Outside Twilight Town is a dense broad-leaved forest, with gnarled tree roots that require several people to encircle the thick trunks, and a lush canopy that blocks out the sun, even in the brightest sunlight it is as dark as dusk, which is the origin of Twilight Town's name.
The forest path extends nearly a thousand meters outwards, reaching the end, and the end of the path means the boundary of the dangerous area, not only will they encounter terrifying rotting magical beasts, but they may also get lost in the trackless wilderness, and once lost, the probability of encountering danger will increase exponentially.
The task area for clearing the wilderness is bounded by the end of the path, extending another thousand meters forward, and the team must eliminate any hostile creatures encountered within this rectangular area.
It is a team task, but allows up to 50 teams to participate, so it is considered a regional team collaboration task, with the risk factor reduced significantly.
Charlie's team left Twilight Town, with three other teams in front and behind them, but they soon split up after a few hundred meters on the path.
Unfortunately, there is no Hawkeye potion, the vision enhancement and dark vision provided by such potions would be very valuable in the current environment.
Qingtong warned, "Charlie, our team doesn't have a warrior, if we encounter agile creatures, we may be very passive. We need to be mentally prepared."
"Leave this to me." Charlie took out the Twilight Longbow, the arrows nocked on the bowstring were somewhat special, the diamond-shaped arrowheads were surrounded by a faint golden glow.
A miniaturized version of the holy flame, combined with an activated basic rune, when the arrow hits the target, the holy flame will burst out from the arrowhead and penetrate the body.
Charlie personally enchanted them, after imbuing each arrow with the mark of the holy flame, they gained a whole new name - Holy Light Arrows, their value skyrocketing, with a one-shot kill effect against ordinary undead creatures, and additional damage to beings with shadow affinity.
Charlie had more than twenty Holy Light Arrows loaded in the quiver on his left hip, and in the quiver on his right hip were three arrows of different colors, they were split arrows, something Charlie had seen a bowman use when he encountered the magic wolves in Elerwin Forest, except he had crafted these split arrows with star light ink, with an even more powerful effect.
The split arrow rune is an excellent composite rune discovered in recent years, and due to its superior area-of-effect ability, it has been enthusiastically pursued since its debut, quickly spreading across the entire Valgran continent.
Among the items Master Nal gifted Charlie, this is the only composite rune he is currently able to master, and he finally produced a few finished products just yesterday.
At this moment, Charlie was leading the team, with Davie by his side, Qingtong and Eileen in the middle, and Colin guarding the rear, forming a battle formation.
Seeing the timid looks of the others, Charlie smiled and pointed to his eyes, "Don't worry, the surrounding area is all under my surveillance, and I haven't detected any abnormalities yet."
As he was speaking, Charlie's hand froze in mid-air.
"What's wrong?" Davie couldn't help but ask.
Shh!
Qingtong gestured.
Charlie quickly and smoothly took out the longbow, the Holy Light Arrow drawing a beautiful trail of fireflies as it disappeared into the shallow grass. A flash of white light flickered, and a painful screech came from the grass, quickly fading away.
"Nice archery!"
Colin praised, preparing to go check what it was. Just as he approached the grass, a fireball flew from the distance, exploding in the grass, scattering sparks.
The strong shockwave knocked Colin to the ground, nearly igniting him, startling him so much that he lay there dazed for a long time.
Soon, a six-person team appeared in front of the campfire, using frost magic to extinguish the flames.
Shield-axe wielder, archer, mage, healer, the job composition was quite perfect. Moreover, their apprentice badges showed that they were a group of second-year students.
Charlie frowned and said in a deep voice, "What's the meaning of this?"
"Spoils of the wild belong to the one who claims it!" A young man smiled at Charlie.
"But I was the one who killed it!"
Charlie's gaze fell on the charred remains of the creature, it was a shadow panther. Although the flames had apparently inflicted enough damage, the smoke-blood oozing from its mouth indicated that the holy flame had already scorched its internal organs before the fireball hit, and Charlie's arrow had delivered the killing blow.
The young man shrugged, "We've been watching it for a while, your arrow just happened to get there first. So, according to Twilight Town's customs, spoils belong to the one who claims it!
Considering you were the one who killed it, you can have the head, the most valuable part, which can be exchanged for 5 points!"
"What if I refuse?"
The young man chuckled, "I know you're Charlie, the strongest first-year newcomer in the main campus. I also know you just challenged and defeated three necromancy apprentices single-handedly.
