Sohan had finally recovered from the trauma of being asphyxiated, he became almost excessively on edge the others saw it as a pitiful sight feeling sympathy for him while Connor thought it was an experience that would help him improve. The group was nearing the topping the hill and with the help of Connors observation skills and Rando's superpower, they powered through pretty easily.
They had some free time and Connor after having killed the most wanted to take a short break the others allowed him to do so.
"Ughhh this was shitty, I need to wipe off the blood on me soon it is seriously gross."
Connor chose to contemplate the decision of killing an animal, later he was only 14 like this is seriously messed up no matter how bad the state of humanity has been in, for the last 300 or so years teens shouldn't have to experience killing.
It takes a minute for Connor to relax his mind and breathing, he hadn't incurred any serious injuries only a few minor scratches that would fade in around 3 hours. Recalling his kill count he's glad that he managed to be the highest in the group without using any of his abilities. He ended up using almost half his reserves in terms of mana since even while he wasn't leading the group he was more or less the most effective in grouping beasts together for group kills.
The academy actually lets the kids bring in their palm-absorbed phones to keep track of the time and draw up plans. Though there wasn't any signal to make calls outside, Connor thought this was a bit weird but there were several times since he had come to the academy that he had seen happen from the time dilating walls, to that wall of darkness to what could be another wall to block of signals.
"That's a lot of damn walls." Connor realized.
Shaking his head he saw the time was currently around 3 pm so they had another 9 hours to search for enemies. The sooner the better since with 92 students and what Amber said was about 600 beasts if everyone managed to kill an equal amount then they'd all get around 6-7. So in the beginning the numbers would dwindle fast.
The group overall has performed well so far and Nia had some fantastic visual acuity for her age to be able to spot the camouflaged and speedy snakes. Sohan was smart enough to make use of the environment to make up for his weakness of being inexperienced and untrained; while Rando simply did a fairly good job at maintaining his distance and nailing his shots.
Overall the team was solid, but obviously, their skill hasn't been on full display yet they would be able to improve tremendously once their time in the academy would end. Connor and the other three all sat on different spots on the hill doing their own thing.
Connor sat in silence as he recovered mana naturally and also closed his eyes to picture teleporting to another position he wouldn't use his ability but he had other things to work on and he wasn't ever taught how to improve his ability with his concept since he never told anyone about it.
Nia was relatively relaxed while reloading her gun and pointing, sort of just observing her aim a shot. Rando had nothing to do and was on a tree branch whistling a pretty sweet tune, Sohan is thrusting his spear repeatedly to get a better feel for it.
In the blink of an eye around an hour had passed, Connor got enough time to think when he wasn't 'practicing'.
"Hey, I have an idea mind if I put it forward?"
It was a bit sudden but they gave the go-ahead,
"Well, we've all received our share of blood on our hands so I was wondering if it'd be cool if we split up for like the next 2 hours get our own kills without having to show off our abilities since we're all clearly holding back... you know if it's alright with you guys?"
They all try to take into careful consideration the thought since he was right about restraining their abilities to not reveal too much. They'd still be watched from afar by the once supervising but when they're 10 the world government makes it necessary to write the ranking and type of superpower they've gained. Only when it comes to the strange abilities that exist in this world known as 'concepts' there are a variety of special organizations that have control over them.
So there's not exactly a lot of fear in revealing superpowers it's just better to keep it on the lay low unless you are just a common citizen. After a little bit of thinking the group agrees on various things when discussing the chance to let themselves loose. For one, only Connor and Nia would wander off alone while Rando and Sohan would stick together and they are each willing to use their superpowers in front of each other without any qualms since Rando has already used his. They'd also wander off together because Sohan was not experienced with a weapon and could be easily ambushed when alone.
Last they chose a cave to reconvene in case they fall in danger or simply finish up by themselves. Nodding in agreement there's no reason to delay they head down the hill in different directions.
Connor POV
"Haa~ finally I'm free."
Connor was glad to finally be able to use his teleportation more freely, he could teleport around 20 meters without problem when he could see the direction to go in and it wouldn't consume too much mana his only issue is when he doesn't see his destination with as much focus as possible he could only get a feel for around 5 meters at most.
"Alright, 7 kills I think 3 or more should leave me with a decent chance to get into top 20 if lucky then top 10..."
His goal was top 10 while others were hype to try getting into the top 5 getting in the top 10 would give him only an alright amount of attention and a decent F-rank artifact of his choosing; the D-rank would be nice but it would be tedious. He preferred relying on his own physical ability and mind anyways than a weapon.
Connor looked left and right trying to spot a supervisor but they weren't in his sights, he sighed he would use his ability without any mana so it would teleport him anywhere within a 50-meter radius he could only hope that he wouldn't end up in other air. Even if he did superpowers are the most convenient things humans possess since they don't really require mana just to people they can activate them as easily as they blinked.
He waved his hand with a smile to whoever should be watching him and using teleport he landed almost crotch first on a tree branch which scared the living shit out of him.
"Phew! Thank goodness that was too close." Connor nearly shed a tear in relief.
Standing straight luckily he didn't land in the territory of any beasts, he made sure to mark where he teleported from, on a tree so that he could find his way back to the group. Moving from his thoughts he spotted a group, an all-guy team but each with their own distinct look.
One had a goth attire with spiked bracelets, a skull t-shirt, an all-black attire, some black eyeliner. Next was a posh-looking fellow with blonde hair and sky blue eyes in a dark blue jean jumpsuit. The next guy was the biggest of them he seemed to be the same height as Sohan and worse something like a varsity jacket with a pair of jogging trousers. Lastly was a guy with a nerdy feel about him, wearing round glasses and some overalls he had hair that matched the posh guy.
Connor was thinking, "They kind of remind me of some old characters from a webcomic I remember, wholesome romance stuff."
"Alright let's see it seems they were too nice to kill the animals, the beasts that leave them ripe for the taking, sweet~" Connor was amused but he had to think hard about his methods to ake some.
The boys were surrounding a transparent pond where Connor could see the shape of 6 animals unmoving.
"Probably piranhas." Connor deducted the obvious and saw what else they had in stock.
A pair of sleeping monkeys and a group of 4 moles are hidden underground.
General POV
The goth of the group opened up, "So who's going for the next gathering? I'm drained I really don't know why you guys got me to do it when I'm the least willing to *sigh* whatever I've used like 70% of my mana I need to rest."
"I'll do it instead of you this time Felix." The large dude jock said.
"No, we can't have you do it Kevin your our main line of defense against people looking to ambush or take what we've gathered. Since Adrian(Nerdy guy) is the one keeping them asleep I was hoping that you could step up this time Vincent."
The blonde teen(Vincent) had a startled expression, seems he didn't think too much about it but also wasn't expecting his name to be called.
"Um... yeah sure I can do that, anything I should keep in mind I've never hunted alone."
Connor listened in to their conversation as Felix was giving Vincent some pointers while planning on snatching some of their goods.
"Time to have some fun~"