Teaming Up to Win the Race

"Ahhhh." The blond-haired girl screamed while they were sliding down the tube.

"If we are in a party now, we should probably know each other's names. Hey, my name is Dave." He still had the pro gamer blood boiling in his body calling their group a party.

"Hello, my name is Ester. Nice to mmeeeeeettt yooouu." The last words of her ended up in a scream directly hitting Dave's eardrums.

'Why do girls always have to make these shrill noises," thought Dave.

Dave vowed to himself, the next time she screamed he would let her fall from the slide.

They were nearing the fire at the end of the slide. Just 2 meters before they would have been burned he summoned a sturdy bubble around them. They passed the fire without any further problems.

"Hop on my back and enhance me. I will do the running part. In piggyback style, they were continuing the course.

[Your stats and skill level increased temporarily by 1,5 ranks.]

'Nice, with this buff not only my physical stats increased but the quality and quantity of my mana did so too.' Training your mana was always the hardest thing to do for every ability user. That made this buff a pleasant surprise for Dave.

With his fastest speed, he traversed one obstacle after another. Soon he was right behind the other two, who were still attacking each other. Both of them were panting like hell and so Dave didn't bother with them and just passed them. His buffed abilities were nothing another Rank 1 ability user could compare too. His agility alone was already at SS+ Rank and just a step away from SSS. But that wasn't all to Dave's speed. He got boosted by a passive effect he got a long time ago and never really thought about during the last days. His title [Wannebe Hero] granted him a further increased movement speed by 5%.

The two of them had silly looks on their faces when Dave passed them and created a bubble shield around himself.

"Shit." shouted the red-haired guy and send a column of fire in Dave's direction.

The black-haired man did the same only in his case it was a swing of his sword that created a crack in space. Like lightning this crack headed for Dave.

At this moment Ester shouted, "Temporary Mana Magnification." Dave felt the quality of his mana rise and if he looked at his stats right now he was sure that his [Wisdom] would have reached the SSS-Grade. But he didn't have the time to do it and he was sure that Ester couldn't maintain this buff for even a minute. So he did the only thing possible. He rushed forward with all his might. The attack of both of the guys hit Daves Bubble shield and left it back vibrating with a few visible cracks. With a single thought of his, these disappeared instantly. Only through Esters buff did his mana have the power to protect them.

"We have to work together if we want to stop them. Let us combine our attacks." said the black-haired male.

Gritting his teeth the other one nodded.

Even though they never fought in a team together before, they still had the experience of fighting each other.

"Okay but first let us know each other's names otherwise it will be hard to fight together. (and even harder to write for the author without names XD) My name is Rick." Introduced the red-haired guy himself.

"My name is Sky," answered the other while readying his sword.

Then everything happened in a flash. Rick jumped high into the air and focused the mana of his whole body in his soles. Flames caressed his legs.

Sky meanwhile swung his sword with full force at Ricks's soles.

Both exploded out with their full power the moment the sword hit the soles. A black sphere encompassed him. Sky used one of his space type abilities to allow Rick an unhindered trip to Dave.

Dave already 200 meters away was grabbed by his ears through Ester. She made him forcefully turn his head. "Stop it already will you, that hurts like hell, the finish line is only 200 meters in front of us." Then Dave's eyes widened.

"Holy moly, what the hell is wrong with them." Right behind Dave flew Rick, in his hand a fireball the size of a car. Dave grabbed Ester by her collar and threw her hastily with full force in the direction of the finish line. Just before he lost connection to her he created a bubble that encompassed her. "I hope you don't vomit easily," shouted Dave in her direction as parting words. The bubble rolled like a marble for the finish line. Ester in the inside was spinning in a circle without knowing where is up or down.

When Dave focused himself again on the fireball, which was heading for him, it was already less than 10 meters away from him.

He readied himself for the impact. His fast analysis showed him that his enemy's weakness lay in the fact that he had no means to defend himself or change his direction since he was mid-flight and his concentration was entirely on maintaining this big fireball.

Dave hated what he would have to do but he had no choice. 'No man should be forced to do this,' he thought shaking his head. Then he created a football-sized bubble and shot it with a flick of his hand into Rick's balls.

"Arrrggggghhhhh." Rick immediately lost control over his ability. In a shower of flames, it burned everything in a 15-meter radius. Dave hastily protected himself and Rick with a bubble shield. Rick, who was unconscious from the pain would have been severely hurt if it weren't for Dave's intervention.

"Come on I will help you pass the finish line," said Dave with a guilty conscience. He created a bubble around Rick and let it levitate next to him. They passed the line followed closely by Sky, who tried to keep his distance from Dave. Nevertheless, the three of them weren't the first place. The first-place winner was Ester. She lay behind the finish line and was fighting the urge to vomit. Dave placed the unconscious Rick on the floor and waited.

He looked around and noticed that a big flatscreen was mounted on a wall. It showed the current ranking with everyone's time included.

Ester 55 min 33 seconds

Dave 55 min 57 seconds

Rick 55 min 58 seconds

Sky 56 min 5 seconds

That was all there was to the ranking right now. At the moment except for them, no one else managed to finish the course.

'In the worst case, we have to wait around an hour before this continues. I doubt there will be someone, who is faster than us so everyone who wants to pass this test has to start at the lastest right now.' The time limit for the test was 2 hours so only 1 hour of time remained. Of course, the participants didn't know how long they would need for the course so it was quite the risk to start late.

'I guess this is another part of the test. To be able to evaluate the situation the right way,' thought Dave.

20 minutes after their arrival the next person reached the finish line. He was followed by 4 persons, 2 men, and women.

Altogether 9 people finished the test right now. Then there was again no one in sight for a very long time. Dave went over to them and asked, "Hello, can you tell me what the situation is like out there?" A woman around 22 years old with brown hair and a friendly face answered, "After the 4 of you left, no one else stepped up for quite some time. I think it was around 3 minutes. Then it was as if a dam broke and all the people, who still dared to take the test started at the same time. This happened because someone started the rumor that the test tried to kick out those, who didn't dare to go right away." She shrugged her shoulders, "and since there was no way to prove if that was right or wrong nearly all of us started."

"Okay thank you," said Dave in a thankful tone, "but can you answer me one more question... Why are there no more people coming?"

A man with long black hair, who listened to their conversation, stepped forward.

"The reason for that is pretty simple. One of the participants started attacking everyone else. I think he could emit some kind of toxic gas or something like that. Those, who breathed it in fell immediately asleep. We were an exception because we were faster than that guy. So we can't really tell you when or if they will come.

After talking to them Dave sat down and watched Ester helping Rick up. She somehow used her enhancement ability to help him regenerate faster. Emitting heavy groans he was coming back to his senses.

1 hour and 40 minutes passed and except for the angry looks he got from Rick there didn't happen really much.

When only 5 minutes were left a figure suddenly became visible.

It was a man with green-dyed hair. Following him was a crowd of 80 people. Apparently, those were the only ones, who managed to make it this far. The green-haired man had a trail of sleep gas behind him. The other participants simply had no way to overtake him without inhaling the gas.

'It seems he is quite clever. I wonder how long he can keep emitting this sleep gas cloud,' Dave mused to himself.

Everyone stood up from their resting places and watched the spectacle.

Only 3 minutes were left when that person crossed the finish line.

Panting as if he had no power left he giggled and fell on his back.

The other participants could only cross the line one minute after him because they had to wait for the sleep gas to disappear.

Then the time of 2 hours was over and around 90 people managed to pass the first test.