41 Purpose of the Trial

With the tunnel entrance blocked and Steven on the road to recovery, John sent his croc off saying, "Be careful, a lot of people will be hunting for dragon eggs. The dragon will probably be patrolling more vigorously than normal."

The croc nodded in understanding, diving underground and heading off to hunt.

Now, John was all alone with nothing to do but watch as Steven's skin rebuilt itself. Fascinating as the process was, it was making him slightly queasy so John decided to examine the small room he found himself in. It was only 4 feet high, and maybe 10 feet wide. The walls and ceiling where incredibly smooth, making him think that someone had used an Elemental ability to carve out the tunnel.

Turning back to look at Steven, he imagined him running into the Dragon and knowing he couldn't get away in time. Diving to the floor, he dug out the tunnel using his elemental abilities even as his entire body burned with dragon fire. If he wasn't a hybrid cultivator he probably would've died today. As it is, he'd just barely managed to survive and probably wouldn't of made it if John didn't find him in time.

"Man, I'm glad you're still alive." John said, his eyes catching on to the dimensional bag that had survived the fire. Thinking for a moment, John grinned to himself and said, "Think of this as payment for saving your life."

Opening up the bag he dug through it for a moment before pulling out the Metal Rhino's core and hiding it up his sleeve. "I'll give you some dragon eggs, that way you don't have to risk getting burned again." John said as he placed the bag back down where he'd found it.

Suddenly, the ground parted and the Ground Crocodile appeared again. Opening it's mouth, John could see 5 eggs. Pulling them out John said, "Great Job! See you if you can get some more, but don't risk yourself. If you see the Dragon or something that can hurt you forget about the eggs and come back."

The croc disappeared into the ground again, leaving behind a feeling of disdain over John's worry about it's safety. After all, the croc had been raiding the dragon's eggs since it'd been born.

Picking up the eggs one by one, John tried his best to examine them. Monsters and Beasts with dragon blood in them usually have increased potential and a higher likelihood of successfully evolving to gain elemental attributes. Pure-blooded dragons are incredibly rare, which is likely why the Principal hadn't killed the monster and instead had locked it up. Every single one of these eggs was a half-blooded dragon, and depending on what kind of monster the dragon had mated with these eggs could be even more terrifying than a pure-blooded dragon.

Lifting one up, John examined it carefully in the dim, flickering light of the room. "Black with white dots and brown stripes. The dragon is black, the brown stripes come from a earth elemental monster. When the egg turns completely white it'll be ready to hatch, meaning that this one needs several months at least."

Looking through the eggs, most of them showed the brown stripes of earth elemental monsters which made a sort of sense given the location. John's croc came back a 2nd time, dropping off another 5 eggs this time with a water elemental egg and a fire elemental egg, before returning to plunder more of them.

While John waited for Steven to wake up and let his new monster collect eggs for him, Mike and his new friend Bronson processed several monster corpses. The two had been on a rampage, carving their way through nest after nest of spiders and salamanders. Luckily, Bronson had a dimensional bag and could carry the loot.

"Bronson, my man!" Mike said, clapping him on the back, "What exactly are you? I've never seen a giant boulder like you before."

"My mom is a Land Dragon, my dad a human. Many beasts choose to mate with humans so that their children are guaranteed to not become a monster."

"So what does that make you?" Mike asked, fascinated.

"No one is really sure, I stand on 2 legs like a human but have the scales and abilities of a Land Dragon. My dad says that as I grow stronger I'll be able to separate the two sides of me so that I can be human, dragon, or both at the same time. For now he calls me a giant and leaves it at that." Bronson said.

"That's really cool!" Mike said with a smile, "If I wasn't so in love with my rifle I wouldn't mind being a Beast cultivator."

Bronson smiled happily, though to Mike it looked completely terrifying. It was like looking at a giant boulder that suddenly grinned and had teeth large and strong enough to bite you in half in a single chomp. Mike hid his shudder though, it was obvious that Bronson didn't have many friends. Stuck in between being a Beast and a Human, he must've wished more than anything to just be normal.

Hacking up the final spider carcass, Mike tossed the monster core to Bronson and said, "What do you think about the special event?"

"I'd rather eat the Dragon Eggs." Bronson said, saliva dripping from his mouth. "My Mom told me that she was originally only 10% dragon blooded but after eating several dragon eggs she was able to purify her bloodline. Not only that, but they're supposed to taste AMAZING."

"Sounds great!" Mike said with a smile, his own gluttonous side beginning to show. "My dad told me that dragon meat and blood is really helpful for humans too."

"Lets go!" Bronson said, moving towards the exit and ignoring the fact that he was too tall for the tunnels, his head carving through the stone as if it were taffy.

"Every time you do that I crack up!" Mike said with a laugh. As the two continued walking they came upon the remnants of a fight fight. Mike first noticed some human blood and organs on the ground, then followed Bronson into the room where they saw a massive Man-eating Spider laying on the ground dead.

Something about the room seemed off to Mike, and so he began his investigative work, finding the trail Snakey had made with her slithering and bullet casings from when John had fired. A couple minutes later he stood, examining the hole where someone had carved out the spider's core "I know who did this!"

"Really?" Bronson asked in surprise, he too recognized the Man-eating Spider and knew just how dangerous they could be to normal humans.

"Yeah, let's follow his trail. If anyone in this place can get a hold of Dragon Eggs it'll be John."

"Why's that?" Bronson asked, surprised at how confident his new friend was in this John.

"That guy is a planner, give him an objective, some time, and resources and he'll draw up a plan that results in him taming the damned Dragon before flying out of the nest on it's back."

Bronson was dubious, but followed behind Mike, his head crashing through the tunnel ceilings as the went. Half an hour later, they found themselves looking down a never ending chasm and listening to the screams of teenagers as they tried to evade a dragon and steal eggs about a thousand feet below them.

"Well, I'll be." Bronson said, watching as yet another student burnt to a crisp before he could activate his teleportation talisman. "I know they said we could die in this trial but I never thought it'd be this bad."

"We're cultivators, I don't know what it's like in your clan but Gallandwell High does a great job of insulating most of their students from the truth that every time we walk into a danger zone our chances of surviving are less than 50%. Only the strong survive in this world and the Confederacy needs fighters, not greenhouse flowers." Mike said, watching the others die with a sad look on his face. "This is probably the true purpose of this trial. To force everyone who survives to understand the truth, every day we live is a fight to the death for survival of our species."