Capítulo 8: Saint Realm 01
"It can't be, Liang Xiaole, what you're saying is ridiculous. Those two aren't even Saints yet; to think they could kill over 70 Magical Beasts in a day? That's impossible." A youth with a pike said incredulously.
"That's right, it's too ridiculous. Even a Saint wouldn't cut it; I think even a Great Saint wouldn't be able to kill that many Class 1 Magical Beasts in a single day, let alone half. I doubt their Saint Force is that unlimited." A bow wielding girl said with doubt.
At that moment, the youth that had invited Sasuke and Tieta into the group said, "Liang Xiaole, do you know who they are? When did our Kargath Academy have such amazing people in it? They aren't Saints, but to easily defeat Class 1 Magical Beasts? Just who are they?" Saying this, he seemed to have immediately realized something, as his face rapidly changed colors.
Liang Xiaole's face looked proud as if she had done something honorable. With a laidback tone, she said, "I can tell you this: the one that just traded you a monster core for your battleaxe was the one that set the academy abuzz–Tieta: the headmaster's apprentice. The other person is the Rookie Champion of the annual Academy Competition–Shangyang Xiang Tian."
Everyone cried out in alarm before talking amongst themselves in excitement.
"So it was those two abnormal people; no wonder their strength was that strong."
"It can't be, it's said that Tieta fought Lord Ming to a standstill at the library…"
"That Shangyang Xiang Tian was the one who beat the Saint Kadi Yun in an intense duel. I was there watching the fight; Shangyang Xiang Tian's strength was really amazing."
"I heard that outside the library, the middle ranked Saint Luo Jian wasn't able to deal with Shangyang Xiang Tian, and was even forced to use his Saint Weapon in the end."
Without the burden of having Liang Xiaole anymore, Tieta and Sasuke's speed had risen exponentially, and so the two soon reached the third region.
When they first entered the 3rd region, they initially saw no difference in the two regions. But the further they advanced, the more hellish it became. Compared to the 3rd region, the 2nd region could be called a paradise.
There were all sorts of magical beasts in the forest, and the land was full of swamps, so if one wasn't careful, they would find themselves stuck deep inside the waters. However, most of the swamps were man-made, so they weren't too deep. Otherwise, if no one came to rescue them, they wouldn't be able to escape with their lives.
Perhaps it was because of the ground, but there wasn't much grass in the 3rd region, so line of sight was much better than the 2nd region.
Sasuke and Tieta cautiously trekked through the swamplands with a small amount of powder on them. This type of powder was a type of repellant that would prevent insects from biting them.
"Shangyang Xiang Tian, it seems like you're familiar with the forest. Could it be you've been here before? How could you be this amazing?" Tieta said, while looking at the layer of green dust on his body.
Sasuke smirked and said, "I read a lot."
"Ah, no wonder." Tieta realized.
Right after Tieta spoke, Sasuke's face stilled before becoming serious. At the same time, the ground began to shake, as if an earthquake was occurring.
But before Sasuke could say anything, Tieta had already sprung into action, his new battleaxe coming to rest in both his hands.
Sasuke glanced towards his left and spoke cautiously, "This time it looks like we've come across a large magical beast."
"Yea!" Tieta nodded his head as the expression on his face grew solemn. Because they were in the 3rd region, this wasn't a Class 1 magical beast, but a Class 2 Magical Beast that was stronger than a Class 1 Magical Beast by many times over. It could fight against a Great Saint on even footing.
Although its attack power wasn't all that strong yet, its strength still couldn't be underestimated.
As the two of them nervously looked around, the magical beast finally came into view. Its entire body had red fur, and it spanned 3 meters tall and 5 meters wide. Protruding from its mouth, it had two long tusks, that looked as if they could penetrate through muscle with ease. This beast resembled a Baku, something he had fought against in his previous life during the Five Kage Summit, although it looked far larger.
"Tieta, be careful, this is the Class 2 Magical Beast–the Flaming Cloud Beast. It can spit out fire from its mouth and is quite hard to deal with." Sasuke uttered the magical beast's name. Because he had read so many books in the library, he could recognize most magical beasts, and even knew of some of their special abilities.
Tieta only nodded, as he wordlessly focused all of his attention on the Flaming Cloud Beast, ready to strike at any moment.
The gigantic Flaming Cloud Beast roared as it started to move each of its four hooves towards Sasuke and Tieta. With each stamp on the ground, the earth would to shake.
Sasuke's eyes flashed in concentration, "I'll attack it from the front; Tieta, you go around and attack it from behind." Charging forward, he jumped into the air straight towards the Flaming Cloud Beast's head.
The moment Sasuke had moved, Tieta started to move as well, and circled around the beast to come towards its behind.
Standing on top of its head, Sasuke let out a yell as his Saint Force gathered within his iron rod, before fiercely stabbing it into the head of the beast.
As if made of steel, the head of the Flaming Cloud Beast deflected Sasuke's iron rod. It had only left a shallow line on its head, unable to penetrate through its defense.
Sasuke's face changed into a grimace; although he knew the Flaming Cloud Beast had a strong defense, he hadn't thought that it would be so strong that his iron rod could do no damage to it. He had used all of his strength in that attack, and it had unexpectedly done virtually nothing.
With a roar, Tieta jumped forward and used his enormous strength to slash at the butt of the Flaming Cloud Beast with his battleaxe. However he didn't do any better than Sasuke. Although his battleaxe had cut through the skin of the magical beast, it had done no damage at all.
Their attacks had evidently angered the Flaming Cloud Beast, because it roared in response. Whipping its head back and forth, it threw off Sasuke, who had been standing on its head.
As Sasuke flew through the air, he quickly readjusted himself. Using both of his feet to jump off a tree trunk, he flipped himself upright onto a nearby tree branch.
After throwing off Sasuke, the Flaming Cloud Beast turned around and tried to bite into Tieta.
Tieta immediately leapt aside to avoid its mouth, and simultaneously swung his battleaxe into one of the giant tusks.
The battleaxe smashed against the tusk, breaking it off near the root. However, after the tusk was broken off, Tieta's battleaxe chipped off in several places as well.
The Flaming Cloud Beast roared in anger as it stampeded towards Tieta once more.
Tieta's eyes flashed dangerously as it watched the Flaming Cloud Beast charge towards him. Without bothering to dodge, Tieta dropped his battleaxe onto the ground and used both of his hands to grab onto the remaining tusk and the root of the broken one, before pushing back at the monster, resulting in a deadlock.
At that moment, it was as if Tieta had turned into a fierce beast. Grunting out loud, his hands pushed against the Flaming Cloud Beast's tusks, as if trying to compare his strength to it.
Despite Tieta's heavenly strength, he was still a delicate tiny figure compared to the heavy and gigantic Flaming Cloud Beast. So even though his own strength wasn't lacking, he found himself being pushed backwards a large distance, his feet leaving behind two deep marks in the ground .
"Ah!" Tieta's eyes revealed a crazy look within them as he roared. The veins within his arms bulged as both of his arms swelled up in an instant, as he began to exert more force.
Another crisp sound was heard as the remaining tusk was snapped off by Tieta, causing the Flaming Cloud Beast to release a blood curling roar of pain.
