The sudden, ghastly turn on the stage seemed to snuff out every trace of the concert's previous atmosphere in an instant.
Yet that silence existed only from Lanqi and Hyperion's perspective.
Before long, many of the demon students in the audience burst into even more ecstatic cheers, as if slaughter laced with such dramatic tension was the only thing that could truly captivate them.
Springing into action, the familiars efficiently cleared the stage. In a mere ten seconds, the platform was restored to its pristine cleanliness and order.
Meanwhile, the presiding teacher stood on stage as though nothing had happened at all. Keeping an elegant smile, he began inviting the next student up to perform in an orderly fashion!
A spectacle blending gory slaughter and utter absurdity was, shockingly, an entertaining performance beloved by the demon race.
Even Hyperion, who carried half demon blood, found the Demon Realm of this era far too preposterous to stomach.
"So this is what demon music is really like...?" Lanqi murmured.
His gaze was locked solely on the four mentors, carrying the distinct earnestness of a student paying close attention in class.
On the far left, seated in a chair, was a suit of pitch-black armor enveloped in a layer of soulfire as thin as cicada wings, appearing like an animated will-o'-the-wisp.
Beside it, the music mentor was a phantom whose semi-incorporeal eyes were shut tight, looking steeped in an eternal slumber.
The third figure was covered in toxic ritual patterns, resembling a mysterious, hazardous taboo experiment.
The last appeared carved from snow-capped peaks. His skin was pale as fallen snow, fluffy fur draped over his body as he exuded a frosty mist.
Lanqi recalled the handbook mentioning that these four music mentors were named Ghost Armor, Slumbering Phantom, Mutated Venom Body, and Snow Demon.
None of them excelled in combat, and their tiers were not particularly high, but they enjoyed immense renown in the Demon Realm's music scene. Consequently, they had been invited as guest music mentors of Demon Academy to judge this graduation assessment.
If the exam guide spoke the truth—stating that "each guest music mentor will, within their respective domain of expertise, strictly and impartially judge the performance"—then each mentor would grant approval only if a specific, clear condition was satisfied.
...
For the next fifty minutes, Lanqi and Hyperion sat in the audience, watching more than a dozen performances until they finally pieced together what these four conditions were.
Ghost Armor cared only about the atmosphere of the venue. Whether the demon students' emotions and shouts were intense enough served as his sole criterion.
If the music was so raucously intoxicating that it lulled Slumbering Phantom to sleep, that counted as his approval.
Mutated Venom Body demanded ghost-wailing, god-sobbing cacophonies capable of inflicting mental attacks.
And Snow Demon required excessively flamboyant visual effects on stage.
Those were the absurd conclusions Lanqi and Hyperion arrived at after repeated verification.
Compared to human understanding, music in the Demon Realm was truly extraordinary.
Individually, none of the four criteria sounded entirely unmanageable.
However, if a performance met any two of them simultaneously, the resulting sound became a living hell that human ears could hardly endure.
Among the acts Lanqi and Hyperion had witnessed so far, there had even been a performance that won the approval of three mentors!
And that performance was so mind-shattering that its shockwaves reached even the viewers watching the live broadcast back in the mortal realm.
...
"Aargh! Ow! What kind of music is this?!"
At Ikerite Academy, the students gathered before the giant outdoor screen couldn't help clutching their ears.
Many scrunched their faces in agony, tears leaking from the corners of their eyes. Even the violent clenching of their facial muscles could not stop them from turning deathly pale.
Their heads felt as if struck by sledgehammers, a numbing, electric shock radiating from their foreheads to the backs of their skulls.
The sound felt sharp enough to punch a gaping hole in the air.
Ever since Lanqi and Hyperion had entered this music classroom, the students on Jera Memorial Square had spent dozens of minutes being battered alongside them before the screen!
"The failing candidates were actually tolerable!"
"Every single 'passing performance' that satisfied two music mentors was a lethal mental magic assault!"
"That guy who just won over three demon mentors almost wiped me out straight through the screen!!"
Having that demonic noise crash over one's eardrums like raging waves was akin to being held by the nose and force-fed a thousandfold concentrate of pickle juice infused with Carolina Reapers.
"Please, no more three-mentor performances. I can't take this kind of avant-garde art!"
"Could... could someone actually get approval from all four mentors at once?" a student asked with deep anxiety.
He recalled that the handbook Lanqi and Hyperion had skimmed earlier made no mention of any reward for receiving four approvals.
"Impossible. The conditions of those four mentors partially conflict with one another. Three is the absolute limit; there's no way to please all four at the same time."
"If a full-approval performance really happened, never mind the demons in the classroom—several of us out here would probably keel over dead."
At this point in their discussion, the students of Ikerite Academy finally understood why this music classroom was ranked Difficulty 2.
To meet the criteria of at least two mentors and claim the reward of two credit coins, a challenger had to unleash exceedingly vicious spells—rhythm magic, mental magic, illusions, and anything else that could blend with musical performance!
And if someone possessed an absurd repertoire of spells and elite musicianship capable of satisfying three music mentors at once, they would not only earn three credit coins, but also receive a bonus magic engineering musical instrument that could amplify the demonic rhythm magic of the demon race.
What made the classroom truly diabolical, however, was this:
The earlier you performed, the less reference information and preparation time you had.
Yet the later you performed, the more your mental state would be pulverized by the psychological onslaught of all that demonic music!
Inside this grand theater, the vicious demon students would perform with even greater frenzy the moment they noticed peers in the audience succumbing to their music, eager to torment the weak.
It was a triple trial of judgment, spell reserves, and endurance.
On the screen's broadcast, Hyperion had her head buried in her hands, clutching her ears and stamping her feet as if on the verge of a breakdown.
Compared to the viewers watching the live stream, she was experiencing the full, immersive baptism of demonic sound right there in the concert hall!
Meanwhile, Bachel had already foamed at the mouth and passed out.
And yet...
The heavyweight contestant beside them—
Lanqi's eyes were brimming with genuine excitement. From time to time, he even clapped and cheered for his performing demon classmates. He seemed completely, utterly at home in this class!
Chapter 56