27 The Forest (1)

Raikou reached the entrance to the forest and saw a middle aged man seated with a sign up sheet on the table. He had assumed there would be some special way of entering the competition, but he was quite taken aback with how ordinary the whole process was.

The man looked at Raikou with a stony expression. "You look abit young for this trial. You have to be within the rank 2/3 parameters to enter. No higher and no lower."

"That's perfect. I am a rank 2 warrior!" He replied.

The man was surprised. "Ok, write your name, profession and rank on this paper. You will be placed into groups of 3, with a person of each profession in your group if you're lucky."

Raikou wrote all his details down truthfully and asked "Can I take my companion here with me?"

The man replied "Of course, but he will take up a slot in your team. You will only be given one partner."

"That's fine. Write it down." Raikou waited for the man to add Ghost to the registry and entered the crowd of cultivators.

After a while his name was called out. "Raikou, Ghost and Sugondese please come to the front."

Raikou and Ghost came to the front and were greeted to the sight of a man that looked as feminine as it gets.

Ghost looked at Raikou and said "Don't get too excited. I know he's your type."

Raikou glared at Ghost and then greeted the man. "Hi, nice to meet you."

Sugondese smiled at them and replied "I hope we can have a great partnership in this trial!"

Raikou was put off by how creepy the man's smile was. He felt put off by the man, as if there was some ulterior motive behind his participation in this trial.

He inspected him to be sure.

Name: Sugondese Nuts

Cultivation: Rank 3 1st Level

Class: Archer

Raikou was troubled by his cultivation being at such a level, but it wasn't too much of a worry. With his new sword skill, he would be able to put up a good fight against an early rank cultivator. Let alone an archer, unless he attacks at long range.

They waited till all the groups were created and then the trial organiser started explaining the rules. "The trial will be 2 weeks long. You are required to sustain yourself in there and you can not leave the forest. There is a formation barrier around the forest and will not open for another 2 weeks after this slot. You will carry a token that will track your points based on how many beasts you kill. A rank 1 beast is 1 point, rank 2 is 10 points, rank 3 is 50 points. If in the off chance you encounter a rank 4 beast, which is highly unlikely. You should run, if you somehow kill it you will get 500 points. Rewards will be decided once the trial is done. You have 5 minutes to prepare before entering."

Raikou took in all the information and entered the forest with his group after the 5 minutes were over. He didn't really understand how this many people were interesting in partaking in a trial that didn't have a specified reward. What if the reward was useless? Raikou didn't really care, as he only signed up for entry into the forest.

He inspected the barrier to see if it was legitimate.

Nature energy barrier: A barrier placed around this forest by an unknown entity using unknown means. Opens once every 3 months for 14 days.

"I don't have enough knowledge of the world for the system to provide information on this formation. This is an issue in case I need to leave." Raikou sighed.

Sugondese looked back and smiled at his two teammates. "I'm an archer, so you two should lead the way. I will be your lookout."

Raikou didn't like the sound of that. He felt like something was off. He was wary of the man, and stayed vigilant while they moved.

"Ghost. If he makes any dodgy movements... Kill him." Raikou said icily.

Ghost was surprised by the tone of Raikou's voice. He had never seen this side of Raikou before. It was a stark contrast to his usual weird and cheery state. "Ok. With my senses, he won't be able to do anything without me noticing."

"Good." Raikou replied. He didn't like this feeling of having to be alert at all times. The archer gave him a similar feeling to that dodgy 'deity' he had met up there. He was never sure of what was going on with that guy. He sighed at his own thoughts.

Along the way, the group had encountered many low level beasts ranging from rank 1 to early rank 3. Raikou looked at his token to see the number '138' on it. They had killed 2 rank 3 beasts and 38 rank 1 beasts. The slaughter was slightly off putting for Raikou, as it was different from the first time he trained in a forest. Back then he killed many beasts, but his mind wasn't completely 'fused' with this world in a way. (A/N: Before the breakdown he had, he wasn't exactly in his right mind. He was blocking out most of his emotions to survive.) The only time he felt any actual remorse back then was when he attacked Ghost and failed.

The feeling of guilt he felt for killing these beasts slowly subsised. He consoled himself with the belief that they would've killed him, if he hadn't killed them. He dug his nails into his palm in annoyance.

"I am truly a hyprocrite..." He thought as he looked at the blood that dripped from his hand.

The bonus to killing all those beasts was that he broke through to the 3rd level of rank 2. Ghost was also nearing towards his breakthrough to rank 3.

"ATTACK!" Ghost screamed into Raikou's mind.

He turned around to see Sugondese cackling while licking the tip of his... arrow.

"I love little boys so much! When I saw a little teenager in my team, I nearly creamed myself! I tried to hold back, but your blood set me off! I want to kill you! Kill you! Kill you! Kill you! Kill you!" He screamed and then started whispering the same phrase under his breath, while placing the arrow in the bow.

"I'm surprised a creep like him was able to stay calm for this long. Seriously, the blood of children... What the fuck!" Raikou muttered as his eyes went cold.

The arrow flew towards Raikou and he quickly parried it with his sword.

Ghost launched an Ice Spear at Sugondese and he dodged it. "Whew, he's fast." Ghost exclaimed.

Raikou looked at Sugondese and sneered. "Unfortunately he's not fast enough."

He activated cloud steps and launched himself at Sugondese.

"CLOUD SLASHES!" He screamed like an anime character.

Raikou's first slash decapitated him, his second slash gutted him and the third took his limbs.

Sugondese Nuts Killed! +10,000xp

Ding! Quest 'Kill your first human' completed.

Reward: 25,000xp

Level Up!

Raikou looked down at the mangled corpse and vomited. He continued vomiting for 2 minutes before his stomach settled from the sight.