SSS Awakening: I am the First Legendary Mage

Xithali chuckled at his own words.

"I don’t like this guy," Tina muttered as she frowned at the figure above them.

"Me neither," Alex replied, keeping his eyes on Xithali.

"Now, we will start with Easy Difficulty," Xithali announced.

A System screen immediately appeared in front of everyone.

[Easy Difficulty: ??? / 15,213,134]

[Survivors needed to pass the Assessment: 1,000,000]

Xithali looked at the numbers before speaking again. "As you can see, fifteen million people entered the Easy Difficulty. That’s quite a lot. I suppose the System chose this Difficulty for many of them because they didn’t make a choice themselves."

He sounded genuinely impressed by the number before continuing. "We only need one million of them to still be alive for the first stage of this Assessment. That should be pretty ’easy!’"

Xithali clapped his hands once before looking at the screen again. "Now, let’s check!"

Everyone became tense, waiting for the numbers to appear.

[Easy Difficulty: 10,124,541 / 15,213,134]

"Ten million survivors! That’s more than ten times the number needed to pass the criteria. You have all passed the first stage!" Xithali cheered, sounding genuinely pleased with the result.

A few people around Alex sighed in relief, and some even smiled after seeing the number. Alex, however, frowned at the screen because nearly five million people had died in Easy Difficulty. From what he had heard, Easy Difficulty was extremely safe, at least for now, so those people had probably died after returning to Earth.

That meant they had been unable to deal with the monsters here. The Easy Difficulty had pampered them, and left them unable to fight properly.

"Let’s check the Normal Difficulty now," Xithali said.

[Normal Difficulty: ??? / 22,848,236]

[Survivors needed to pass the Assessment: 1,000,000]

"Twenty-two million people in Normal Difficulty," Xithali said with a nod. "I suppose that makes sense. Normal Difficulty has always been the most commonly chosen difficulty. Now, time for the result!"

[Normal Difficulty: 20,118,103 / 22,848,236]

"Twenty million are alive out of twenty-two million. That’s a fantastic performance!" Xithali said with a smile.

People around Alex broke into a smile. Some looked proud while a few sighed in relief.

"How are there more survivors in Normal Difficulty than Easy Difficulty?" Tina asked with a frown.

"People in Easy Difficulty were pampered. The monsters they faced were weak, and they didn’t need to strategize or work hard to kill them. Normal Difficulty was also relatively easy because they were summoned in groups, but they still had to fight monsters without the natives protecting them, so when they returned to Earth, they had the power to at least defend themselves," Alex explained.

He added, "The Easy Difficulty Ascendants probably weren’t prepared for how different the monsters on Earth would be compared to the ones they fought in the Land of Origin. The difference in strength must have caught many of them by surprise."

"That... makes sense," Tina said after thinking about it. She clicked her tongue and looked at the screen again. "So Easy Difficulty is a trap. It kills people with comfort."

Alex did not completely agree with that conclusion. Easy Difficulty could be tremendously useful because it allowed people to establish relationships with the natives of the Land of Origin, and those connections could become very valuable later. Still, he decided not to argue about it right now.

The important thing was that more than twenty million people had survived Normal Difficulty.

"Let’s check the Hard Difficulty!" Xithali announced.

[Hard Difficulty: ??? / 7,123,124]

[Survivors needed to pass the Assessment: 1,000,000]

"Oof, only seven million. That’s a lot less than Easy and Normal Difficulty. It makes sense, though. The System’s messages, the earthquakes, and the monsters that appeared during the first ten minutes must have made people realize that this was real, so most of them probably decided to choose easy and normal difficulty," Xithali said.

He looked over the gathered people before continuing in the same cheerful tone. "But don’t worry! Even with these numbers, you still might pass the third stage."

The people around Alex became nervous as they waited for the result. Even Alex’s brows were furrowed while he stared at the screen, because the number of people who had entered Hard Difficulty was already much smaller than those who had chosen Easy or Normal.

Easy Difficulty had a survival rate of around sixty-six percent, while Normal Difficulty had managed nearly ninety percent. Easy Difficulty should theoretically have had a survival rate of ninety-five percent or even higher, but many of those people had likely fallen after returning to Earth because they had been unable to deal with the much stronger monsters.

Hard Difficulty should have been different.

The people who chose Hard Difficulty would’ve faced stronger monsters from the beginning, and surviving those battles should have prepared them for the monsters on Earth. Alex therefore expected their survival rate to be quite high, and even if only eighty— no, sixty percent had survived, there would still have been more than enough people to pass the requirement.

"Let’s check if Earth has passed the third stage of the first Assessment!" Xithali announced cheerfully.

The screen changed.

[Hard Difficulty: 68,123 / 7,123,124]

A strange silence fell over everyone as they stared at the number. Nobody immediately reacted because the result was so unexpected that many people seemed unable to understand what they were seeing.

There were only sixty-eight thousand survivors.

Alex stared at the screen with a deep frown. The failure itself was shocking, but it was not what disturbed him the most because they still did not know what the punishment for failing the Assessment would be.

What truly shocked everyone was the survival rate. Barely ten percent had survived Hard Difficulty.

"Oof! That looks like a failure," Xithali said, and his expression finally became somewhat disappointed.

"I suppose this makes sense. I was dropped in a desert without any weapon, and I was surrounded by worm-like monsters almost immediately. The situation only became worse after that, so if other people faced something similar, I can understand why so few survived," Roan said.

Tina immediately turned toward him. "You are in Hard Difficulty?"

Roan nodded.

Alex’s expression changed slightly.

When they met, and perhaps even now, Roan had been roughly on par with him, which meant the monsters Roan had encountered in Hard Difficulty could not have been weak. If anything, they had probably been considerably stronger than the creatures most people had fought.

But that raised another question. Shouldn’t Hell Difficulty be more dangerous than Hard Difficulty? Then, how come Roan could match Alex?

Alex remembered the theory he had formed earlier. He still believed that the true Hell Difficulty had not actually begun yet because there had been something strange about the island they appeared in.

Perhaps there was a dangerous environment waiting to be discovered, a unique species of monster, or something else entirely that would trigger the real Hell Difficulty.

Alex could not be certain, but the possibility remained in his mind.

"Hard Difficulty has failed the Assessment!" Xithali announced. "But don’t worry! It’s only one difficulty, Hell Difficulty might pass and get their rewards. Moreover, as I said before, even a failure punishment can be considered a type of reward depending on how you look at it!"

Nobody responded to him. There were no cheers or relieved expressions this time. The people simply stood there and waited for the next result.

"Now, time for Hell Difficulty, everyone!" Xithali said.

..

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