Chapter 282: Headmaster of Demon Hunters Academy

His hand-eye coordination had reached another level as well.

Catching, striking, throwing, and manipulating objects required significantly less conscious attention. His eyes could track moving targets while his body adjusted its movements automatically, allowing him to maintain awareness of his surroundings without sacrificing physical control.

Most importantly, Peak Reflex had reduced the delay between perception and action to an extraordinary degree.

He could see something, understand what was happening, and begin responding almost as one continuous process.

For an ordinary person, these were separate actions.

For Max, they had become nearly seamless.

He had reached a state that he was almost superhuman—not those what those fantasy superheroes.

Max was now eager to test the peak Reflex level effects inside the game.

He then took a shower, rest his body for a while, and finally dove into the gaming pod.

The moment he entered, he immediately visited the Demon Hunters Academy.

The Demon Hunters Academy were packed with students who wanted to become a demon hunter.

Their age vary, with some going as far as eighty years old, while some were as young as 15 years old.

Even 12 years old were accepted.

The Demon Hunters Academy’s Maximum Residency for students could go as far as four years, depending on their performance.

Meanwhile, most talented demon hunters, assigning to expeditionary corps or other divisions, graduated in a year.

Comparing to those who graduated in three months, prior to the war, the development was far different.

The three months graduation was just the desperate attempt to forcibly dump all the information and experience to the demon hunters in preparation for war.

Now that there were no wars, Max did not want the aspiring demon hunters’ progress to be hastened.

It was why the four years Maximum Residency was introduced and those who completed the course could graduate no matter how early they were.

Max’s visit to the Demon Hunters Academy was simple.

He wanted to test his combat capability in the adaptive combat courtyard of the Demon Hunters Academy.

The adaptive combat courtyard of the Demon Hunters Academy had been constantly being updated through the information that the Artificer District received from the demon hunters who participated in the war.

The facility employed illusion magic, runic projection, mana sensing, environmental simulation, and recorded demon combat data to reproduce realistic demon encounters without requiring actual demons.

The facility created an immersive simulated battlefield around the trainees.

Instead of simply fighting stationary magical targets, students could fight simulated demons capable of responding to their actions.

The underlying concept was similar to modern networked military simulation systems, where multiple participants could operate within the same simulated battlespace and instructors could modify scenarios while training is underway.

The Courtyard has several Simulation Modes.

The Demon Combat Mode, which involved individual or small group that fought against simulated demons.

Participants, whether students or graduates, as long as they remained to be demon hunters, could gradually increase the difficulty as they improve.

The Battlefield Mode, which simulated large-scale demon battles.

This mode allows groups of Demon Hunters to practice coordinated combat.

The Demon Nest Mode, which simulated an entire demon nest operation.

The objective does not necessarily have to be killing every demon. Students could be given different mission objectives.

Calling it to be Demon Nest was actually quite understatement, as the objectives offered from the mode basically involved invading the demons’ towns and cities.

There was also the Command Mode, designed for squad leaders and commanders.

The basic prerequisite was that they followed the Tactician’s path.

Of course, there were some exceptions, like the Warlord A-class path progression.

Even then, the Tactician path remained to be most popular.

Then there was the Survival Mode, designed to push participants to their absolute limits against progressively stronger demon forces.

The simulation only ground to a halt under specific conditions: the participant’s death, total team elimination, objective completion, voluntary withdrawal, or simply running out the maximum clock.

Naturally, this mode was particularly useful for testing endurance and emergency decision-making under extreme pressure.

Max has always been training in the adaptive combat courtyard, but always chose the Survival Mode.

He had been training in the Survival Mode when it was introduced.

In just one attempt, he cleared the Survival Mode, completing it without dying.

As if the Survival Mode could not force him to die.

Even when he does it solo and simply just utilized his arcane caster’s skills, the Survival Mode could barely become survival for Max.

Max currently held the highest record, for completing the Survival Mode with lesser time compared to other A-rankers.

The other A-rankers who participated were Lancelot, Angelo, Gareth, Rose, and other A-rankers who began joining the Demon Hunters Guild.

At the moment, there were now 15 A-rankers, while only one S-ranker—the former Emperor.

The former Emperor currently held the position of the Demon Hunters Academy’s headmaster.

He currently supervised the progression of the Demon Hunters Academy.

When Max arrived, the former Emperor was at the adaptive combat courtyard, surprising him.

Although he had informed the former Emperor in advance, he did not expect for the former Emperor to welcome him.

"I’m not here to welcome you. I’m currently about to use the Command Mode."

Max’s eyes widened.

He was pleasantly surprised.

The current first rank in the Command Mode was Max.

Despite not being a tactician, his command capability was comparable to theirs.

Even a Warlord could not surpass Max.

Now, the former Emperor suddenly became competitive and challenged the Command mode.

Max perceive the fighting spirit of the former Emperor.

He thought to himself. How childish.

"It seems that my current rank is about to be replaced." Max smiled.

The former Emperor rolled his eyes. "I know what you’re thinking. I’m not being childish. What I meant by challenging the Command mode was to challenge the new updated version of the Command mode."

"There’s new update?"

The former Emperor nodded. "After Gustave joined the Demon Hunters Guild, he was deeply interested about the adaptive combat courtyard.

He had been in contact with me since he joined, wanting to focus on the adaptive combat courtyard by Louie."