31 Field Assignment 2
With a flash of light all of the students were teleported out of the courtyard and the teachers were teleported to a special place in the school that could monitor everything within 100 miles of the academy. There they settled in ordering food and drinks to watch the show.
"How many of you think there will be any students that last 4 days or more?"
"4 days? We indeed have a few talented students this year however it is extremely rare for first year students to last even to the 3rd day."
"5 teams to make it to the 3rd day"
"10 teams to make it to the 3rd day"
"1 team to make it to or past the 4th day"
At this all of the teachers turned to see the headmaster smiling knowingly and shook their heads in disbelief. There had never been a team of first years last more than 4 days in their first field test. While it may seem counter productive to set the expectation for the students to last 7 days in the field, it allowed the teachers to get a good idea of their talents and help set a goal for them to surpass when they did the field test again.
"No way any teams go past the 4th day. Which team do you think will make it that long?"
Many teachers questioned the headmaster but he just told them they would have to wait and see.
....
Jerod found himself in a secluded area of the forest with his teammates. Each of them took in their surroundings and took out their book that held the resource list and pictures. As they agreed to while waiting for the teleportation they each scouted the immediate area for any resources that could be harvested before starting to look for a water source.
Jerod made sure that the team knew the importance of finding a fresh water source first once they were teleported. This would allow them to have water to drink, have a higher chance of finding animals they could hunt for food, and if they could find a shelter or build a shelter near there they could easily last for the 7 days.
Bear asked Jerod why he couldn't just use a water spell to make water for them to drink. Unfortunately drinking water made from magicles did not have the same effect as drinking natural water. If a person drank water from a spell no matter if it was a tier 0 or tier 5 they would in essence just be drinking magicles. The magicles would then just be circulated out of their bodies. Jerod knew this was because the base matter that created water was hydrogen and oxygen whereas spells are made of magicles.
Jerod was lucky and found a few items on the resource list. These items he handed over to Rich who happened to be the son of a low ranked noble. His father had passed away and one of the few things that were left to him was a dimensional ring that had a storage space of 10 cubic feet. The team had decided to have Rich carry as much of the resources his ring could hold before they started to use their bags.
Jerod couldn't show off his inventory space because he was a commoner and it wouldn't make sense for him to have a dimensional storage space. A ring with a small space of 5 cubic feet would cost more than his family had made in their entire lifetimes. This wasn't a huge problem for Jerod however as his strength was already at 10 which was the highest of anyone he had seen.
After securing the resources that the team was able to locate in the immediate vicinity Jerod started to slowly gather water magicles. Keeping an eye on the direction they were coming from he was able to see where there was a higher concentration. He then had the team follow him in that direction. While it isn't possible to drink water created from magicles they did gather in higher concentration near water sources. This was good knowledge learned in the basic magic classes. Magicles had a higher concentration in environments that matched the element. This allowed mages to cast spells faster and stronger if they matched the environment.
While walking Jerod was able to locate a few more resources before coming upon a small river meandering through the forest. There Jerod had the team follow the river up stream to try to locate an area they could use or make into a shelter.
....
As the teachers watched the different teams the department heads that had discussed Jerod prior to the test kept a watchful eye on his team's progress. They were surprised at how many resources they had already collected. They by far had the most points in resources of all the teams. Some of them even eyed the headmaster to see if he gave Jerod an edge when he teleported the teams.
Headmaster Brian feeling the gazes of the department heads just gazed back to them. "I know what you are all thinking and no I didn't give his team any advantage. Remember that the teleportation is set for the whole group to be random so unless they had been teleported separately it isn't possible to alter just one team's location. It is quite surprising how many resource they have already found though."
The department heads nodded after hearing this reasoning and just murmured about his good fortune. They also talked about how he had a good head on his shoulders locating a water source early and sticking close to it. So long as he didn't run into any magic beasts his team should be able to collect a good amount of resources during the field test.
....
After walking for a few hours Jerod and his team did not find anywhere they could easily make into a shelter. They were starting to get hungry and the sun was getting lower in the sky. Jerod then decided they should just look for an area that had a sparse amount of trees so they could make a makeshift shelter for the night.
Their resource gathering had provided a few more results while searching for shelter and Rich's dimensional ring was about half full already. They had almost 100 points worth of resources and all of the low ranked students were buzzing excitedly about how they would get to pass with high marks and earn lots of rank points.
After another hour of walking the team finally found an area that had few trees and was still near the river. Jerod walked over and started to use tier 0 earth magic to raise the ground. He rose the ground a few times making a U shape that was about 8 feet high.
"We will just have to hope there isn't any rain and take turns with keeping watch overnight. I have experience hunting so I will go out and get some game for us to prepare and cook. Two of you should stay here to watch the camp and prepare some stones for a campfire while the rest of you find some kindling and firewood. I should return within the next hour so once camp is set up we can eat. Don't forget that there are magical beast in the forest so whoever goes to get the firewood should stay together."
Jerod turned and left the rest of the team to decide who would stay and who would go grab firewood. He conversed with Lindsay about the game in the surroundings. She had been scanning constantly for magic beasts and so far hadn't detected any. After some deliberation he decided to hunt a few rabbits since they were easy to clean up. There were a number of burrows not too far from the river so Jerod scouted around for a while before snagging 6 rabbits. Knowing that there was constant surveillance Jerod did not use spirit magic to kill them like he used to. Now he was able to cast a wider range of spells and would use Wind Blade to cut off the heads of the rabbits. Once he cut off their heads he would use dark magic to erase the blood in the each rabbit without damaging the meat or skins.
After gathering the rabbits Jerod made his way back to the makeshift camp and saw the rest of the team gathered back together with a campfire built inside the U. Bear and Wendy waved at him as he came closer and Jerod made some silent praise for their decisiveness on who should be on guard. Having one person specializing in Battle magic with the gathering team and one staying to guard against any beasts trying to enter their camp was a good idea.
Jerod entered the makeshift camp and started to skin the rabbits. He decided to keep the skins for some presents for his family so once he cleaned them he put them back into his bag and then moved them into his inventory. Finally he took a long stick and stabbed it through all of the rabbits to roast them over the fire.
Little did the team know there was a stealthy magic beast following the smoke from their fire towards their camp.
