As the monster's teeth tried to bite his arm away, Arthur hurried to use his barrier. The barrier clashed with the monster's teeth, stalling it long enough for Arthur to pull back.
The crocodile bit down on empty air and looked at Arthur with hateful eyes. Its eyes began to lose focus as it slumped down, breathing heavily.
Before Arthur could sense its life fade away, a giant tree branch attacked him like a spear. He jumped upward before it reached him and began running on top of the branch.
The giant tree's movements were unpredictable but Ruki worked to hinder it. Sadly, her stats were only half of Arthur's stats, making her unable to fight on her own against the tree.
A branch whipped his way but Arthur did a front flip, avoiding it without losing momentum. He kept running on the tree's branch as his arms were engulfed in flames.
Three branches attacked him from every direction. Arthur stopped using his fire rune and teleported far above the tree. As he rapidly descended toward the tree, it didn't hesitate to attack with every branch and root it can.
Arthur could see that spikes were growing on the tree's surface, threateningly dripping with a dark green liquid. He clapped his hands and flames exploded around him. His body burned brightly like a meteor as Arthur pushed his mana toward his fire rune.
The air stretched under the effect of his flames making it harder to breathe. However, this was nothing to a superhuman. The countless branches attacked him as he threw his hands forward, creating a giant pillar of fire with him in the center.
The pillar of fire descended on the tree as the countless branches began burning, but kept attacking Arthur.
"Let's see who outlasts the other, Monster!" Arthur laughed as the fire condensed until it seemed like liquid lava. He wielded the pillar of flame and it burned the tree to embers.
[New Rune has been obtained: Liquid-Fire.]
[Liquid-Fire: A new rune was obtained due to the flexible usage of the fire rune. Combines the flexibility of liquid and the destructiveness of fire.]
As soon as this message appeared, his fire changed from its free plasma state into a liquid of destruction that cut apart anything that came in its way.
Without hesitation, Arthur spread his ten fingers. The fire gathered around them in threads of liquid fire that swayed like whips. As he fell downward, he brought his hands together and the ten fire whips intersected and attacked the monster, cutting it to pieces while leaving scorched marks on its body.
Arthur landed on the ground and rolled as the flames surrounded his body. He came to a stop and began gathering his breath. He heard the tiger issue its last roar as another message appeared in front of him.
[You have leveled up.]
As he looked at the purple sky, caused by Lilo's barrier, Arthur tried to replenish his mana. All of the weaker monsters have escaped the moment the battle commenced.
'Are you okay, Master?' Lilo's head appeared in front of him upside down. Its giant eyes blinked at Arthur who simply smiled and patted its head.
"Well done, Lilo."
'Hehe.'
Arthur stood up and looked at the destruction they had caused. Dismembered body parts, roasted crocodile, and a headless tiger. Arthur stood up and used his absorb rune.
[Strength has increased by 3.]
[Agility has increased by 3.]
[Stamina has increased by 3.]
Each of the three monsters gave him three stats. With everything now peaceful and quiet, Arthur headed toward the tree Jaran drew something on.
Unlike a few hours ago, Arthur didn't feel any magical property to the shape drawn on the tree. He frowned and took out his phone and snapped a photo.
'I need to find what this symbol means,' Arthur looked at the circle with five slashes on its circumference and frowned. 'But where do I look?'
"Beep!"
His phone rang and Arthur opened it to find Jonah calling him. As soon as he did, Jonah's anxious voice came from the other end.
"Alexie! Arlo has met with your clone! You need to get back now!"
"Where are they?"
"I'll send you the approximate location, but make sure no one sees you when the two of you swap."
"I have a way," Arthur closed the line and saw the location. It was three kilometers in the direction Arlo and the rest ran in.
He used his teleport rune and appeared above the tree near the location. As he looked around, he saw the two groups standing against each other with Arlo grabbing his sword.
"This is against the rules, Arlo," Alice warned. "Don't expect we won't retaliate."
"There was no rule about snatching cores," Arlo sneered as he glared at Arthur's clone. "You didn't seem to mind such tricks yesterday."
"Don't be petty."
"You two, get the girl and the guy. I'll take Alice. As for you, Ellen," Arlo grinned. "You'll take on that bastard." His sword pointed at Arthur's clone.
Arthur sighed inwardly as he looked down on them. These people will always have an egotistical personality, thinking anyone that stands up to them was an enemy. It was a competition; he didn't understand why Arlo took it so personally.
"This is against the rules." Ellen frowned. "I'm not going to participate in it."
"I'm your leader," Arlo said coldly. "If you don't follow my orders, I can report you."
As they were talking, the forest suddenly was filled with smoke. In the Runes Apprentices Competition, Arthur bought a simple artifact that produced smoke. He gave it to Ruki so that she would use it to create a smokescreen.
