"We are nearing them!" A female voice said, a bit nervous, checking her map. A group of ten, all wearing 3rd-year uniforms, were heading towards the location of the first egg to be found.
"Any info on them?" The leader, a man in the front, asked, pulling up enchanted gloves onto his hands. They were sparkling with electricity as he and the rest were getting ready to fight. It was his own artifact, something he was eager to try out as it was finished only a week ago.
"They are part of an alliance, calling itself the Hosue of Misfits. They are the 1st-years who signed up for the competition." The girl reported back, quickly checking. "The Misfits of Water… should be led by the girl who bested Heliett."
"Then don't take her lightly! Risha, you are with me, and we will focus on the girl! The rest of you will engage the others! A 1st-year association shouldn't have too many famous people. Our goal is to break their lines, get the egg, and disperse! They are amateurs…. We have to capitalize on that!" He smiled, patting his holding bag on his waist, "This isn't the first year when the eggs are visible on the map, and there are methods of dealing with it… this is going to be easy!"
…
….
……
"We have company! They are coming from the east, and they are coming fast!" the Twin's voice traveled back from afar, rushing back to the leading group as Koa was shaking her hands, trying to force her frozen blood to flow again.
"It didn't take long!" Koa moaned, watching the egg on the ground, soaking the earth and quickly turning it into a muddy mess.
"We fight." Sion spoke, waving his hand, and his subordinates took up a circle around them, watching the trees.
"Get out of the range of the egg!" Koa nodded as they separated, "Let them try and take it; we will ambush them when they are stumped by it and fall into its 'trap'!"
…
….
…..
"This is… suspicious… Kowac, I don't know if we should go for it yet." Risha sent a voice message to her partners as they hid in the thick foliage of the surrounding trees. They were spread out, looking for Koa's group, using one of their wind mage's techniques, sending out sonar-like waves periodically.
"Any traces of them?" Kowac asked, watching the lonely blue egg sitting between two oak trees.
"Nothing… But I can't penetrate too deep because of the density of the forest. They scramble the signal if it goes too far… Also…” The wind mage said, sounding unsure, "Something is interfering with my magic. The area around the egg is something I can't scan. It dissipates my spell."
"They either set up a trap and left the egg after stumbling into it, or the egg has problems." Kowac spoke up after a moment of silence, "I read about that one year the eggs periodically drained the mana of their holders. There are always some tricks that the Headmaster likes to play on the participants."
"Well… it does soak the ground with water… Look!" Risha pointed at the forest floor that was already profoundly muddy. "And as there are no footprints in it, I bet it wasn't like this before the egg was left there."
“Misfits of Water… water producing egg… with strangeness around it…” Kowac murmured under his breath, "We have nine eggs; I wouldn't be surprised if all of them display different characteristics of different elements."
"Then what about the ninth?" Risha asked quickly.
"There ought to be one that is not unusual." He smiled, before taking a deep breath, "We have no time to waste! Sabitza!" He called, and a female mage wearing the badge of the element of water rushed forward without hesitation.
The moment she stepped into the radius of the egg's influence, she felt something was not right and weird. As she was not using mana to cast a spell so she couldn't put her finger on the source of the feeling. When nothing happened after she appeared, she became even more alert. Walking next to it, crouching down, and touching its cold surface, she expected the ambush to come. But once again, nothing.
"An Egg has been obtained by the group Thunderclap." rang out the System's voice as soon as she touched it, notifying everybody of the fact. When the voice finished, Sabitza was already hurrying back toward them with the egg in her hands. She was sure now that those Misfits simply left it here, afraid of the attention it would bring.
"It is freezing my fingers; hurry, take it away!" She groaned, giving it to Kowac.
"Let me bag it!" He held it, but then no matter how he tried, it simply did not go in into his unique holding bag. "What the…?" He flinched. The bag he brought was specially enchanted and should be capable of holding any type of artifact. Even powerful ones, suiting high-tier mages. He came prepared, knowing that previously the eggs were a rowdy bunch, and tried to escape from captivity. "Tsk!" He groaned as the coldness started to hurt him, bypassing his gloves. Yet when he was about to summon electricity to coat his hand, as soon as it appeared, it went haywire and spewed sparks everywhere. "What?!" He yelped, as he had never lost control of his own spells before... and he was using his new artifact nonetheless! As the tiny sparks flew everywhere and he dropped the egg by surprise, he failed to notice the incoming attack.