Despite having used a good amount of his strength, Tieta was not yet satisfied, as he grabbed onto the freshly broken off tusk and used it to pierce it into the head of the Flaming Cloud Beast.
The tooth of the Flaming Cloud Beast was extraordinarily sharp, and was far stronger than Sasuke's weapon. But despite its sharpness, it had only penetrated into the head by a tiny amount, causing a small amount of blood to spurt outwards.
Seeing Tieta use its own tusk to stab it, the Flaming Cloud Beast's eyes grew extremely red as it opened its mouth wide. With a loud roar, it unleashed a trail of fire that moved around, almost like a serpent emerging from its gaping jaws, with the intention of roasting Tieta alive. Instantly, the surrounding temperature had started to increase exponentially.
Sensing the astonishing heat radiate from the stream of fire, Tieta's expression immediately changed, as he desperately threw himself away from the attack. But despite his efforts he had not been able to dodge the attack of the fire serpent, and so his entire body caught on fire.
Seeing Tieta's body catch on fire, Sasuke turned pale with fright. Immediately snapping off a thick tree branch, he jumped off against a tree trunk and sped towards the Tieta like a speeding bullet.
The Flaming Cloud Beast roared once more as it stamped towards the still burning Tieta. Opening its jaws wide, it tried to swallow him, not caring if he was on fire or not.
Just as the Flaming Cloud Beast was about to consume Tieta, Sasuke had finally reached Tieta. Using both of his arms, Sasuke waved the tree branch in his hand to drag Tieta a good 10 meters away from the jaws of the magical beast.
Sasuke quickly dislodged Tieta from the branch and without caring for the fire's heat, he quickly extended his arms and tore away at the wolf leather Tieta was wearing.
Because the fire had caught onto the fur of the wolf leather, the moment it was removed from him, Tieta was no longer on fire. Tieta's tattered academy uniform was exposed underneath.
Tieta didn't bother to get up from the floor, but instead started to roll on the ground while complaining, "Hot, hot! I'm dying from the heat, it burns…" Seeing him complain like that, Sasuke deduced that Tieta had not suffered any major harm. However, all of his hair had been burnt off, leaving him bald. Not a single hair remained; even his eyebrows and eyelashes had been burnt away!
"Tieta, are you alright?" Sasuke asked in concern.
Tieta shook his head. He let out a long breath, and spoke in a muffled voice, "I'm fine, but the heat really got me; it was difficult to endure."
"As long as you're fine." Sasuke looked at him in relief.
Suddenly, Sasuke's eyes hardened as he turned back to look at the lush tree. His eyes gleamed as his mouth also rose up to show a hint of a smirk.
The ground began to shake again as the Flaming Cloud Beast stamped towards Sasuke. With each step it took, the earth trembled. The Flaming Cloud Beast kept breathing fire out of its mouth, almost as if it was excited.
Tieta's face hardened as he stared at the approaching Flaming Cloud Beast, "Shangyang Xiang Tian, this guy's skin is fairly tough. How do we go about killing him?"
Sasuke also looked at the beast with a calm face, "The Flaming Cloud Beast's body is entirely covered by a strong layer of skin. Unless we reach the level of Saints, our weapons will barely be able to slice apart its pelt. At the moment, our only chance is to attack through the Flaming Cloud Beast's eyes to stab its brain."
As Sasuke trailed off, the Flaming Cloud Beast roared, and opened up its jaws to release another serpent fire.
Sasuke and Tieta both dove towards the side to dodge it. Sasuke tightly clenched the iron rod, as he called out, "Tieta, distract it for me!"
"Don't worry, leave it to me!" Tieta picked up a nearby rock and threw it at the Flaming Cloud Beast, and ran towards the opposite direction.
The rock twirled in midair before hitting the Flaming Cloud Beast precisely on the spot where Tieta had broke off the tusk.
Since the spot was still tender for the Flaming Cloud Beast, its eyes turned red with bloodlust as it began to breath fire at Tieta once more.
Sasuke watched as Tieta distracted the Flaming Cloud Beast. He gripped the iron rod so hard that it had began to deform. Quickly running forward, he dashed towards the head of the Flaming Cloud Beast.
Sasuke's speed was fairly fast. As he dashed across the ground, the grass around him swayed from the rapid air currents, which made him seem like he was flying, as he activated his Sharingan for a brief moment to memorise the Flaming Beast's movements.
In a short moment, Sasuke had reached the head of the Flaming Cloud Beast. Not even caring for the intense heat from the streams of fire the beast was spitting out, he jumped into the air once more to land on the head of the beast. With the iron rod in his right hand, he quickly stabbed it into the eyes of the Flaming Cloud Beast.
Although Sasuke had moved quickly, the Flaming Cloud Beast wasn't slow to react either. Before the iron rod could pierce the eye, the beast suddenly shut its eyes.
Sasuke's eyes flashed for just a brief second as he saw the Flaming Cloud Beast close its eyes. Focusing, Sasuke condensed his soul and willed it to enter his iron rod. As it covered the sharp point of the iron rod, he tried to ram it into the eyelid of the Flaming Cloud Beast.
The iron rod then pierced through the eyelid with no difficulty or resistance. Immediately, blood came pouring out of the eye of the Flaming Cloud Beast.
The Flaming Cloud Beast suddenly let loose a desolate cry that shook the heavens themselves, as it whirled and struck out randomly in all directions.
Sasuke exerted more pressure on his right arm, pushing the iron rod in even deeper in attempt to strike at the brain from the eyes.
The Flaming Cloud Beast's screams became more desolate as it started to sway back and forth. It attempted to remove the iron rod from its eye, but the rod had already sunk in far too deep, making it difficult to remove. As it shook its head to remove Sasuke, the pain grew more intense. After two attempts at shaking its head, the pain was so fierce for the Flaming Cloud Beast that it didn't dare to move at all anymore.
Endlessly wailing in pain, the Flaming Cloud Beast dropped to the ground, where it began its final struggle to fight. Although the wound wasn't fatal, the damage done to its cranial nerves was excruciatingly hard to bear.
Seeing the Flaming Cloud Beast fall to the ground, Sasuke flashed in glee as he yelled "Tieta, quickly drive the iron rod deeper in." Given Tieta's heavenly strength, this task couldn't be more appropriate for anyone else.
"Alright, I'm on my way." Tieta cried out happily as he ran over, having now realized that victory was on hand.
Tieta approached the Flaming Cloud Beast quickly and grabbed the iron rod before pushing it one meter deeper into the eye of the Flaming Cloud Beast with his right hand. Only a small portion of the rod was left sticking out, as massive amount of blood came spurting out like red rain.
The loudest cry yet came out of the beast, causing Tieta and Sasuke's ears to momentarily go deaf. With that, the Flaming Cloud Beast expended the last of its energy and slumped onto the ground. It stopped twitching, and its other eye gradually closed.
Seeing that the beast had finally died, Sasuke and Tieta could not help but exhale in relief. The Class 2 Magical Beast Flaming Cloud Beast wasn't that amazing, but its defenses were extraordinarily high. Thus, killing it was an extremely difficult task.
"It finally died; this magical beast was too troublesome. It even breathed out fire and burnt away all my hair." Tieta touched his bald head with a depressed expression.
