"What is the reason for you to go to the Dragon town?"
Jim and his little crew stood in front of a massive gate guarding a long road that showed no end.
"We are fresh disciples of the academy. I'm Jim, a privileged inner disciple of the academy and I want to go there to get my own things."
The slender guard with a monkey head glanced at him for a period. "Are you telling me a human and a Bulltor are now disciples of the academy? And you are a privilege disciple… A privileged inner disciple?"
Jim didn't faze against this monkey with long body mocking words as he simply nodded. "You can go back and check as much as you want," he said.
"No need to," the guard sneered, "the journey to the town isn't a walk in the bush. Go, go and meet your creator, foolish human."
The guard moved to the side while his friends gave Jim and his team a mocking glance as well. Jim moved towards the gate, exiting the academy territory and started hitting the road with his team.
"Are we going to be alright?" Ashley asked with concern.
"Don't worry," Jim smiled, "we still have two fire and three thunder ores from Siera."
She didn't speak yet she was very anxious about this journey. Lan also was scared, while others weren't that much annoyed by the threat awaiting them.
"What do you know about those thieves?"
As they walked for ten minutes, Jim found the silence eire, so he tried to know his enemies better and make everyone realize they weren't that vulnerable or weak.
"They are known as some rogue races and some also claim they have some disciples from the academy," Rick said.
"Disciple?" Jim muttered, "how can disciples participate in such hideous acts?"
"Those are outer disciples," Roo answered, "Some are poor to depend on the monthly allowance, and many see themselves strong and worthy to have more, even if they are about to steal from inner disciples."
"But the core disciples can't be attacked," Orand, one of the three shapeshifters, said.
"Why?" Jenny asked.
"They are afraid of power disparity," Kro answered, "after all they tend to overcome inner disciples by numbers, and a variety of some doomed races just like Deno here."
Everyone glanced at Deno while Jim said:
"So basically we have no clue about who is going to attack us, right?"
"They usually attack in a group of a hundred if they see a small number like us," Lenor, one of the three shapeshifters, said.
"A hundred," Jim muttered, "not bad. Tell me, do they carry their valuables with them?"
"They have rings," Rick said.
"I love rings," Jim laughed, "alright, here is the deal. We will first fake fear and drag the attacking team as far as possible."
"May I ask why?" Randy, one of the three shapeshifters, asked.
"As I understood there isn't just one group out there, right?" Jim said.
"You want to make best use of one group to run away? Nice tactic," Rick nodded.
"Alright, let's discuss our attack strategies," Jim said before explaining his own vision of how his small team of thirteen member to work efficiently together.
In all the tactics he provided and everyone discussed, he, Lan, and Jenny were the main three attackers here. Despite this wasn't what anyone of their enemies might expect, but to the other members of their team this was simply the best strategy ever.
They all knew how deadly Jim could be when using his unique power of his.
They walked for one hour before they finally met a team of thieves.
"As you said," Jim muttered, "they come in a group of hundred and include many races."
He saw a group of hundred moving from one side, trying to run fast and block their path. The team contained many races, even races with giant bodies were there.
"Let's run as we agreed," Jim said and the next moment his small group got divided up into two more groups, all running into two different directions with different speed.
One group contained only him, Lan, and Jenny while the other group contained everyone else.
And the bigger group ran faster and slightly closer to the assaulting group, while Jim's little group of three ran slower and went slightly to the other side of the assaulting group.
For anyone seeing this, they might mistake Jim's team as useless team members running away with their lives the moment they spotted danger. The two teams ran forward, while the thieves tried to match the bigger group's speed, promising themselves with a rich hunt.
The three teams ran with different speed, while they all headed towards the same direction. According to what Jim learnt from Rick and others, the Sherwid town was only two to three hours far from the academy.
They took roughly two hours walk, and so they were extremely close to the town right now.
"I hope we can reach the town without fighting them," Lan suddenly said while panting from running continuously for ten minutes.
"Don't say that," Jim laughed, "we need them to provide us with many riches that we currently lack."