Meanwhile, on the Colosseum's podium ground, Felarial summoned 100 screens, where each one showed a team's situation within their respective virtual battlefield.
Among those 100, the screen that floated on top of them all was five times larger than the rest. It was none other than the screen that showed the Earth trial zone team.
Felarial made that screen appear big after noticing that almost the entire Audience had their eyes attached to the first screen.
They wanted to personally witness how powerful the Earth's Alpha Chosen really were.
However, to their surprise, the screen turned ink-black just before the 1st Monster Wave began, blocking them from seeing anything.
The Audience was confused and looked at Felarial as they waited for some kind of explanation, but Felarial himself was no different from them.
However, he could tell the problem wasn't with the screen but due to the presence of the strange fog.
Before Felarial could make something out of it, three seconds passed from the start of the 1st Monster Wave, and the 'Round-2 Evaluation Score Leaderboard' that floated beside the screens had refreshed the Earth trial zone team's score from '0' to '2000'.
It was displayed '2nd Monster Wave' on the top right corner of their screen, making it clear to the Audience that after clearing the 1st Monster Wave within a couple of seconds, the Earth's Alpha Chosen skipped the 10-minute break and proceeded with the next Wave.
As time passed, the disbelief on their faces didn't fade but deepened. Because by the time the first thirty seconds were over, the Earth team cleared the first seven Monster Waves, whereas just a few trial zone teams passed the 1st Monster Wave.
The Audience wanted to glimpse how the Earth's Alpha Chosen cleared those monsters. Alas, what could they do even when the Tournament Manager was helpless.
At the same time, within the Earth trial team's shared virtual space, Gabriel, Kasim and Henry felt like crying upon looking at their newly refreshed individual contribution score.
[Congratulations! Your team have successfully cleared the 7th Monster Wave.]
[Due to clearing the 7th Monster Wave within the first five seconds, a 100% bonus Score was added to your Round-2 Team Evaluation.]
Individual Contribution Score:
Jay (Lv.25) - 193500 (1000+2500+5000+10000+25000+50000+100000)
Team Score: 387000 (193500+193500{Bonus})
Ever since the Monster Waves began, those three waited for the monsters to cross past the 'Thunder Miasma Field' but to no avail.
During the 7th Wave, they hoped to find monsters since the horde of the 7th Monster Wave comprised 100 Tier-3 Low-Phase monsters.
However, to their bitter disappointment, not a single one of the monsters managed to set foot across the foggy border.
Once the 7th Monster Wave ended, Jay didn't skip the 10-minute break right away and instead called out to Olivia, "Use and share my senses with the rest of the team."
She gave a strange look at Jay as if saying, 'Don't you have access to my abilities? Why don't you do it yourself?'
Nonetheless, she didn't dare to voice it out and complied with his instruction.
As soon as Olivia activated that skill on the entire team, a strange connection linked their minds together, and they were able to communicate with each other with just their thoughts.
Besides that, everyone could not only perceive through their own senses but through the senses of others as well. They could even sense each other's position without having to look around.
Jay didn't wait any further after Olivia used her skill and initiated the 8th Monster Wave.
Unlike the previous seven Monster Waves, where the Earth's Alpha Chosen couldn't sense the presence of monsters within the ink-black fog, their perception of the 8th Monster Wave was quite the opposite.
They were able to sense the horde of 100 Tier-3 Mid-Phase monsters approaching them through the fog from all directions.
At the same time, they were able to observe how deadly the fog Jay deployed around them was.
The emulated health bars above the heads of those monsters displayed the gradual deterioration of their health, and that was just from being in contact with the fog.
On top of that, the monsters had to face the onslaught of several grey thunderbolts, each chipping away a large portion of the monsters' overall health.
By the time they were 300 meters away from the Earth's Alpha Chosen, their numbers had gone down to 68.
Beyond the 200-mark, that number reduced to 31 and the monsters that managed to cross the amounted to a measly four.
All those four were Aerial-type monsters, and none of them had more than 10% in their health bar.
The first ones to react were the 'desperate trio', Gabriel, Kasim and Henry. They attacked those four monsters like there was no tomorrow.
As a Wind-elemental user, Gabriel was the fastest one with his ranged wind-blade attacks and scored two kills. In contrast, Henry and Kasim finished off one monster each.
[Congratulations! Your team have successfully cleared the 8th Monster Wave.]
[Due to clearing the 8th Monster Wave within the first ten seconds, a 90% bonus Score was added to your Round-2 Team Evaluation.]
Individual Contribution Score:
Gabriel (Lv.27) - 495
Jay (Lv.25) - 442540 (1000+2500+5000+10000+25000+50000+100000+249040)
Team Score: 840826 (442540+398286{Bonus})
The contribution of the individual score depended on the amount of damage dealt rather than who finished off a monster.
Since the last four monsters didn't have more than 10% of health, the contribution they received was just as low.
Regardless, Gabriel was excited to score higher than Kasim and Henry.
From the beginning of the trial program, he had always been at the very bottom of any rankings among the Earth's Alpha Chosen, and Gabriel was the only one who wasn't in the Alpha Rankings asides from Dante.
So, when he was ranked second only to Jay in terms of the individual score, Gabriel became even more excited and wished for nothing more than to score even higher in the next Wave.
Kasim and Henry more or less had similar thoughts about scoring higher in the 9th Monster Wave.
But unlike Gabriel, they didn't see it as ranking near Jay because even if all three of their individual contribution score was combined, it didn't amount to 1000, much less comparing themselves to the Goliath of a man, whose individual score neared half a million points.
Meanwhile, Jay thought back to the details about the bonus score that MJ informed him right before Round-2 began.
Only by clearing a Monster Wave in the first 5 seconds would a team obtain a 100% bonus.
If it were delayed by even a second, the System would categorize it as under 10 seconds, and the bonus received would be lowered to 90%.
Likewise, for every five seconds down the line, the bonus received will be reduced by 10%, with the top 50 seconds as the endpoint and clearing a Monster Wave any beyond that wouldn't result in a bonus score.
{Author Note: For a better idea on this, I suggest you guys scroll down to find the pic link in this chapter's author note before continuing from where you left off.}
All the first seven Monster Waves till then were cleared within five seconds, which gave the entire team an 100% bonus score.
But when it came to the 8th Monster Wave, it took them 8 seconds to clear it, and that was categorized as under 10 seconds, resulting in the 90% bonus.
Before skipping the 10-minute break, Jay mentally communicated with the entire team through the , "Beyond the 9th Monster Wave, it will be quite hard even to survive and obtaining a bonus score is nigh impossible. So, if you all want a good enough Individual Score, the 9th Wave is your chance. Finish off the monsters as soon as possible, even if you all had to expend more Spirit Energy and Stamina."
Soon after his words, the 9th Monster Wave began as 100 Tier-3 High-Phase monsters galloped towards the Earth's Alpha Chosen.