Sasuke could only chuckle as he watched Tieta gloom over his hair and clothes. "You should at the very least put something on." He said as he took out another wolf pelt from his Space Belt. The wolf pelts were something he and Tieta had prepared; there were many sets stored within their belts just in case they needed a new change of clothes. Because they were in a forest where battle was a common occurrence; a change of clothes could not be in high enough demand.
Tieta took it without another word, and in a flash, he had transformed the pelt into wearable clothing.
Afterwards, Sasuke and Tieta extracted the Monster Core and continued on their way.
After Sasuke and Tieta disappeared from view, a red clad figure dropped down from the trees. The figure was a tall woman, around 30 years old, clad in fiery red clothing. Her appearance was not extremely beautiful, yet she gave off a gentle, calm air.
The woman stared at the carcass of the Flaming Cloud Beast with astonishment written clearly on her face. Letting out a deep breath, the woman muttered to herself, "Tieta and Shangyang Xiang Tian, you two truly have well deserved reputations. To think your strengths are this amazing; you two aren't even Saints yet and you managed to use regular iron weapons to kill a Class 2 Magical Beast known for its defenses. I am truly awestruck; I must report this to the headmaster." After saying that, the woman immediately vanished into thin air.
As soon as the woman disappeared, another 5 youths came into the clearing. Each of the 5's faces were covered by darkness, so their appearances couldn't be easily seen. However, their shabby academy uniforms could be seen as they held their weapons up. Two held greatswords while another held up a large axe. The last youth with a tall and sturdy body held his sledgehammer up as he followed the group.
"Judging from the sound, the cry came from this area." One of the greatsword wielding youths said to the rest.
The axe carrying student nodded his head, "Not bad, if the magical beast didn't run too far away, then it should still be in the vicinity…:"He trailed off as his eyes widened at the sight in front of him, "You guys, look! What is that…" He pointed.
Hearing their friend, everyone's eyes drifted forward as they saw a mountain-like fiery red body lying on the ground that seemed to resemble a magical beast.
"Let's go look."
In a flash, all five of them approached the body of the magical beast. However, after they recognized the magical beast, their faces all grew serious.
The most experienced one amongst them got close to the body and touched the bloody fur with one hand before saying, "This is a Flaming Cloud Beast. Its defenses are very high, but its attacks aren't all that strong. The blood hasn't dried yet and is still warm, so it must have just died. It would appear that the howl we heard earlier was from this."
The sword youth looked around himself before looking at the direction of Sasuke's footprints. "Come, let's go follow those footsteps and see who exactly killed this Flaming Cloud Beast. If their strength is good enough, we can add them to our group so we can easily hunt more beasts. But if they're weaker than us…"A small smile started to creep up on his face.
Hearing this, the other 4 youths all thought of the same thing, their faces revealing evil smiles. Soon after, the 5 of them immediately chased after Tieta and Sasuke.
At the moment, Sasuke and Tieta were cautiously walking within the forest. In order to protect themselves from magical beasts as well as a few of the swamps on the ground, the two of them were not advancing very quickly.
At that moment, Sasuke's strong senses detected something. Holding his hand up to stop Tieta, he said, "Be careful, there's some people coming from behind us."
Tieta immediately stopped moving and turned around in curiosity.
In the blink of an eye, the people who had been following Sasuke came into view. There was a total of 5 people, but Sasuke couldn't see their faces since it was covered by the shade, but he could tell that they were strong from the amount of Saint Force they were emitting from their weapons.
When the 5 saw Sasuke and Tieta, they let loose happy smiles to each other, as if they had mutually agreed on something. Increasing their speeds, the 5 of them quickly reached and surrounded Sasuke and Tieta.
Seeing this development, both Tieta and Sasuke felt a bad premonition within themselves.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked coldly.
One of the youths brandished his sword with an evil smile, "You're asking us what we are doing?"
"Hand over your space belts obediently. We definitely don't want to embarrass you, but if you don't comply…hahaha…" The sledgehammer wielding student sneered at them.
Tieta's face grew angry as he heard the demand, "You want us to hand over the space belts? Hmph, don't even think about it." Tieta understood what was going on now; this was a roadside robbery.
Sasuke patted the space belt on him gently with a smirk, "Hmph, if you have the skill, come and take it."
Although they knew that all 5 of them were Saints, neither Sasuke nor Tieta felt a hint of fear.
"Hmph, since it came down to this, then don't blame us for this. Everyone, attack together." Immediately the 5 of them rushed forward to attack the two, but their attacks were not aimed at fatal areas. The 5 clearly understood that they were still all students stealing was one thing, and so was fighting, but they were not allowed to fatally threaten the opposing party's lives.
Sasuke and Tieta immediately dove to the side. After two days of relentlessly fighting magical beasts, even the thick skulled Tieta had started to pick up battle experience. This paid off; as Tieta dodged the incoming attack, he instinctively swung his battleaxe at the leg of the assailant in a swift counterattack.
However, the group in front of them was proving hard to deal with. Just as the battleaxe was about to hit one of them in the thigh, a sword flew out and hit the battleaxe with a colliding sound.
Metal met metal, as Tieta's battleaxe was obstructed. Due to Tieta's terrifying strength, the battleaxe continued to slide down the blade of the sword before stopping at the hilt. Immediately, the youth holding the sword suddenly felt his entire arm go numb, as the battleaxe smashed itself against his arm, causing his whole hand to shake.
The youth was astonished and cried out to his friends, "Everyone be careful, this guy's strength is abnormally strong. It's best if you don't get into arm's reach of him!"
Hearing the warning, the other two students fighting Tieta immediately became more cautious, and tried to avoid his giant battleaxe.
On the side, Sasuke was fighting intensely with the other youth holding a sword. Although Sasuke's weapon was only a corroded iron rod, his fighting capabilities weren't any lower than Tieta's. He wasn't any weaker either since he could easily use his agility to move around his opponent's moves. Seeing an opening, Sasuke quickly stabbed his iron rod into the opponent's thigh with a lightning fast speed. Since this was another student at the academy, he didn't dare to aim to kill, but instead aimed to injure.
Sasuke's speed was so fast that the student didn't have time to react, and could only watch in shock as the iron rod stabbed into his thigh.
"Ah!" The youth cried out in pain as his face drained of color, and sweat dripped down his forehead.
Hearing his companion cry out, the other sword wielder's face changed. Unable to fight Sasuke personally, he cried out to his friend, "Harry, are you okay?"
Although that youth wasn't attacking Sasuke anymore, Sasuke wasn't going to let him off that easily. As Sasuke moved towards him, the Saint Force condensed into Sasuke's fist as he suddenly punched the youth in the chest.
Still moving at fast speeds, he refused to listen to the youth's complaints, or even wait for the youth to react. Sasuke's fist struck out silently like a viper, and hit the other squarely on the chest.
The youth was sent flying through the air from Sasuke's fist, as blood came spurting out of his mouth.
After dispatching the two, he immediately went to go assist Tieta. At the moment, Tieta was embroiled in a tough battle, and had already taken damage from the 3 people. The wolf pelt he was wearing had already been slashed apart and ruined by the blood that was leaking from his wounds. If it weren't for his extremely durable body and godly strength, the others would not have been afraid to fight against him and knock him to the ground.
