Chapter 16
“Students, it’s time to eat.”
In Yonkers’ classroom of Grade 12 Class 4, the form teacher, Li Bingdao, looked a little haggard as he used his vitality to carry forty-four boxes of food into the classroom.
The martial arts examination was not over yet, and the rescue operation was still ongoing. All the rescued students did not go home, but were waiting in the classroom for their classmates who had not returned.
The education division and the higher-ups of Bactria had discussed that this incident had brought about an indelible psychological shadow to the students, and they had to compensate them.
Therefore, in the seven days before the end of the combat examination, the meals of all the rescued students were specially provided by each city.
They used the highest grade demonic beast meat, spirit energy vegetables, and nourishing herbs that a martial apprentice could bear. Even the rice was blood-red rice.
It was a luxury.
The higher-ups of the education division and Bactria did not care about the cost this time. They only wanted to make up for it a little and also to reduce the guilt in their hearts.
There was a huge problem with the martial examination system.
This sudden incident wasn’t a coincidence. Even though the rescue operation was still ongoing and would continue until the end of the martial examination, the higher-ups of Bactria had already started to discuss the restructuring of the martial examination.
The martial arts examination could no longer be held in the secret realm.
Li Bingdao looked at the students who had yet to fully recover from their mental state, then at the two empty seats in the class and sighed.
“I wonder how Liang Shixian and Ji Ruo are doing, whether they’re eating well, or if they’re hungry…”
…
“Run! Run quickly!”
Ji Ruo shouted as he ran in the forest.
Their luck wasn’t always that good.
Not long after they finished eating, they encountered a group of nine-eyed magic spiders.
This nine-eyed magic spider was a demonic creature at the level nine Martial Apprentice.
Its eight legs were extremely sharp and as hard as rocks.
Moreover, the nine-eyed magic spider’s ninth eye could release a special magic ray that could slow down the target’s movements. Once the target entered the range of ten meters, it would be attacked.
More importantly, these things also lived in groups.
They didn’t know why the demons in Myriad Beast Mountain liked to live in groups. In less than two days, Ji Ruo and the others had already encountered the third wave of demons.
“Ji Ruo! Hurry up and throw away that little wooden stick of yours. Look at what you’ve done!” Liang Shixian roared.
“You can’t blame me for this! Who knew that those spider webs were laid by the nine-eyed magic Spider! ‘If I had known… If I had known, I would have run away halfway through it!”
“Is that the main point?!” Liang Shixian yelled.
Zhang Quan and Liu Neng didn’t say a word. Their expressions were unusually ferocious, as if they were running with their lives. They didn’t have the strength to speak.
They felt that they might have lost all their hopes for the year in the next two days.
They had been doing fine on the tree, and there had been no danger. But when Ji Ruo saw a spider web, he happily took his stick and went over to play with it.
Then, the nine-eyed magic spider horde charged out. These nine-eyed magic spiders were the size of watermelons. They looked ferocious and terrifying as they pursued relentlessly.
“Then, a third?” Ji Ruo shouted.
Liang Shixian almost felt like vomiting blood. “Don’t you know what you did wrong?!”
“I know! Next time, I’ll use my Iron Sand Palm and burn all those spider webs!”
“Can’t you just ignore those spider webs?!”
“But if you don’t clean the spider web, it’s not hygienic!”
“…”
Liang Shixian rolled his eyes and was speechless.
Ji Ruo had been using [Absolute Directional Sense] to correct his direction. Although he could only get 5% of the correct effect each time, the effect was still quite obvious after several adjustments.
“Safe, safe. Safe, safe,” Ji Ruo murmured.
“This way. Follow me!”
Fortunately, the nine-eyed magic spider’s movement speed wasn’t particularly outrageous. The four of them always maintained a distance of more than ten meters from the magic spiders behind them, and weren’t affected by the slowing magic eye.
A moment later,
“There’s a cave there! It should be safe, let’s go in quickly!”
Ji Ruo shouted.
[Absolute Directional Sense] gave him a hint that was pointing to that cave.
