After killing the last of the shadow beasts, Asher took out the pocket watch and glanced at it, noting the time.
'It's already 1pm.' Asher frowned.
From the time the barrier at the cave's entrance had opened till now, over two hours had gone by. A majority of those two hours were spent battling their way through this tunnel and proceeding with caution, but the actual distance was one that could be covered in 20 minutes or less.
Their battles from the six-path junction up till this point could be described in one word, fierce. From first stage Guardian shadow beast to even peak second-stage Guardian shadow beast, the team had encountered them all. Worst of all, these monsters appeared in groups of five or even seven.
Originally, Asher didn't participate much often in fights, only doing so when a teammate was in danger. The reason for this was that he wanted them to gain more battle experience. Even Owen was visibly noted to not be going all out for possibly the exact same reason. However, at one point, two third-stage Guardian shadow-beasts had appeared forcing both Asher and Owen to take the battles seriously.
An early rank third-stage shadow-beast was roughly the same as a mid-rank third-stage Guardian beast of average strength thanks to its speciality in the darkness element, so even Owen, with his close to peak rank second-stage Guardian strength, had a hard time facing one and needed to cooperate with Melissa before they could win. As for Noah, James and Luna, they had to hold off a total of twelve shadow-beasts all on their own.
Normally, they would have died under such a force, but Asher occasionally lent them a hand mid-battle, even killing two of the strongest, before drawing away four shadow-beasts toward himself. He could have done more but he wanted to see how they would do against five shadow-beasts of the early rank and one of the mid-rank of the second-stage Guardian realm.
That fight was the toughest they had faced and it took them over fifteen minutes before victory was attained. It was only now that they had just concluded.
While the battle could have been said to be very risky, to the point of being described as brushing shoulders with death, the rewards were impressive. Fourteen demon stones with two of them being early rank third-stage, two at the peak of the second-stage, three at the mid-rank of the second-stage and the rest were of the early rank of the second-stage. Even a conservative estimate would see each member getting two demon stones, and this was only from one battle. In total, the team had over fifty demon stones in their inventory at the moment.
The number of demon stones collected so far led Asher to thinking that this pack of shadow-beasts was one on the lower-to-mid side on the scale.
If Zero was aware of the level of the monsters within here, he would be astonished as his previous assumption was that the threat within the cave wasn't something that would worry a third-stage Guardian mage. However, over thirty shadow-beast of the second stage, a dozen or more of the first stage and even two third-stage shadow beasts, without any signs of the pack leader yet, was definitely a threat above the abilities of an average third-stage Guardian mage.
Zero had approximated the strength of each participating team to be capable of handling third-stage Guardian threats but this was beyond such. Even the teams who had third-stage Guardian mages would find this hectic to handle. This was a fourth-stage threat, something Zero believed had only a 20% chance of appearing. And this was without even considering the strength of the pack leader.
Asher had a feeling that the pack leader would at least be a peak rank third-stage Guardian shadow beast, or in the worst case, a fourth stage Guardian shadow beast. In an extremely terrible possibility, it would be a mid-rank fourth-stage shadow beast. Against such a monster, Asher would have to go all out considering that a mid-rank fourth-stage shadow beast was the same as an average peak rank fourth-stage monster.
"This tunnel seems to have no end." Owen said.
"It does, and I have a feeling we are close to it." Asher said.
In this tunnel, his mental techniques were limited so he couldn't use his mental spells to scan deeper in. Nonetheless, Asher's intuition made him feel as if the end was close by. If that wasn't enough, the intense urging by the weird orb within his body made Asher realize that he was on the right track.
Ever since he had entered the cave, it had been giving off a weird sensation which only he could feel. It got even more intense after Asher had arrived at the junction from earlier and it was now on a different level at the moment to the point that it even began to influence his heartbeat. It was only with his past life's experiences that Asher was able to regain control of his body and not give out anything.
"I wonder how the others are doing." Luna couldn't help but think out loud.
Along the way, Asher had mentioned that, apart from the first and fifth tunnels, the rest had an equivalent level of threats. As for the exceptions, they had a higher level of danger than the rest. This level of threat was already above what an average squad could handle, and the only reason why they survived was thanks to Asher and Owen. In other words, an average team would die in these tunnels. As for the even more dangerous ones, survival rate would be as low as 10% if there was no exceptional individual among the students.
"The twin princesses would have it better as the duo are both at the third-stage and possess impressive treasures and wield exceptional strength. Even then, I doubt they could come out unharmed unless they retreat early. As for the other team, if they didn't retreat in time, they'd most likely be dead by now." Asher said numbly.
"Let's move. We still have a test to pass."
Ignoring their reactions to his statement, Asher began moving ahead, forcing the team to have no choice other than to follow along.
About thirty minutes later or so, after facing off against an additional two assaults by a small group of shadow beasts and gaining fourteen new demon stones, the team finally reached the end. However, it wasn't as they had expected.