As for Lilo, Arthur asked him to cause a disturbance. Hearing the roars of the monsters, the two teams braced themselves and unsheathed their weapons.
Using the moment of distraction, Arthur teleported next to his clone and patted it. His clone looked at him and handed him the bracelet before disappearing.
"Alice, we should leave this place while we can." Arthur stepped forward but Sebastian blocked his way.
"You've been leeching off us until now, you think you can give us orders?"
"Are you an idiot? You want to fight them?" Arthur was stunned. "There's no gain in this, it's just child play."
"Anyone who threatens my lady deserves punishment." Sebastian unsheathed his sword. "I'm not going to run away with my tail between my legs."
"You have a tail now?" Arthur was speechless and turned to Alice. "You consent to this?"
"If we run away now, they'll look down on our dorm." Alice was also unwavering. "Just because it's scary, doesn't mean you should run away from it. You've done nothing wrong, Alexie." Ice began covering her fingertips.
"You guys are morons, both of you." Arthur sighed.
"You bastard!" Sebastian took a step toward him but Alice gestured for him to stop.
"If you want to run away, then do so." Alice looked at him in disregard. "We're not going to stop you."
"I don't need to run," Arthur started walking toward them. "I'll just deal with this annoyance as quickly as I can."
He didn't want to fight them lest Ellen gets hurt, but he had no choice if these morons were too prideful to run away. A powerful gush of wind pushed the smoke away as Arlo took a step forward with his armor on.
"You can't be as sneaky now, bastard."
"Yeah, but it's not like I need to." The restrain rune was activated as the ethereal ropes coiled around Arlo's body in an instant. They kept multiplying as if there was no end to them.
"You..."
"You this, you that. Does everyone has speaking difficulties?" Arthur waved his hands to the people behind him. "Miss Amelia, can you shock him for me please?"
"Her ability is still unstable," Alice took a step forward. "I'll end this." She clapped her hands as a giant snowflake appeared behind her. "Never make a move on my dorm again."
A giant spear flew toward Arlo who couldn't move his body and struck him away. His lackeys ran to aid him and help him stand, but he was coughing blood.
"Are you happy now?" Arthur rolled his eyes at the three and started walking back toward the gates.
"Where are you going? There are still monsters left!" Sebastian shouted from behind him.
"I've used all of my mana, you moron." Arthur didn't stop. It wasn't a lie either, the battle from earlier and the restrains now has bottomed out his mana. The new rune he got was especially mana-consuming but equally destructive. When he was back, he found Jonah standing beside the gate.
"You guys are done?"
"One of my teammates got injured as soon as we started, Oliver took her to the infirmary," Jonah explained. "Where are the rest of your team?"
"Somewhere hunting, I don't care much."
"THE HUNT IS OVER. PLEASE GO BACK TO THE FRONT GATE."
An announcement deafened their ears, making Arthur and Jonah head back and find a place to sit. The teams started returning one by one until both dorms stood in front of the gate. Arlo glared, Ellen nodded in thanks, and Emma ignored him as she was with Caleb, who also glared.
'How can I have so many enemies even though it's only the second day?' Arthur sighed. Dean Henrick stood on top of the wall as he began announcing the results.
"Every kill has been counted, some counted more than others," Henrick said. "Mid-tier monsters were one point, high-tier monsters were three points, and peak-high-tier monsters were five points. As for the two True Monsters, they were each worth ten points. All that said, we'll announce the points each dorm obtained."
Two giant words appeared on the wall, one of them being Nightfall and the other being Daybreak.
"Daybreak dorm has obtained 903 points!" The Daybreak dorm cheered as the number appeared on the screen. "As for Nightfall, they have obtained 913 points!"
This time, the cheering this louder followed by howls of victory. The Daybreak students were downcast, their morale all-time low.
"Oh, Yurirl. It seems you're all talk but no result." Caleb stepped forward with his hands in his pockets. "Once again, we'll be winning this."
"Excuse me, Dean Henrick." A voice interrupted the celebration and pulled all of the student's attention toward it. Standing in the middle of the crowd was a tall and handsome youth, who exuded confidence and arrogance. "I have a few cores that I forgot to scan, can I?" Jonah asked.
"That's against the rules!" Caleb snarled.
"My teammate has been injured, so I didn't care about the cores at that time." Jonah shrugged. "Sir?"
"Very well, but unless you have more than ten cores, it won't make a difference."
"I only have three." Jonah shook his head. The Nightfall Dorm began laughing hysterically.
"Do you think that would change anything? Go back where you came from!"
"Sadly, even if they're high-tier cores, you'll still be one point short." Dean Henrick shook his head. "That would be..." He paused when Jonah took out the three cores.
The moment that they were out, every student shut his mouth. Jonah proceeded to scan them with his device without any delay and with each scan, the number on the wall increased by five.
908.
913.
918.
"P-peak-high tier?"