2027 Tenacity

Perseverance Mountain.

Once a bustling arena of hopeful acolytes eager to prove themselves, now stood relatively quiet. The staff members tasked with overseeing the gates found themselves with significantly less to do. Over the past three weeks, the number of participants in the inner hall test had dwindled drastically, from thousands to mere hundreds, and now only dozens dared to test their strenght.

One of the staff members responsible for overseeing the gates couldn't hide his sigh.

"I hope I don't get stuck with this posting next year," he muttered to his colleague. For him, witnessing the crushing disappointment of countless youngsters giving up on their dreams was the most challenging aspect of the job.