Chapter 107: Mountainous Pressure
The mountainous pressure continued to increase slowly but steadily. Axel kept looking at the man straight in the eye without any intention to back down or look away. The powerhouse could also see not an ounce of struggle within Axel. The pressure exuded by him had already exceeded 10%. To say he was shocked would be an understatement.
So, he increased the pressure, 10% > 15% > 20%
Still no sign of struggle, he increased the pressure even more, at this point it wasn’t a matter of seeing how capable Axel was, rather he wanted to see his limit. A smile appeared on the man’s face. His eyes gleamed dangerously looking at the defiant stance of the talented runecaster in front of him.
Not even that could move Axel even an inch, and the commotion became visible for everyone to notice. Even though the powerhouse was applying its pressure on Axel only, the increment in its power started to affect the surroundings, all the other Seekers in charge of the place, even the students stared at the situation in shock. It was quite obvious to everyone that Axel was enduring the pressure emitted by the 2nd phase Seeker.
But everyone remained horrified that he did not show an ounce of struggle despite the horrifying pressure increasing every few seconds.
But the Gate officers’ excited expression slowly dimmed involuntarily. He noticed how everyone else was looking, the stakes became higher, it was no longer about seeing the limit of the boy, but about his own ego. He couldn’t believe it. How could a mere initial 1st phase Seeker endure more than 40% of his pressure, he who was a late 2nd phase Seeker? Anyone on that level would have had their bones crushed in its entirety for trying to endure such pressure even for a second.
He scowled internally, finally choosing to increase his pressure to 50% at once.
Eventually, a trace of visible struggle appeared on Axel’s face. His body trembled, his unwavering gaze trembled, but a cold smile also appeared on his face as he released his boundless killing intent, and it entirely pressed onto the powerhouse in front of him. The man’s vision flickered for a moment, as if the world had turned crimson.
He felt like he was being choked by something sinister and wrong in itself, the feeling was extremely subtle and hard to grasp, and barely threatening for someone at his stage, yet it was real, that minuscule sense of danger. This happened in a fraction of a second as his vision turned to normal right after, but the blood red killing intent of Axel fought off against the gargantuan pressure of his, and now he looked at ease again. And he was enduring 50% pressure from someone 1 whole major stage above him.
The man looked at Axel with visible shock, even a sense of incomprehension. He couldn’t understand why and how that could even be humanly possible. It seems another monster had appeared in this generation of monstrous talents that defy logic and rules at every turn, like it’s nothing. With a lot of unwillingness, he retracted his pressure. This was going to be a scar on his reputation, but he would rather not cross the point that should not be crossed; otherwise, being killed would be the least of his concerns.
Axel internally heaved a sigh of relief seeing the man retract his pressure, and everyone kept watching in disbelief at that situation. The man coughed and introduced himself while issuing an apology, “I apologize for that, but I had to make sure you were indeed strong enough to be alone, without much worry, and please call me Olgar.”
Axel scoffed internally. There was no sincerity in his voice; it seemed the guy’s ego had been hurt by his defiant display of endurance, and now he was saying those things so that he wouldn’t have to face any repercussions later on. Regardless of it, Axel didn’t care; it already felt like he had wasted too much time here.
Olgar took his magic card once more and authorized him for entry. The man wished him good luck on his hunt with a sunny smile, to which he also replied with a pleasant smile.
Without much fanfare, he charged into the jungle, It was a lush green forest filled with trees and rich vegetation. Many other teams were also around, by quite a distance away from each other. They all diverged in different directions not to get in each other’s way. The beast forest in totality was more than big enough to accommodate a very large influx of students that could hunt at once without making it crowded in the slightest.
He kept diverging towards a certain direction, following trails of various beasts and scanning everything with details and analyzing the situation to determine the locations that still might have tier one creatures.
Axel thought back to the distinctions between supernatural creatures and their classifications, just as all the aspects were divided into three main branches. Supernatural creatures were also divided into the same three categories.
A few more things to note about warrior branch aspects were that they were to a large extent, like martial artists, they would absorb and refine mana then store it in their body, of course there were vast differences in how each of the warrior branch aspect holders used and stored those energies in their Nexus cores. But it was mostly internalization. Meanwhile, magic branch aspects did not exactly refine the natural mana or store it in the same way, while the warrior branch aspects refined and stored the energies and used that energy to empower themselves or their weapons physically.
Magic branch aspect holders mainly used their own mana to manipulate the mana outside and give them direction or construct, make them behave and move in a certain way to make it produce various types of results. As for bloodline aspect holders, they each gained a unique stat. They could either empower their abilities or strengthen themselves physically, depending on the aspect and the race.
Now, to get back to the point. Supernatural creatures that could externally manipulate mana and perform various feats were classified as Magical beasts. Those that absorbed and refined energies and fought through physical empowerment and abilities were called Monsters. As for the creatures that actually held extremely thin bloodline traces were called Bloodline mutants, and those that were a mixture of multiple of these were labeled as Hybrid beasts.
This beast forest was only inhabited by Magical beasts and monsters, and no bloodline mutants for the same obvious reasons why there are no half blood students in the academy, at least openly that is.
50 Golden Tickets = 1 Extra Chapter
200 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1 Magic Castle = 4 Extra Chapter