A big blob of water was descending on them from above. It was a water droplet the size of a house. As soon as it came into the area of effect of the egg, it lost its integrity and exploded into thousands of tiny droplets with a loud bang, surprising the members of Thunderclap with a tinge of irony. Looking up, they saw small and big droplets shaped into swords, falling, slicing apart the leaves of the trees, and getting stuck in the hard bark covering them.
"Disperse!" Kowac shouted, but it was too late. Koa's surprise attack was well calculated, and she used the egg's disruptive field to her advantage, making it explode her spell in unpredictable directions. When Kowac raised his hand, trying to generate an electric field, shielding himself, it went berserk once again, directing his blue bolts into all directions, unable to form the correct spell. They rampaged wildly, destroying trees around them, further increasing the chaos. "Fuck!" He cursed, dodging, hiding under the tree, trying to use it as cover.
His friends were in a similar pickle. Sabitza tried to cover herself in a bubble, but it was unstable, weak, and easily penetrated by the falling rain of swords. She could only let out a soft scream before suddenly teleporting out as she was turning into a porcupine. Koa's spell was not as potent as it could have been, thanks to the egg's effect, but catching the group off guard, not giving them a chance to adapt, covered for it.
"Ugh!" Risha groaned, as she was caught in a panic, surprised when her spell failed to manifest when trying to cast it. Her body was now flying off the tree that she was previously standing on, her mouth wide open, spurting blood as Ash was next to her, bodying Risha like a bull. His explosive strength was above hers, especially because she was not someone well-versed in close combat.
"It was a trap!" Their wind mage gasped, but he only saw a flash of blue as Koa was on him, holding a broken-off, thick tree branch like a caveman, smacking him at the back of his head with it. He only heard a loud crack, and everything went dark after that. He woke up hours later, lying in a medical room back in the Academy.
Kowac saw as Koa's, and Sion's group launched their sneak attack. They had the upper hand as they could use magic, jumping them. After Koa's initial attack, they all casted a spell, reinforcing their bodies, before jumping in. Even if those spells were disrupted too when they got close, it gave them enough of a boost to triumph over them.
"...!" Kowac flinched, barely managing to get out his signature spell of lightning at the bright flash of light coming for him from the edge of his peripheral vision. As the blue electricity left his gloved fingers, they were immediately scattering everywhere as he lost control over them. Not that he minded it. It was helping him cover a much bigger area this way.
Unlucky for him, his opponent was Sion. When they ambushed them, he shot out like a beam of light from an exploding star. For a brief moment, he turned into nothing but a blinding flash, and he was faster than what Lia managed to pull off against Yanura in their battle. For his eyes, the lighting arcs before him were slow-moving attacks that were way too easy to dodge. What he achieved in speed made the egg's power lag behind in influencing him. By the time he sensed that his mana was destabilizing, he was right before his target, dodging everything.
"Yo, Kowac," Sion said as he appeared, one hand clasping on his stretched-out arm, pulling him forward, letting his knee sink into Kowac's stomach.
"You-!" He groaned, feeling the air push out from his body.
"You didn't learn from when I busted you before, eh? You always aim to get rich quick. Too bad!" Sion smiled, bringing him into a chokehold and onto the ground.
This was not the first time Sion dealt with him and with some of his companions. They started the school together, and when Sion became a member of the Disciplinary Committee, his first punishment was dished out to Kowac's group. He discovered that they were fixing duels, sneakily earning quick CP that way, and playing the system. Since then, they were not really on speaking terms.
"I won't let you-!" Kowac gathered his strength to burst out with electricity, but Sion was having none of it. He simply decided to break his neck. Just as his muscles twitched, the system teleported Kowac away before he could execute him.
Sion stood up, muddied from top to bottom, smiling, watching the chaos around him, reminding him of his early childhood. His and Koa's men had the advantage and were told to go for a killing blow from the start. The System would only react then as it was letting injuries play out until someone's life would be in danger or they thinking about giving up. He was happy to see that nobody from their side hesitated. With the advantage of numbers, the Thunderclap group was eliminated from the Hunt, soon announced by the System for everyone else to hear it.
"That was… exciting!" Koa laughed, landing next to him, trying hard not to get stuck in the mud. "I never went for the kill before!"
