Adventure In Shambles

Titan spawned in a land of flora right in front of a large crystal. Giant Trees coats his field of view. Small rays of light glisten and illuminate portions of the forest. While dim, there was enough light for Titan to see the landscape before him.

From left to right, no one was in sight. "They couldn't even wait for me. Spoiled punks." The kid pouts by his lonely. He may have been left behind by his teammates but it didn't matter to him. He waltzed down his own path. "I have to find them or else they'll tell coach I didn't participate and fail me."

The deeper he entered the forest, the more ominous it felt yet nothing bad happened. The sounds that loom and lurk within the forest edged at the fear of the unknown. Yet it wasn't much of a deal for Titan. As if he was ignoring the warning wilderness gave him. Instead, his eyes wondered toward every point he could look at.

"The surface manasphere is a lot thinner than Earth's. No wonder the Gate is gray. The inhabitants don't have a strong enough fuel source to grow properly." Lens attached to thick frames covered his eyes. These lens were made of magic induced glasses that bend and influence light with Mana to allow the user's eyes to peak into the surrounding mana.

Titan measures the strength of this energy based on its flow and it's quantitative property within a singular area. "I should be able to use my ring safely here."

The way to rule one's Mana is to have dominion over one's imagination. Without a clear image of the goal the practitioner wants, the performance is then invalidated via the mental state of the caster. This causes a cancellation of magic which creates a destructive effect dependent on the amount of Mana manipulated used by the caster.

For this reason, magicians are rare within the Hunter Society. Not everyone can hold their mind in the palm of their hand. 

But Titan's control over man's was one of a kind. Maybe it stems from his genius intellect or the creative mindscape he has but his mana manipulation is marvelous. Mana flows through his circulatory system. It was akin to leaves flowing down a calm stream. A minute amount of Mana enters the ring on his left index finger. An illuminant aura in the shape of an infant flame burns dimly around the ring. This aura dissipates soon after it was displayed.

"Hope I can withstand the energy lp feedback." Titan crossed his right index finger and middle finger over each other in hope his body could properly undergo the mana fed into his body by the ring.

The ring on his finger contains a dusted Mana core of an ogre. The mana the ring holds is energy waiting to be utilized. The mana He sends into the ring holds commands. The ring deciphers said commands and inputs them into the mana and brings said commands into reality. However, it is all based on the mlamount of Mana existing within the ring to begin with. A command that exceeds the limit, it use as much as possible before crumbling.

Mana flows into the ring again, sending ripples of energy throughout a 500 meter radius. Ground waves cover the terrain within an instant. The waves signal back to him like echolocation. As if it was a detailed blueprint, a map of the surrounding geographical plain was drawn out in his head. He saw his teammates, his friend and her teammates as well and estimated how far they'd be from his currently. "It's working just fine." However, unlike what he wanted the image of the terrain contained more information than he thought even though such wavelengths were meant to generate an map of general appearance. "Agh!! AHH!!" Every rock, insect, and even the direction of wind currents in the area were inclusive of the map.

"It's too much information....I-I can't think straight...." He couldn't move, feel or think and yet he felt everything simultaneously. As his sensory functions ceased, the information quickly begun to fade from his memory. As much as he wanted the general ideation othat is the region's layout, it was beyond his control to focus on a singular region. And this has always been a problem with wave based magic. The wavelengths propagate at a rate typically too fast for the mage to comprehend. It leads to a lack of control over their magic which ends horribly almost every time. Titan's cerebral cortex was being overloaded with enough information to kill 10 men indiscriminately. Fortunately, mana was flooding his brain so his mental capacity was larger than the average man. 

He felt dizzy as blood drips from his nose. He leans on a tree trunk in a weakened state. "The ring used more energy than expected because I wasn't in depth on the command." He dragged his forearm against his nose to wipe the blood off his face. What he did was akin to typing in the word punch in a search engine for a web browser. While you would like a specific explanation for what a jab may be, you got a multitude of articles on boxing, different types of punches in varying martial arts, youtube videos on muay thai and a plethora of other unnecessary options. Imagine this but every article within the first four pages being forcibly imbedded into your cranium. Hard to imagine, right?

