Chapter 72: Training Program Officially Begins
Her so-called prediction was extremely generic and barely had any details, but it was enough for her as Timmy's expression slightly changed. Whether it was fear or anxiety, she couldn't tell, but she knew that it wasn't anything positive.
"I see..." he said with a deep frown on his face as he nodded, "Thank you, I'll keep this in mind."
"Time's up everyone." the old man's voice shot out, entering everyone's ears before he continued, "Grab onto all of you things and make sure that you have a physical contact with your team mates. If two or more teams are caught trying to form an alliance, then they'll be disqualified. You only have three seconds. Three."
Keith and the others made sure that they had everything at hand before they made sure to physically touch each other in one way or the other. It was Keith who made sure to keep his hands on Amelia and Clara's shoulders.
Brandon and Nathan had their hands occupied so the others grabbed onto them instead. Once the chain was formed, they heard the old man reach the count one.
"One, and... Zero!"
Instantly, Keith felt his stomach churn, but he made sure to keep himself from vomiting as he needed all the food inside his body to stay inside if he wished to walk around the forest without being carried by someone else.
It took him a lot of effort, but once he got a hold of himself, he looked at he others and took in some information from his surroundings, which wasn't much.
Caleb was still holding onto his mouth, but the others had already recovered. They were in a forest that had trees and plants everywhere, but it wasn't overly dense. There was enough space for three people to walk side by side if they didn't carry anything.
"Hmm." Seraphelle hummed as she looked around and said, "Came her once already, so as long as you guys promise to do your best in the tests, I'll guide you to a good place where you can set up our camp."
Edward himself was slightly taken aback by her words, and Seraphelle, who saw this, decided to explain.
"Well, of course. This won't happen if Edward rejects my idea, but I want you guys to know that the other instructors aren't honest or too rule abiding. I'm helping you out because I don't want to wander aimlessly in this forest.
You guys have indeed prepared well, but there are others who did it better. They bought a lot more things and have more people in their teams too. Personally, I just want to set up a camp and settle down instead of struggle with you lot."
"Oh, I have no problem with your suggestion, my lady." Edward said as he bowed slightly, showing respect to her noble title.
Seraphelle nodded and looked at the team, "What do you guys say?"
Keith looked at Brandon, waiting for his answer, but everyone else looked at Keith and this included Brandon as all of them could tell that Seraphelle was asking him and not the official team leader, who was Brandon.
"Oh um, I see no problem with it. Thank you for your help, my lady." Keith said as he finally caught on and Seraphelle nodded before pointing towards a particular direction.
"Just go this way and we'll reach the river."
Keith nodded and looked at the others who began to walk in the said direction. It took them a few hours of continuous walking until they finally reached the riverbank.
"Finally." Brandon said with a grunt as he placed the large roll of cloth on the ground, and everyone else followed his example. He then looked at Keith, "What next? You're our planner until the training program is done."
Sighing slightly, Keith nodded, "Okay, every one of you will focus on getting the tent pitched up." he said and turned to look at Edward and Seraphelle, "Should we help you with your tents too?"
"No we're fine. Just take care of yourselves and that's more than enough." Edward said as he tossed the stuff he was carrying and began to set up his own tent along with his instructor partner.
Keith didn't bother with them anymore and turned to look at his team, all of whom had already busied themselves with the tent.
'I guess I'll build the water filter in the meanwhile.' he thought as he looked up at the sky and saw the sun slowly going down.
He grabbed an axe from the stash and looked around for dead trees. There weren't too many, but here were quite a few of them.
'Well, these can be used for firewood but I guess I'll take some branches from live trees for my water filter' he mused as he stopped in front of a tall tree. He didn't know which tree it was, but he didn't really care as the tree had no fruits hanging.
He then began working on cutting it, but thanks to his lack of strength, it took him a long time. Even then, he persevered and managed to get it down. Then, he cut off some relatively thin but strong branches and took them back to camp.
"Oh, you guys are done." he said as he looked at the three large tents that had been set up. One was for Edward and Seraphelle while the other two was for his own team.
He looked around as he gathered his thoughts and then locked his gaze on Laura, "Well... we could technically find some food or catch some fish, but we'll expose our location to the others if we start a fire at night."
"Don't worry about all of that, child." Seraphelle said, sitting in front of the tent with crossed legs, "This island is extremely huge and the number of people taking part in the training program aren't too many. So don't worry about exposing your location and just do as you wish. Even if they do spot us, they won't have too much of an incentive to attack. Not when they could just camp somewhere else."