"It is a weird feeling." The others added, nodding as they also looked around, trying to sort out their thoughts.
"It is still not like doing it for real. In the outside world... Never mind." Sion shook his head, watching them and turning towards Koa, "In here, all of you still know deep down they would be saved. When traveling the continent… There is no safety net to fall back onto."
"You sound like you already have some blood on your hands," Koa said, putting her hands on her hips and measuring him as Sion simply nodded.
"I come from a shitty place." He said simply, not denying it. "Even with the threat of the Undead, people are way too easy to try and kill each other! Not even bothering with cleaning up the corpses!" Sion sighed loudly, "Anyway, I am glad to see you all have the balls! Even if only metaphorically!" He laughed, pointing his thumb towards Koa.
"Hah! Did you think only Aurora could be a badass?" She snorted with a grin on her face.
"It isn't about being a badass," Sion answered, but explained no more as, in his eyes, this yearly competition was so people could experience real danger and the cold wind of death without falling victim to it. A brutal test that could prepare those who take part in it for the reality of combat.
"I agree." pinged their bracelet as Aurora and her men arrived, all dressed in black, military-like uniforms. She managed to whip the students who came under her into grunts in the past month, and when they learned her full name, they forwent all complaints and simply did what she ordered them to do.
"Oh? I expected Lia to find us first!" Koa laughed, nodding at the smiling Aurora. She was breathing a bit more quickly, showing that they were hurrying here as fast as possible. "What should we do with the egg?"
"Take it." Sion said, "I say we use it to our advantage! Find a place where we can set up an ambush and repeat what we did here! Until more eggs surface, we have the advantage of knowing its effect! We can surprise others just like this!"
"Good idea!" Koa grinned, feeling energized and ready to eliminate more people.
"What effects?" Aurora asked curiously.
"While we wait for Lia, I can-" Sion spoke, but then everyone flinched, listening to the System's voice.
"The second egg has been obtained by the Misfits of Fire."
Corty I'm thinking about doing a new cover with the higher resolution AI option. Or should I leave it as is? I want to ask your opinion about it.
Here are some images I may use for the new cover:
Spoiler [collapse]Of course, if you all like the current one, I will keep that on.
"We are nearing them!" A female voice said, a bit nervous, checking her map. A group of ten, all wearing 3rd-year uniforms, were heading towards the location of the first egg to be found.
"Any info on them?" The leader, a man in the front, asked, pulling up enchanted gloves onto his hands. They were sparkling with electricity as he and the rest were getting ready to fight. It was his own artifact, something he was eager to try out as it was finished only a week ago.
"They are part of an alliance, calling itself the Hosue of Misfits. They are the 1st-years who signed up for the competition." The girl reported back, quickly checking. "The Misfits of Water… should be led by the girl who bested Heliett."
"Then don't take her lightly! Risha, you are with me, and we will focus on the girl! The rest of you will engage the others! A 1st-year association shouldn't have too many famous people. Our goal is to break their lines, get the egg, and disperse! They are amateurs…. We have to capitalize on that!" He smiled, patting his holding bag on his waist, "This isn't the first year when the eggs are visible on the map, and there are methods of dealing with it… this is going to be easy!"
…
….
……
"We have company! They are coming from the east, and they are coming fast!" the Twin's voice traveled back from afar, rushing back to the leading group as Koa was shaking her hands, trying to force her frozen blood to flow again.
"It didn't take long!" Koa moaned, watching the egg on the ground, soaking the earth and quickly turning it into a muddy mess.
"We fight." Sion spoke, waving his hand, and his subordinates took up a circle around them, watching the trees.
"Get out of the range of the egg!" Koa nodded as they separated, "Let them try and take it; we will ambush them when they are stumped by it and fall into its 'trap'!"
…
….
…..
"This is… suspicious… Kowac, I don't know if we should go for it yet." Risha sent a voice message to her partners as they hid in the thick foliage of the surrounding trees. They were spread out, looking for Koa's group, using one of their wind mage's techniques, sending out sonar-like waves periodically.
"Any traces of them?" Kowac asked, watching the lonely blue egg sitting between two oak trees.
"Nothing… But I can't penetrate too deep because of the density of the forest. They scramble the signal if it goes too far… Also…” The wind mage said, sounding unsure, "Something is interfering with my magic. The area around the egg is something I can't scan. It dissipates my spell."
