Once inside of the dungeon, I immediately noticed that all of the pits that were dug out for the previous tests had vanished. The only thing left in the giant clearing was a lone flag pole with a giant yellow flag waving softly in the wind.
The flag pole stood tall at around 60 ft. My only guess was that Pain had left it there for me in the case that I had gotten lost.
I began to take stock of my surroundings and, for the first time allowed myself to take in the beautiful forest that surrounded me. The large red wood trees seemed to stretch upward for miles as the branches danced in the breeze. I brushed the grass with my hand and felt the soil from another world, I could barely believe that a place this calm was also where I had witnessed so much death.
Pain had only given me five hours and the clock was ticking. I listened for any noises that would suggest a beast being nearby but I heard nothing. I decided that instead of wandering around aimlessly in a new environment, I would set a trap to lure the beasts.
I examined the trees nearby and found one with relatively low branches, I quickly carved out notches to place my hands and feet for climbing. It really was a simple little trap after all, the last thing I required was a test subject.
"HELP ME, AHH MONSTERS ARE ATTACKING PLEASE HELP ME!" I pretended to yell in panic hoping that a beast would hear me and fall for my cries.
Acting fast I activated my mist blanket and climbed up my tree, staff in hand and anticipating my first visitor. After only a few seconds of waiting, I heard a low growl from just outside of the clearing. From my position I could see a beast walking towards my mist.
The beast was smaller than the ones that I had faced in the academy tests, standing at around five foot six. There was nothing special about it as beasts in low level dungeons looked like humans with long snouts, bat like ears and scales. They also had long fingers with razor sharp nails for shredding flesh, a thick tail, and unusually large feet.
Most beasts in low level dungeons shared a similar appearance, but the beasts of higher level dungeons became more unpredictable. One could find anything from giant spiders nests to demon essence dragons.
Luckily with my newly acquired combat training and physical prowess, I felt more than confident taking on these simple creatures. I remembered how scared I was the first time I was faced alone with a beast, how useless I felt.
"NOT ANYMORE!" I yelled, as the beast entered my mist. I dove from my perch on the branch and gripped my staff firmly, preparing to attack. The beast looked up but could not see through the thickness of my blanket of mist.
'THWACK'
My staff struck the beast right between the eyes, the beast fell over, a large bruise starting to form on its face. I knew that this attack would not be enough, and as I landed on the ground I rolled to the side preparing another attack. The beast stood up in a rage, looking around in confusion since it was all but blinded at the moment.
I knew that my mist would start to dissipate soon and I had to finish the fight before then. Before, I had a the advantage of a sword, but now with a blunt weapon I needed all of the advantage that I could get.
The beast started to slash its claws in different directions, hoping to find it's attacker. I easily dodged the attacks and jabbed my staff forward with all of my strength, jamming it into the beast's left eye socket.
It fell to the ground again, screeching in pain. I did not hesitate for a moment, my training had instilled battle instincts inside of me, my body screamed that it was time for the final blow. I leaped into the air and landed on the stomach of the beast, making it gasp for. At the same time I pulled the staff free from the eye socket, stepped on the beast's face forcing it to look to the side, and plunged my staff into it's ear.
The staff went right through the ear, into the brain and out the other ear, killing the beast instantly. I had won.
I breathed a hard sigh of relief as the mist blanket had started to disappear. There was a huge difference between fighting with the school's instructors watching and fighting alone. There was no pressure to perform here, no eyes searching me for potential, I could let go.
As much as I was proud of my victory, there was still much to do and a clock that was ticking. I quickly gathered some firewood and set it ablaze. I now needed to extract the core from the corpse of the beast, I needed something sharp. At that moment, I wanted to kick myself, I wasted so much time on that last fight when there was a simpler solution.
I broke my staff over my knee, splitting it straight down the middle and forming a spike on both ends. Now I had two weapons and a tool to extract beast cores. I proceeded to stab the beast in the chest, where the human sternum would be. Once a decently sized whole was made, I used my fingers to dig my way into the body until I felt the cool glassy touch of a core. I made a fist around the core and yanked at it with force, my hand exited the corpse covered in green blood.
This was it, the first step to my rise in power, my first real testament to the world that I was capable of overcoming the weakness that fate had dealt me.
I stuffed the core into a small pouch that Pain had given me to carry them in. One down, forty-nine to go.