With the appearance of Sasuke, Tieta's pressure was alleviated by quite a bit. Sasuke's strength in battle was extremely strong, and even normal Saints wouldn't be able to fight him on equal footing. After a few seconds of close combat fighting against Sasuke, the three that had surrounded Tieta had already started to lose. Each of them were sporting new injuries, and soon after, all 5 of them were writhing on the floor in pain, no longer having the energy to move.
Sasuke looked at the many wounds on Tieta, and asked with some concern, "Tieta, you okay?"
Tieta nodded his head and said, "I'm fine, my body's pretty tough." He pointed to the group of 5 people writhing on the ground, "What should we do with them?"
Thinking about it, Sasuke suddenly grew an amused smile on his face, "Tieta, go gather their Space Belts and take all of their monster cores before giving the belts back."
Hearing Sasuke, the 5 people on the ground went rigid as their faces paled; a few of them were growing red with indignation. The cores in their Space Belts were earned over the span of 2 days of constant struggles for their lives; right now there was only half a day left until the 3rd day passed. If they were to lose all of their monster cores now, then they would definitely fail the mission.
Tieta laughed. Without hesitation, he immediately followed Sasuke's orders, and grabbed all 5 of the space belts from them. Sasuke stared them down with the bloody iron rod in his hand, like a tiger watching his prey to prevent them from making any sudden movements.
The five students originally had planned to fight back, but when they saw Sasuke grip the bloody iron rod, they immediately gave up all thoughts about resisting, and obediently let Tieta take their space belts.
After gathering all of the space belts, Tieta brought them back to Sasuke and began to count the monster cores one by one. In total, they had only 12 monster cores, all of which were Class 2 Monster Cores.
Sasuke laughed in satisfaction as he grabbed 6 of the monster cores and put them in their own space belts before saying, "Tieta, let's split these in half, you get 6, I get 6."
"Alright!" Tieta said as he placed his share into his own space belt.
But when the 5 heard Tieta's name, all 5 of them went still, as their faces became unsightly to look at. When it came to his name, everyone in Kargath Academy had heard of him since he was the headmaster's apprentice. Although he wasn't a Saint, when it came to the entire school, no one dared to mess with him.
If they had known earlier that one of them was Tieta, then they wouldn't have tried to steal from the headmaster's apprentice no matter what. But now, not only were they robbed of what they were trying to steal, but they couldn't even get revenge now that they knew who he was; their sufferings couldn't be summed up in words.
After storing all of the Class 2 Monster Cores, Tieta was smiling even brighter. "Shangyang Xiang Tian, it's because you're so amazing and beat all 5 of them so quickly. I, Tieta, just can't compare to you at all."
Sasuke chuckled and said, "Alright, let's get back on the road now and hope we can kill a few more magical beasts for the sake of our cultivation,"
Soon after, Sasuke and Tieta didn't see the paralyzed looks of the 5 students on the floor as they walked away.
When the two disappeared into the forest, one of the youths started to curse out loud, "Fucking hell, what bad luck we have! To think we came across the apprentice of the headmaster and then failed the assignment. Not only that, but we had our monster cores stolen away from us without us being able to get revenge. Such wretched luck!"
The youth who had carried the sledge hammer earlier said in a hoarse voice, "That's not all of it, don't forget that it wasn't just Tieta who attacked us; there was another."
Everyone's eyes lit up, "You're talking about Shangyang Xiang Tian."
The sledgehammer student nodded his head, "That's right, Tieta has the support of the headmaster, so we can't get revenge on him. But Shangyang Xiang Tian doesn't have that same support."
"But Shangyang Xiang Tian's strength is so strong though. The 5 of us couldn't beat him while he was alone, how would we ever beat him?" Another person asked.
"That's right, and the most important fact was that Shangyang Xiang Tian was far too fast, we couldn't even dodge any of his attacks." One of the sword wielders said; it was the very same person who had his thigh pierced by Sasuke.
Then, the person with the axe opened his mouth suddenly, "You guys forget that Shangyang Xiang Tian already offended a lot of people at the academy like Lord Ming and Master Luo, whose strength is higher than ours. If we can find an opportunity to join them, sooner or later we'll find a chance to strike at him."
In the blink of an eye, the colors of the sky began to dim. The magical beasts in the 3rd region were far less abundant than the ones in the 2nd region. Half a day had passed, but Sasuke and Tieta had only found a few magical beasts. Everytime they encountered one, they experienced an arduous battle to kill it. Within that afternoon, the two of them had only gained another 7 Class 2 Monster Cores. Compared to their bounty in the 2nd region, this number was clearly insignificant. But when they thought about how the 5 students who attacked them earlier had only gained 12 Class 2 Monster Cores in 2 days despite being Saints, their hearts felt a bit more relieved.
It was a lot more restless in the 3rd region than the 2nd, since the monsters were a lot harder to kill. Also, since the number of monsters were less, more people were willing to rob others for their cores. After Sasuke and Tieta had fought against the 5 students from before, they had another 3 encounters with robbers. At the very least each group had 4 people in it and at the most a group had 7 of them. But in the end, they had overcome each challenge victorious, and took all of the monster cores from the other groups. But what had made Sasuke depressed was that the group of 4 that attacked them earlier didn't have a single monster core, but the other 2 groups had a total of 33 Class 2 Monster Cores in the end.
When night came, Sasuke and Tieta sat down next to the fire as they roasted the meat of a magical beast. The two looked exhausted; compared to the 2nd region, the 3rd region was far more tiring.
At this point, Tieta's academy uniform was essentially gone. On his chest, his gains were showing. Only the most important part of his body was covered up by one of the extra wolf pelts, making him look like a savage. He was already covered with scars all over, and although they looked painful, they were only superficial wounds that didn't affect Tieta at all. This was a strong body that even Sasuke looked at with some envy.
Sasuke, on the other hand, was not faring much better. Although he still stuck with wearing his academy uniform, it had already been dyed red from blood, staining the clothes black after oxidizing.
Suddenly, Sasuke could hear the sounds of a distant battle. With his acute ears, he could heard the faintest of sounds.
Sasuke stood up from where he was sitting, and looked off to where he heard the sounds, "Tieta, there's a fight going on over there."
Tieta didn't seem to care at all, "I bet it's someone fighting against another magical beast."
At first, Sasuke thought so too, but the knowledge from his previous life had told him that these were the sounds of battle between people. In this environment, no matter what sound it was, Sasuke was always on alert, especially since he had already been attacked by his fellow students multiple times earlier that day. Sasuke had seen those older and more experienced students fall due to not always being on guard, Sasuke didn't plan to end up like them.
Straining his ears to hear the most minute of sounds, Sasuke tried to catch the sounds he heard earlier. But as soon as he furrowed his eyebrows in thought, he heard the sound again. It wasn't the sound of a person fighting a magical beast, but of two people fighting each other. In addition, the sounds were getting closer.
Sasuke looked at Tieta and said, "Tieta, that's not the sound of a person fighting against a magical beast, but of two people fighting each other. The sounds are getting louder and louder, so you should prepare yourself; we might end up fighting." Sasuke didn't choose to change locations. With their current strength, they could easily protect themselves. In addition, he wasn't afraid of anything.
Tieta immediately became interested as he grabbed his battleaxe and asked, "How many people do you think are fighting? Shangyang Xiang Tian, do you think we should take a look?"
