Chapter 182 - Third Trial

The last thing Cecil saw before he lost his consciousness was the scene of the student rushing over to him and being pulled into the ground, and then the scene of Lucia screaming at him.

Cecil didn't know how much time had passed when he finally regained consciousness.

"Ugh...where am I?"

Cecil took a look around and found himself back on the extra trials' entrance. He was seated on the wooden throne once more. He stood up and the throne immediately returned into the ground. Now the entrance to the extra trial was sealed.

"Maybe it was because I cleared it?"

With that thought, Cecil was just about to go back to the Beginning Plaza through the path he used to arrive here. He had to quickly make his way back to the group.

He was just about to walk back onto the path, but then the shrubbery to the right of the clearing began to shake and move around. The trees and plants began to move back and form a new path while the previous path he took had closed up.

Cecil quickly took out the trial grounds' map and noticed a change. The path that he used to get here had disappeared and a new one had appeared. The path led straight towards the 3rd trial directly skipping the 2nd trial.

"Oh, cool."

Cecil hummed and began walking down the new path after he stored the map. Cecil couldn't help but notice that his mana had fully recovered.

"Woah! Normally, it'd take at least half a day for me to recover all of my mana if it got that low!"

He then remembered the administrator say that regardless of how much time had passed by in the extra trial, only an hour would have passed outside.

"When I lost consciousness, maybe half a day really did pass? Though, it didn't look like too much time had passed out here."

Cecil noticed that the stones illuminating the area were still as bright as before, he couldn't really tell if only an hour had passed, but he guessed that he should just take the administrator's words at face value.

He quickly made his way towards the 3rd trail's location, but instead of arriving at the primary trial area, he had instead arrived at the extra trial's location.

"Weird...does this mean I can just go through all the extra trials to pass the World Tree's Trial?"

Cecil didn't think any further. He had arrived at the clearing and could see an active teleportation gate. He quickly walked through it and he was teleported away.

*****

Lucia and the rest had long since got out of the hole Cecil was previously at. They had now arrived at the 2nd Plaza. Everyone who came to the bottom of the hole had reported their findings to their groups and now every other academy group had turned a wary eye towards Arks Academy.

However some of them were gloating at their misfortune. The supposedly strongest member of their group was killed and it was all due to his own greed. This was what they naturally thought when they heard the reports of the other students. Cecil was pulled down underground by the roots so they naturally concluded that he had died.

Lucia and everyone thought this as well, but the mana bracelet in Lucia's possession stated otherwise. If Cecil had indeed died then the mana inside the gemstone would have long since dissipated. However, Cecil's mana was still present inside the gemstone.

"He's alive. Remember that Cecil had cleared a Corrupted Area, maybe he was sent to do a different sort of trial than the rest of us."

"Mhm." Lucia nodded at Serilla's words. It was evident that he was still alive so there must have been a reason why he was pulled down into the earth.

While others were gloating over at the Arks Academy's misfortune, the Elves weren't. They had grown worried since after the report from the elves that had dived down into the hole, they were more certain that Cecil was the person in possession of the trial grounds' map.

"Dammit! His restrictions were lifted and the World Tree is protecting him!"

"Yeah...it killed that beastman student who was rushing at him and pulled him into a safe place... just what could that boy have fought to make him so exhausted?"

"I'm not sure...but it must have been powerful. I overheard from those beastkin that he was apparently the strongest student in their group. I know of Zephyr, but I've never heard of this foxkin kid."

"That doesn't matter...what matters is that, that kid had successfully passed the trial he was given. The reward he must have gotten from that will sure be great...but how can we take those from him?"

"...we'll worry about that later...let's focus on the here and now. We have to pass through this trial first before even thinking about anything else."

"Yeah! Just look at how careless we got...over half of our brothers and sisters failed the 2nd trial!"

After the academy students cleared the second trial, they were given rewards in the form of random ancient magic spells and skill books.

Lucia had received a high-tiered flame spell, Meteor Fall. Eli was given the lost high-speed combat skill, Shunpo. Ainz was given an array spell book, something he didn't understand so he just tossed it into his ring.

He'd ask Cecil about it later since the boy was pretty much obsessed with runes and magic array formations.

The others also received some powerful magic spell or combat skill, some had received a random lost book about knowledge that they didn't understand. Those people lamented on their misfortune, but if Cecil saw the books he would without a doubt be very interested in them.

