Coming out of the burning forest, we enter a small swamp, and I don't intend to dive into the mud again. I expect more creativity from examiners, repeating the same matrix so quickly isn't funny.
Looking at my new teammates I finally get a chance to judge the quality of their equipment, before my smoke mine it was kind of hard to study their equipment, but now that I can see they're wearing decent armor and weapons, they're slightly inferior to my gear being taken care of by the three stooges outside.
"Well, how are you feeling when you're finally breathing some fresh air, you'll already regret joining my team."
But before any of the three can speak, a flash catches the attention of all four. An origami in the shape of a dragon unfolds in my hand.
'Congratulations on fooling a few more idiots with your lies, but remember you only have six spots left on your team and I doubt your luck will continue. With the addition of the two arsonists to your team, you are now responsible for the damage they will do to the previous rune matrix.'
'You really like them, they will set fire to the forest when the matrix only had a simple requirement, they just had to find and capture the golem shaped like a golden monkey, but now the monkey has been roasted. Your punishment will eat now, try to survive with a useless sword."
The paper in my hand ignites the same way as the previous ones, I didn't really like the message written on the paper. This punishment will not be legit or easy, on paper nor did it have instructions on how to get out of the rune matrix.
I start looking around the swamp to see if I can find any clues as to how to get out of the matrix or any enemies lurking in that shallow swamp, but I haven't found anything, but I have a very risky idea. But in my current situation it doesn't make a difference to further irritate the examiners, I'm already being punished now and if I survive the test without even a major injury, they will be irritated with me anyway, so I better avoid my current problems.
"Follow me, and don't interrupt me by asking silly questions, and also protect me if we're attacked. I'm going to get us out of this trap matrix."
Hey I started to lead the way, but I didn't go deeper into the swamp but walked along the side of the matrix, I was studying the patterns at the edge of the matrix when I was walking through. I was surprised by what I ended up learning, I thought the rune arrays were round, but it looks like they have the most oval shape, I have no idea why they will choose this shape.
But I didn't even have a problem analyzing the runes in the rune matrix, they are quite complicated and beyond my reach, but I'm not here to study the matrix or break it, I just want to find the door and try to make it open without have to comply with the conditions of this matrix. I doubt this is an easy job, but nothing prevents me from using force to screw up the matrix door, it's not like I have to keep a secret.
After twenty minutes trying to get my attention the two hotheaded idiots have given up and will look at Amael who is a silent or very focused guy he hasn't said anything since we entered this matrix, I doubt he's not curious about what I am doing, but I couldn't see even a hint of nervousness in him.
I can pay so much attention to my team members because I've studied all the runes on the rune matrix surface, now I just have to wait to find one of the matrix entries to try to find a way to open it.
It didn't take long to find one of the doors of the matrix and when I found it, I only spent a few more minutes to read the flows of energies and runes used in the passage of the rune matrix.
"Okay, I'm ready to open the door, but you have to protect me while I open the matrix, I doubt the examiners will try to stop me and when I open the portal and give the signal that it's stable, everyone stops. inside the portal it won't stay open much longer, if one of you stays behind, I won't come back for it."
I think Nathan doesn't like my comment very much, but I don't really care about it. So, I turned my attention to the matrix wall.
I injected my aura into my fingers and engraved them into the matrix, right at the center point of the portal, used my aura to forcefully activate the matrix runes without caring a bit about the damage I was doing, it makes no sense to do that in a quiet way and without disturbing the matrix. I'm probably traveling all the time, so it makes no difference which method I use today, and quite different from how I disarmed the rune matrix alarms in the temple of the church of life.
There I had to worry about alarming the entire temple alarm system and the matrix was not being watched or in its best state, so it was much easier to disarm them, if I tried to do the same thing here now, I would fail, the examiners would fix the matrix after every damage I did to it, so it would be useless for me to try to disarm the matrix in this way.
When I opened a crack in the portal, the matrix began to behave differently, as the sunlight began to fade and thunders will gather in the sky of the rune matrix and from the center of the rune matrix a monstrous roar disturbed the silence that is reigning in the swamp. And with that I found out what the group's punishment was, they will send us to a matrix with a swamp beast and by the roar that was only the first of many the beast is quite big.
But it's a shame we're not sticking around to figure out the size of the beast or if the examiners are crazy enough to throw those rays at us, because I just managed to force my way out. I hold out my hands and with them the crack in the matrix enlarges, it is now half the size the portal is usually, but it's more than enough for one person to get through at a time.
"What are they waiting for! One at a time, but if one of you wants to stay and say hello to the swamp beast, I won't stop."
I didn't need to call a second time, Amael was already passing through the portal I was holding, when the next person started to go through the portal, I saw some trees flying in the air.
That's a bad sign. I think the rays that spread across the sky weren't meant to hit us but to hit and wake up the swamp beast that's coming our way like a steamroller, more than one tree being thrown up into the air. I don't know what kind of beast this is, but I'm sure he hates being hit by lightning is the amount of mana and elemental energy in his body is huge, this must be a beast at the height of the power of a level two beast, see the swamp is really her turf not even an ordinary tier three monster will be able to defeat her here.
It's too bad for the examiners that all my teammates have gone through the crack and now it's my turn. When my body passed through the crack I looked back and I could see a big body and some tentacles destroying the forest, the headmistress actually spent more money than she should on acquiring monsters and magical animals, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I you would find it hard to believe that she actually paid adventurers to capture this kind of monstrous magical beast just to throw students at her as punishment.
When the crack in the matrix closed, I realized that the magical beast wouldn't give up on attacking us. As it was still close to the matrix barrier, we could feel and hear the monster pack on the rune matrix wall, I hope they reinforced the matrices because I don't want to see the same kind of failure that happened in the first part of the deadly test.
I don't want to see the magical beast destroy the matrix and continue to chase us on this side or out of the maze.
"Everyone, I think we dodged a troublesome enemy."
Another huge bang happened behind me, I was almost able to feel the matrix cracking, looking back I see the matrix is shaking like a tree in mine from a storm.
"I think it's better for us to stay away from this wall, maybe even get out on the other side of the matrix."
"I agree with you, Ulric. But because the director placed a beast of the king type inside this matrix."
"King?"
"When a magical beast has a large body and control over a biome it gets the designation of king, and it is very difficult to kill one of them within its territory, usually adventurers specialized in hunting this type of monster have to destroy or change the biome to be able to hunt the beast or monster of the king category."
"I didn't know that before, Amael. I ended up spending most of my research on monsters that I could face in dungeons and didn't research too much magic beasts outside our region, to some king category magic beast near the city?"
"No, the closest one must be far away from here or was it before the headmistress brought this swamp beast here, I wonder what the headmistress is going to do with this beast after the audition is over. I don't think she can drop the beast into the emerald forest."
"She'll probably have some group of students kill the beast as a sort of test if she doesn't die during this test, but we'd better get out of here now or maybe over to fight the swamp beast."
And then we run to the center of this rune matrix.