Sasuke held the iron rod over the fire, "No need, even without our interference, they'll be approaching us soon enough."
"Ah!" Tieta sat back down after that with a look of serenity.
Soon enough, the sounds of battle became louder and louder, to the point where even Tieta could hear it. A group of figures quickly came scurrying out from the bushes, and ran to where the bonfire was.
Right behind them, a person wearing black flashed in, clearly chasing the other group.
"My two friends, the group behind wants to steal our monster core. Not only are they strong, but their numbers are greater than ours, I hope that we can combine forces and fight them off; otherwise, the hard work we had painstakingly earned over the last 2 days will be taken by them." One person shouted from a distance. Although Sasuke and Tieta were only 2 people, if they joined them then they would be able to fairly go against the opposite party.
Hearing that voice, Sasuke's eyebrows furrowed together. He felt that this voice was very familiar to him, as if he had heard it before. However, he couldn't place a name on the voice; clearly it hadn't left much of an impression.
The four people that were running away were getting closer and closer to Sasuke now. The person chasing them from behind suddenly sped forward and blocked off the four from moving forward anymore. Holding his giant sword up, he swung his sword at the ones who were still running.
The one leading the team fought back with his own Saint Weapon to block against the sword.
The two people had a huge difference in strength that could easily be seen, as the one who had blocked the attack was thrown backwards violently.
With this distraction, the people chasing from behind had finally caught up and once more started to attack those who were trying to run away. There were 8 people that had come in pursuit, and all of them quite strong. The difference between their numbers only added to the pressure; without reinforcements, the ones who were trying to run away would ultimately lose.
"Luo Jian, just wait there, I won't let you get away." One of the ones who were running away snarled.
Hearing this, Sasuke who was standing not too far away went rigid. The voice who spoke out was one he was familiar with; it was his older brother Shangyang Hu.
"Big brother!" Sasuke called out in astonishment. Immediately his eyes narrowed, and without hesitation, he rushed on over with his iron rod in hand.
Seeing Sasuke move, Tieta began follow Sasuke with his battleaxe in hand. For the past 3 days, Tieta had started to follow all of Sasuke's commands without even realizing it.
Over the course of the 3 days, Sasuke's strength had been fully revealed. With his experience of surviving in the forest and his strategy, Tieta had been humbled by Sasuke's talents.
Flying across the ground, Sasuke ran across the grass towards where the fight was taking place. His hands blurred as the iron rod flew through the air and pierced into one of the people his brother was fighting. He was relieved to hear that one of the people coming towards him was his older brother, Shangyang Hu.
Although everyone had noticed Sasuke and Tieta, and were all cautiously guarded against the two, Sasuke had moved far too fast and without warning. In their limited lines of sight due to the darkness, no one had noticed to the iron rod in Sasuke's hand.
The pointed end of the iron rod stabbed into the Shangyang Hu's attacker, causing him to scream out in pain into the night sky as he whirled around. Without waiting for the guy to react further, Sasuke immediately brought his leg to his chest and kicked him away into the air.
At this moment, Tieta also charged over. He swung his axe around, hacking away at the enemies, causing them to be batted away.
But the person Tieta was swinging at wasn't slow to react either. Watching the axe come down on them, his face didn't reveal the smallest amount of fear, and instead, he brought his sword up to block the axe.
Once the sword met the battleaxe, Tieta and the other were brought to a deadlock with a loud clang. Their weapons shook; Tieta remained where he stood, while the other person was forcibly sent flying backwards.
With Tieta's godly strength, unless one was a giant, then he/she would stand no chance against Tieta. But the person who was fighting against him was no giant, and so he had taken a huge loss.
However, even with that development, Tieta's battleaxe chipped once more. Although the difference in strength was huge, if Tieta had not enveloped his battleaxe with his own Saint Force, then the battleaxe would have long since been destroyed.
Tieta let loose a snarl as he brandished his battleaxe. The group of robbers then dispatched another 2 people to face off against Tieta.
After his clear clang, another person who didn't understand how strong Tieta was collided against him one more time. Immediately, he was launched into the air by Tieta's battleaxe, which caused his battleaxe to chip even more.
Although Tieta's battleaxe was strong, it was far from being on the same level as a Saint Weapon, because every Saint Weapon had a great amount of energy within it. With a Saint Weapon, one could release an attack far stronger than normal blows. However, these people Sasuke were fighting against were far too weak, and some of them were still at the primary levels of a Saint. While Tieta could go toe to toe with those primary leveled Saints, his battleaxe had been through far too many collisions.
"Be careful, his strength is extraordinarily high, and watch out for his battleaxe." The one who was blown away from him yelled as a warning.
Hearing his companion's warning, the remaining youth became extremely cautious. He dodged the battleaxe, and grabbed onto Tieta's Space Belt…
Sasuke was moving around with the speed of lightning. as his iron rod flashed this way and that. With his body moving like a spirit's, he fought alongside with Shangyang Hu. Already dyed red with blood, the iron rod was concealed under the shade of the night, as if it was a viper. As he wandered about the area in the darkness, his iron rod shot out silently, in a silent manner that was difficult for his enemies to detect.
Sasuke was striking out with his iron rod so fast that even the person fighting Shangyang Hu were not able to react in time, as his thighs were brutally pierced through with the iron rod, and blood from his legs splattered all over the grass, dyeing it crimson.
The person's face grimaced in pain as he let out a painful scream, and clenched his hands in reflex. Shangyang Hu was not courteous enough to wait for him to simmer down, and immediately sliced at his opponent's left shoulder.
Immediately, he cried out in pain again as his left arm was cut, the sword cutting the bone clean off, leaving his arm to be connected to his arm by a small amount of flesh. A torrent of blood came spurting out as he grabbed at it.
A cyan colored light illuminated the night as they all saw a giant sword appear and slash down towards Sasuke.
"Wind attributed Saint Force!" Seeing the cyan light envelop the sword, Sasuke's own face hardened. He immediately used the Profound Steps and melted away into the air like a mirage. As soon as he had faded away, the cyan sword immediately slashed through at the spot where Sasuke had just been standing.
Sasuke reappeared 3 meters away, not too far away. The person who had slashed at him stood arrogantly at the spot; wearing a raggedy academy uniform dyed red with blood, his face was covered by the night, so Sasuke couldn't recognize him.
Sasuke's eyes focused on the group. He snorted and said in a calm voice, "Luo Jian, I didn't think I would meet you here."
The youth Sasuke addressed was startled. He thought the voice was far too familiar, so he carefully stared at Sasuke. Although it was night-time, there was still a gleaming light in the sky that allowed him to see Sasuke's face clearly.
However, after 3 days of constant fighting in the forest, without any clear water, everyone's faces was darkened with dirt and grime. It was impossible for people to see each other's appearances with ease.
However, the nearby Shangyang Hu heard the voice of Sasuke, and his face became one of shock; he couldn't believe his eyes or ears, "You're…you're little brother!" Shangyang Hu was astonished; when it came to Sasuke's voice, he was all too familiar with it.
Luo Jian suddenly came to a realization as he laughed, "No wonder I thought your voice was familiar. So it was Shangyang Xiang Tian after all. I didn't think you would breakthrough to becoming a Saint; I really am amazed at that." After saying that, his eyes narrowed dangerously.
