"It's already been two hours but we haven't encountered any team yet." James sighed.
"Better that than encountering a group we can't handle." Noah said.
"I don't think there are many groups that can take us on one-on-one though, right? I mean, look at our line-up. We have three top 50s and one of them is even among the top 10 students while the other is part of the top 30. Then there's me and you. Although we aren't part of the top 50, we are still in the top 100. Then we also have Luna, making us a total of six. I'm pretty sure that we can easily make the top 10 percentile of the strongest teams." James stated.
"Don't get overconfident. There are still other teams much stronger than we are; at least on paper." Owen said.
"What's wrong?"
Melissa asked Asher when she noticed him slow down in his footstep.
"Have you noticed it yet?" Asher asked James.
"No, no." James replied with a disappointed expression.
As the team's main Wind magic user, he was tasked with acting as the scout and making sure that the team wasn't ambushed by anyone; player or monster. So far he had been doing okay, but Sato's actions just now made him realize that he had a lot to learn.
"Six? No, eight." Owen said.
Asher didn't reply but set his sights on a branch a few metres above.
"You can come out now. I know you've been following us for a while now." Asher said.
"!!!"
Noah, Melissa, James, and Luna all widened their eyes in shock. Asher's words just informed them that they had been followed for a few minutes but none of them had noticed a thing out of the ordinary.
"Stop wasting my time and come out." Asher narrowed his eyes.
"Hehe. As expected of the top ten student of our division. Very impressive." A young teen walked out from the shadows of the branches and dropped to the ground.
"Who are you?" Asher asked.
"Haha. Do those introductions matter?" The teen asked back.
"You know what I came for so I hope you could comply with my request."
"Just when we were looking for some free tokens, you brought them straight to us. How nice." Owen said.
"I'll take that as you guys not willing to comply with my request?" The teen smiled and asked.
'He's too confident.' Asher narrowed his eyes.
Although he asked the teen who was he, Asher knew who the boy actually was. As they say, know thine enemy and the battle is half won. This was a proverb Asher lived by even in his past life and the habit of researching his enemies before a fight followed him over to this life.
A member of the top 50 rankings and a group leader with another top 50 under him and six other slightly impressive characters with him, making a total of eight students in the team. His team was quite impressive and just above average in strength. If he didn't encounter any of the truly formidable teams, passing this stage of the test was a given. But he had a flaw. Just like all the other students of aristocratic birth, he looked down on Asher and believed that Asher was only book-smart and not worth his rating.
'What a dumb move. Doesn't matter though. He's a top 50 so his token should have some good points for me.'
"I have a better suggestion." Asher spoke up.
"Hand over your tokens and I will let you guys off with a slight spank."
The teen's eyes flared as he glanced at Asher with deep resentment. In all his time in this world, no one had disrespected him like that at all, not even the young lord.
"I see you have chosen to do things the hard way. Fine then, but don't regret it later." The young teen clapped his hands following which magical attacks appeared from four directions targeted at the group.
"Dodge." Noah roared.
James, who was the closest to Luna, grabbed her and immediately sprinted away from the range of the attacks. Melissa dodged on her own and Noah did the same. Owen however, didn't just stop at dodging but countered with a spell of his own towards the direction one of those attacks came from.
Boom.
Owen's spell exploded in mid-air, shooting a figure down from the air.
"Damn it." The young teen who stood in front of Asher frowned.
"Come out now, let's finish them off quickly."
Six individuals appeared and surrounded Asher's group. If the teen and the figure who got shot down by Owen were counted, then there were eight ambushers present.
"You don't really think all seven of you are enough to take us down, right?" Asher smirked.
"We'll see about that. Attack."
The teen lunged straight at Asher hoping to keep him busy while the rest of his colleagues take on the others.
The other top 50 student in the enemy team went for Owen while two others attacked Melissa. The remaining three took on Noah, James and Luna.
'I see. They've been planning this for a while now. If Owen didn't take down the other guy, I'm guessing he would have gone for Owen or Noah making it a 2v1 battle.' Asher thought.
'But facing me one-on-one is a dumb move. No. Underestimating my team like this was a dumb move.' Asher grinned.
"What are you grinning at, you bastard?!" The teen's hands glowed with a muddish brown colour.
'Earth element, mud breed.' Asher identified the teen's affinity with a glance.
There are at least nine major elements in the world; fire, water, wind, earth, metal, wood, lightning, darkness and light. There were also secondary elements like ice, mist, and even superior ones like time and space. Then there were derivatives of the major element. For example now, the earth element had two common derivatives; the most common earth element derivative, the brown coloured earth and the slightly rare but still common derivative which had a solid beer colour[1]. Having a derivative didn't mean much, except that certain spells would be much suited for the user.
The teen's derivative was quite similar to the most common but a tad different. Just from a glance, Asher could see that although the colour was quite similar, the nature was different. Typical earth element mana gave off a hard and tough sensation but the teen's felt more like mud than a rock.
'Facing him head-on would be dumb as his mana would help mitigate the potency of attacks. At the same time, the slippery and sticky nature of mud could help him deflect attacks easier and keep his opponent close to him. In that case,'
Asher's hand turned deep blue as he sent a palm out to receive the punch.
'Frostbite.'