Chapter 51: Start of the competition
Dialogue "sample"
Thoughts 'Sample'
Techniques [sample]
Author notes -sample-
Chapter 51
Start of the competition
The next morning, students started to wake up and leave their tents. The tents were provided by the academy, they will only shield the user from the elements but offer no protection against any beast who wanted to attack them. That means that once inside the forest, they will have to decide if they wanted to be comfortable at the risk of being attacked during the night or look for some safer but uncomfortable place to sleep.
"Alright, you lazy asses! get up already!" The shouts of Professor Garret could be heard all over the clearing.
The first person that Siegfried expected to encounter after leaving his tent was Edward since he had placed it next to his. Instead, he was found by someone else.
"Yo!" The voice of the bubbly Rae Holand entered Siegfried's ears.
He turned to look at her. She was wearing a tight leather armor that hugged her figure and probably offered some mild protection by the faint emanations of mana he could feel. Like her, many have chosen to wear something more appropriate than the academy robe for the task at hand.
"Ah, you are here too." He answered nonchalantly.
"What is that supposed to mean?!" She shouted in indignation. "Of course I'm here!... I wanted to say hi yesterday but you were surrounded by your classmates all the time."
"Are you going to team up with Castel and Hightower?" Asked Siegfried.
"We can team up?, the Headmistress never said that. The prices are individual."
"There is no rule against teaming up so you can expect people to use anything that will give them an advantage. Some students may want to support someone else while expecting nothing in return while others can make a deal to split the rewards, after all, you can always sell those prices for gold and split it." Explained Siegfried.
"I see…" She looked pensive for a moment. "Maybe I should talk with Sofia. Argg…." She scratched her head. "I wanted to win this thing alone, but if everyone is going in teams it would be impossible."
"It would not have been safe for you to go alone anyways." Sigfried looked at a specific place behind Rae.
The girl turned around and spotted the figure of Lucius Avery looking in her direction.
"Ugg, I have caught him looking at me many times. But he never approaches or does anything. I think he is afraid of Sofia. But still creeps me out…I don't even know why is he so obsessed with me, there are soo many girls in the academy." |Rae made a disgusted expression.
"Who knows? people get obsessed for many reasons, but whatever the case, you should be careful while in the forest." Advised Siegfried.
"Good morning my partner!" Shouted Edward as he arrived at Siegfried's side and gave him a pat on the shoulder.
"Don't make it sound weird…" Siegfried took the hand off his shoulder.
"So you two are teaming up? Are you going to share the reward?" Asked Rae.
"No, I have no interest in mana rings and I have plenty of mana pills already, not to mention gold. No, I just want my fried Sieg to keep me safe while we have our little excursion in the forest. He can keep all the cores we acquire in exchange." Explained Edward.
"I have the feeling that I will be the one doing most of the hunting…" Said, Siegfried.
"Probably" admitted Edward. "But there are some plants in that forest that I'm actually interested in."
"Oh!, you are interested in herbology? My family does a lot of trading with alchemy herbs." Commented Rae.
"Interesting, I would love to hear more about that after we are done with our little excursion. Maybe we can-" Edward's voice was hushed by the sound of Professor Garret shouting.
"Gather up here you grunts! The survival competition will start in ten minutes!"
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"Hurry! We are going to lose it!" Exclaimed Siegfried.
"I'm running as fast as I can!" Complained Edward. "Actually, I don't think I have ever run thi-"
"Rooaaar!" A golden panther jumped out of the bushes and attacked Edward.
"Windshield!" Edward deflected the attack with a quick wand movement.
The panther fell on the ground sideways after losing its balance and Siegfried was there in an instant.
"Just die already!" He used his spear to pierce the panther's neck, killing it instantly.
Edward was huffing and puffing. "Uff….that was scary!. And this is just an unranked beast…I don't want to ever face a ranked one."
"Mmm" Siegfried observed his prey for a while. "Do you know how we extract its core? Because I have no idea where it is." He tried to feel any source of mana but it was too weak for him to feel inside the beast's corpse.
"Well, I don't know much about the golden panther in particular, but I have heard that most mammal types have their core in their skull, between the eyes." Explained Edward.
"That's good enough." Siegfried brought his spear down and cracked the panther's skull wide open, spraying blood everywhere.
"Ahh!, give me a warning! This is a very expensive piece of equipment, I don't want it to get covered in blood."
While Siegfried was wearing his usual training gear, Edward was wearing a very fancy-looking armor made of some blue leather with gold decorations.
"What kind of animal is that armor made of anyways?" Asked Siegfried while looking for the core.
Edward smiles in satisfaction at the question. "Since you want to know. This is made with the skin of an azure lizard. A rare species of amphibian that lives in some of the swamps of the Elixir State. As the azure lizard is a water base animal, its skin is very resistant to fire. The armor is also imbued with protection runes that could stop the blade of any knight, and on top of that-"
"Found it!" Siegfried felt a round object with his right hand and took hold of it before pulling it back with force, as he did so, the core was finally freed from the animal skull but his move also caused a lot of blood to spray everywhere, including the place where Edward was standing.
"Ugg… gross" Edward looked down at his brand-new armor that was now covered in panther blood.