Chapter 83 - Where Is My Reward?
Till was sitting over some documents inside his office, thinking about what to teach his students, after they noticed how weak they were because most wouldn′t reach the assigned quota. when he received a notification from one of his students.
`Hmm? Its Jason...A video clip already? Has he already defeated one beast?...If I remember correctly he would have to defeat low-awakened beasts...Maybe.. he can reach the quota in a few days if he discovers some lone beasts within the two-star wild zone..His combat prowess was definitely top-notch during the ranking battle.`
Till thought naively, while opening the video clip that was more than a few hours long.
Luckily, Jason told him the rough time and Till was astonished to see that Jason messaged him two different times he should look at.
`He already killed two beasts? That would be a very good achievement, considering that he has to fight against low-awakened beasts that are normally only found in groups!`
But once Mr.Greil began to observe the fight, he immediately frowned deeply, because he could almost instantly tell that something was amiss with the arrows, Jason shot.
His eyesight was exceptional due to his high mana core rank as they were constantly tempered and refined thanks to that.
Furthermore, it was not really difficult to notice that something was wrong with Jason′s arrows.
The first Goblin soldier Jason hit with his arrow couldn't even move a tiny bit after a short moment, and it looked like the arrow was the cause, even though it only pierced into the goblin′s abdomen.
Mr.Greil concluded that Jason used some kind of poison in order to incapacitate the Goblin soldier, which was a good and easy strategy against awakened beasts.
This was one strategy Mr.Greil wanted his students to use once they noticed that it was impossible or extremely difficult to hunt beasts two stages above one's rank.
It was expensive but surviving in the wilderness was more important than paying some credits in his opinion.
One could say many bad things about him but he wasn't stingy if it protected him or satisfied his curiosity.
If all of his students finished their assignment, he would teach all 225 students a tier-3 martial art skill.
Not even the students from the Vanguard main school could say that they′ve either learned a tier-3 skill, even knowing someone who learned such skills was rare on Astrix.
Wasn′t this reward tempting enough for his students to question their own strength and capabilities?
Facing the holographic video again, the other two goblins were sniped from a long distance with poisoned arrows, while the other two awakened ranked goblin soldiers had been spiked with normal arrows.
As such Jason had already killed four low-awakened beasts within the first timestamp he provided Till.
Looking at the second timestamp, Mr.Greil immediately sighted the Goblin mage apprentice within the group of another five goblin soldiers.
`A mage apprentice in a soldier troupe in a two-star wild zone? What′s going on??` he was confused by the sight but continued to look at the battle, which seemed more like a massacre than an actual battle as Jason only used the poisoned arrows to paralyze or kill the goblin soldiers within a minute.
After the video ended, Till was astonished to notice, that Jason already finished his assignment.
However, that wasn't important to him right now.
`If a mage apprentice could be found in a normal hunting troupe of goblin soldiers, it would mean the goblin society is growing way too fast and is enlarging without anyone controlling it.`
After he looked up the information of the particular two-star wild zone Jason killed the awakened ranked goblins in, Till found out that there was not a single society registered within Cyro-City′s log.
This were essential bad news, causing him to have a bad premonition
After further researches, he figured out that there was a recent uproar within the magical zone about many high-ranked Hobgoblin Warriors, Goblin mages, and goblin riders killing many hunters at the magus rank.
That could mean the magical zone was used by a high-ranked Goblin chief or commander as a basement.
Till sincerely hoped that there was no Goblin King on Astrix, but it was uncertain.
A king could bestow certain abilities to their offsprings which would be quite annoying, even for him.
There had been a few goblin kings in the past, but not a single one on Astrix and Till didn′t want to think about the worst-case scenario he imagined in his mind.
Nevertheless, it was already extremely dangerous for his students who had to hunt beasts two stages above.
Now with the appearance of goblin hunting groups with goblin mage apprentice′s within two-star wild zones, Till didn′t even dare to imagine what could happen within three-star wild zones.
The most problematic fact about Goblins was their intelligence and ability to repopulate extremely fast.
They were more intelligent than beasts at their rank and they always worked within a group.
This caused Till to hesitate about what to do right now.
At first, he sent the video clip about the mage apprentice to the City government and security that would strengthen the City defenses, in order to secure the protection of all citizens.
The government would start their own investigation with a research-team about the whereabouts of the goblin base size and the society′s size.
After informing his students, that it was dangerous outside the dome, he emphasized that their life was more important than the assignment.
