End of Semester Tournament

A week passed during which John skipped nearly all of his classes. By this point he'd managed to test out of almost all the basic classes, the only two that he never messed being Runesmithing and Survival Cooking. Runesmithing because everyone in the class had already surpassed the basic level and they were now working on Apprentice level runes. Survival Cooking because Mr. Pike refused to pass anyone in his class until the final day and if anyone skipped they'd automatically fail and be forced to retake it.

Outside of those two classes, John still woke up at 5 AM and cultivated before finding a private room to train his new techniques. He'd picked up the Sound Bullet incredibly quickly due to his previous experience with Soul Bullets and the Basic Art of Ventriloquism was incredibly simple in comparison to his other techniques. Words of Truth was much more difficult, in order to fully activate the technique it is required to speak nothing but the truth for at least 5 minutes. During those 5 minutes John couldn't repeat himself and had to maintain the subjects attention. Do you know how difficult it is to describe something for 5 minutes without repeating yourself or boring someone?

Finally, Blink Step had turned out to be far more complex than the introduction made it seem.

Thankfully, every time he cultivates his body heals at an increased rate. If not, he'd be laying in a sick bed unable to move due to the sheer number of times that he'd attempted and failed Blink Step.

In order to pratice the technique you have to create two runes out of mana which John managed fairly easily due to his studies in Runesmithing. One of them John branded onto his chest over his heart in an agony inducing burning of flesh. The other John memorized and practiced creating over and over again until he could create it in an instant. This is a technique called imprinting which is common practice for high level formation masters who are able to create formations solely out of mana in an instant.

By creating the 2nd rune in an instant and applying mana to the 1st rune it'd create a wormhole-like bridge between the two locations. After creating and travelling through thousands of wormholes, John is supposed to comprehend some spatial laws that'll make it possible to activate Blink Step without the runes. However, After a week of practicing non-stop he had only managed to travel through a wormhole twice so John figured it'd be months if not years before he reached that level.

Today it was Friday, and John had just left Runesmithing and was about to head to a private training room when his phone started buzzing and chirping an annoying high pitched. Sighing, he pulled his phone out of his pocket while grumbling. Only government alerts made that annoying sound and continued until you acknowledged receiving them, so it was probably an important message.

"All Freshman report to the main auditorium!" A voice blared through the loud speakers as John read the message. 'Signs of an incoming Monster Wave detected, alert level increased to Orange.'

"Great." John said as he turned and followed the trail of Freshman heading back to dorm's where the massive auditorium lay waiting for them.

Walking into the auditorium, John instantly recognized Bronson's massive form and made his way over. He sat down next to him, saying high before he realized that Nag was sitting on the other side of him. Since the trial, John and Nag had run into each other a few times. Neither of them tried to strike up a friendship, but recognized the other as someone worth paying attention too.

"What do you think this is about?" Bronson asked in his slow, gravelly voice. Ever since eating the Dragon Eggs he'd grown another foot and the features of his face became clearer, it was obvious to anyone that he'd gained a lot of strength over the last two weeks.

"They finally announced the monster wave." John said with a shrug.

"Yesss," Nag hissed, "but thissss issn't about the wave. The semessster is about to finissshh."

Mike sat down next to John just then with a groan. He was covered from head to toe in bruises and blood leaked from his left ear as he leaned back into his seat.

"What the hell happened to you?" John asked.

"I've been training a new technique." Mike said with a sigh as he opened his eyes to glare at Steven who sat down besides him. "This assholes been helping me."

Steven snickered, "More like beating the shit out of him while he flails around trying to activate it."

"Settle down!" A voice boomed, and John looked over to see all Mrs. Smith, the leader of the American delegation, walking onto the stage. "I'm sure all of you saw the notice about the incoming monster wave, in response to the threat the school has decided to end the semester a couple of weeks early so students can visit their family's for a week. After which, they will return to the school to continue training and get ready to fight against the wave. Each student has been allocated two spots inside the school's bunker and can purchase up to 5 more for 2,000 credits each!"

John exhaled a massive sigh of relief, along with nearly the entirety of the school. John's parents were in the Maker's Guild and therefore had access to bunkers inside the city but John had long ago realized that Gallandwell High was incredibly safe, much more so than anywhere he'd seen in the city.

Mrs. Smith waved her hands to get everyone to settle down again before saying, "It is tradition to end every Semester with a tournament. The results of the tournament are a major portion of your grade for the semester, and the winner of the tournament will receive 100,000 academic credits. The tournament will take place inside Hunter's Paradise. It is a combined survival and hunting challenge with points rewarded for killing monsters and surviving."

Everyone's phone dinged right then as Mrs. Smith continued talking. "The tournament begins in two hours, you've all just received the rules and a full list of prizes available. Good Luck!"

John joined everyone else in scrambling to leave the auditorium as he pulled out his phone and checked the message. Glancing to his right, John saw Tian Ji looking at him with a vicious expression on his face surrounded by several of the Chinese students before he turned and went to talk to Cleo and sighed. "This is going to be interesting." He thought to himself as he ran out of the building.

Two hours to grab a quick bite to eat and enter Hunter's Paradise was cutting it short, especially given the traffic jam caused by everyone trying to enter the game. Thankfully, Snakey and the croc where in the Tamer's Guild where special pods allowing massive monsters and beasts to access Hunter's Paradise were located and he could enter with them.