“What if it’s a dead end inside-”
Before Liang Shixian could finish, Ji Ruo had already rushed into the cave.
With the spiders chasing them, entering the cave was obviously not a wise move, but Ji Ruo had already rushed in, so they had no choice.
“Keep up!” Liang Shixian gritted his teeth.
The few of them followed closely behind and rushed into the cave.
The cave was filled with spider webs of various sizes. The familiar feeling was the same as the one Ji Ruo had stirred with the wooden stick.
In the dark, countless red eyes were staring at them.
The few of them instantly felt their hearts turn cold.
Liang Shixian thought in despair, “It’s over!”
Ji Ruo, who was at the front, had already raised his red palm and smacked on the biggest spider web in the cave.
“Have a taste of my Iron Sand Palm!”
Whoosh!
The high temperature of Iron Sand Palm instantly ignited the cobweb, which was originally a flammable material. The fire spread extremely quickly, and the entire cave turned into a sea of fire in an instant.
“Stay behind me!” Ji Ruo shouted.
At the same time, he took out his sword and knife from his back. The hilt of the sword and hilt of the knife faced each other, and he aimed at the cave and rotated them at high speed.
“Have a taste of this!”
The airflow did not affect the fire at all. After all, Ji Ruo was only a level 6 Martial Apprentice who was close to level 7. How fast could he turn?
In fact, the youngster wanted to trigger the achievement, but he didn’t.
However, those nine-eyed magic spiders didn’t get any closer. Instead, they kept retreating.
Ji Ruo, who had inherited the attributes of the original ‘top student,’ knew very well that the nine-eyed magic spider was afraid of fire.
The spider web was denser the deeper one went into the cave, so the fire was burning towards the inside. Ji Ruo said that he would stay behind him, but in fact, it didn’t matter if he stayed or not.
At this moment, there were more than a dozen nine-eyed magic spiders behind them. In front of them was a raging flame, and behind the flame was a large group of nine-eyed magic spiders of unknown numbers.
At first glance, it was already an absolute dead end.
Even though the nine-eyed magic spider behind him did not dare to come close because of the flames, it did not leave either.
They kept a certain distance from Ji Ruo and the others. As the fire spread deeper into the cave, Ji Ruo and the others followed the fire deeper and deeper, and the nine-eyed demon spiders inside retreated frantically.
The other three had no choice but to follow Ji Ruo into the cave.
The nine-eyed magic spider behind them had already entered the cave, completely blocking off their escape route.
After the spider web was burned out, whether the nine-eyed magic spiders in front of them were all dead or not, Ji Ruo and the others would not be able to escape death.
A level nine Martial Apprentice nine-eyed magic spider, whether it was its body’s strength or its own poison, was far from what a few level six Martial Apprentices could withstand.
But Ji Ruo didn’t panic at all. At least, he wasn’t completely flustered.
Because this direction had been corrected by [Absolute Directional Sense.]
After many inquiries, many corrections, and the average value, in theory, this cave was the way out.
Thud!
Suddenly, the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground was heard. It was mixed with the strange sound of the flames burning the spider silk and the terrified cries of the nine-eyed magic spiders. It was unusually abrupt.
Ji Ruo’s eyes were sharp, and he immediately saw a large cocoon in the middle of the burnt spider web.
The sound of a heavy object falling to the ground came from the cocoon being burned, and the ‘spider food’ inside it falling to the ground.
It was a human.
However, she was already unconscious. From her hair and figure, she was a woman.
Ji Ruo stepped forward, grabbed the woman’s collar, and turned her over.
She had a pretty face, but her face was slightly purple. She had obviously been poisoned.
There was an inspection pass on her chest.
“A martial arts examination inspector?” he thought.
Ji Ruo raised his hand and slapped the pretty female martial artist’s face. Half of her face was swollen, and two of her teeth were knocked out.
“Teacher! Wake up. Stop sleeping! Help us!”
Tender and protective of the fairer sex? That was non-existent for now. “If the invigilating martial artist doesn’t wake up, everyone will die here today!” Ji Ruo mused.