Looking at the charred corpse of the giant monkey, Ray felt baffled. After all, why the hell was a beast that used fire, spewing flammable poison? That was dangerous as showed.
"Well, I suppose that it never saw that coming, huh?"
Deciding to move on from the colorful monkey, Ray looked upwards where a hole was leading to the top of the mountain, his destination.
Wasting no time, Ray used the walls as a place for propulsion, jumping from one wall to another, slowly rising towards the top. He kept doing it for some time, around five minutes, and although he was going at considerable speeds...
"Not even halfway?"
Sighing, he just kept going tireless.
Once he reached the top, what he found was a beautiful scenery. A lake surrounded by luxurious trees and flowers, and a magical glow permeated the surroundings.
In the center of the lake, a small piece of land stood. It was quite small, only big enough to carry the checkpoint on top of it. However, Ray's focus was not directed to the checkpoint and instead was directed to a bluish green magic circle that was hovering in the air.
Its magical light engulfed the surroundings and beyond. This was the source of the weird glow he had noticed at the start of the test.
Before Ray decided to mess with the magic circle he decided to collect the reward of the checkpoint.
Looking at the lake, Ray, using his Dominion element, parted the waters clearing a path for him to move.
The Dominion element wasn't just the power to command, it was the power to impose your dominion over something or someone.
He slowly walked in the direction of the checkpoint, no hurry in his steps.
«Participant Detected!»
«Congratulations! You are the first one to reach this checkpoint! You have been rewarded 5 points!»
«The reward has been decremented! The next participant will be rewarded 4 points!»
«Total Bonus Points Collected: 14»
"5 points again."
This is what he found weird. All the three checkpoints rewarded the first participant with 5 points and then proceeded to decrement the values. Meaning that only five participants can collect the rewards of one checkpoint. Not a surprise though. The Instructor had already said that the number of rewards per checkpoint was limited, he just didn't give a proper number.
However, was it a fixed number? Were all the checkpoints limited to 5 points or was it only on this island? There were several possibilities. The first was that the other islands had different rewards patterns for the checkpoints. This meant that the fact that the five point limit for all the checkpoints was just one of the combinations or simply untrue.
The other case was that each island had a different limit for the points rewarded. Considering that the main focus that the academy had set was the last island where a powerful beast was waiting, most likely the reward limit would also increase the closer to the island one got.
And there was the third possibility. All the checkpoints were limited to 5 points, meaning that the focus was not the powerful beast, but countless checkpoints that were scattered around the last island.
"The last possibility is mostly just wild thinking, but if the evaluation for each island is not set on the limits of a singular checkpoint but on the number of points an island can provide than it changes a lot."
If the number of points an island could provide were equal, then the actual goal would be to go for the checkpoints on the islands with the fewer checkpoints. But that was pure speculation, for now.
In order for Ray to confirm which of the theories was correct he needed to visit another island.
"By visiting the ninth island and check the rewards of the checkpoints, then I will be able to determine what kind of pattern the academy is using and which of my theories is correct."
In case one of the theories was right, he would act in the most suitable way.
Ray looked around searching for a way to go to the next island and eventually he did.
The magic circle that had caught his interest at the start of the test was most likely the way to traverse between islands. The reason why the monkey was guarding this area was not to protect the checkpoint but the transportation. Unfortunately, Ray had killed before it could truly serve its purpose.
"I guess it's time to go to the next island."
Saying this, he approached the magic circle and sent a mana signal to activate it.
Magic Circles or Mana Arrays as they should be called were invented by the one known as The Sage, or better known to Ray as Astra the Witch.
Their purpose is to allow people to use an element outside their own affinity. Using runes, geometry and mysticism symbols, they were capable of guiding mana to perform a certain task, normally a spell.
Although Ray wasn't an expert with magic circles, his abnormal senses were capable of detecting what kind of spell a magic circle was meant to perform.
The reason was simple. In order to draw a magic circle, a mage must make use of a technique created by aura users / knights, called intent.
Intent was the materialization of one's will on the world. Alone, it's only a way to alert someone of your feelings or scream out messages. An example of this was killing intent. But when combined with either mana or aura, it gained another purpose.
In the case of mana, it allowed one to draw a magic circle with their mana regardless of control or affinity.
