Chapter 58

'Why does it have to be so hot?' Alex questioned as he felt like the sun above was cooking him and getting increasingly hotter as time went by.

Once again, he was forced to conjure up some shade while moving forward. 'I could install some cooling on this armor, but in this heat, it would be costly.' He thought as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

After traveling quite a distance, Alex stopped and looked around his surroundings. He visibly shuddered as he scanned the area with his spacial energy.

'there are so many beasts!'

'There is no point in not using my dark mana here. I have no other competitions later.' He thought while looking down to his side. 'besides, I managed to get my hands on quite a few mana potions.'

Alex took control of the shade beneath the loose soil and walked forward slowly. As expected, within just a few steps, multiple beasts jumped up from beneath the sand toward Alex.

Or at least they tried to. They leapt up but were pulled back beneath the sand by tendrils of darkness while Alex caught their beast cores and threw some seeds and some more of the potion the schools had provided.

Without even getting a second of rest, more serpents came at Alex from every direction. From beneath the sand, from the cracks in large rocks that were nearby, and at this point, Alex wouldn't be surprised if a few grew wings and came from above.

A dome spread out around Alex, blocking out the sun and relieving the pressure that was depleting his dark mana. When it faded, he had already buried the beasts' corpses. After he finished pouring a larger amount of the potion, he watched in fascination for a moment as the land around it changed into a greenish tint.

Grass sprouts slowly popped out from beneath the soil, and a refreshing feeling was felt from the patch of grass in front of him.

Alex thought back to when he was standing in line for the portal, to when they had handed everyone a portion of these seeds and potions.

"Do not collect the beasts' bodies. Instead, plant these seeds."

"These are not ordinary seeds, these seeds have been created to survive intense temperatures by absorbing the nearby mana to nourish themselves. The only problem is that they require a catalyst to allow them to work properly."

Alex shook himself as he continued forward, continuing his search for anyone in need of help.

"This heat will kill me before I find another beast." Alex muttered as he pulled out a bottle and drank from it.

Looking up into the distance, his eyes finally met a new set of scenery. Ahead of Alex, a large set of boulders and rocks were seen. Alex looked ahead in fascination as large feline beasts prowled all over the place.

As he drew nearer, his heart pounded heavily as he watched a lion pulling something towards the rest of the pride.

Without thinking, Alex charged closer towards the lions. There was no reason to think. Alex could see that the figure was humanoid, and its neck was held tightly within the jaws of a lion.

Remembering what he had been taught, Alex pressed a button on his watch and approached the lion. The lion, noticing the quickly approaching human, dropped what was in its mouth and roared loudly. Alex's eyes widened as he watched the lion's mane engulf in flames, even from where he was it was hard to breathe without the heat hurting his lungs.

"Of course it can control fire." He groaned before a dark mass collided with the lion knocking it away from what Alex had finally confirmed to be a dead student mage.

A strand of darkness pulled the body towards Alex and he quickly ran away from the lion's den as he heard the roars of several beasts chasing him. He caught something that was launched towards him as he ran.

A cool feeling came from his empty hand as he caught a jagged piece of recently created and crude glass. He quickly dropped the nearly molten glass and groaned as an intense stinging feeling filled his hand. Alex looked down at his hand and winced as he saw an ugly sight. 'Fuck this watch, and having to record this to prove my innocence.'

He leapt to the left and right as he felt several other objects flying towards him. The sand around him began to fly in the air as Alex created strong gusts of wind to give him some cover. Behind him through the thick wall of flying sand, Alex was also scooping up the glass shards and shooting them towards the lions who were pursuing him.

After what felt like ages, the lions finally slowed down before turning away, mostly because their injuries were adding up. Alex dropped to the ground coughing and spitting out the sand that had managed to get in his mouth. His breathing was ragged as he flipped over the dead mage to read the badge.

'It is too damaged.' Alex thought as he looked at the badge that no longer displayed the school's name but simply was green in color, indicating that this was a wind mage.

"They still have the spacial fragment, so they will be pulled back when the time is up." Alex murmured he looked closely at the mage for the first time. 'He was a brewer yesterday. Just a few workstations away from me, and now he is... he is just... dead.'

Alex looked down as he saw what had gotten him. A shard of glass pierced straight through the mages back and through the front of his torso.

"You could've just left me alone." Alex said in a quiet voice as he used his spacial energy to redirect a chunk of still molten glass away from himself, embedding itself with a "shunk" in the soft ground.

Alex turned around to look at the only lion that had kept up with him. 'You must be the leader of the lions.'

He was about to pull out his chain blades but decided against it because with enough heat the chain would lose its elasticity and more than likely break.

"Fine, you asked for this." Alex said as wisps of darkness rolled off of himself.

The area around him getting dimmer and dimmer. As the light disappeared, wisps of darkness appeared from seemingly nowhere. Alex looked around as he felt a purer concentration of dark energy around him.

The lion growled while looking around. It attacked the wisps of darkness that got close to it tearing them to shreds.

'A domain, finally.' He thought as he controlled his now empowered dark mana and surrounded the lion.

'You may be in the Noble class, beast, but with my domain,'

'technically, I am as well.' Alex thought as his energy collided with the lion's flames.

A loud hiss was heard as the flames were smothered.

Alex looked to his side as a large tendril of darkness lifted the chunk of glass and threw it in a whipping motion towards the trapped lion. After watching it shatter on the lion's tough snout and leave no damage, Alex pulled out his chain blades with his one functioning hand. He placed one blade in his armpit and held it tightly before leaping into the air and slamming the blade downwards in the same whipping motion, finally ridding himself of the lion in front of him.

Alex pressed a button on his watch before catching a beast core in his hand and putting it away.

He laid down as he felt fatigue washing over him. "How long has it been? It feels like it has been ages, hurry it up already." Alex muttered as he poured water over his hand to remove any sand that had gotten into his wounds.

Alex buried the lion with his spacial energy and a few seconds later a few grass sprouts were seen popping out from beneath the sand and many more kept popping up.

He drank two potions and wrapped his hand up before just lying down and waiting for the rest of the time to be up.

'How do I get rid of this domain?' Alex wondered as he looked around at the dark surroundings. He could feel his mana being drained but didn't understand how he had even brought it up.

Alex closed his eyes tightly and covered his ears as they were assaulted by loud cheering.

As he opened them he felt his domain being taken down by the familiar dome above. The crowd around was quiet as things below didn't seem right. Alex looked around, several mages were wounded, and many were crying aloud as they saw the corpse of the mage lying next to Alex.

Alex closed his eyes as he could hear several people calling out for their peers. He knew that if they weren't here, they were not going to be here any time soon.

"Why is this here?" One mage asked as they noticed the corpse of a large bug-type beast.

Alex looked over towards the dead Antlion, which had presumably eaten a mage, gotten teleported and killed by the dome's defensive systems. He pushed himself up with one arm as he noticed several other beasts scattered around the stage, but only on the side with the younger mages. He looked up and took Taylors outstretched hand, using his help to get on his feet. "I found him... but it was too late." Alex said as he motioned to the dead mage.

"There was nothing we could do, we were separated with no way to find each other." Taylor said with one hand on Alex's shoulder.

"Besides, You were lucky that you didn't join him." He continued noticing the lack of body hair on Alex's limbs, the bandaged hand, and his arm which was reddish in tint as if it had been exposed to a high temperature.

Several instructors dropped to the stage and immediately tended to those that were wounded. Alex looked over to the host of the competitions that was approaching him.

"Are you alright?" Malcolm asked as he approached Alex.

Alex nodded.

"Follow me then." Was all he said before turning around with Alex behind him.