Chapter 153 I Have Changed A Bit

"What just happened?" Jason asked with narrowed eyes.

The scene had left them stunned. The man, however, looked confused.

"Are you all backing out? If not, don't keep standing here. It will only count as a survival if you are at least hundred meters away from the city. Someone will monitor you so don't think you can fool us." He explained.

The quartet exchanged a glance before they started moving in the opposite direction of the city.

"So, she broke her threshold?" Orion questioned once they had put some distance between themselves and the city entrance.

"I guess," Jason agreed. "Though that was easy, its the only explanation we got. Either that or she got kidnapped."

He paused and looked at the surroundings. "Also, we are being watched. Its best if we remain silent to prevent unwanted animals from finding us."

The others somehow understood that Jason was indicating that they were not alone. All of them kept their mouth shut and simply observed their surroundings.

Silently, they remembered the threshold that was told to them soon after they had asked their one question.

"Hmm, we can live for a day without food easily." Zeke commented after a few minutes. "The only thing to be worried about is beasts."

"Beasts won't be a problem as along as we can fight them together. We can handle any beast unless a S rank or higher beast appears." Orion added.

Jason, however, wasn't paying attention to them. His eyes were moving through the nearby area and the more he looked, the grimmer his face turned.

"Guys, I have two news. The bad and the super bad one," he slowly said. "Which one would you like to hear?"

"Uh, the bad one?" Zeke replied in a confused tone.

"All right. All of us are surrounded by bandits," Jason declared. "The super bad news is that they are going to attack us in a minute or so. Perhaps even sooner now that I have told all of you about their plans."

Hearing his words, the other three immediately went alert. Zeke and Amber summoned their respective compound elements and were ready to raze everything to the ground.

Orion used his light mana to create a small circle around them. He whispered, "As long as you stay inside the circle, you will be able to recover all minor to semi-major injuries. The time taken to heal ranges between a second to two minutes."

Though Orion wanted to fight, he knew that his role as a support would be more beneficial in the correct situation.

'So this is why none of the people from the city wants to leave it premises. Too many bandits and beasts are spread around the entire area.' Jason observed.

He saw as far as he could without hurting his eyes. He had used a lot of his mana to do so and his body was feeling a bit lighter.

Jason cut off his special ability and instead replenished his mana. Simultaneously, a dozen or so figures launched out of the bushes and surrounded the group.

[ Host, I don't think they are actual bandits… ]

'Huh? What do you mean by that?' Jason asked with a frown.

Without saying anything, two bandits lunged forward. Jason let Amber and Zeke deal with them and stepped back to observe the situation.

[ They know we don't have much money since we are children. There bodies aren't emitting any bloodlust or signs of greed either. This feels like a staged attack. ]

'Perhaps this church, or whatever it is, wants to test all of us.' Jason replied with a thoughtful expression.

He didn't pay any attention to the battle and simply chucked a thunderbolt towards one of the figures.

The person disappeared from the scene before the thunderbolt could pierce his skull. Otherwise, he would be lying dead at their feet.

The other bandits seemed to pause when they saw Jason's actions. The other two kids had simply been handicapping them but the silver-haired boy had directly tried to kill them.

[ Its true. No normal bandit would act like that in such a situation. ]

After hearing the system's words, Jason smirked. He raised his right hand towards the bandits and released a snake made from thunder.

The pure reptile made from thunder lunged towards the throats of the 'bandits'. In the blink of an eye, most of them vanished.

"So they were here to test our capabilities." Orion muttered from behind. He had a feeling that something was wrong but couldn't quite locate it.

But once he had seen the bandits vanishing one by one, he realized that the entire thing was either planned or the bandits had some high level teleportation.

"That might have been a fake wave but a real one is about to arrive soon." Jason warned, his eyes glowing a bit due to using his ability. "Let's get out of here."

Jason guided them to a place where they could stay relatively well hidden. He turned off his ability at the same time and rubbed his eyes.

"Zeke, can you give me a small piece of ice which I can put on my eyes?" Jason questioned while sitting down on the ground.

"Sure," Zeke replied. He created a flat piece of ice and tossed it to Jason. The latter put it on his right eye and sighed in relief.

'Ugh, using this ability too much is quite harmful.'

[ That happens because you use it on certain occasions. Maybe if you tried using it passively, things would be easier. ]

'Maybe.'

With a sigh, Jason laid on the ground and stared at the sky.

"So, what are we going to do next?" Zeke questioned. "Are we just going to sit here and enjoy the nice weather."

p "Weren't you the lazy one?" Orion asked with an amused look.

"I am the lazy one."

"From the looks of it, you are the only one who wants to do something else." Orion countered.

"Thats… true." Zeke agreed. "Normally, I would be sleeping by now but I am more excited about exploring this place and maybe fighting some beings."

"So you are becoming a muscle head." Jason joked.

"You keep lying on the ground and act dead." Zeke smiled. "But I guess you are right. I have changed a bit over the past few months. Maybe it isn't that bad of a thing."

Before anyone could agree or disagree with him, Zeke's body turned into particles of light. Similar to what happened with Mila, the particles of light flew towards the sky and vanished…