<h4>Volume 1, Chapter 8 : Survival in the Wilderness</h4>
After having just half a day of ss, Li called in sick for a week. Everyday heid on a bed with nothing to do, so he meditated. However, even after a week of meditation, he still couldn’t grasp what the magic element was.
Because Kaiser and Purity had both gone to ss, he had no one to ask. Nevertheless, Purity could never give a clear answer, and Kaiser, who could give a clear answer, was having a cold war with Li!
Yes, cold war. Kaiser had said no more than three sentences to him this week, and all three were said when Kaiser and Purity had rushed to the healing room, realizing that he was still alive.
First: Bastard, you think it’s cool to take an attack with your body?
Second: You don’t even value your life, don’t you know that your mom had to be pregnant for ten months to have you, you bastard.
Third: I despise anyone as suicidal as you!
Though Li questioned whether the guy who wanted to catch a rank-X criminal had any right to say that to him, but he understood Kaiser was being cold to him because of his suicidal actions. Although Li knew the reason, he did not know how to reconcile with Kaiser.
He had already said sorry, but Kaiser only looked at him coldly. Li felt that it wasn’t considered as reconciliation.
Just as Li was getting frustrated, Purity pushed the door open and came in, and put down lunch. Seeing Li’s knitted brows, Purity asked with concern:
“Li-dage, what’s wrong? Are your wounds still hurting?”
“No…” Li sighed, “I’m thinking about how to reconcile with Kaiser.”
Purity replied with “Oh”, then eximed: “I think, Kaiser isn’t really mad. As long as you promise him that you won’t be suicidal again, Kaiser should forgive you.”
“Really?” Li asked skeptically.
Purity didn’t even have the time to respond before Kaiser mmed the door open. Judging from his facial expression, he had been eavesdropping outside. Kaiser didn’t say anything, and simply pulled up a chair next to Li’s bed, and stared at him.
Li said awkwardly: “Sorry, I won’t be suicidal from now on.”
Kaiser’s stern face seemed to finally ease up, and murmured: “Good to know you won’t be making any destructive moves again. If I see you trying to kill yourself again, I will kill you myself, you bastard.”
‘If the suicide attempt was sessful, how are you going to kill a dead man? Beat on the dead corpse?’ Purity and Li both thought.
“Ay, Li, are your wounds healed yet?” Kaiser frowned:
“Barbalis, that old geezer went as far as saying that tomorrow we are going to be starting the wilderness survival! Damn, this isn’t a military camp! Why the hell do we need wilderness survival training in the School of Sorcery? He said we only get a water bottle and a small knife, and we have to survive in the wilderness for an entire month. What’s even more ridiculous was Barbalis said.
‘Everyone who doesn’t survive for a month will be expelled’!
How sad, if you die you still get expelled. I’ve never heard of anything as ridiculous as that.”
“This isn’t that bad, actually.” Purity said with fear: “Before we even had a noble etiquette ss. Everyone had to go to ss with a book on their head for a month. Those who failed to do so, or if the book fell off, got expelled. And then we had a cooking sses, those who couldn’t cook a full course meal were all expelled as well…”
“Barbalis seems to have some kind of fetish for expulsion.” Kaiser muttered in dissatisfaction.
“Meinan has already agreed to be in our group. If Li-dage coulde with us, we should be able to take care of one another and stay safe.” Though she said that, Purity was still looking at Li’s bandages with concern.
Having been alone in the dorm for a week, Li said without hesitation: “It’s okay, my injuries are irrelevant.”
“Good, then us four can be a group.” Kaiser showed a relieved expression: “That old geezer Barbalis also forcefully took Baolilong away. When he forbid us from taking Baolilong, it was rather pitiful. With the presence of a Dragon, no beast in the world would ever approach us. But now that we have Li, even if the sky falls, he will carry it.”
* * *
A couple dayster, the students from the School of Sorcery took off in arge flying Maxun. As they flew, many students were pushed off the flying Maxun. Of course, they had parachutes. Until finally, there were only the four people including Li.
Barbalis smiled, and said to the four people: “By the way, I forgot to tell you, the ce chosen for your wilderness survival, is determined by the strongest person in your group.”
Before the four of them had time to think about what kind of ce would be fitting for someone as strong as Li, they were all pushed off the flying Maxun. What’s even worse was that, when they opened their parachutes and looked at the ce where they will be spending their next month, they realized the ce was mostly barren with rocks, and there were plenty of strange monsters, some of which even opened their mouth wide as if they were waiting for the four of them to fall into their mouths.
“Hmm, I saw a bunch of beasts running on the ground, and they look like a transformed Baolilong.” Purity cried but without tears.
