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Kain tried to quickly dodge but couldn’t prevent the talon from making a bone-deep lash along his collarbone.
Thankfully, he was able to prevent any major artery from being severed, otherwise even with the healing abilities of Eve and the Essence of Life, there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t lose so much blood that the relic would just eject him.
Another fortunate piece of news that Kain received was that one of Bea’s splits had managed to make contact during the brief moment it had reappeared and was now wrestling for control of its body.
He activated the spiritual skill to boost Bea once again to more quickly bring an end to the battle, but considering that now Kain had a way to monitor its movements and was no longer so threatened by it he once again chose not to instantly refill his spiritual power and simply rested against Aegis leisurely while eating some royal jelly to quickly heal his wounds.
After receiving a boost to he abilities, and because she only had to concentrate on subduing on yellow-grade spiritual creature, within a minute Bea was able to control it enough to leave its pocket of space and reveal itself to the attacks of Kain and the others.
Once its death was confirmed, Kain was once again transported to the bare room to receive his reward.
This time Kain did not get any choice and there was only one pedestal supporting what appeared to be a silver ore that was difficult to focus on due to the space-attribute energy emitting from it in high volumes.
‘Not bad… not having any way to directly target a creature hidden in a pocket of space still is a disadvantage I possess. If the sparrow wasn’t probably programmed to attack me if certain conditions were met, and instead hid indefinitely there would really be nothing I could do.’
Kain put away the ore in his space ring. He’d decide what to do with it later on.
Soon after a momentary weightless sensation, he was brought to the site of the next trial.
——————–
Outside of the relic, the professors were able to monitor the progress of each entrant.
It’d now been over 2 hours since all of the students had entered the relic and, although they couldn’t see what was occurring inside, they could see how many trials each student had completed.
“Ezra has completed the most, as expected. In only 2 hours he’s already reached his 13th trial.” A professor with dark hair and glasses said in admiration.
A blonde professor nodded in agreement. “I bet that he’d pass 22 trials this time, surpassing his previous record. You?”
“I bet that he’d stop at 21 again.” After mentioning the ongoing bet between the professors he also looked at the other entrants.
All of the fourth years had passed at least their 9th trial, as had two of the third-years with the other 3 still on their 8th trial.
“Surprisingly, among the second-years, the fourth-ranked Kyria is the furthest along at trial 8. Is she concealing her strength during the re-rankings? Or is the boost in strength something more recent?”
“Hmm…personally I’ve always felt like she was hiding something so I’d bet on the former. That’s actually a great idea! Should we start another bet?” Said the blonde one excitedly. However, his colleague just waved his hand dismissively.
“Are you sure you don’t have a gambling problem? You always want to make everything into a bet.”
“Haaa…” He couldn’t help but sigh in disappointment at having his idea turned down, and then turned his attention to the first years.
The first-years didn’t seem as familiar with the more creative usage of skills often required by the relic in order to complete the trials more efficiently.
However, as befitting the “golden generation” they were secretly called by the teachers, Serena was on par with most of the second-years on her 7th trial, while Kain had been on his sixth trial for a while and would probably advance soon.
Soren had also just entered his 6th trial, and the other two were still on their fifth trial.
After stalling for a while at their first two trials, all five of them quickly adapted and began to complete the trials at a much faster rate.
“How about betting on who among the first-years will complete the highest number of trials? I bet on Serena,” the blonde professor said.
This time the dark-haired professor didn’t immediately refuse the bet. And stared at the screen displaying the number of completed trials next to each name in contemplation. “Hmmm…I’d like to bet on Kain. However, I’d like to add that the object won should be given to the winning student as a reward.”
“Ha! Are you sure you aren’t just favoring that boy because he’s part of your Planner department? Well, whatever. It’s none of my business if you want to make a losing bid due to personal feelings.” The blonde nodded in agreement to the terms. After all, he didn’t like to bet purely due to the profits, but rather due to the joy that came from besting others in a field outside of combat.
“Great! Let’s determine what we are both offering to the other’s winning candidate from now.” The dark-haired professor said while pulling out a thick leatherbound manual from his space ring.
“Considering Serena’s gift, I think this spiritual skill would be quite suitable for her.” He said while placing the manual on the table next to them.
The other professor’s eyes widened, since this skill was extremely high in quality, and one that only the professor was privy to due to him finding it on his travels. However, it had one major con in that the spiritual power required for activation was immense. Without a gift like Serena’s, the user would likely need to be at 6-stars or higher in order to use the skill.
He was also a little upset. He thought that he could just casually bet a low-grade spiritual plant and be done with it. Now he has to come out with something that can match what was offered by the other professor.
“Tsk…” He couldn’t help clicking his tongue before pulling out an object from his space ring.