52 Danger Everywhere
"What the?" John asked as he watched the octopus lower itself into the river and frowned. He'd focused most of his attention on freshwater and land monsters since he wasn't planning on crossing the ocean anytime soon so he'd never done any research into this type of monster.
Octopi are purely saltwater cephalopods, for one to appear in what should be a freshwater river means it's either evolved in a direction he hadn't studied before or was incredibly strong. Strong enough that it didn't require saltwater to survive any longer. He hoped it was the later, because if it was the former than it most likely had reached the Core Formation level.
Remembering the massive Lion and how the octopus' tentacles had moved so fast he couldn't see them, John decided to play it safe. "This won't do." He said, picking Snakey up and moving slowly away from the river. Before he'd gone more than 20 feet, the octopus reappeared and slammed one of its tentacles into the spot he'd been standing just moments before with such force the cliff began to crumble.
"Yep, time to go." John thought as he turned and began running. Thankfully, with muffle activated he didn't have to worry too much about making a ton of noise running through the forest.
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Elsewhere, Mike was covered in a ghillie suit holding his breath as he prayed to anyone or anything that'd listen to turn him invisible. He'd closed his eyes, knowing that light can reflect off your eyes and be visible. Thankfully, he'd learned years ago how to mask his scent and remain perfectly still for hours on end. Listening carefully, he felt more than heard as the massive dinosaur slowly strolled by.
Steven told Mike several weeks ago that the dinosaurs had once been extinct. A massive comet had slammed into the Earth causing a massive explosion and killing them all off, Mike didn't know whether or not to believe Steven. Steven did have a great great great great.... great grandmother who'd been alive before the fall, but as Mike felt the ground shake due to a massive Stegosaurus that must've been in the Core Formation realm he didn't feel very comforted knowing that they'd been extinct once, several thousand years ago...
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Nag had shed his human skin the instant he appeared in the valley. One of the first techniques taught to all beasts is how to smell like a monster. Beasts give off a special pheromone that alerts all nearby monsters to their presence. No monster can ignore the special allure of a beast, they taste amazing and are the fastest way to gain strength. As soon as the golden barrier dropped, Nag applied this skill and sighed in relief as the thousands of snake monsters that'd been rushing towards him slowed and came to a halt.
A massive snake slowly slithered from the group, and Nag closed his eyes in terror as he recognized the monster. The basilisk hissed a question, where did the beast go?
Nag hissed in responses, "This way!" He turned and slithered to the south as fast as possible, following the scent of Cleo.
Tasting the air, the Basilisk realized that it was another beast from the difference in the scent but didn't care. Following along behind the cobra, all the Basilisk cared about was dining on beasts tonight!
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Steven appeared in the middle of a massive lake, 20 feet above the ground. Before he could do anything, he fell and caused a massive splash of water. He fought his way to the surface, coughing out several mouthfuls of water as he listened to Mr. Parker speak. Around him, a golden barrier began to flicker and die as he watched several tiny piranha's slam into it over and over again. Remembering just how much damage these little monsters could do, he nearly panicked before remembering that he could control gravity.
Chuckling to himself, he decreased gravity around himself enough that he could push off the water and stand. "This is gonna be interesting" He thought as he braced himself for a run to the shore about a mile to the north.
The Golden Shield dropped and he yelled in anger as he ran through thousands of piranha's jumping from the lake and trying to eat him alive. Thankfully he was fast and his body tough. Even then, several chunks of flesh had been ripped from his body by the time he got to the shore.
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John had taken advantage of his muffle spell to sprint for nearly 2 hours straight. After escaping from the octopus he watched in amazement as a Rank 6, level 1 Core Formation Single Legged Golden Toad shot out its tongue and captured Tom from Runesmithing. An instant later Tom was gone, turned into toad shit.
Several run-ins with Core Formation monsters later, John began to recognize a pattern. Each Core Formation monster had a territory of 10-20 miles in diameter. Within that territory, it was king and would kill any monster stronger than level 3. Outside of these territories, several roaming packs of wolves and level 8-9 Body Refining Monsters reigned supreme. After travelling from place to place, he came to the conclusion that only the muffle technique combined with his training in stealth had kept him alive this long. If he wasn't wrong, the vast majority of the freshmen would be dead 6 subjective hours of the tournament.
John was frowning, trying to figure out what to do when he felt croc returning to him. Focusing on their link, he saw a small crack in the side of a cliff near a waterfall that slowly expanded into a room that'd been carved out of water. It was occupied only by low-rank and level monsters that'd be easy to clear out.
Smiling, John told Croc to lead him to the cliff and took off. Half an hour later, John snuck past a pack of over 100 Wind Wolves and into the small room. Croc had already killed off all the monsters hiding in the room, so John sat down on Crocs back sighing in relief after a day spent hiding from monsters able to kill him in an instant.
Slowly, John undid the muffle technique. Like Sound Bullets, muffle captured and suppressed the noise that he made. Also like Sound Bullets, that sound had to be released at some point. What John'd discovered was that if he took his time and released a sound wave a tiny bit at a time it dissipated incredibly quickly. After spending the last several hours sprinting around the forest trying to find anywhere that was safe, John was so exhausted that the idea of sitting still and slowly undoing the muffle technique for the rest of the night was quite attractive.
Water was constantly running down the sides of the room before pooling at the bottom of the room and following into a river at the bottom of the cliff. He had as more then enough water and several of the monsters the croc had killed were quite tasty, so he settled in for the night and hoped that tomorrow would be less stressful.