No amount of high-tiered spells could replace the importance of knowledge lost in the passing of a bygone era.

In Cecil's eyes, the luckiest one of the group was undoubtedly Velicia. She had actually acquired a tome regarding lost magi-tech!

As everyone was either rejoicing or cursing at their rewards the next trial began right in the plaza.

[Third Trial, survive until the end!]

It was a simple explanation. Survive, but survive from what?

The area around the plaza began to rumble. From the four paths leading into or out of the plaza the students noticed a large group of monsters heading straight towards them.

"Razor-horned Rhinos!" A beastman exclaimed.

The monsters stampeding towards them were large sized rhinoceros-like monsters. Their bodies towered over 8 meters in height. They were huge, but from what Lucia and the rest could see... there were tens to hundreds of these monsters rushing towards them.

"EVERYONE!!! PICK A PATH AND DEFEND IT! ELVES PLEASE PROVIDE BACK UP!"

Zephyr was the first to take command. He immediately began instructing the Arks Academy students and chose the path closest to them, the western path.

Just as he was arranging everyone into formation, the beastman academy students obstructed their way forwards.

"WHAT'S THE DEAL?!"

"We'll be taking this path, Zephyr. Why don't you pick another one?" The Beastman Student President chuckled in reply.

"Fool! Can't you see that you're closer to the northern path?!"

"Oh? Sorry, my eyes weren't looking over there. I just saw the west path first and naturally asked everyone to make our way over!"

"..."

Everyone from Arks Academy grew furious at the frivolous reply. Can't these idiots see that there are more important things at hand?!

Lucia spat at the ground in front of her and flickered her way over to the northern path. She was already pissed when the beastman student tried to take advantage of the weakened Cecil during their time in the hole. She so wanted to blast these imbeciles away, but she remembered that the administrator didn't take too well with violence between participants when they were in the plazas.

When she arrived at the northern gate, she unsheathed Shirayuki and got into a stance everyone in Arks Academy was familiar with.

She activated her Elemental Burst and used her Solaris Flame to power it. The purple aura rose from her small body and she furiously wrapped it around her katana.

"ASCENDING BLADE!!!"

She shouted and slashed her sword at the monsters that were just about to enter into the plaza.

There was a slight delay before a humongous purple beam of sword energy flew out and smashed into the rhinos.

The beam obliterated the gate and incinerated all the rhinos that came charging at Lucia. When the sword energy beam smashed into the back of the rhino pack it blew up and rose into the air.

"..." Lucia was seething with fury. Those stupid animals kept on causing their group problems. She turned an eye towards the Beastmen Academy who was struggling to keep the rhinos at bay. She scoffed and sheathed her weapon. She then sat down on a slab of stone and waited for the next wave of monsters to come over.

"...you didn't have to do that, Lucia." Zephyr came over and said with strained smile.

"..."

Seeing as the girl didn't respond to him, Zephyr released a sigh and began organizing the rest of the students.

The other academy groups were still busy trying to stave off the monster wave. The Elves who were famed for their archery and magic were providing support to all 3 fronts, but it still took a while for them to clear out the monster wave.

Everyone couldn't help but turn an incredulous eye at the Beastkins.

"That skill..."

"It looked similar to that golden beam of mana that created the hole..."

"..."

Now they understood what 'strongest in their group' meant to the Beastkin. That golden beam wasn't caused by the formation of a natural treasure, but it was actually a skill that the Beastkin's strongest had used.

They were honestly glad that this person had perished inside the hole. Being dragged into the ground by those vines only meant death to them. If this character was still present with them, then the beastkins could just kick back and relax.

In the middle of the plaza the earth began to rumble and overturn. Then a stone pillar rose from the ground and it displayed some words on its edifice.

1. Razor-horned Rhinoceros: 100 killed, 20 fled. Most kills: Beastkin, Lucia Yukihime

2. Second wave in 30 minutes.

3. Pending

4. Pending

5. Pending

6. ...

7. ...

8. ...

The list kept going down until the 50th. What everyone inferred from this was that there would be 50 waves of monsters that would continuously assault the plaza.

Yuna stretched her body and plopped down next to Lucia.

"...looks like we'll be staying here for a while."

"Mhm."