Beginning of the tournament

John sat down beside Mike and Steven in the cafeteria, shoveling food into his mouth at an incredible rate as he read the rules of the tournament. The tournament would begin at 2:30 PM on Friday and finish at the same time on Sunday. Buses were coming to pick everyone up and take them to the city immediately after the tournament finishes, where students would have a week to visit family's and ready themselves for evacuation.

John frowned as he realized just how rushed the school was, the Semester wasn't supposed to end for another 2 weeks yet the tournament was only a couple days long and they were only spending a week on vacation instead of a month.

"The monster wave is going to happen in 3-6 weeks." Mike said, he had been reading the same information as John. "I heard from my dad just before the alert that he'd been called back from a very lucrative hunt by orders of the Defender's Guild, apparently all hunter's are required to report in within three weeks."

Steven nodded in agreement, "My family is recalling everyone at the Peak of Core Formation or higher to defend our territory. I've been asked to buy as many spots in the bunker as I can for children too weak to fight."

"Let me know if you need me to buy you some." John said with a frown, "I don't think I'll need any for my family so I should be able to give you mine."

Mike nodded, "Me too, my mom is a member of the Defender's Guild and my sister is already in a bunker."

"Thanks." Steven said with a smile before sending off another text upping his estimated maximum number of spots in the bunker. "We have a bunker in our territory but no one wants to put all our eggs in one basket."

John nodded in understanding, cutting up his steak before picking his phone back up and continuing to read the rules of the tournament. Everyone will be separated into a massive Danger Zone with enemies ranging from Rank 10, Level 1 Body Refining monsters to Rank 6, Level 1 Core Formation monsters. Grouping is allowed, but incredibly difficult given how far apart from each other all the contestants will be at entry.

Hunter's Paradise will be set to 10x speed so the tournament will last for 20 days subjective time. Each hour or survival is worth 10 points, Rank 10 Level 1 Body Refining monsters are worth 1 point. Every rank increase is worth 5 points, each level increase is worth 1 point. So a Rank 8 level 3 monster would be worth 13 points, and killing a contestant penalizes you 100 points if you initiate the fight.

"This is gonna be so much fun!" Mike exclaimed with a massive grin on his face as he finished reading the rules, "It's been so long since I got to let loose and massacre everything in my path."

John snorted in disgust as he stood and threw away his trash, "We've only got an hour and a half left to finish preparations and get into a pod."

"Yeah, let's go." Steven agreed, throwing away his own trash and following John as he jogged out of the cafeteria towards the Tamer's Guild.

---

An hour and a half later John was laying down in suspended animation on top of Croc, Snakey curled up around his neck as a massive pod continued to descend into the earth.

The three of them flickered into existence on top of a cliff surrounded by a golden barrier keeping him from leaving. Looking around, John recognized the valleys and lakes spreading out as the location of the 2nd trial in the Hunter's Guild.

"Welcome to the End of Semester Tournament!" Mr. Parker's high-pitched voice called out, echoing into the distance. "Your results will directly effect your future at the school, so do your best!"

The golden barrier lowered and John shook as he heard something roar and turned to look at the roof of the mountain. A massive lion, nearly 20 feet tall stood giving off an incredibly strong and majestic aura. The whole world seemed to burn in a golden flame and John turned to run cursing his luck.

"I just had to be placed right next to a fucking boss monster!" He cursed, running into the forest. Croc had instantly dove underground and continued sinking deeper and deeper the moment he'd felt the lion's aura. Snakey had even jumped from his shoulder and rushed into the forest ahead of him. "I'm just loving the loyalty." He complained, following behind Snakey as they tried to put as much distance between them and the lion as possible.

Thankfully, the lion seemed to be responding to Mr. Parker's voice so it settled back down and closed it's eyes to take a nap ignoring the pipsqueak and his monsters that'd appeared on the cliff a couple miles below it.

Summoning his pistols, John started firing as he ran into several monsters that'd been scared by the aura of the lion and run. They were all Rank 9 level 3 or lower, stronger monsters would've been killed off for daring to enter the lion's territory.

*BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG*

Low rank monsters are notorious for their lack of intelligence, and even as John killed them off in droves they didn't bother to fight him they were so scared of the lion's aura. "This is easier than shooting fish in a barrel." He muttered to himself as he reloaded and continued firing, a number flashing in the upper right corner of his vision showing how many points he'd gathered.

Half an hour later, the torrent of monsters running from the lion's aura stopped and croc emerged from the earth. Ever since evolving, croc had become so silent when travelling through the earth that the only reason John wasn't surprised was the bond between them alerting him as to the croc's location at all times.

"Alright." John said, watching with a smile on his face as Snakey swallowed yet another rabbit monster whole. Glancing up, he noticed that he'd managed to kill enough of them that he'd gained 1,423 points already. Too bad he couldn't see how the others were doing, but he doubted anyone had been so lucky as to run into a tide of monsters running away so frantically that they ignored their comrades being killed off.

"We need to gather resources, we'll be here for 20 days. First step is water." John spoke to himself, rubbing his chin in thought. Snakey slowly slithered over after finishing her meal. "Snakey, lead us to water. Croc, try and find a cave system or hiding place that'll be easy to defend."

Snakey closed her eyes and tasted the air with her tongue for a minute as Croc disappeared into the ground and John could feel him moving to the east faster than he could run. "I really need to succeed in training Blink Step soon." John muttered to himself.

Snakey hissed then to get John's attention before moving off to the south, away from the mountain. Now that they weren't following behind a massive herd of monsters running away from a boss, John and Snakey began to move carefully and silently.

Ever since buying and succeeding in training Soul Bullets, John had begun to experiment with the idea of suppressing sound waves. If he could coat his guns in mana to catch and compress the sound coming from them, why couldn't he catch the sounds his body made? After several days of experimentation he'd created an extremely basic technique that he called "Muffle". Covering his entire body in mana, he captured every sound he made as he moved slowly through the forest.

Combined with his stealth training, John was now a soundless ghost who didn't leave behind anything to indicate that he'd been there. He'd begun to train Snakey on stealth as well but she still had problems with it, leaving a trail of bent leaves and compacted dirt where she slithered by. If it became an issue, he'd pick her up but for now he didn't worry about it.

The undergrowth suddenly cleared, and John looked down a 10 foot cliff to a river. As he watched, a horned rabbit hopped up to the river to take a sip. A massive tentacle shot out of the river at an incredible speed and wrapped the rabbit up. A nearly 5 foot wide mouth surrounded by tentacles appeared in the middle of the lake, pushing out of the water showing off several rows of jagged teeth as it chowed down on it's fresh meal.