players who just hid until the end.
However, after reading through the Crown Cup rules completely, Tilisa realized that such hiding tactics would be nearly impossible to pull off.
Each team received numbered badges upon entering the secret realm. Once they suffered a fatal injury, the badge would shatter, negating that fatal blow and teleporting the student out of the realm—meaning elimination.
The Crown Cup had one rule: all players’ number badges were transparent and public, meaning you could see your enemies’ badge numbers.
Each team could use their tracking ability exactly once on another team, which would reveal all that team’s player badge locations to the tracking team’s members. However, their own movements would also be revealed to the tracked team.
This rule was definitely intentional.
Wasn’t this just encouraging students to settle old scores—those with grudges getting revenge, those with grievances seeking justice?
And don’t think the academy hadn’t considered the “hiding” possibility. To eliminate this strategy, the elimination tournament used a point system where survival time only counted for a small portion, and teams that didn’t eliminate at least one other team would be directly expelled.
So don’t think only the bottom ten would be eliminated—that would be too naive. Without sufficient kills, the academy would still expel you.
Coleman didn’t support deadweight.
This morning, Dilin unusually stayed in bed, lazily crawling up to grab two pieces of bread from the cafeteria, then slowly walking past the crowded, bustling training grounds.
Although the freshmen had been training regularly, today was their last practice session. They needed to develop some teamwork before tomorrow’s Crown Cup, so the training grounds were packed, with everyone competing for space and even forming lines.
Seeing this, Dilin yawned leisurely and drifted past.
Someone who knew what they were doing and what they needed to do wouldn’t blindly follow the crowd.
Fight for training ground space? Unnecessary.
He didn’t need it.
His team only had him—what use was a training ground? What could he possibly train even if he got one? Train by himself?
Better to go back and get more sleep, conserving his energy.
“Well, well, if it isn’t our student Dilin. Tomorrow’s the Crown Cup, and even in this tense atmosphere, you’re still as lazy and listless as a rubber man. That’s so like you.” An irritating, mocking voice rang out.
Dilin didn’t need to turn around to know which idiot it was.
His beautiful day ended the moment he saw that horse face.
“What, not even greeting your instructor when you see him?” Frankde sneered coldly.
“Instructor, I’m in a bad mood today and feel like cursing.”
“Oh? And then?”
“So I won’t curse at you.”
“…Dilin!” After a moment’s pause to realize Dilin was indirectly insulting him, Frankde became furious. But soon his anger subsided, and he looked at Dilin’s retreating figure with a mocking smile.
“Go ahead and act up all you want. In three days, you’ll never appear in my sight again anyway.” Frankde snorted and turned to leave, thinking about how beautifully he’d handled this matter and how his master would reward him.
In his view, Dilin not fighting for training ground space meant he knew he’d eventually be expelled and had given up.
Though fighting for space wouldn’t have meant anything anyway—besides that useless wild Divine Maiden, he had no other teammates.

The day passed quickly, as if in the blink of an eye, darkness fell.
The blonde girl sitting cross-legged on her bed opened her eyes and looked at her personal status screen.
Divine Maiden Transformation had entered its final countdown.
It was now 10:30 PM. She hadn’t eaten dinner, yet Tilisa felt no hunger. She felt energetic and full of spirit, while that sense of tension and excitement grew thicker, like a force suppressed too long was about to break free from its shackles.
Tilisa took a deep breath.
Countdown: One hour and thirty minutes.
Calculating forward, it would be exactly midnight the next day.
“Tilisa.” Looking at herself in the floor-to-ceiling window, Tilisa gently stroked the scar on her face and whispered softly. “Please, give me a miracle.”
Time passed minute by minute, and Tilisa truly understood what it meant for days to feel like years.
Her heartbeat became increasingly obvious. Every minute, every second, she felt her body undergoing some kind of sublimation. This unknown sensation filled her with fear, yet at the same time, she held hope for the future, creating a complex emotion.
She closed her eyes as fine beads of sweat dampened her brilliant golden hair.

“Speaking of which, Your Highness, are you confident about tomorrow’s Crown Cup?”
“Need you ask? In my opinion, the Crown Cup’s crown is already sitting on Your Highness’s head.” In the hall, two elves who were usually on good terms with Estride were chattering away in front of her.
Estride, holding her teacup with closed eyes, suddenly seemed to sense something and opened her eyes, looking toward the silver moon outside the window. She was immediately stunned.
Through the dispersing clouds, behind the silver moon, a brilliant golden sun appeared, its radiant light overwhelming the moon’s glow and making it pale in comparison.
“What is that…”
This celestial phenomenon appeared above Coleman Academy’s sky, shocking all who witnessed it.
However, this golden sun existed for too brief a time, making people wonder if it was just an illusion.
Most students, though shocked, simply regarded it as a chance celestial phenomenon. Only a very few knew it was anything but coincidental.
“A golden sun… could it be?” In the silver temple at Coleman Academy’s center, a silver-haired youth of exceptional beauty, leaning on a cane, suddenly changed expression.