To make matters worse, his command compared the act of scanning the area b eing a similar action to a bag being scanned by x-rays and a bat using echolocation during the night. So regardless of his intent, he bit off more than he could chew. 

"I didn't think the ring could do this.....AH! This isn't the time to get side tracked!" He stumbled after yelling so loudly. As he stumbled, an arm caught him. "Huh?' 

"Couldn't you have at least made it to the dungeon before getting this tired?" It was the assistant coach. 

"A.C? What're you doing here?" Titan wondered. She helped him properly stand on his feet. "There's been an emergency so for now, everyone must leave the gate." Coach was beside the two on his phone. "Looks like evryone brought their school watches as demanded. That makes this easier. Ally, I've got a lead on them lets go." 

He tried to stop the for a quick question. "Wait whats the emergency?" 

"Its a black gate, Titan use your return crystal wait for us at the bus. We'll be there in 2 minutes." Ally informed him.

"O-" as he tried to talk, a gust of wind, dirt, and leaves brush past him from their otherworldly speed. "kay....." He took off his glasses to wipe the dirt off them. "If its ablack gate then it could be an invasion. Otherwise, students like us wouldn't be called back like this." His glasses were stuffed into his satchel. The return crystal he was given was picked up and put down."Time to go back. He was very nonchalant about the situation. 

The students were only around 500 meters away from their initial location. To Ally and Coach Venri, that was a walk down the street. It would only take them a second to reach their desired location. A cave. "Ally." As thry fleeted toward the remaining children, Venri hands over his phone to the Assistant Coach. "You go relay the message to the other team.' 

"On it." In that instant, she turned around and vanished. Venri dipped into the cave in front of him "They just started so they shouldn't be too far from the entrance of the cave." As he raced through the cave, he was hit. by the strong scent of blood; Goblin blood.

Although he was running, he could perfectly see the skin color of the goblins here. "This is a Stone Goblin Cave? In a Gray Gate?" Venri was perplexed. To think the goblins of a measly Gray Dungeon Gate could evolve was beyond his understanding of monster Evolution.

"Is this even possible? Did I send my students into the wrong dungeon gate?" Recalling the past months events, he shrugs off the thought of it being the wrong gate. "No that couldn't be the case. I've monitored this gate for the past month. It has yet to change its color even in the reports given to me by the staff. Whatever the case might be, the children cut them down so I have no reason to worry."

Henry bashed a Stone Goblin with his shield. It's balance was unstable from the mans blunt force. The instability of the goblin is only an aid in the fight. While unnecessary for the next action, it boast teamwork amongst the crew. Henry stepped to the side as a blade came rushing through the region of the midsection. Completely splinterjng through the goblin's breastplate and existing out its spinal cord.

"Nice work Henry." A leather, steel toe boot pushed off the stone Goblin that was drenching it's slayer's sword in blood. Unsheathing the blade from the monster's body, Akin swiped his weapon toward the ground after gently wiping the blood off with his arm.

The area was filled with what seemed to be other Stone Goblins. Some held arrows in their eyes, others hand puncture wounds over their solar plexus. All were dead within the vicinity. "Don't praise him yet." Marco suggested. "He's just fuckin up some piece of shit Goblins."

"Heh, Give me a break already." Henry was placing his Warhammer back in its sheathe.

"At this rate, we we'll get to the boss room faster than we thought." Kain's lips curve upright. A moment of joy after a second of slaughter.

"You kids went deeper than I thought."

This voice, rumbling, monotone with a low pitch, they all recognized it immediately. "COACH!?!" They all turn to the direction of where the voice seemed to be coming from. Their tall body builder like Coach stood there gazing at the three with discontent yet was simultaneously impressed by their performance.

"To get this far without receiving any damage is quite impressive but a hero isn't suppose to leave anyone behind. But I must digress." Conflicted ideals lay within his mind.

"Coach why are you here?" Marco longed for Coach Venri's answer for why he stands before then during their test.

"While I commend you three for coming this far in such a short timespan, we were given a national warning of the existence of a Black Gate."

