• New Difficulty Mode

Valvay frowned. She knew her grade wasn't high, but she'd never encountered this type of restriction before.

Normally, Channel Masters had enough privileges to investigate the stats of any human in the trial, but Ji-Hoon seemed to be the exception. She tried again, but the same message appeared.

[Insufficient Grade to Access This Information.]

"Seriously?" she muttered under her breath. "This is ridiculous."Her administrator privileges should've given her at least some insight into Ji-Hoon's stats and why he was so strong, but unfortunately, she hit a wall.

"I'll just have to dig through the trial logs for clues about his abilities."

[Warning: Repeated Attempts to Access Restricted Information Will Result in Privilege Revocation.]

Valvay's heart raced. She now realised she was treading on thin ice, and if she wasn't careful, she'd lose her access to critical tools and features or worse - Her life itself.

"Tck, I can't afford to be reckless anymore." She uttered with a sigh. "But, I can't stand being in the dark about Ji-Hoon's stats."

She tried one more time, hoping to get at least a small piece of information. This time, the message carried an even stricter warning.

[Final Warning: Further Attempts to Access Restricted Information Will Result in Privilege Revocation.]

Valvay sighed in frustration, "In all my time working as a channel master, I've never seen a message like this."

She couldn't risk losing her administrator privileges. "I'll have to find another way to understand Ji-Hoon's power. But I can't allow myself to slip up again."

If Ji-Hoon's strength wasn't due to cheating, then there had to be another reason. She needed to find out what it was before the trial masters noticed her repeated attempts to break the rules. If she wasn't careful, it wouldn't be Ji-Hoon who got punished—it would be her.

"Should I just contact the administrator, I'm sure I cab get some answers.

I'm certain this must be a glitch since the only system window Channel Masters are forbidden from opening usually belonged to higher being.

Valvay rubbed her temples, trying to think clearly. Things were getting out of hand, and she needed to act quickly.

If she couldn't access Ji-Hoon's stats, there was a high chance she wasn't the only Channel Master facing this kind of problem. The safest course of action would be to increase the trial's grade, even if it was just by one level.

"Okay, let's crank this up," she said to herself, opening the trial management console. The system window revealed a set of controls for made for tweeting several settings of the trial.

She hesitated to switch the settings Fearing that changing the grade from F to E might draw mote attention from th me trial masters.

"As long as it would give me some breathing room, I'm willing to take the risk."

Raising the grade from F to E might draw more attention from the Trial Masters, but it would also give her some breathing room to maintain control.

Valvay clicked the upgrade button.

[Trial Difficulty Changed from F to E]

F Grade trials were the simplest with E Grades being significantly harder.

"I just hope that this would be enough to keep the trial from completely spiraling out of control. I best speak with my administor in person." She couldn't risk sending more messages over the secure channel.

The system's warnings were clear—one more step out of line, and she'd be out of a job. If she was going to get more information, she'd need to do it in person.

Valvay had a mischievous look on her face as an idea crossed her mind, "I'll put a traget on Ji-Hoon's back, that way he'll draw more agro from the E rank monsters."

Meanwhile, the students all received the same system notification.

[Trial Difficulty Changed from F to E]

The sudden message caused an uproar.

"I know the trial master said that things will be different. But this is just telling us to die, we don't have any weapon or classes."

"How are we supposed to handle stronger monsters?"

"This is crazy. We were barely getting by with F class monsters. Now they want us to face E class? That doesn't even make sense."

"Did you see that guy Ji-Hoon? He's like a machine! If that's the kind of strength we need, we're all dead!"

It was true that the only reason the trial difficulty was raised was because of Ji-Hoon.

A few students who were trying to stay calm shared nervous glances. "Maybe there's a mistake," one of them suggested.

"Yeah, maybe they didn't mean to increase the grade. It could be a glitch or something."

"Have you ever heard of the system having a glitch, face it, we're doomed."

"If they're sending us E class monsters, we need to find a way to protect ourselves. I don't even have a stick to defend myself with!"

The chatter grew louder, as some of the Students started to panic. However, the players who had gotten used to the chaos understood that this much was expected given Ji-Hoon's strength.

The entire reaction if the students was streamed by Valvay as she wore a look of satisfaction on her face. She faced one of the cameras to address the constellations.

"There you have it folks, I adjusted the difficulty to make things a bit more interesting. Now I'll be leaving for a while to attend to an important task."

She blew air kisses to the audience as the ray of blue light struck her from the ceiling.

"Enjoy the show now, bye bye... For now!"

Ji-Hoon like the other students received the same notification. He looked over the sudden increase in the trial's difficulty.

He knew exactly why it had happened, "It seems this is the result of my little display from eariler."

However, Ji-Hoon wasn't bothered much by the sudden change of events. He was annoyed, but he wasn't surprised by it at all.

"This always happens," he muttered to himself. In the original timeline, sudden changes to the trial stages weren't uncommon, especially when constellations wanted to spice things up.

'Manus Divinitatis.'

A power they could use to force changes or even invade a trial, just for their own amusement.

Ji-Hoon shook his head, brushing off the thoughts of the past. This wasn't a coincidence. The Channel Master raised the difficulty because of his strength. He smiled knowing that.

"This won't slow me down."