“They are Earth Dragons.” Kaiser said after his observation.
“Kaiser, what are those ten-meter long snakes with bodies covered in rotten marks?” Li asked casually.
“Serpent Dragons.”
Meinan asked shakingly: “T-then what’s that flying thing, with thin wings shaped like a bat’s, and with a long face?”
“Wing-Hand Dragon.”
“Is this a Dragon’s nest?” Li asked with confusion. Why did every creature have “Dragon” in its name?
“This is the Yaron ins. Danger level rank A.”
There were Dragons in every direction. Judging from Baolilong, Dragons were definitely carnivores.
Li decided quickly: “I’m going down first. When Ind, cut your parachutes, and I will catch you. I’m afraid that we won’t have time to slowly untie our parachutes.”
Then Li immediately cut the parachute’s strings with Broken Silver. Li fell from twenty-some odd meters, and luckily, with Blood Fluttering Ki and Windborne de, hended safely on the ground, and shooed off a few Earth Dragons that were closing in on him.
Kaiser also cut off his parachute’s strings, and with Li’s help,nded sessfully. Purity and Meinan also did the same.
Within moments, the four of them had been surrounded by the sub-Dragon species. Facing these Dragons who killed and preyed upon others purely out of instinct, Li no longer had any doubts as to whether he could kill or not.
He twisted Broken Silver, and unsheathed the dagger within. Kaiser took out two barrels, while the gentleman, Meinan, took a step back, created a defense shield for himself and Purity, and stayed in it for safety measures.
The massacre had started. The originally intended prey; the humans, were the ones covered in the blood of sub-Dragons, instead. Li’s graceful shadow flew candidly in the midst of all the Dragons, as if he was a gust of wind, but this gust was fatal and sliced through their flesh.
Every time Li passed by a Dragon, there was a Dragon copsing to the ground. There was not a single wound to be found with the naked eye. For some of the Dragons, he avoided their ribs and stabbed their hearts directly, while others had a thumb-wide wound on the back of their head.
Kaiser’s victims, however, had obvious wounds. They were all shot in the head, with brain matter and oozing blood everywhere.
When the sub-Dragons’ corpses began to pile up, the Dragons finally got scared and left. They no longer treated the four humans as prey to fill their stomachs.
The four sighed in relief, since they didn’t have to struggle in some Dragon’s esophagus or stomach. However, with the two troublemakers here, surviving in the wilderness would never end so effortlessly.
They felt the ground shaking slightly, and the sub-Dragons in the surrounding area were quickly scattered away.
Li’s group of four began to consider whether they should start running away with the sub-Dragons. At this time, it was proven that sometimes people thought too much, and it was worse than the sub-Dragons, who relied on their primitive instincts.
Purity’s iris contracted due to fear, and Meinan increased the strength of his magical shield by three fold. Kaiser desperately knocked on the shield, as if he wanted to hide inside, while Li was a bit upset. His wounds were just starting to heal, and now he had to fight huge monsters.
“THAT’S A HUGE DRAGON!” Purity finally found her voice again, and screamed at the top of her lungs. Her loud scream attracted the Dragon’s attention.
‘Purity, good job, you are now the 3rd troublemaker.’ The other three thought.
Standing about 15 meters high, and 20 meters wide, a huge Dragon dragged its enormous feet and ran toward Li’s group.
After some observation, Li decided that Broken Silver’s length probably couldn’t even prate the skin of this Dragon. Thus, the four of them decided to run for their lives.
Luckily, there was a strange rocky hill nearby, which had tons of cracks in between. Finding a crack to hide in was what all they could think about. When they finally found a deep crack, Li ducked while holding Purity, while Kaiser and Meinan went inst to cover their rear.
Things could have ended there, but when the huge Dragon rammed into the rocky hill, the entrance slowly crumbled, and the Dragon was getting closer and closer. So they desperately tried to go further in.
Purity then yelled: “Li-dage, there’s a hole here.”
Li looked at the hole on the ground, and went in first. Even if the exit was covered by rocks, he was able to break the rocks to get out. With Li’s abilities, even if he was carrying Purity, he could jump about 20 meters without getting hurt. But this hole was more than 30 meters deep. However, when Li realized this fact, he had already reached the ground, and the angle of his body was slightly twisted.
He hurriedly put Purity down on the ground. He determined the direction of the wind, and urately helped Kaisernd. Then he teleported back to Meinan, and helped himnd as well. The four hurried to leave, and dodged the falling rocks from above. The surroundings became quiet, and the four were finally able to rx.
Li took off one of his long boot, and frowned while looking at his ankle.