The three students were stunned at the presented information. "A black gate?" Kain repeated after the Coach.

"Yes, so you all are to head back using your Return Crystals."

"But what about the test?" Kain worried for the credits he would not receive due to the test being incomplete.

"We will compensate you all for the test's incompletion on a later date but for everyone's safety, crush the crystals, and return to Earth."

From an outside lens, it may seem safer to stay in a Gray Open Dungeon than to go back to Earth where a Black Gate is appearing but that is far from the truth. Because gates like these are dependent on the Origin Universe's existence, a black gate will uniformly interfere with the boundaries of space that differentiate one gate from another. Translation, gates/dungeons start to merge during Black Gate Invasions. Open Gates like the one our cast is currently inhabiting merge with closed gates this making the difficulty rise. However, because of this they gain enough stability to presist without the dependency of the original universe thus cutting itself away.

This may destabilize the pre-existing Mana within the Hunter's body thus causing excruciating pain or even death. With other cases being applicable, it is better to be in the Origin Universe at times like these.

As much as they wanted to protest against it, they'd rather survive than die in here. Without saying much, Kain pulled out his crystal. "...Yessir." with a bit of pressure, cracks form around the crystalline structure. His palm enclose on the crystal more, converting the object into fragments.

Henry followed suit. Marco smacks his lips as he folds his bow, placing it in its sheathe. "See you on the other side, Coach." The two crush their crystals and with that, the crew disappeared.

"I've done my part." He pulled put two crystals. One was obviously a return crystal but another was for something else. He crushed both simultaneously. "Now the main crystal is back, I trust my assistant to retrieve the students safely." With that, he vanished from this dungeon.

Meanwhile, Stone Goblins run through the cave with stone and wooden weapons. Joan pulled back the string of her bow. "Everyone cover your eyes!!" He warned her comrades. The three others looked away from the goblins and used their forearms to block their sight.

"ARROW FLARE!!" A singular arrow flies through the air, not particularly aimed at anyone. As right before the Stone Goblins' faces, a light illuminates the cave entirety. Their photoreceptors are overloaded with the brightened luminescent arrowhead.

"Gaaaarhhh!!" The Stone Goblins' assault rush was halted once their sight was taken from them.

"Now!!" Joan announced the start of a goblin slaughter.

Sean and Carlton, the vanguard and spearman heads out first.

"Tobikomi-Kaiten-Tsuki!!!" Whilst it is a basic technique, it boast immense power due to its drill like affect.The spearman twist their pivot hand, curving their wrist and rotating the spear. His assisted hand let's go of the spear and the pole arm flies through the eye of a Stone Goblin. The blade broke through the tough skull of the Stone Goblin. His arm retracts with the sole of his foot bombarding the goblin's chest to forcefully unsheathe the weapon from its body.

Carlton swiftly follows up with his mace in hand. The metallic weight made contact with a Stone Goblin's frontal lobe and completely fragmented it's skull. As his weapon is removed from its dome, blood follows in threads. The beefy man does not stop after murdering a Stone Goblin with one swing.

Moe and Joan watched the two slay the monsters nonstop until the area was clear. Luckily, there were only 7 goblins in the vicinity. "This is going a lot smoother than I thought." An arrow flies back to Joan. It's head was caught and placed back in the quill.

"I know right!! At this rate, we'll make it to the boss in no time!!" Moe was ecstatic.

Sean joyfully scoffs. "Thanks to Joan's leadership this might actually be too easy."

"Please, thank me after we finish the exam." She started walking forward but there was another pair of footsteps walking with her.

"Unfortunately, there won't be a boss to fight for you guys." The voice was easy to spot. They automatically knew who it belonged.

Joan didn't see nor sense anything wrong with the surroundings or any irregularities with her teammates so she was quick to assume that something happened back on Earth or the other team was caught doing suspicious activities."Coach Raina?! Did something happen?" She proposed her question.

"We suspect a Black Gate will be forming soon." A shock to everyone.

But there hasn't been a Black Gate in 100 years! Why would appear now?" Moe was confused.

"Hold your questions for when we get back."