Shika Exam (4) - Realizing the limits

"Hello! Parasite?... Avi's ghost?... Mr. tentacle?", Vikram called out all the names he could think of but there was no response from the hand made out of the Akashik parasites.

*fiss...*

Just then he noticed something strange. Like a deflating balloon, the hand was slowly becoming thinner and the number of parasites that made up the hand was decreasing at a constant rate.

"What-! Don't tell me this hand can't hold on much longer... *crack... slip*"

The hand thinned even more. As its length increased like a rubber being stretched, Vikram slid down the wall, "No, No, No!!!!", he shouted as his fall thankfully came to an abrupt stop *sigh*.

With fright on his face, Vikram looked around and found a ledge that was sticking out of the cliff like a sore thumb.

"I must grab it before the hand is completely gone...", Using the parasites as rope, he swung his body left and right until he had enough momentum and finally grabbed of the gap between the rocks *...hup*.

*fiss...*

The hand completely disappeared into thin air, but Vikram had stabilized himself on the rock. He slowly looked for more footholds and reached the ground. It took him 40 minutes to climb down a mere 100 feet because of how sparsely the footholds were located.

**

"*foo* Damm! That was scary", he took a deep breath.

*grr... startled*

Vikram immediately turned back and found himself in another mess. *shing...* He took out his sword from the sides and immediately readied himself for a fight.

"Another Hylio?", he was surprised, "Did it follow my smell! Dammit, I even used trees for traveling, and it still followed me so far..."

Hylio(s) were difficult to hunt not only because they always traveled in packs, but also because they had great smelling capabilities and were like a reborn villainess when it came to taking revenge on those who wronged them.

After a quick look, when he realized that it was a single Hylio, Vikram relaxed his tense muscles and jumped straight at the injured Hylio. Hylio too jumped straight at Vikram with its right paw extended.

*swoosh... slide....*

Vikram used his military instincts to quickly navigate around Hylio's projectile-like body and swung his steel sword down in a vertical motion at the monster's neck.

The sword glowed with a hint of Prana as it hit Hylio's neck. *slash... ting...*

'Dammit! Even with a sharpened edge, the steel sword can't penetrate its skin!'

The sword bounced back with a ting sound as if it hit metal and Vikram felt a numb sensation on his hands.

'I guess Prana just won't cut it. Even a D rank mutation is better than this.' He was continuously made aware of his weakness by his circumstances.

Although Prana made him invincible in the Empire, the world of Diaspora was different. The raw combat output of Prana was like a children's toy when compared to even the lowest of D-rank mutations.

The only useful purpose of Prana he could think of was its high compatibility with recovery potions.

Even back in the Empire, there had not been much research on Prana. Empire, with the help of the Church, had simply used the mysticism around Prana to spread propaganda.

The only manual on Prana known to men was with the royal family of the Empire and it was written in an extinct language of the 12 pagan tribes. Even the best of scholars had only partially translated the book on Prana.

Although Prana could also be used to strengthen specific attributes like smoother blood circulation if focused on the heart or better sharpness if focused on a sword's edge; it was limited in its application.

'I guess the secret of the Empire wasn't much of a secret after all,' he thought as he compared his crude and simple Prana with varied and versatile mutations he had already come across so far.

Elementalist, Illusionist, Mentalist, Engineers, Residents, and much more; the sheer scale at which these mutations varied baffled Vikram.

"I am overestimating myself"

He was finally realizing how lucky he had been so far with both the Demonic Plant (D+) and the Hylio (E+) he fought before.

While fighting the former, Vikram conveniently had a metal plate to deal with acid pollen and for the latter, it was an injured Hylio with restricted speed.

*slash... ting... slash*, Multiple sounds of sword slashing and bouncing back resounded the otherwise empty forest. Although he was not having a decisive advantage over the monster, he could still easily keep up with the speed of the monster.

"Let's use that...", Vikram said as he paused for a second and ran directly past the monster and into the forest.

Hylio was surprised by the way his food behaved, but his animal instinct made him follow Vikram without fail.

Vikram was running almost 5 meters ahead of the monster when he suddenly took a left turn, moved a little farther, and then took another left turn to go a complete 180.