He would provide everyone with enough information about the sudden goblin eruption but that wouldn′t mean the assignment ended.
Everyone could decide for themselves what to do and the assignment just became more difficult to pass.
If one wanted to stay within the dome without even trying to finish the assignment, Till was sure that they wouldn't be able to reach higher ranks as fear would hinder them in advance.
Would they even be able to fight a life and death battle or would they wet their pants before they were killed by some beasts?
Even so, Till had to remain calm as he looked at the answers which didn't disappoint him.
No one backed down, most likely because of the generous rewards one would obtain, and all students were still motivated.
Unfortunately, there were already some students that sustained injuries while fighting higher staged beasts, but the death toll was still empty.
Meanwhile, Jason was already back in school standing in front of his teacher's office, when he knocked.
However, nobody opened the door and Jason noticed that it was locked.
`Where is Mr.Greil?!`
He asked himself with doubt in his eyes, as he thought his own teacher might back-off from his promise.
Even after ten minutes, nothing happened and Jason felt like he was ghosted (ignoring someone′s message intentionally)
Only after twenty minutes passed, he received a message from his teacher
`Wait! I′ll be back soon.`
Apparently, he had something important to do, and little did Jason know, that everything had to do with his finds.
Almost every minute new news about Goblins appeared everywhere within the south area of Cyro-city as there were the most infested two-star zones with many goblin soldier troops appearing, slaying beasts while preying on weaker humans.
Jason didn′t know anything about that as he sat in the empty classroom, not knowing what to do.
`WHERE is my REWARD?` He could only cry out in his mind before he decided to feed Scorpio some holy white bacuri fruit juice his soulbond seemed to like before he practiced the Heaven's Hell technique.
Scorpio gulped down another holy white bacuri fruit reagent after another before he began to absorb a tiny amount of pure mana out of the mana stone.
Jason noticed something in particular about Scorpio and it seemed the amount he could absorb at once seemed to be slightly more than the day before.
He was overjoyed and smiled gently at his small soulbond.
Something changed about Scorpio and it was definitely good.
Fortunately, Scorpio didn′t writhe in pain. It seemed as if the juice tasted good because Scorpio was longing for even more, which Jason gave him.
After the last reagent was gulped down by Scorpio, the pain began to start once again and both of them seemed to have predicted that.
The small scorpion wasn't going to mold his exoskeleton now, but he spat out some tiny black clumps once in a while, which Jason didn't notice.
After he finished practicing, Jason decided to absorb some mana outside school.
Time passed without him realizing it as it was already late afternoon.
Jason finished his absorption, with a sour expression, when his teacher suddenly stood behind him.
Looking at each other it was noticeable that Jason was slightly angry when his teacher just said.
"Good job, boy...decide what technique you want to learn and I′ll teach you"
`He didn′t even say sorry for letting me wait for hours, without any explanation or a rough time when he would be back??`
Jason fumed in anger on his inside, while his outer appearance stared coldly at his teacher when a holographic screen appeared in front of Jason, with hundreds of skills listed.
A loud "WOAH" was the only thing that came out of Jason′s mouth as his mind comprehended what he saw when he looked at the sheer mass of martial art techniques on the holographic screen.
`Special technique--Mana manipulation`
`Transcendence silent death--Sword(Tier-3)★★★`
`Advanced Water manipulation (Tier-3)★★`
`Special technique- Elemental fusion★★★★`
`Shadow steps (Tier-3) ★★★`
.
…
...
There were at least a dozen tier-3 skills with at least 3-4 special and unique techniques that could be seen by Jason at a glance.
The techniques below were probably peak-tier-2 techniques and Jason wondered, how a normal teacher would have such a vast variety of techniques in his quantum bracelet.
Furthermore, having permission to hand them out to normal students just like that? Who could do that?... Well.....Apparently his teacher!!
Looking carefully through all books with their distinct description, most had even a rating behind them, indicating the difficulty to learn them.
It looked like the advanced water manipulation would be the easiest to learn among the tier-3 techniques but Jason had neither a water affinity nor the motivation to learn such a technique.
The elemental fusion picked his interest but this was mainly for his future, which was still far away when he possessed a few soulbonds with all kinds of affinities.
If that happened, he could use all kinds of elements together in order to amplify his combat prowess.
However, after reading a certain description, Jason was immediately curious about it.
He was immediately overjoyed looking at this technique, as it seemed perfectly fit for him, even though the difficulty frightened him somewhat.
`Unique technique- Splitting Mind ★★★★★`