Sasuke turned around and faced Shangyang Hu, "Brother, we shall talk later. I'll remove the crisis in front of us. Go help the others, and leave Luo Jian to me."
"Alright then, you take care of yourself Little Brother. Luo Jian's strength has already reached the middle ranked Saint level." Shangyang Hu immediately went off to help his friends. Although seeing Sasuke in the 3rd region was unexpected, he knew that now wasn't the time to try to figure out how or why.
Because Sasuke and Tieta's sudden appearance, the originally disadvantaged Shangyang Hu and his group were now on an even playing field. Moreover, because of Tieta's existence, the winds of battle were blowing in their favor. The playing field was now sloped towards them in a short amount of time.
Looking at the Luo Jian's dark and swarthy face, Sasuke smirked, "Luo Jian, it looks like your plan to steal our monster cores will end in failure, your monster cores will be given to us instead."
Luo Jian's face grew angry as his eyes flashed dangerously, "Shangyang Xiang Tian, you don't have the power to take away my monster cores."
Sasuke looked at Luo Jian with disdain before saying, "Let's see if I have the power to snatch away your monster cores or not." Sasuke said nothing more after that, as his body started to flicker before charging quickly at Luo Jian. His hand held the iron rod and struck like a viper towards Luo Jian's chest, using the darkness of the night as its cover.
A flash of killing intent went through Luo Jian's eyes as he held his cyan colored sword up. He brandished it in an imposing manner before slashing at Sasuke. Since Luo Jian was not only a middle ranked Saint, but also had wind attributed Saint Force, his attacks were even faster than before. So much that whenever he swung his blade an after image would appear.
Seeing the sword come down towards his head, Sasuke dodged to the side, and continued to thrust the iron rod towards Luo Jian's chest.
No need for the Sharingan, he was enough.
Luo Jian's face changed as he realized the speed the iron rod was traveling at was extremely high. At that critical moment, his sword was too far out to bring it back to protect himself, but his reaction speed wasn't too slow either. Reabsorbing the wind Saint Force into his body, he forced his body to move backwards and bring back his sword.
Luo Jian's speed became faster; the moment Sasuke's iron touched Luo Jian's clothes, he had already escaped from Sasuke's range of attack. As soon as he had escaped Sasuke's range, he immediately started to gather the Saint Force into his hands again to slash at Sasuke again with the sword.
Luo Jian's attack was fairly simple, but to Sasuke's eyes, it was a mess of an attack; not a single amount of technique or finesse was shown.
Sasuke leapt into the air to dodge Luo Jian's sword. Immediately springing off from a tree trunk, he flew towards Luo Jian, his arms shaking, causing a faint mirror image to appear behind him. Sasuke's arm was already traveling at high speeds, and the iron rod was traveling at the speed of lightning towards Luo Jian, so even the naked eye wouldn't be able to see it.
Luo Jian's eyes widened in realization as the iron rod had already reached him. This time Luo Jian was unable to defend himself from Sasuke's attack nor was he able to dodge in time, resulting in the iron rod piercing deeply into his chest.
Luo Jian's face hardened as he stared at the impaled iron rod within him, a dumbfounded expression appearing on his face. Not only was there a tinge of disbelief on his face, but despair and fear as well. When the iron rod had pierced into him, he had been unable to mount any type of resistance against it. He had no defense, due to the iron rod being a lot faster in speed than he had been able to react to. Even if he was a wind attribute Saint, the iron rod had still skewered straight through him, causing a fatal injury.
What followed afterwards was beyond everyone's expectations. The moment Sasuke's iron rod had pierced into Luo Jian's chest, everyone had stopped moving, Then, a pure amount of Saint Force transferred from the iron rod into Luo Jian's body. With the removal of the rod, the support disappeared, and Luo Jian dropped onto the ground.
When Sasuke had sent his Saint Force into Luo Jian's body, it was as if his body had exploded. The energy rippled through Luo Jian's body like an energy wave, wreaking havoc within his organs.
Luo Jian immediately spat out a huge mouthful of blood. The fierce pain he was feeling inside his body was strange and unknown to him; he let loose a blood curling scream as he rolled on the ground.
Luo Jian's scream was abnormally desolate and immediately caught the attention of all those still fighting. However, as their eyes looked at the rolling Luo Jian, everyone except Tieta was stunned into silence. What they were watching caused them no small amount of shock, and many of them still couldn't believe their eyes.
Even after finishing off Luo Jian, Sasuke absolutely didn't consider letting the group of robbers go. Holding his iron rod as he stood in the middle, he thought that it was lucky that he had met his older brother Shangyang Hu now. If he had met Shangyang Hu later, then Sasuke was afraid that his brother would have lost all of his monster cores to Luo Jian's group and been left with a heavy injury.
For such an act of hurting the ones close to him, there was absolutely no forgiveness.
With Sasuke entering the battle, the opposition no longer had the upper hand. Although the Uchiha wasn't a Saint like everyone else, he undoubtedly was the most powerful amongst everyone present.
In his past life, Sasuke was a traveling wanderer who had practiced the way of the sword, to the point where he had reached god-like perfection with it. His moves were hard to detect since he moved so fast that it was inconceivable at some points. People who were relying on only their eyes wouldn't be able to see him. Since Sasuke was only using an iron rod, his true strength could not be brought out. The opponents in front of him were mere students with little battle experience. With his extraordinary sword knowledge, he could quickly end the battle.
Until the end of the fight, no one had realized that the weapon Sasuke was using wasn't actually a Saint Weapon, but actually just a common iron rod.
After the fight, all of the injured students that took part in the robbery sat down on the ground. Each one of them had a different type of wound on different spots, and they all looked at Sasuke with unconcealed terror.
Looking at the 8 youths on the floor, although Shangyang Hu and his team of 4 were heavily injured, they couldn't help but reveal the joy of victory while looking at Sasuke with stares of respectful admiration.
"Shangyang Hu, I didn't think you'd unexpectedly have such an amazingly strong brother. His strength really leaves me astonished!"
"That's right, Shangyang Hu. Although we heard about your younger brother's strength a long time ago, I didn't think that he was this amazing until now. Even the middle level Saint Luo Jian was defeated by him; if it weren't for your Little Brother's help, I'm afraid that our group wouldn't have been able to protect the monster cores we worked so hard to get."
The three youths and Shangyang Hu had a decent relationship with each other. Each one of them sighed in joy as they excitedly discussed the recent events.
At this moment, Sasuke arrived by Shangyang Hu's side and looked at his wounds. With some concern he asked, "Big brother, do you have any serious injuries?"
Hearing this, Shangyang Hu shook his head absentmindedly. Looking at Sasuke with joy and surprise, he replied, "I'm fine, just fine. It's only a small wound. Don't forget, your older brother has the earth attributed Saint Force, which improves my defenses by a lot." Shangyang Hu paused for a bit and then asked, "That's right, Little Brother, how did you come across the 3rd region; I remember that before we entered the forest, your strength was still before the Saint level? Also, how did you become so amazing, for you to even defeat Luo Jian?" Shangyang Hu asked curiously.
Sasuke smirked and said, "Big brother, this type of situation should be explained later over a nice and slow talk. Right now, we still have to take care of the problem in front of us." Sasuke's swept his gaze over at the several students who were on the ground and asked coldly, "How do you think we should punish these guys?"
