"Jonas!" Cassie screamed his name at the top of her lungs, recklessly sprinting past the distracted monster to reach the motionless body of her friend.

The giant rabbit had already turned its back on the dying man to glare at the rest of the group, completely ignoring the frantic woman slipping past its flank.

She collapsed to her knees beside the bleeding man, her desperate eyes immediately snapping up to glare fiercely at where Hajin was still standing casually.

"Why are you just standing there and watching him die?" she shrieked hysterically, tears already spilling down her pale face as she pointed a trembling finger at him.

"We are just weak two-shard adventurers who don’t know anything!" She sobbed bitterly, her voice breaking completely as she curled defensively over her fallen party member. "What did you expect us to possibly do against a three-shard monster, and now one of my best friends is dead because of your insane test!"

Hajin remained perfectly still with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his eyes tracking the strange, grainy static in the mana rather than acknowledging her outburst.

"You need to calm down and think straight before you do something stupid," he finally replied in a perfectly flat tone that offered zero sympathy. "Your friend is still alive right now, but he definitely won’t be for much longer if you just keep panicking and crying over him."

She froze entirely at those words, her tear-filled eyes blowing wide open before she slowly looked back down at the ruined chest of Jonas.

Instead of the gruesome, jagged hole she expected to find, a soft golden light was already washing over his terrible wound.

Vella remained standing completely casually right beside Hajin, simply holding her glowing hand outstretched to channel her mana across the distance. She let out a deeply exaggerated sigh that conveyed exactly how annoyed she was about playing combat medic for a bunch of rookies.

"You cannot truly grow stronger unless you are constantly fighting with your lives completely on the line," Hajin told the weeping woman bluntly. "That kind of desperate pressure is the only reliable way to break past your limits and survive in this unforgiving world."

"As long as Vella is standing right here with us, I can guarantee that none of you are going to permanently die today."

He delivered the reassurance in a perfectly flat tone, briefly gesturing toward the bored healer as she finished sealing the massive wound.

While he spoke, Loccy vanished from his side and instantly drove her small fist through the giant rabbit’s skull with a sickening crunch.

The three-shard monster crumpled to the grass completely lifeless, entirely ignored by the rest of the group as they focused on the healing process.

Jonas finally sat up with a harsh groan, rubbing the fresh scar on his chest while staring at Hajin in profound disbelief.

Hajin didn’t offer the injured man a hand up, instead walking slowly over to stand directly above the recovering trio. He looked down at them with a completely unreadable expression, his long shadow falling across their exhausted faces.

"Now that you have survived your first real encounter, tell me exactly what you think went wrong," he asked calmly. "And do not blame the monster’s higher rank, because facing stronger enemies is simply a reality you will constantly face inside or outside Gates."

Cassie wiped her tear-stained face with the back of her sleeve, her brow furrowing as she genuinely thought through the chaotic battle.

"We completely split up the moment it attacked instead of holding a defensive formation together," she finally answered with a shaky voice. "Jonas charged directly at the beast without waiting for any backup, and our scout immediately tripped over his own walking stick. I just stood there completely frozen in panic instead of supporting either of them with my magic." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Hajin gave her a small nod of approval, his tense posture relaxing just a bit now that they were finally thinking critically.

"Correct," he said simply, crossing his arms over his chest while Loccy casually poked the dead monster with her boot. "You completely fractured your combat power by splitting up, and your blind panic turned a manageable situation into a near-death experience."

"I won’t blame you too much for freezing up during your first real test," he continued flatly. "But if you were out here on your own without us, all three of you would definitely be dead right now. You need to start fighting without constantly assuming I am just going to step in and save you from your mistakes."

"You must throw everything you have at the enemy no matter how completely hopeless the situation might seem," he instructed them sternly.

"That desperate struggle against overwhelming odds is the only reliable way to break past your limits and genuinely grow stronger."

He shifted his gaze away from Cassie to look directly at Jonas who was still rubbing his healed chest.

"I will praise you for having the sheer bravery to charge a three-shard monster head-on when you were outmatched," he told Jonas honestly. "But the specific attack you chose to use was incredibly stupid and left you completely wide open for a fatal counter."

"You three will continue fighting the monsters in this gate by yourselves," he stated coldly, his tone leaving zero room for negotiation.

"I will only step in when we come across a threat I deem entirely too strong for you to handle. Until then, you are going to bleed and suffer through every single encounter so you can learn how to survive."

The terrifying prospect of facing more three-shard monsters without an immediate safety net made all three adventurers pale significantly.

They knew the brutal training method was going to be incredibly painful and genuinely terrifying. But after experiencing the crushing gap in their power firsthand, they exchanged a brief look before all solemnly nodding in acceptance.

"Good," he said simply, turning his back on the recovering group to finally lead them deeper into the distorted environment.

He didn’t make it more than five steps before his vision was suddenly completely blocked by a massive system panel, violently flashing with an urgent red light.

[Critical warning: Severe gate corruption detected]

[Threat level: Unknown, multiple anomalies present]

[Recommended action: Immediate evacuation required]

The strange, static-like feeling in the mana that had been bothering him since they arrived abruptly spiked into something suffocating.

He quickly scanned the system text, his apathetic expression vanishing as he realized what the anomaly truly was. Whatever was lurking at the heart of this gate was a much bigger threat than he had originally calculated.

"Haha, guys... we might be completely fucked," he told everyone standing behind him over his shoulder.