While in the case of aura, it allowed an aura user to shape his aura outside his body and even replicate magic with it.
Anyway, because a magic circle was drawn with intent, someone who was sensible to other people's intent, like a beast or an experienced fighter could also feel it. Ray was both a dragon and a several hundred years old being, he didn't lack experience.
"It looks like it creates an air channel that forcefully sends the user to one of the directions. It doesn't activate unless I choose one of the two directions, so I can go to other islands besides the next one, huh?"
This wasn't really groundbreaking information, after all, on the first island there was a portal to send people out of the test.
Ray still decided to go into the next island in order to check his hypothesis, if there was any need to go back, he would.
He sent his mana into the magi circle and kept himself focused on the direction of the ninth island. The magic circle vibrated before rising from the ground and start turning in the direction of the next island.
Whoosh
A sudden wind surged, causing a cloud of dust to rise, Ray protected his eyes with aura but kept still. Soon the cloud of dust cleared, revealing a greenish tunnel of wind.
Magical wind was unlike normal wind as it was visible to the eye.
Without hesitation, Ray entered the wind tunnel and was launched into the next island at great speeds.
'Hm. It's around half of the speed I used to fly when I was bored, but still pretty fast.'
It didn't take that much time to reach the next island as the speed of the wind tunnel was quite impressive.
Ray gracefully landed on the edge of the ninth island and looked around. The island was quite different from the last one. It didn't have a massive mountain at the center neither had a great forest.
It was a desert. Only a desert was to be seen, unfortunately.
"Ugh. I really hate sand."
Sand was never really of his liking, not for any reasonable reason, he just didn't like it. It was for that reason that in his youth he had turned a portion of the biggest desert into glass.
Good times.
Anyway, if Ray remembered correctly, on the ninth island there were also five checkpoints, however they were not positioned according to the cardinal directions like the last one.
"It seems that I will have to actually wonder about to find them, it seems. How unfortunate."
Wasting no time he decided to hurry up, after all he didn't want to be on the island of sand any longer. Reinforcing his body, he made his way around the desert.
A cloud of sand rose from the ground as he traveled, marking his trail. Unbeknownst to Ray, a group of participants was eyeing the cloud with interest.
"Ohoho, it seems that someone quite skilled arrived at the ninth island."
A young man was the one talking. He had long dark gray hair and green eyes, weirdly, his teeth were quite sharp.
"Hey guys, say how much of a loss do you think that the academy would retain if they lost such a talent this year."
A sudden surge of laughter came to his companions that as wild as he was. Those were not laughs of mockery, but of excitement.
They were about to fight someone quite capable, their blood was boiling.
"What are you waiting then?"
He raised his hand pointed in the direction of the cloud of sand.
"Hunt"
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Q&A Time!
There were only two question that were asked in the last chapter, but lets answer them!
Q: How did other characters achieved level of mana, both in quality and quantity?
A: Although the question was not exactly structured like this I got the feeling that this was what they meant to ask, and they did express the fact that they could've missed something. And indeed they missed.
You see, Rex Draco, now Ray, no longer has as much power as he once had. When creating his new body his power reset, leaving him only a few advantages due to the fact that his own bodywas used as material. His mana level now his a little above average, almost double of the average.
The quality of his mana stayed the same, because as I have explained, Mana is born from the junction of spiritual power with natural energy, mana quality although not explicity stated can only be altered by either improving the natural energy or alter your own soul.
All the people that caught Ray's interest are one of a kind talents. As for the Saintess, she stated herself to have ridiculous amounts of divine power, and its quite true, as she has indeed as much divine power as Ray has demonic power.
Both of these power systems will be more deeply explored in the future.
Q: What's the release schedule?
A: I don't really have a set schedule for any of my works. Right now I just reserve some of my time to write outside of uni and let inspiration take me. I allways leave a finished chapter between the last publlished and the one I'm currently working on. As things are going for now, I can confirm that will be more than two chapter per week, but that might change as I start working on my other novels.
That's it for now, I might do this again later, but for now the only other things I have to say is that the First Volume should end with the Entrance Exams Arc that should take between 15 and 20 chapters, I'm not sure, some times ideas just pop out of nowhere in my head.