25 River Slide

They found that the Ant's building was empty with no signs of Sajjad or Blake. They were not in the Cafeteria either. It was Orbona who finally found wisps of their existence when she climbed the northern observatory tower to search from higher grounds. When she looked towards the green forest, she could see several people, the size of dots, crowding at one place. Some seemed to be moving trees, some were cutting them but more were carving the wood into planks and whatever while piling them in front of the group in charge of assembling them together. Whatever they were doing, they were very well organized.

Orbona hastily called for the rest of the group while she peered into the mounted telescope fixed besides her, aiming towards that group.

Sure enough, she immediately spotted and locked on to Blake's face. He was currently marking the trees which were needed to be cut down.

"That fellow!" She cursed loudly, deciding to head down. Reaching for the stairs, she saw Lucy and Ivory climbing up. A few steps below, Awiergan dragged Sproule behind him. A spiraling staircase of about five hundred steps meant nothing less than hell for someone such as Sproule. He completely gave up after the thirtieth step.

The weather was fresh with a rare hint of a cool breeze. Remember, it is still somewhere between June and July which signifies the presence of summer at its peak. A fresh and cool day at this time of the year is nothing less than a miracle in itself.

Lucy spotted Blake demonstrating something to the labour force he had put together from hiring a few fellow students. For some reason, most of the people he hired had their cheeks swollen...

Let us stop this train of thought right here right now.

Blake dismissed the poor fellows when he noticed the approaching Ants.

Approaching Ants...

Seriously, this was too humiliating. They urgently needed a new name!

"What do you think you are doing?!", Orbona erupted the moment he got in her range, "you actually skipped your first lecture for this!?" She spread her arms to emphasize her words.

"You know this place is included in the school grounds. You got the permission certificate?" Awiergan was still acting rational. Blake nodded in reply as he took out a paper filled with a lot of formal text. The Academy's logo was stamped at the bottom with green ink, indicating the grant of permission.

"Where's Sajjad?" Unsurprisingly, Sproule was the most worried among the group. Sajjad was his SBz buddy with whom he could actually discuss and have long talks about the game, unlike the almost mute Blake.

Blake pointed to the west as he took out another sheet of paper similar to the previous one. Awiergan did not question why Blake could not just say it out instead of handing them this dense stack of compound and complex sentences. Skimming through it once, he got a clear understanding of the situation even though he could not understand all of the words. Never expect a ten year old to be able to read something such as a contract.

"Sigh! You really thought this out, didn't you?" Awiergan exhaled as he turned to explain to the others.

"Sajjad is at the excavation site", he summarized.

"Excavation?", Ivory tilted her head in confusion.

"He plans to dig out that underground river and add a few more features to make it's course a 'little' more 'interesting'", he emphasized.

"Interesting, how?" Sproule perked up when he heard the word interesting along with that dreadful underground river.

"Let's go check out?"

The underground river was very long as it originated from a farther peak of the western mountains. Blake intended to use the last two kilometers of the river as a 'River Slide' and open an amusement park around it. Of coarse, he wanted to make it as dangerous as possible. One of the reasons he was able to obtain those permission papers was because he mentioned how it would help the bodily cultivators temper their bodies. Strengthening one's resolve was not missed. He even deliberately made his workers use 'ancient' tools made from heavy materials in the name of training their bodies. This could not possibly be considered as child labour, right?

From today onwards, the Academy had a new faction called the Cultivator's Amusement Authority. This sub-organization would be controlled by the students themselves as its current leader was Blake Stone, the founder. The first rule he set after its creation was that all leaders must originate from, and be part of, the Ants group which, also, was a newly formed group.

Skipping further details, they were basically in charge of the construction and maintenance of the River Slide and the amusement park.

The Ants arrived at the excavation site. Right now, they were at the edge of the cliff from where the waterfall originated. The first thing to be done was to ensure safety so right now, they were applying nets at the mouth of the exit and clearing away the rocks under the waterfall and inside the river coarse. Sajjad was looking over the process personally.

They did not doubt the mysterious Blake's abilities but how come Sajjad was appointed to supervise such a large scale project?

Crack!

Suddenly, before they could go over to Sajjad, they saw cracks appearing at the earth's surface. A deep resonating sound of rumbling could be heard as the ground kept vibrating.

Alarmed expressions filled everywhere as tens of white pillars sprang out of the land one after another. But no. Pillars do not suddenly spring out of the land, not when they look so silky and wet with slime.

Worms!

Gigantic Worms!

"What are those things?!" Lucy screamed.

"If memory serves right, they are those Blind Mountain Worms Blake mentioned before!" Awiergan shouted in reply. His wrist was shining with a green light, indicating that his 'gift' was successful in increasing the difficulty level of the oncoming disaster.

"Weren't they called Tower Hill Worms?" Sproule exclaimed as he turned around to run with the rest of the team.

"Stop spouting SBz nonsense! These are clearly Hill Demolishers!" Ivory scolded Sproule.

"I think there's a problem-" Orbona intended to say more but was interrupted by another giant Worm erupting through the land in front of her.

The situation was instantly pulled into chaos as everyone chose random directions to run. The students Blake had hired forcefully were not too strong. They might be older but were still trapped in the first stage realm, making them no stronger than the young Ants.

The Academy was not far but also not close. Reinforcements would take the minimum of ten minutes to arrive. They could not hold off so many Worms for a single minute much less ten!

The situation got so chaotic that no one thought about why the Worms which were certainly not habitual to form groups were now attacking in sync. Furthermore, these things were not supposed to be reaching to lengths as large as fifty meters, right? But why could they see these fifty meter tall pillars in front of their already blinded eyes? To top it all, these pillars were alive, moving and flexible. Other than that, there was still that poisonous mucus to deal with!