"They either set up a trap and left the egg after stumbling into it, or the egg has problems." Kowac spoke up after a moment of silence, "I read about that one year the eggs periodically drained the mana of their holders. There are always some tricks that the Headmaster likes to play on the participants."
"Well… it does soak the ground with water… Look!" Risha pointed at the forest floor that was already profoundly muddy. "And as there are no footprints in it, I bet it wasn't like this before the egg was left there."
“Misfits of Water… water producing egg… with strangeness around it…” Kowac murmured under his breath, "We have nine eggs; I wouldn't be surprised if all of them display different characteristics of different elements."
"Then what about the ninth?" Risha asked quickly.
"There ought to be one that is not unusual." He smiled, before taking a deep breath, "We have no time to waste! Sabitza!" He called, and a female mage wearing the badge of the element of water rushed forward without hesitation.
The moment she stepped into the radius of the egg's influence, she felt something was not right and weird. As she was not using mana to cast a spell so she couldn't put her finger on the source of the feeling. When nothing happened after she appeared, she became even more alert. Walking next to it, crouching down, and touching its cold surface, she expected the ambush to come. But once again, nothing.
"An Egg has been obtained by the group Thunderclap." rang out the System's voice as soon as she touched it, notifying everybody of the fact. When the voice finished, Sabitza was already hurrying back toward them with the egg in her hands. She was sure now that those Misfits simply left it here, afraid of the attention it would bring.
"It is freezing my fingers; hurry, take it away!" She groaned, giving it to Kowac.
"Let me bag it!" He held it, but then no matter how he tried, it simply did not go in into his unique holding bag. "What the…?" He flinched. The bag he brought was specially enchanted and should be capable of holding any type of artifact. Even powerful ones, suiting high-tier mages. He came prepared, knowing that previously the eggs were a rowdy bunch, and tried to escape from captivity. "Tsk!" He groaned as the coldness started to hurt him, bypassing his gloves. Yet when he was about to summon electricity to coat his hand, as soon as it appeared, it went haywire and spewed sparks everywhere. "What?!" He yelped, as he had never lost control of his own spells before... and he was using his new artifact nonetheless! As the tiny sparks flew everywhere and he dropped the egg by surprise, he failed to notice the incoming attack.
A big blob of water was descending on them from above. It was a water droplet the size of a house. As soon as it came into the area of effect of the egg, it lost its integrity and exploded into thousands of tiny droplets with a loud bang, surprising the members of Thunderclap with a tinge of irony. Looking up, they saw small and big droplets shaped into swords, falling, slicing apart the leaves of the trees, and getting stuck in the hard bark covering them.
"Disperse!" Kowac shouted, but it was too late. Koa's surprise attack was well calculated, and she used the egg's disruptive field to her advantage, making it explode her spell in unpredictable directions. When Kowac raised his hand, trying to generate an electric field, shielding himself, it went berserk once again, directing his blue bolts into all directions, unable to form the correct spell. They rampaged wildly, destroying trees around them, further increasing the chaos. "Fuck!" He cursed, dodging, hiding under the tree, trying to use it as cover.
His friends were in a similar pickle. Sabitza tried to cover herself in a bubble, but it was unstable, weak, and easily penetrated by the falling rain of swords. She could only let out a soft scream before suddenly teleporting out as she was turning into a porcupine. Koa's spell was not as potent as it could have been, thanks to the egg's effect, but catching the group off guard, not giving them a chance to adapt, covered for it.
"Ugh!" Risha groaned, as she was caught in a panic, surprised when her spell failed to manifest when trying to cast it. Her body was now flying off the tree that she was previously standing on, her mouth wide open, spurting blood as Ash was next to her, bodying Risha like a bull. His explosive strength was above hers, especially because she was not someone well-versed in close combat.
"It was a trap!" Their wind mage gasped, but he only saw a flash of blue as Koa was on him, holding a broken-off, thick tree branch like a caveman, smacking him at the back of his head with it. He only heard a loud crack, and everything went dark after that. He woke up hours later, lying in a medical room back in the Academy.
Kowac saw as Koa's, and Sion's group launched their sneak attack. They had the upper hand as they could use magic, jumping them. After Koa's initial attack, they all casted a spell, reinforcing their bodies, before jumping in. Even if those spells were disrupted too when they got close, it gave them enough of a boost to triumph over them.
