Chapter 341 - Hunting Area

It took Angus two more days to complete Jacob's task to observe the hunting ground. During this time, he also tried hard to adapt to his body. Still, he speculated it would take one or two months to have full-body control like before.

He could still force his body not to break things though it must be under consciousness. He also found that his strength and dexterity attributes once again grayed out like when he reached his limit before.

To increase further, he needs to open the second gate of life. However, he didn't dare to rush it since he needed to be in his best condition to open the second gate of life. 

Angus heard from old man Balrug, it is easier to access the second gate of life. But, the test is two times harder than before. 

During the opening of the first gate of life, Angus needed to fight his own shadow or clone. He speculated that he would also fight him again or something else. Therefore, he needs to be in total control and his best condition before opening the second gate.

After completing his task of observing the surrounding monster along with the hunting ground, Angus gets another task from Jacob. The next task is to create another hunting ground in the deeper area.

However, this time he will get help from the other soldiers and a few enchanters. Seeing the practicability of the hunting ground, be it for daily life and holding the monster wave, Jacob decided to create a more secured and sophisticated hunting ground.

First, they need to replace the miasma and mana gathering rune base. At first, Angus used common materials such as Maroon Crystal as the base of the rune. Although it is good material, it will deteriorate over time. They decide to use more durable material as the rune base.

Furthermore, they also need to build some defensive mechanism and tracking device on it. During Angus's observation, he finds that a few of his runes are unearthed and destroyed by the monster. Some of the monsters could manipulate the ground or move underground.

For these monsters, the rune crystal is the same as delicious food. Therefore, they need to think of a way to plant the rune and protect it from the monster. As it gathers the mana and miasma to the surroundings, it will surely attract the monster.

After a lot of discussion with all the enchanters in the Black Fortress, they put it on hold to create a strong defensive mechanism on the rune.

Since creating sophisticated defensive mechanisms takes time and needs a lot of research, they could only ask the research center in the capital to do it. For now, they decide to give some barriers and tracking runes on the base.

They will have some people to keep monitoring the runes' location. The moment it moves from its location, they will send a team to investigate and retrieve it. 

This was only a temporary solution until the research center managed to create a sophisticated defensive mechanism for the rune. As the rune still could be eaten or destroyed by the monster, they decide to keep using the high-quality Maroon crystal as the base.

Although it is not cheap, it is also not rare and easy to find in the market. For Jacob, he could easily cover this entire project with the entrance fee to go towards the Black Fortress. Like any other dungeon, people also need to pay a certain fee to enter the Black Fortress.

Even though the fee is not as expensive as entering the dungeon location, it is still a lot. Moreover, the Black Fortress also gets some share from the monster corpse selling. Therefore, there is no problem with the budget and money for the project.

While Angus is busy in the hunting ground project, Borkins resumes his plan in culling down the Ogres community. Because of the recent monster wave, the number of monsters inside the forest is reduced drastically.

Therefore, the elite team could easily venture into the deeper area. After a few elite teams recover from their injury and are in top shape, they immediately depart under the Borkins lead towards the deeper area.

They couldn't leave the Ogre community for a long time unsupervised. Since they currently have the reinforcement from Freyspire and the surrounding city, they could deploy more people without any reserve.

At first, Angus and the others also want to join and fight against the Ogre. However, their request was immediately rejected by everyone.

Angus, Jayna, and Anna are the kingdom's future and powerhouse. Although they don't want to overprotect them and waste their talent, venturing into the deeper forest to fight Ogre is too risky. Ogre is a very dangerous monster. 

If the current Jayna could fight and kill the third-grade monster, she may not be able to do the same thing with the Ogre. She may get heavily injured or, in the worse case, killed. This is only a third-grade Ogre, not to mention a fourth-grade one who is many times stronger than it.

In the end, Angus and Jayna could only reluctantly accept it and focus on creating the hunting ground. Soon, a week passed by in the blink of an eye. The creation of a hunting ground is going as planned. Each day they managed to create one or two hunting grounds.

Currently, they have twelve hunting grounds of various kinds of sizes. The deeper the location, the smaller its size. This is to make sure there will not be a lot of monsters in the hunting ground. 

The deeper area also means it is harder to reach. It will certainly accumulate more monsters over time. Borkins and his team also managed to cull down the Ogre number. They keep using guerilla tactics and slowly killing the Ogre.

Seeing that everything goes as planned, Jacob decides to leave the Black Fortress. The tension in the border makes his work as Duke pile up. Moreover, he also needed to standby in the capital city in case the war suddenly erupted.

"Alright, I will go first." said Jacob before riding his Fire Wyrm.

"Yeah, be careful not to fall down." replied Angus shortly.

"Hahaha… Sure. Elder Fosa, I leave him to you." said Jacob.

"Don't worry, he will be safe here." said Fosa.

After having a small farewell with Angus and Fosa, Jacob immediately departs towards the capital city. Fortunately, Jacob leaves the soldiers from the nearby city in the Fortress with the pretext of taking care of the monster wave aftermath.

A few days passed by, Angus and the others finally managed to finish creating the hunting area. As soon as the hunting area finishes, Fosa immediately publicizes the hunting area to the adventurer and the nearby city.

The news travels fast, and many people are attracted to it. Whether adventurer or merchant, all of them are attracted to this so-called hunting area. As for Angus and the others, they finally decide to have a break inside the inner base.

With their achievement during the monster wave, they already fulfilled their mission for graduation. In fact, Angus, Jayna, and Anna already complete level three missions once they successfully defend the Black Fortress.

If it is not because they don't want to create commotion, Jayna and Anna will get level four mission completion while Angus will get level five since he is fighting the fifth-grade monster. Currently, they decide to rest in the inner base doing miscellaneous things.

This past week, they focused on making the hunting ground and were quite tired of killing monsters. Although they decided to call it a break, it didn't mean they didn't do anything. Angus is doing his own research and reading books while Jayna and Anna are training on their own.

As time passed, Angus noticed the sun had already set while he was in the middle of his research. Then, he decided to go towards the balcony to get some fresh air. Looking at the silent, peaceful night, Angus couldn't help but feel refreshed.

"Haa.. I hope it could always be like this." said Angus.

Suddenly, Angus's eyes turned serious and looked in the opposite direction of the Black Forest. Out of habit, Angus used [Great Mana Echolocation] to feel his surroundings. During this time, he feels a strong combatant coming to the Black Fortress.

'Weird, why is there an elite combatant coming here this late? Moreover, her movement is so discreet and in some kind of stealth.' thought Angus.

Then, Angus decided to keep looking out at the person. At the same time, a person in black clothes under cover of the night travels slowly towards the Black Fortress.

"Damn, those extermination squads are really persistent. I guess I will use the Black Forest to go back towards home." said the black-clothed man while approaching the Black Fortress stealthily.

Using the cover night as cover, the black-clothed person silently passes through the wall and enters the Black Fortress. All this time, the person keeps vigilance and evades the patrolling guards' eyes.

Unfortunately, the person didn't know she was already discovered and tracked by someone from the Black Fortress.