I didn't expect this, the director is really trying hard to make the audition difficult. I don't understand why she is so focused on fixing students' mental stress, maybe she thinks a leader or members of an elite unit should focus on very high mental toughness, or maybe it's simply her preference of Like torturing students, no one can deny that she loves to deceive students and keep their schemes hidden until they've done the most damage.
But now that I feel like I'm on my day again, if it weren't for the fatigue I feel and my own biological clock, I'd think we're still on my day. The matrix is not only simulating sunlight, but I feel the same temperature and humidity as I felt several hours ago when it was daylight.
I wonder if we go back will it be night again or will the weather change again?
"Any comments or ideas, guys?"
An uncomfortable silence remained in the air until I looked at my teammates just to avoid my gaze, it seems neither one of them has any idea what to do here, but it didn't take long for Vanessa to start complaining, but despite her annoying tone she still asked a good question.
"Will the environment change if we go to another rune matrix, is this a new labyrinth feature or have they just made themed arias now?"
"This is a problem that's also worrying me, not that we can't sleep here, the light doesn't bother us that much since we have the cover of some trees. I'm afraid we have to face a very hot or cold aria; they can even make a matrix simulate a storm which is not at all pleasant to face. I don't like to think that we will have to face extreme weather during the test."
"But first of all, we must prioritize our resistance, I believe we can all still explore the matrix a few more times before getting really tired, but I think we'd better rest here after we do the reconnaissance of this rune matrix. Only after discovering the nature of the matrix test can, we find out if it is safe to rest here for a long time."
As we approached the center of the matrix a message in the form of an origami fell on me.
'Find the four rocks buried here, not the time limit. Beware of hidden dangers.'
Simple, it looks like this matrix is one with no timeout which is a good thing for us, but these hidden dangers can be a big problem, if it's a danger we can just kill it and it's over then that's fine, but if it's a danger hidden that will attack us all the time would be very irritating and would make this matrix unfeasible to rest.
"Hey! Looks like we have to find some rocks that are probably buried, I'm going to take Amael with me and look for the rocks, you're going to split into pairs and clear the perimeter of this matrix. In the message it said that there is a danger hidden in this matrix so be careful, I hope this danger is an animal or magical beast, but it could be a poisonous plant or something like that, be careful and try not to touch anything suspicious."
I get confirmation from my team members and they start looking for the hidden danger, but I remember one very important thing I have to talk about.
"Nathan and Mauro! I don't want to see this forest on fire! Keep your forest burning mania under control, I don't want to be penalized again for you all setting fire to the entire forest."
After remembering the two idiots, I suck my way with Amael. These special rocks must be buried, it wouldn't be a big challenge if they were just in my grass mine waiting to be collected.
I start to walk calmly and use my eyes to look for any different glows on the floor, to my surprise the floor was quite devoid of color, the mana and elemental energy that flowed chaotically on the floor was very weak and slow. It's like this soil is poor, maybe it's an effect of the rune matrices, they need to get their mana and elemental energy from somewhere, even if they're created with elemental materials and the examiners feed the matrices with materials and maybe even the mana and their elemental energy, but it is still plausible that they make the rune matrices drain the energy from the abitem.
But doing something like this in a maze of matrices like this, where energy consumption is high and can increase even more because of the students' actions, is not the wisest decision. When you think that the forest belongs to the institute and during this test the forest is being drained for a long time, and cheaper for the institute to feed the matrix with fuel than to revitalize the forest after it is drained during this test, it is always cheaper easier to destroy natural resources than to restore them.
But none of this is anything that concerns me, but thanks to the lesser amount of energy on earth I can easily see two bright spots near me. I take Amael to one of the spots and ask him to start digging, Amael starts digging with his earth element magic, but as I warned him before the rock was small so the hole, he's making is very modest.
It didn't take long for the special stone to be pulled out of the earth, it was much more a piece of metal than a stone, but lucky for me at the time I sinned it neither a trap nor an advent was triggered. It was very simple and without danger, during the next hour I recovered the stones only leaving one still on the ground untouched by nickel.
It's always good to be careful because depending on the matrix an enemy can be expected until all the stones are recovered to attack, so it's better to leave it lying there on the ground and easy to pick it up to open the portal out, but it's better check if the danger the cult of this map has already been resolved so we can camp peacefully here.
"This test was easier than I thought it would be, Ulric."
"He's not finished yet Amael, not until we're sure the hidden danger has been destroyed by the others. We'd better go find them; I hope they haven't run into even a complicated problem."
When we met the others, I didn't know whether to be happy as they all look good or I should be annoyed that they didn't seem to solve our problem. It seems that this hidden danger is very good at hiding, just as he must also be very patient, since we've been here a long time.
This is the worst kind of enemy for our current situation, an enemy that has patience.
"Did you find anything interesting? Did they kill something?"
"Nothing! We searched the entire array, from one edge of it to the other, but found nothing that stood out or was an enemy. Are you sure you have an enemy here? Maybe it's just a lie the examiners made to force us to keep moving."
Hilda has not been able to find our enemy and this is problematic.
"Examiners have never put false information in messages before. At least I never got a lie from them, so there must be an enemy here and now we know he's not a normal enemy, if he's not on the ground he must be in the air or underground."
"While I'm Amael we're digging the rocks we haven't even come across an enemy, so he must be in the sky or he's an invisible enemy that will easily kill one of us during his ambush. Do you want to risk setting up camp here or do you want to leave? I have no idea what the best option is so let's take a vote."
A heated discussion started and I was silent just listening to the fight, my focus was not on the discussion but on the environment around us. I didn't even see a different aura underground, but that doesn't mean the hidden danger can't approach us through a tunnel.
I studied our entire environment hoping to discover some error in the environment, something unnatural or common. But apart from the fact that the mana and elemental energy of the air are also in smaller amounts than in the previous matrices I didn't find anything different.
At the end of the discussion most of the group thought it would be good to leave, the hidden danger can be quite dangerous for us, as we can't even identify it yet.
"Let's take the stone I left behind and get out of here."
But when I got to the stone, I sinned the last stone and that was my biggest mistake within this matrix. Nothing happened the moment I followed the rock as far as I could see and that was the reason I got caught in the trap of this matrix.
The rock in my hand started to release elemental energy and the energy of the wind element cut my hand as several blades were released from the rock. When she falls to the ground Amael kicked her away and threw the stone he was guarding to the other side.
I open my backpack only to see the two rocks that had squared inside it light up one blue and one red. I finally realized what was happening and decided not to let it keep happening.
I poured my aura on the two stones and tied them inside the pot tight. I spun the bag in the air and flung it away, compared to the other rocks the backpack went much further.
The rock Amael had kicked was floating in the air a few feet away, an energy body was forming around the rock, the second rock Amael had thrown was turning into an earth golem.
Seems like that's the hidden danger, the rocks sucked energy from the environment as they waited to gather and transform into elemental golems that we'll probably have to kill. They don't look weak, with a lot of elemental energy and mana forming their bodies, they should be considered golems with the maximum power a level two golem can have before rising in rank, adding to the elemental body that is tricky to destroy.
"Watch out for their bodies! The hidden danger is no longer hidden, don't forget there must be two more enemies to appear yet!"
When I finished screaming a huge explosion happened far away from us, but it was still enough to make the earth beneath us shake, a dirty wind came towards us and the sound was big enough for my ears to ache.
It seems that the water and fire golems don't get along very well, it seems that it worked for me to tie one stone to the other before their elemental energy came out.
A mist began to spread through the rune matrix.