"...!" Kowac flinched, barely managing to get out his signature spell of lightning at the bright flash of light coming for him from the edge of his peripheral vision. As the blue electricity left his gloved fingers, they were immediately scattering everywhere as he lost control over them. Not that he minded it. It was helping him cover a much bigger area this way.
Unlucky for him, his opponent was Sion. When they ambushed them, he shot out like a beam of light from an exploding star. For a brief moment, he turned into nothing but a blinding flash, and he was faster than what Lia managed to pull off against Yanura in their battle. For his eyes, the lighting arcs before him were slow-moving attacks that were way too easy to dodge. What he achieved in speed made the egg's power lag behind in influencing him. By the time he sensed that his mana was destabilizing, he was right before his target, dodging everything.
"Yo, Kowac," Sion said as he appeared, one hand clasping on his stretched-out arm, pulling him forward, letting his knee sink into Kowac's stomach.
"You-!" He groaned, feeling the air push out from his body.
"You didn't learn from when I busted you before, eh? You always aim to get rich quick. Too bad!" Sion smiled, bringing him into a chokehold and onto the ground.
This was not the first time Sion dealt with him and with some of his companions. They started the school together, and when Sion became a member of the Disciplinary Committee, his first punishment was dished out to Kowac's group. He discovered that they were fixing duels, sneakily earning quick CP that way, and playing the system. Since then, they were not really on speaking terms.
"I won't let you-!" Kowac gathered his strength to burst out with electricity, but Sion was having none of it. He simply decided to break his neck. Just as his muscles twitched, the system teleported Kowac away before he could execute him.
Sion stood up, muddied from top to bottom, smiling, watching the chaos around him, reminding him of his early childhood. His and Koa's men had the advantage and were told to go for a killing blow from the start. The System would only react then as it was letting injuries play out until someone's life would be in danger or they thinking about giving up. He was happy to see that nobody from their side hesitated. With the advantage of numbers, the Thunderclap group was eliminated from the Hunt, soon announced by the System for everyone else to hear it.
"That was… exciting!" Koa laughed, landing next to him, trying hard not to get stuck in the mud. "I never went for the kill before!"
"It is a weird feeling." The others added, nodding as they also looked around, trying to sort out their thoughts.
"It is still not like doing it for real. In the outside world... Never mind." Sion shook his head, watching them and turning towards Koa, "In here, all of you still know deep down they would be saved. When traveling the continent… There is no safety net to fall back onto."
"You sound like you already have some blood on your hands," Koa said, putting her hands on her hips and measuring him as Sion simply nodded.
"I come from a shitty place." He said simply, not denying it. "Even with the threat of the Undead, people are way too easy to try and kill each other! Not even bothering with cleaning up the corpses!" Sion sighed loudly, "Anyway, I am glad to see you all have the balls! Even if only metaphorically!" He laughed, pointing his thumb towards Koa.
"Hah! Did you think only Aurora could be a badass?" She snorted with a grin on her face.
"It isn't about being a badass," Sion answered, but explained no more as, in his eyes, this yearly competition was so people could experience real danger and the cold wind of death without falling victim to it. A brutal test that could prepare those who take part in it for the reality of combat.
"I agree." pinged their bracelet as Aurora and her men arrived, all dressed in black, military-like uniforms. She managed to whip the students who came under her into grunts in the past month, and when they learned her full name, they forwent all complaints and simply did what she ordered them to do.
"Oh? I expected Lia to find us first!" Koa laughed, nodding at the smiling Aurora. She was breathing a bit more quickly, showing that they were hurrying here as fast as possible. "What should we do with the egg?"
"Take it." Sion said, "I say we use it to our advantage! Find a place where we can set up an ambush and repeat what we did here! Until more eggs surface, we have the advantage of knowing its effect! We can surprise others just like this!"
"Good idea!" Koa grinned, feeling energized and ready to eliminate more people.
"What effects?" Aurora asked curiously.
"While we wait for Lia, I can-" Sion spoke, but then everyone flinched, listening to the System's voice.
"The second egg has been obtained by the Misfits of Fire."
Corty I'm thinking about doing a new cover with the higher resolution AI option. Or should I leave it as is? I want to ask your opinion about it.
Here are some images I may use for the new cover:
Spoiler [collapse]Of course, if you all like the current one, I will keep that on.