Giving the question some thought, he said, "Little brother, this should be resolved by you. If it weren't for you, I'm afraid our group of four would have had all of our monster cores stolen."
Sasuke's face had a deep smile on it as he said, "In that case, there's no need to be merciful to them. At the very least, we should collect all of their monster cores from their Space Belts."
Sasuke's suggestion was quickly approved by everyone, and so under the poisonous and hateful glares of Luo Jian's group, they quickly grabbed all of the Space Belts and collected the monster cores inside. After checking their inventories, the 8 of them had a total of 130 monster cores.
Seeing such a number, even Sasuke was astonished by the amount. Shangyang Hu exclaimed in admiration, "I didn't think that they would have this many monster cores; it looks like they robbed many people before us. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to kill so many monsters in a span of 3 days with their strength."
Sasuke nodded his head in approval before saying, "Big brother, let's split the cores into 6 parts so that we each get an equal share."
"That's no good." Sasuke turned towards the new speaker; a youth from Shangyang Hu's team, "Shangyang Xiang Tian, the only reason we were able to obtain these monster cores was because of you and your fellow comrade here. We didn't do anything at all, so you shouldn't split the cores with us and keep it among the two of you."
The student's suggestion was quickly approved by the other two students. One of them immediately said, "Oz is right. Shangyang Xiang Tian, if it weren't for you and your friend, the strength of us 4 wouldn't have been enough to win. I'm afraid we wouldn't have even been able to protect our own monster cores. But now that our monster cores are safe from their grasp, we are satisfied. The monster cores you got from Luo Jian and his friends are something we don't want."
"Right, Shangyang Xiang Tian, you were able to get these monster cores with the combined strength of you and your friend. How could we be shameless enough to divide this up?"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed with suspicion as he looked at their faces, searching for any signs of falsity. However, he could only see sincere honesty, with absolutely no traces of dishonesty. His respect for the 3 grew, but he truly did admire his older brother the most. He didn't think his older brother would be able to find 3 friends with such good personalities like this. Although Shangyang Hu had the body and brain of a tiger, Sasuke understood that his brother was not at all stupid.
Sasuke smiled and said, "Everyone had contributed to this situation. If it weren't for you guys stalling them, if they had somehow joined forces with Luo Jian to attack me, I'm afraid that I would have lost then. How about this, Tieta and I will take half of the monster cores, and you guys will take the rest and divide it amongst yourselves. That should be fine, right?"
"Haha, what my little brother said is correct. This was something we all worked hard to do, so let's follow Little Brother's idea and split the monster cores. Half of it will be given to Little Brother and his other friend here. The other half will be equally split among the four of us." Shangyang Hu laughed. He and Sasuke were blood brothers, even though they had different mothers, it did not affect the relationship between them; he would not be stingy with him.
With Shangyang Hu deciding for them, the other three students couldn't decline any more and took the monster cores excitedly. After splitting it up, each of the four had gotten at least a dozen, bringing them no small amount of excitement. With this amount, it was more than what they had gotten by themselves after last couple of days.
After this event, no one had any plans to stay put anymore, and after changing their location, they began to start a new fire to roast some meat.
The six people sat in a circle around the fire as Shangyang Hu laughed, "Little brother, let me introduce you to everyone. These three are my best friends, Oz, Ned, and Darian." He pointed at the three, "Little Brother, Oz and Ned are identical twins. I guarantee that when they wash the filth on their faces off, you won't be able to tell who is who!"
Sasuke nodded and greeted the three one by one. After chatting for a while, they had started to get so familiar with each other that even Tieta's name was known by them.
Suddenly, Shangyang Hu's face went still as he asked, "Little Brother, I remember that before you went into the forest, your strength wasn't at the Saint Level yet. So why is it you're in the 3rd region? And now being so strong, you were even able to defeat the middle-ranked Wind Saint Luo Jian. Could it be that in the three days you were in the forest, you broke through?"
Shangyang Hu's three friends paid close attention to this question; both Darian and the twins became interested after hearing Shangyang Hu's question, and shifted their attention to Sasuke. Sasuke beating Luo Jian, had a huge impact on those three. Although they had long since heard the rumors that were circulating throughout the academy that he was strong, the rumors didn't exaggerate his strength to this extent.
Sasuke shook his head lightly and held his iron rod up towards Shangyang Hu, "Big brother, look. If I were a Saint, would I still be using this?"
Shangyang Hu looked up and down the iron rod; but it looked the same, he had already recognized the bloodstained iron rod in Sasuke's hands and it was a still a normal rusty broken iron rod.
"That's…that's…" Shangyang Hu's eyes went wide; he was put in a state of silent shock as he would have never in a million years thought that Sasuke would be able to defeat Luo Jian using only a rusty iron rod, and if this didn't happen before his very own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it even if he was beaten to death.
At the same time, Darian and the twins looked at the iron rod in Shangyang Hu's hands. The three of them were in disbelief, and then looked at Sasuke as if he was a monster.
Seeing the incredulous looks on their faces, Sasuke smirked and said, "With the combined powers of me and Tieta, there were no magical beasts that were a match for us in the 2nd region, so we decided to move on to the 3rd region."
Hearing this, Shangyang Hu and the other three couldn't believe their ears. The 2nd region was filled with Class 1 Magical Beasts. Although they were weaker and had low attack power, even the average Saint would find surviving in the forest a difficult task, and Sasuke was still obviously not a Saint yet. To say the 2nd region was no longer a challenge, even Shangyang Hu and his friends would curse Sasuke's absurd strength.
After a while, Shangyang Hu and his friends finally recovered their senses. Shangyang Hu continued to ask, "Little Brother, you're not even a Saint yet and you're already this amazing. When the day comes and you become a Saint, I really can't guess how much stronger you'll become." Shangyang Hu shook his head in awe, "Ah right, Little Brother, when do you think you'll become a Saint?"
The Uchiha replied calmly, "I'm currently at the peak of the 10th layer. After this forest exercise, I'll aim to become a Saint."
Shangyang Hu let out a breath of air in surprise and shock as he looked at Sasuke, "Little Brother, you're simply too amazing for words. Not even a few months ago, you were a new student at Kargath Academy who was only at the 8th layer. I didn't think that you would reach the peak of the 10th layer in such a short amount of time."
Hearing this, Darian and the twins couldn't believe it and their view of the Uchiha completely changed. The strength Sasuke had shown was ridiculous, his cultivation speed was fast, and could border the line of the unimaginable. Sasuke was definitely a genius among geniuses. At this moment, the three friends of Shangyang Hu quickly came to a decision that, in the future, they would have to treat him well and avoid offending him.
Sasuke chuckled, "Big brother, I've noticed that within the 3rd region, many people are resorting to stealing monster cores from others. How did this happen?"
Shangyang Hu exhaled before saying, "I don't know who started this myself, but it's said that during the 2nd day, someone started to steal monster cores relying on the fact that he had an enormous amount of people behind him. After this news spread everyone in the 3rd region started to follow suit, forming groups to rob cores. After all, Class 2 Magical Beasts are rare in comparison to Class 1 Magical Beasts, and are even harder to kill. Killing one beast would only get you one, but stealing from another is much easier than hunting, and with good luck, one would get a lot of cores as well.."
