Death Mage with an SS-Rank Talent-Chapter 147

It wasn’t a cakewalk trodding down the mountain.

On the path down, Aaron encountered a lot of monsters, Frost monsters like Frost Fox, Frost Tiger, Frost Bear, etc... and they weren’t weak.

The teleportation directly sent him to a place with powerful monsters. This is both a good thing and at the same time a bad thing.

It is a good thing because he can hunt powerful monsters and get a lot of tokens placed around, but what colour token he would find or how many he would be able to find out depends on his luck.

The academy has already informed them about such a stage. Though the alliance would not always follow what they did the previous year, with so many years and tournaments passed by, the stages of elimination were all used.

So, before coming here, everyone knew how things would happen, but as the coordinators, they have to speak about some rules and regulations regarding the stage, especially regarding students fighting each other. It was the only reason why the man spoke so long before starting the stage.

With the increase of +2 to his previous luck, Aaron’s luck can be considered average.

Now, with such luck, the monsters he fought were numerous, and the tokens that he collected were also numerous.

He collected a total of 150 tokens before the sky started to darken. Out of them, 70 were white, 53 were Red, 26 were Blue, and only one was Black.

In the first tournament held by the academy, he gained a lot of top point tokens, as they were assigned to powerful monsters. When Aaron killed those monsters, he easily got them, but now the situation is quite different. freeweɓnøvel.com

Here, not every monster has a token attached to it and added to that, the token colour doesn’t depend on the monster level. It was assigned randomly.

A Rank-0 monster can have a Black Token, while a mid-level Rank-2 monster can have a white token or maybe even be tokenless. It was random, and it depends on the student’s luck to stumble upon that.

That is why, even though Aaron killed a lot of high-ranking monsters, he only obtained one black token, and that was it.

Even though Aaron has already earned the required minimum to pass this stage, he was not satisfied with that. This stage is where most are supposed to be eliminated. How can one easily pass after getting a black token, which gives the minimum points for passing the stage?

Aaron felt that there is much the coordinator didn’t say, but gave hints regarding that.

He said that the winning members would get the most points for the academy, but the performance of a student would also be taken into account. It means, having a minimum points to pass through the stage wouldn’t earn many points for the academy.

Sure, they can go to the next stage, but what would happen if they all lose in the next stage?

As students of the Dusk Academy, which had always stood in the top five for so long, getting the bare minimum points would be embarrassing. Moreover, Aaron didn’t want the top five place. No, he wanted the academy to reach the top place in the tournament.

Only then would it be possible for him to claim maximum benefits from both the academy and the alliance.

The alliance would probably give him a lot of resources as rewards as long as he has reached the top, but to get maximum benefits from the academy, the academy has to reach the top.

Normally, it would depend on all five members, but he couldn’t take any chances. He wanted to earn as many points as he could for the academy. This way, he can be sure that the academy would not cross to the fifth rank, but even a better one, possibly.

Though that was the plan, that had to wait till the next day, as it was getting dark and he was tired and hungry. So, instead of looking for a fight, he searched for a place to lie down for the night.

Fighting in such a state would cause injuries, which he can’t afford at this time.

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"This is a good place as any", Aaron muttered as he started to fortify and camouflage the cave with stones and leaves.

The stay here was for just one night. So, this should be more than enough to protect him from monsters and other students as well. After all, defeating other students to collect their tokens was not out of the question.

The only thing prohibited was killing other students or crippling them permanently. Other than doing those two, everything else is permitted. Of course, when fights happen, the outcome can’t be determined easily, and many things can happen.

Students may die or be crippled easily if one overestimates themselves or the other overestimates the other and use powerful strikes.

So, in Aaron’s mind, it’s best to avoid conflicts with the students as much as possible. It was why, whenever he saw a student during the day, he took a detour. Unless he was provoked, he was not interested in fighting other students, where anything could happen.

After making sure that the cave wouldn’t be easily discovered, he entered the cave to rest for the night. Though it was a bit colder, there was nothing he could do, as lighting up a fire is not a good thing when you are in a closed space, with no proper vents for the smoke to exit.

One can choke due to excess smoke in the place, instead of breathable air.

Even in an open space, with monsters lurking everywhere, fire would attract every monster nearby to your position. So, even though it was cold, Aaron had no choice but to eat cold rations that he prepared beforehand and to sleep hugging himself tightly.

He has been fighting all day long in the cold, which was not something he was used to before. Whether it was the dungeons or the ruins that he entered in the academy, they were warm, and there were no obstructions for him, but now it was different.

Now he had to endure the cold conditions and fight the monsters in their home court. Most of the monsters that he encountered were of Frost or water elements. Only a few were of different elements, but that was just Earth and Wind elements.

Even though for them, it wasn’t their home court, they were difficult to kill as the Earth elemental monsters would hide, and the Wind elemental monsters would use wind attacks, which attracted the cold from the atmosphere, making it seem the attacks were of Frost nature.

He was tired because of the fight and thought to rest for a while before he continued his journey. After all, he has to leave the mountain area before dark the next day, and he needs a lot of energy to do so, as he would not only have to beware of the monsters but also monsters.

He may have skipped confronting students, but tomorrow, when the time closes near the end of the stage, the encounters with other students would only increase and fighting others would be inevitable.