"If we can keep things up at this rate, it's a given that we would top the group rankings and Asher would top the team captains' rankings." Noah smiled as he glanced at the tokens in his hand.
"Don't expect things will be too easy. Once news of how we beat them spread, the other students would think twice about dealing with us." Melissa said.
"But not all of them." Noah smiled.
"That's enough break time. We won't find any groups standing here like this, neither will we find any strong monsters. Let's go in deeper." Asher said.
"Deeper? But…" Luna nervously glanced at Asher.
"I know what you are worried about. Don't think too much about it. The academy would have confirmed that the surrounding, say five to ten kilometres is safe to some extent. Remember, more than ninety percent of the students participating in this exercise are from noble families, with at least 5% of them from the top powerful families tied closely to the kingdom and it's departments. Any adverse events that result in the death of these people, or worse, a complete wipe out during this exercise, would cause a storm in the kingdom; one that could sweep the dean, academy director and any official related to this exercise. Even if the academy is partly run by the Purple Sun sacred land, it still won't be able to keep all the involved parties safe. As a result, they would have to ensure that the risk of this exercise can be dealt with and won't be above the capacity of us students."
Asher then looked ahead and continued.
"In summary, I don't think we would have the chance of encountering a monster at the fourth stage of the Guardian realm or higher. At best, we might find a peak third stage, but the chances might be low; next to nil. Heck, I even doubt the chances of spotting a mid-rank third stage Guardian monster would be up to 30%."
'What a drag.' Asher sighed internally.
He was originally hoping to improve on his skills, sharpen his techniques and adapt to the new fighting method, but with a lack of an appropriate opponent meant little progress.
But whereas Asher was disappointed, someone else was pleased.
"Well that's great." Luna brightened up.
"Sure." Asher absent-mindedly replied.
. . .
The group continued on their journey and along the way, they had encountered quite a few monsters. Just as Asher had said though, the chances of spotting a third stage monster were low, even for one at the early-rank. Despite wandering the forest for more than six hours, they had only encountered two third stage monsters one of which was dispatched clinically by Asher while the other was taken down by the teamwork from Owen and Melissa with James, Noah and Luna occasionally assisting from the sides.
Similarly, they had clashed with two other groups, making it a total of five groups the team had taken down.
To be honest, Asher had found it strange that his group had run into that many groups within only just eight hours to the start of the exercise. He had originally expected that each team would try to find a safe spot that would act as their base before looking for other teams to hunt down. Instead, it seemed that the students were more interested in winning tokens than survival.
'Well, they are kids.' Asher thought.
"It's already getting dark." Owen spoke up.
"Hmm." Asher nodded.
The exercise officially begun at the ninth hour of the day(9am.) Eight hours from then would be the seventeenth hour which was the same as 5pm. At this time, the sky already showed signs of getting dark. During the nighttime, things would become more dangerous since visibility would drop and the nocturnal creatures would begin hunting. If the group wanted to find a resting place, now was the best time to do so.
"Let's go."
Asher led the team to a part of the forest where he had spotted a small hill.
In an unknown environment, the best place to make a resting spot out of was on high ground. There, one could oversee the entire region and be safe from a handful of ambushes and so on. That was Asher's intention. However, he was aware that he wouldn't be the only one to know of this fact hence, they might come across other teams there.
'Good thing I prepared a stealth formation.'
Similar to a stealth talisman, a stealth formation had the ability to erase one's presence albeit with a much wider range than a talisman. The Great Dawn kingdom barely had any formation designers, so formations were very rare and expensive. The one Asher had in his hands was made by himself by merging the knowledge from his past life with that from a stealth talisman he had once reverse-engineered.
Because Asher barely worked on his formation techniques, the stealth formation in his hands was much weaker than the average ones in the world of the 33 heavens, but it was still good enough to do the job. It could seal the group's presence, which included both their aura and silhouette.
As they were moving, Asher suddenly felt a hot sensation from his chest, right where the mysterious object had implanted itself.
'What's going on now?' Asher couldn't help but think as he tried to get a reaction from that spot my circulating his mana towards that region.
'Hmm? It worked.' Asher's eyebrows raised a bit but he quickly calmed down as he was not alone.
'This feeling…' Asher narrowed his eyes.
Right after his mana circulated around the region where the light-absorbing sphere had implanted itself in his chest, Asher received some sort of feedback which he couldn't describe in words. It was almost as if the 'black'[1] sphere was trying to communicate with him.
From the one-way signal he received, Asher realized that it was pointing towards a direction in the forest. As for why it did so or what could be there, the sphere gave no further information.
'For there to be something that attracts the attention of the strange bead, it means that whatever that is, it's definitely not something ordinary or simple.' Asher narrowed his eyes in thought as he glanced at the direction the bead indicated.
"What's up?" Owen asked Asher as he noticed his concentration to be a little bit off.
"Nothing important; I'm just wondering whether we would find any peak third stage monster at the end of all of this." Asher replied.
"How could you call that nothing important?" James commented with a wry smile to which Asher shrugged.
"Let's focus on the task at hand for now." Owen said.
. . .
Further inside the Manchurian forest, a few kilometres away from Asher's group, but still far from the centre of the forest, a landslide occurred by the bottom of a small hill revealing an underground passage. The 'interior' of the passage was dark, not because there was no lighting, but there was some kind of magical barrier that absorbed all the light preventing it from passing through to the other side.
Despite the presence of the barrier, some weird aura managed to leak forth from it, keeping the monsters at bay while causing a fluctuation in the mana flow of the surrounding area.
While it was true that this phenomenon was currently hidden, the same wouldn't be so in a couple of hours. From an aerial view of the region the students were currently at, one would notice that their course was deeper into the forest, with many facing the same direction the underground passage was located at. This was because the students had got used to the region they were dropped off at, with some of them wanting tougher challenges and more points; and apart from defeating other students and taking their tokens, the only way to gain more points was to defeat monsters, with stronger monsters giving more points.
In summary, one can say that the eight or so hours spent in the forest had quelled the fear and unease of a majority of the students, with their pride, self-confidence and curiosity now getting the better of them. Hence, about 60% of them or so had begun travelling deeper into the forest with the intention of testing out their limits.
[1] If you can recall, the orb absorbs all forms of light making it look as if it was black in colour, kinda like a black hole.