You're skilled in magic, with good physique and archery, your personal strength is indeed not weak. But you're leading a bunch of pig-like teammates, our team can easily defeat you! Do you have anything else to say?!
You've just angered all the necromancy apprentices, and now you want to pick a fight with the main campus people too?"
Colin angrily said, "You're just taking advantage of being a higher grade! What's there to be proud of!"
The young man smiled, "Yes! I'm a higher grade! You need to understand this, not all first-year students can smoothly advance to the second year. On the long road of cultivation, you may perish, be eliminated by the academy, or even stay in the first year for several years. Just look at the gap between the first and second years!"
Charlie took a deep breath, leaning forward slightly, ready to speak, but was held back by Qingtong, "Don't go!"
"Just leave the head, you can go."
The young man sneered, "The beautiful little sister is the most reasonable one!"
The axe-wielder in front of Qingtong chuckled and swung his axe, hacking off the shadow panther's claws and tail, then strode off.
Watching their disappearing figures, Davie was indignant, "The atmosphere here is really bad!"
"The law of the jungle, very normal!" Qingtong looked at Charlie and said, "If it weren't for considering Charlie, I think they would have taken the whole prey! So everyone needs to work harder, don't drag Charlie down!"
Seeing the situation develop this way, Charlie could only sigh, suppressing the displeasure in his heart. In fact, the other person was right, Charlie was constrained by his team, otherwise, even if he couldn't beat them head-on, he would have pestered them properly, letting them taste the feeling of being dangled.
Charlie said in a deep voice, "Now that you've seen the local creatures, you shouldn't be so nervous anymore! We can try to go a little deeper and see what we can find!"
Colin nodded, "Okay, can't fight them, but can avoid them."
As the patrol went deeper, Charlie's team gradually grasped some simple rules of the game - "strength is supreme": teams with strength can run amok in the surrounding area, and any prey they set their sights on, weaker teams will automatically give up. Of course, the vast majority of strong teams will not appear in the competition list, encountering second-year teams is quite rare, one is not wanting to lose their reputation, competing with newcomer teams for resources; the other is that the time-to-benefit ratio of such tasks is too low, not worth doing.
So the difficulty of the wilderness clearing task lies not so much in the strength of the prey itself, but in how to resolve the differences between teams. The first conflict Charlie's team encountered was resolved in a relatively civilized manner.
Many times, the prey has to be fought out with fists, and this process of fighting is not harmonious, and may even result in loss of life. Moreover, since the battle takes place in the wilderness, it is a free act, and no one manages these matters.
Soon, under Charlie's leadership, the team gradually adapted to this rule, and made the surrounding people recognize the rise of a powerful team. Many necromancy apprentice teams would directly give up the prey when they saw Charlie.
Meanwhile, in a corner of the dense forest, a few smoky shadows were lurking in the haze, their bodies emanating wispy smoke. If someone looked at them with the naked eye, they would see a mass of layered haze, dense and viscous. If they stared intently, they would find the figures blending in and out of the haze, making them hard to distinguish, and after prolonged staring, their eyes would dry and blur.
"Has the fish taken the bait?" "About time." "Then should the Shadow Dagger move out?" "Understood."
Among them, the figure shrouded in the gray robe gradually faded and disappeared.
Charlie's team was busy all morning, collecting the complete and effective certificates of three shadow panthers - the head, claws and tail, which can be exchanged for full points. They also killed two worms and collected their body fluids, plus a half-cooked shadow panther head, estimated to be worth 61 points in total, averaging 10 points per person.
The number may not seem high, but compared to many teams that can't even earn 10 points a day, this income is already quite considerable, after all, the entire free task season requires 300 points for each team member.
Colin said excitedly, "At this rate, we can go back to the academy in just one month."
"Brother, it's not calculated that way. The academy tasks don't come every day, it's considered good to have two a week, and the problem is it may not be your turn to take them, you're just wishful thinking!"
Colin smiled embarrassedly.
"So the academy set such a high goal, it's really outrageous!" Qingtong said while chewing on a dry ration, she didn't like the environment of Twilight Town and was always hoping to finish the tasks here as soon as possible.
Seeing the others chatting, Charlie didn't interrupt, just eating and resting.
Qingtong suddenly said to Charlie, "What's wrong?"
The team members unanimously stopped talking and moving, they were particularly in awe of Charlie's keen perception.
Charlie shook his head hesitantly, "Heard some movement, not sure."
And just fifty meters away, a faint shadow quietly retreated, disappearing into the tree shadows.