"So up until now, all the students started to steal from each other in the 3rd region. Many people have had their hard earned monster cores stolen away from them when they were alone or were smaller in numbers, The people who were injured decided to quit early, reducing the numbers in the area drastically."
"Why don't the teachers that are secretly hidden care about what was happening?" Tieta asked.
"As long as it isn't a life threatening injury or a critical point between life or death, then the hidden teachers won't show up. After all, the reason why we are in the forest hunting Magical Beasts is so we can temper ourselves, not to mention that we are being tested on how we can unite when being robbed; things like this happen often in the Tian Yuan continent. They're only letting us experience this sooner rather than later." Said the twins.
"Oh!" Tieta suddenly exclaimed in realization.
Sasuke looked at his older brother and his friends. "Since other people have the audacity to rob us of our monster cores, why can't we rob them first?"
The group's eyes went bright as they heard Sasuke.
"Fine, we'll do it. Shangyang Xiang Tian, we will follow you." Darian said as he stood up and stared at Sasuke, the heroic spirit reflected in his voice.
"Not bad, before our strength was lacking, and could only run away blindly. But now that Shangyang Xiangtian is here, even if we meet a middle rank Saint, victory isn't impossible. Since this is the final night, let's have some fun with this." Ned and Oz laughed.
"Alright, Little Brother, your big brother will listen to you." Shangyang Hu said happily.
Tieta didn't have an opinion, as he had decided to follow Sasuke without question for a while now.
After everyone had eaten their fill and discussed their plans, they decided to let the twins search the surroundings for targets, while the rest waited for their return.
The twins soon came back and reported that they saw a group of 5 people nearby.
Sasuke immediately followed the twins towards where they had reported seeing them.
When Sasuke's group had reached the place, the 5 people were preparing themselves to rest and were caught unprepared by Sasuke's sudden attack. Since the group was only at the Primary Saint level, they were quickly defeated by Sasuke and his group. However, they didn't have that many monster cores, only having around 20 or so.
After taking the monster cores, they didn't continue to harass them and immediately left the area.
For the entire night, Sasuke and the others didn't sleep at all. Instead, they looked around the forest for more targets. There weren't many people in the 3rd region by now, and ever since he had started his search, he had only come across 3 different groups. But what he and the others found amusing was that halfway through the night, Sasuke's group had came across another group who had the same idea they had, and so they had immediately started to fight. Both sides had 6 people each, and the other group even had 2 Middle Saints whose strength could be considered pretty strong. However, those two ended up being stuck against Sasuke and Tieta. In the end, Sasuke had come out victorious against his opponent, and gained 150 Class 2 Monster Cores as a reward. It would seem that many people had had their monster cores taken by this group.
After the third battle, aside from Sasuke, everyone else was exhausted and could not continue fighting anymore. With no other choice, they spent the rest of the night searching for a secret place to hide and sleep. Although Sasuke and Tieta had wanted to continue, the other 4 weren't in any shape to, and needed the two of them to stay behind and protect them against any surprise attacks.
Without saying, Sasuke and the group had had an overwhelming harvest; excluding the first group with their 20 monster cores, the other two groups had 70 cores and 150 cores respectfully. So in total, they now had 260 cores.
Seeing this many monster cores, Sasuke was starting to suspect that this was already half of the total amount of Class 2 Monster Cores in the 3rd region.
The night passed peacefully, and the group started to travel towards the outside of the forest. With some herbal medicine, Shangyang Hu and the others' wounds were starting to heal slowly. Back when they had first entered the forest, the school administration had already prepared these medicines inside of their Space Belts.
At the moment, Shangyang Hu and his friends were all wearing well made wolf pelts that made them look as if they had no injuries at all. The wolf pelts were the ones that Sasuke and Tieta had made from when they had slaughtered that pack of wolves; they had collected quite a large amount of them.
The group of six headed to the edge of the forest, now that they had completed their 3 days. If they could protect the monster cores until they reached the outside, then they would be able to finish the assignment perfectly. And since the academy would not take the cores, they would be able to use it for themselves.
Traveling on the road, Sasuke and the rest were very cautious. This was the crucial moment, since they could be ambushed at any given time. Sasuke and Tieta were still full of life but Shangyang Hu and the others were not in the best shape. If they were to be attacked by another strong group, then a fierce battle wouldn't be avoidable, which was what Sasuke wanted to avoid.
Sasuke walked down the road with Tieta behind him while the rest followed in a straight line as they reached to the part of the forest where the white enchantments of the forest rippled outwards. With the end of the 3rd day, the enchantment had suddenly transformed to help the students who were lost to find their way here.
Sasuke's senses was lashing out around him as he checked his surroundings. The 3rd region was not as quiet as the 2nd region. Not only did they have to protect themselves from magical beasts, but they also had to protect themselves from other students. Other students were waiting around for the perfect moment to strike. So because of that, the closer one got to the entrance, the more dangerous it became. After all, the enchantment was showing a hole in itself to help lead students out, so many of them were trying to leave the forest and made themselves an open target for those other students waiting to ambush them.
A few hours passed, Sasuke and Tieta were getting closer and closer to the 3rd region's exit. The whole journey had been fairly peaceful, although at regular intervals, they'd encounter a magical beast carcass. Sometimes, there would even be 2-3 magical beast corpses lying in the same location.
A few hours of rushing later, Sasuke's group of people finally arrived outside of the 3rd region's exit. They smoothly passed through and entered the 2nd region. At this moment, everyone could not help but sigh in relief. They all understood that their monster cores were secured, because after leaving the 3rd region, no matter whether or not others had gathered the required 2 monster cores, their task was complete. There was nobody here that would dare to steal their monster cores.
"Haha, I hadn't imagined that the journey would be so peaceful. This was really against my expectations." Shangyang Hu happily smiled, his tone also carrying a hint of excitement.
Ned also happily said, "That's right, and here I'd thought that we'd fall victim to some surprise attacks. I didn't think that the path would've been so calm. It really goes against all expectations."
Darian reached his hand out to touch his Space Belt and smiled, "I guess the people stealing monster cores in the 3rd region had suffered from injuries, and didn't have the energy to keep stealing from others on the road. In addition, most of the people probably have the same mindset as us, only stressing self-defense. As long as we safely leave the third region, we'll be satisfied. None of us are interested in the idea of stealing monster cores anymore."
"Yea, that's right. What you said makes sense." Tieta nodded in agreement.
Sasuke shook his head and said, "The situation is not necessarily as you think it is. Actually, throughout the whole journey, there were still some people lying in wait along the way in hidden places ready to ambush us, you guys just didn't notice them. Those people who were hiding in the darkness perhaps noticed that we have a large number of people, or they didn't have the ability to discern our strength, so they couldn't determine if they could destroy us. That's why they didn't make any movements towards us. Otherwise, there's no way we could've safely left the 3rd region."
Hearing this, the people's expressions all changed.
Shangyang Hu let out a long breath and said, "It's a good thing Little Brother made sure we put on perfect acts of being completely undamaged. Otherwise, if the people knew that the four of us were injured, then I'm afraid we wouldn't have been so fortunate." Hearing this, Ned and the others nodded in agreement, and looked at Sasuke with gazes filled with respect.
"Alright, we should hurry up and leave. After we return back to the academy, you guys need to properly tend to your wounds."
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