Before Hylio could even realize what Vikram was doing, he had disappeared in between the thick bushes.

*sniff... sniff*

The monster followed his nose and reached the tree near which Vikram had disappeared and looked around.

*grrr... jump*

It jumped back in fright as he realized an incoming attack from above, but due to its environment being full of bushes and thick trees, a 5-foot Hylio was too tall to easily back up, his movements were heavily restricted.

Vikram aimed for that slight hesitation in Hylio and appeared right on top of its back with his sword pointing at the ground.

*khwap... squirt...* It took less than a second for his steel sword to pass through the weak skull of Hylio and exit from the other side.

[ Killed Hylio(E+) ]

"I guess no gene pool from this monster either!", he complained as he cut Hylio's ears as proof of his hunt and ran back to the hill.

**

{ 10:00 AM }

Vikram rose the same tree he had used earlier and reached the top. It was the tallest tree in his nearby vicinity with a good enough reach to the ledge, but not immediately accessible as evident from Vikram's earlier fall.

Having learned from his past mistake, he then used a rope he had spent the last couple of hours making from plant fibers, he climbed the cliff using the crudely made grappling hook and took a deep breath of relief.

Once Vikram was up on the ledge, he quickly took out the flare gun from his side bag and fired it up in the air without waiting.

*bam... pew* With a thin whistling noise the flare flew up into the sky for about a few meters before exploding with a *boom...*. The sky was colored red with a balloon-shaped smoke appearing in the air.

"These devices of the 23rd century are amazing, I must get my hand on a firearm later", Vikram said as he sat down on the rock.

"I haven't seen a single flare go up in the air. I just hope there aren't any Shikas nearby", Vikram complained as he slumped flat down on the rock staring at the disappearing smoke in the sky. His body sank on the flat surface as he became one with nature.

"How long will the examiner take?", he said and closed his eyes on top of the rock that was about 100 feet above the ground.

It was a good tactical location to hide while the examiner made his way towards Vikram. Even the tallest tree was only around 90 feet and with Vikram lying flat down, it was practically impossible to notice which rock he had climbed; there were more than 10 of such ledges throughout the cliff that made the camouflage harder to see through.

*****

{ 1 Hour Later | 11:00 AM }

A total of 3 Shikas had appeared in the last hour to check up on who fired the flare and whether they could steal the loot from them, but just as Vikram had expected none of them were able to figure out his location.

"hehehe... I'm really smart", Vikram was patting his own back when suddenly a shadow appeared on top of his lying body, "Hi!".

"SH*T-!!!!", Vikram grabbed his heart as he got up due to fright, "You scared me", he followed up with a disgruntled complaint as he looked at Mandy, the examiner.

"ooh!..", a surprised expression appeared on Mandy's face as she saw him talking casually in front of her. It was not every day that she met young candidates who could ignore her status as the princess of Maesto.

"So you have already completed the first task, not bad! I didn't think your team could even complete the mission, let alone be the first ones to do it", Mandy said with a straight face, unaware that Vikram was not with his teammates.

~given how sh*t the team was, it's really surprising...~ her last sentence was said in a low breath but Vikram still heard her loud and clear.

Vikram looked weirdly at her, "I'm not with the team. I am here to submit MY task..."

He took out a small pouch and handed it to Mandy who looked at Vikram in bewilderment.

**

'He killed 10s of monsters and it only took him 12 hours', Mandy was surprised as she registered DNA from the varied number of monsters with her watch.

This watch resembled the Dais watch Vikram was wearing except for being attached to another handheld device called a scanner.

Monster DNA was used to make sure that the candidates didn't submit duplicate monsters, as well as to figure out the rank of monsters they had killed. Only association and the big families were capable of using such expensive devices that could tell a monster's information based on a single DNA sample.

"Okay, I've registered the submission, but are you sure you don't want to wait and submit the result with your teammates. You do know the penalty of having to complete 4 'item-requests' for solo candidates?"

"I know. I have plenty of time to find these materials", Vikram said as he took the piece of paper from Mandy's hand, jumped towards the trees, and disappeared into the forest.

"He didn't even look at the list, that stupid boy... hehehe", a wide grin appeared on her face.