“What’s wrong?” Kaiser noticed what Li was doing and asked immediately.
“Broken ankle bone. This hole was too deep.” Li calmly stated, as if it wasn’t he who broke a bone.
The moment Purity heard the situation, she immediately ran to a nearby stream to wet her handkerchief and ced it on Li’s ankle, then asked worriedly: “Can you still walk?”
“Yes.” Li stated as a matter of fact. Even if his leg bone was cracked, he could still walk. It was just a matter of pain.
“There’s water here!” Meinan excitedly eximed: “Good, the most important thing to survival is water. Now our biggest problem is solved.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting we spend the month in this dark hole in the ground?” Kaiser said with disapproval: “What about food?”
Meinan exined immediately: “We could follow the stream. If the water could leave the area, there will probably be an exit. If the area surrounding the exit has a nice environment, we could live there.”
Kaiser looked at Li, and agreed: “Okay. Since Li is hurt, then we really shouldn’t go back and fight with the sub-Dragons. Let’s go follow the stream.”
After resting for a while, the four decided to continue looking for a ce to live for the next month. Meinan murmured: “Luminescence magic.”
A gentle ball of light appeared in Meinan’s hand and lit up their surroundings.
The four were stunned, not only was the hole huge, it had a lot of tilted structures with very strange architectural style. There were also a lot of pirs, which had patterns carved into them.
The passageways were also quite wide, and were paved with colorful stones. In the center of the hole, about a few kilometers away, the ground was more than 10 meters higher than where they currently stood, and on it, was a huge pce of sorts.
“W-what is this ce?” Purity blinked her eyes in disbelief.
“Looks like we’ve found a historical ruin.” Kaiser concluded, but he couldn’t remember what era the style was from.
The four walked curiously on the stone-paved road and asionally looked around and touched random things they could find. Purity yed with strange little toys she found, while Meinan gazed at the beautiful carvings on the stone pirs.
Kaiser focused his attention to see if he could find any gold, silver, or anything else that could reflect light, and Li started using Heart of Consciousness to scout his surroundings for any living things or traps.
There was a huge pce but it was too far, and was out of range of Li’s senses.
“Let’s go and see that pce?” Meinan suggested irresistibly. Just looking at the carvings was a feast for his eyes. The magnificent pce made Meinan, who had a passion for art, very antsy.
The carvings were quite strange. Purity noticed a carving on a random sheet of rock, it looked as if some amateur had carved it.
There were many people surrounding one, who had his mouth wide open, as if in huge pain. The surrounding people were reaching their hand out and touching him in various parts of his body, and… She didn’t know if it was poorly carved, or if it had been too long, and the images were blurred.
Many of the people seemed to have missing arms and/or legs. Some were even missing half their bodies.
“Purity, let’s go.” Kaiser beckoned Purity.
“Oh.” Purity put down the sheet rock, and caught up with Li and the group: “Are we going to that ce?”
“Yes, there might be some beautiful (valuable) art.” Two people answered in unison, but their responses differed in only one word.
A few kilometers passed in the blink of an eye, but what was tiring was that, the pce was surrounded by what looked like stairs. Li and the group lost count after a few hundred steps, and they finally arrived at the gate to the huge pce. Three of them were panting while holding onto their legs.
Li was, instead, examining the gate. Why was this gate so huge? It was about 10 meters wide, 20 meters tall.
“This gate is huge!” Kaiser eximed.
But Meinan shook his head: “This gate isn’t that big. Many ancient ruins have more morous doors than this. This gate ispletely nk, without even any adornments, and it really doesn’t meet the standards of my splendid aesthetics.”
“Are we going in?” Li asked.
“We’re already here, so of course we’re going in. There are probably a ton of valuable relics.” Kaiser’s eyes shone with a greedy light again.
“Hopefully the art pieces inside won’t disappoint me.” What he said meant that Meinan had also decided to go in.
“I’m fine either way.” Purity didn’t have an opinion.
Li looked at the huge gate. The gate wasn’t in like Meinan had said.
The edges had a strange pattern, and Li could feel that there were energies oozing out of the patterns, which made him frown. But Li was confident in his abilities, and even if he twisted his ankle, he still believed that he could handle most enemies.
Li said: “Then let’s go in.”
Kaiser saw that everyone had agreed to go in, lifted his gun, and set the energy to the highest, and opened fire. He created arge hole on the huge gate, and the deep hole emitted some cold air. The pce that had been neglected for ages, was now waiting for its guests.
But, all of them seemed to have forgotten something. The two troublemakers, along with the third ce girl, theirbined troublemaking abilities were off the chart…