As if Williams had read their thoughts, he proceeded to say, "If you maintain the highest rank for three consecutive tests, you will be given the blue pill"
"Blue pill?…"
"What's that?"
The contestants interjected as they tried to wrap their heads around the term that grand master Williams had just mentioned.
"….The blue pill is a pill that can improve your Mana cultivation, it can help you level up your Mana core faster thereby giving the top contestant an edge over the others…"
'Woah… it'd be quite handy to get my hands on such a pill' Steve thought as he fathomed the gravity of possessing a pill as useful as that.
"….So now, here are the groups and their members"
As Williams finished speaking, a huge screen appeared on the air with the groups containing the names of all participating contestants.
There were 14 groups labeled from A to N, each contained twenty seven contestants.
Steve scanned the screen for his name till his eyes landed on group D. That was where his name was.
After they had all found their names, the fairies led them to the mountains that they would climb. As Steve stood with his fellow group D contestants in front of the mountain, he observed them closely.
Lloyd was in his group, the goth girl was in his group too, even Caroline was here too but the person that caught his attention was the girl with the gas mask, she seemed to be nervous.
If she truly had breathing problems then this test's difficulty just went up a notch for her, Steve thought and sighed as he turned his head away to look at the mountain.
It was tall and steep though it sloped in some places, the top was covered in snow which meant that the higher they went, the colder it became.
"Hellooo contestants!! Welcome to the first test of the contest where you have to climb to the top of the mountain in thirty minutes. Note that any injury or death caused by the tests is the fault of the contestant and the contestant alone. So with all said and done, may the best man win. Start!!!" The umpire screamed again from a location where no one knew.
As he screamed, the same black screen that had appeared in the air during the preliminaries materialized again out of nowhere sending sparks of Mana around. This time around, it was a timer and it started it's countdown as soon as it appeared.
The signal for the start of the test sent everyone into a jumping frenzy as they jumped on the mountain with their Mana enhanced hands and legs.
Normal mana swordsmen who found it difficult to enhance more than one body part at the same time enhanced only their hands so that they could have a stronger handhold while they relied on their natural leg power to push them up as they jumped up the mountain.
Talented Mana swordsmen like Lloyd shot up in the air, jumping close to 150 metres on his first jump, not just his hands and legs but every other part of his body was covered with his energy as he quickly ascended the mountain.
Steve didn't want to go all out in the beginning because he knew that though he may be a level two Mana swordsman, he was faster than most of them gathered here and he didn't want to attract too much attention since he knew that he couldn't still get the first position with Lloyd there so he stayed a few metres behind Lloyd, putting himself in the fifth position as they ascended.
The girl with the gas mask was in second position, the goth girl was in third while Caroline was in fourth.
They ascended smoothly till the goth girl suddenly stopped and turned to look at Caroline who was coming swiftly under her.
"Hey b*tch"
Caroline paused and looked up to the goth girl who was smiling maniacally.
"Eat this" As she said it, she enhanced her legs and kicked the side of the mountain really hard that huge stones detached and began to fall. Caroline was able to dodge the first one but the second one struck her squarely in the face and she lost her hold and fell down the mountain.
CRUNCH!
'Damn….that will leave her scarred for life, that is if she survives the fall' Steve thought as he whipped out his sword, enhanced it with Mana and began slashing all the rocks that were falling on his path.
When they were halfway up the mountain. Steve noticed that the girl with the gas mask in front of him had slowed down considerably such that even with his held back speed, he was still catching up to her.
Before he could even react, she stopped, held her neck as if she was gasping for air thereby making her lose her hand hold and fall. Steve went wide eyed as she fell past him and before he could think, his body jumped down after her.
Seeing as she started falling before him, she was further down and showed no signs of stopping or slowing down as gravity pulled her closer to it's embrace.
'Damn…I hope I catch her in time for us to be able to make it back up' He frowned and concentrated his Mana into his legs then he kicked the air behind him producing a huge amount of air pressure that propelled him forward, fast enough for him to grab her out of mid air then he used his Mana enhanced hand and held the side of the mountain.
The rocks shattered as they slid down
'Please..please..hold onto something'
Just when they were few metres from the ground, his hand caught onto something solid and they hung there, breathing harshly.
She looked up at him with sad eyes "You didn't have to do that, now I'm going to be the reason for your disqualification"
"Take off that mask, control your breathing, take deep breaths…. there's nothing to be scared of… it's just a pile of rocks" Steve's heart was racing as he spoke, they had almost fallen to their deaths.
She seemed to be inspired by his selflessness so she narrowed her eyes, jumped out of his arms and held onto the rocks.
"I don't know the type of problem you're suffering from but I have faith in you, seeing as you were among the fastest climbers, you can do this" Steve said to her as he readied himself to continue his ascent.
She was taken aback by Steve's advice as she thought, 'Someone has faith in me…. I wouldn't want to disappoint him now'
"Let's do this" She said to him as she fueled her body with Mana for her ascent.
Without holding back this time, Steve shot up the mountain with unbelievable speed.
As he climbed, he turned to check the time on the floating black board and he was shocked to see that they only had ten minutes left.
With that, he boosted his ascent speed by concentrating all of his Mana into his body.
As they approached the top, she stopped again and began to struggle with her breathing. Steve could finally figure out why she found it difficult to breathe, the air up there was very thin.
He stopped and began to breathe slowly, when she saw him, she paused too and began to breathe slowly. When she stabilized, she pulled off the mask and threw it down to reveal an olive brown beautiful face with unblemished skin, long black hair and amber eyes, her lips were small and pink and they looked soft. She smiled to Steve and mouthed a 'thank you' to him.
Steve nodded and continued his ascent, he had to finish before the time would elapse.
He was starting to get ecstatic as he approached the top with seven minutes still left, though some people had already reached the top since,he still felt like a winner.
But that was until he felt an ominous presence around. He could instantly recognize the aura, the same aura that Ebun and his winged friend emitted, the aura of a fiend!
He had barely realized this when fiendish pterodactyls burst out from behind the mountain and flew towards the climbing contestants.
'What? What's this? Is this a fiend break?' Steve thought and looked around for Williams.
One of the pterodactyls noticed that Steve was distracted and flew to attack him but Steve was on his toes, the moment the pterodactyl came close to him with it's claws extended forward to grab him, he whipped out red's fury as he dodged it's claws and buried the blade in the chest of the fiend. It shrieked in pain, trashed around and fell limply as Steve extracted his sword from it's chest. He was surprised to see that it came out with the fiend's heart.
He turned and saw the officials floating in the air but the looks on their faces told him that the fiends were all part of the test.
'tricksters…'
He fumed and continued his ascent while slashing any pterodactyl that obstructed him till he reached the top with three minutes, forty eight seconds left.