Chapter 16: Fortress

Lake stared at the system notification in a daze. In a slight disbelief, he opened up the status screen before quickly glancing at his RP that had clearly increased by one point.

[RP Points =15.835]

When he had finally snapped out of his daze, Lake gasped as he inhaled a cold breath of air as he tried to control his rising emotions. Right now, the only thing Lake wanted to do was slaughter. His urge for bloodshed was so strong that he had almost formed killing intent, despite only having killed his first monster in front of him, something that would normally be a traumatic experience, especially for those who killed it in close quarters combat like Lake.

After taking a few deep breaths, Lake finally managed to calm himself down. The first thing he did after calming down was take his wristwatch before scanning the creature before him for points. He couldn't forget his original goal for coming here in the first place and that was to pass the exam.

When Lake pressed the button to scan, a blue light was emitted from the watch as it scanned the corpse of the Reaver. When it finished scanning the corpse, a short notification appeared on the watch.

[Confirmed Kill on Black Reaver(High Tier). +10 Points.]

[Total Points = 10]

After confirming the points he had, Lake got up before starting to quickly evacuate the area. He clearly remembered the description for the Black Reaver stating that they have a strong sense of smell. Lake wouldn't be surprised if more of them showed up due to the smell of blood. As he ran he also tried to remove as much of the blood that had covered his body.

His next destination, the second zone.

…

In another part of the first zone, a white fur monkey with spikes protruding from its back and hands was swinging from branch to branch. As the monkey swung from one branch to another, in the short span of time where it was in the air, an arrow flew through the leaves as it pierced the monkey's neck, forcefully pinning it to a tree.

Even with an arrow in its neck, the monkey was still struggling as it tried to pull the arrow out of its neck. However, before it could even attempt to escape, another arrow whipped through the air, piercing the monkey's heart causing the monkey to stop moving.

In the distance, a slender figure could be seen holding a compound bow. This figure was Kate who began to walk towards the hung up monkey.

Raising her wristwatch, she quickly scanned the monkey.

[Confirmed Kill on the White Fur Spiked Monkey (Low Tier). +5 Points]

[Total Points = 10]

"Tsk, this is taking too long." Kate said as she sighed. Because she used a bow, she tried to keep her distance from her and her target. This however meant that she couldn't scan the creature to figure out its rank as she was not close enough to it so whenever she shot, she had to make sure it was a sure kill. Else the creature comes chasing after her in close combat, something she didn't want to risk.

That's why she only gathered 10 points despite almost 30 minutes passing.

After scanning the monkey, Kate sighed once more as she turned to leave when she suddenly saw two approaching figures in the distance. She recognized one of the figures to be Allen who had taken the qualifiers with her. The other figure was an extremely handsome man, with short black hair and black eyes. If Lake was here he would have recognized him to be the Lightning Emperor.

Allen walked over first to speak.

"Kate! Perfect, I've been looking for you." He said as he waved his hand with a big smile on his face.

Kate frowned upon seeing him approaching, "Stop right there. What do you want with me? You're taking up my remaining time so make it quick."

Allen laughed awkwardly at Kate's cold reply but he quickly readjusted himself as he first introduced the other man besides him, "This is Bradford, a friend I just made. The two of us are looking to target the bosses and we want you to travel with us."

Kate frowned even more upon hearing his words, "As far as I am concerned, the boss monsters are only worth 50 points each. Even if I were to agree and join your team, that still only leaves me with 16 points if we split it evenly with 2 points remaining, I much rather spend my time hunting three low tier monsters in that time too. Not to mention, I don't know or trust any of you, so why would I join your team?"

"What if the bosses were worth more than just 50 points?" At this point, Bradford spoke out as he looked at Kate with an indifferent expression.

"What do you mean?" Kate asked as she looked at Bradford with a serious expression.

Bradford didn't answer her question but instead asked one of his own, "Do you really think the boss monsters, that are equivalent to martial apprentices, are worth only 50 points?"

Kate looked down as she began to ponder the meaning and implications of Bradford's question.

Bradford didn't wait for her to finish however as he continued, "In my opinion, I think that the examiners are not telling us something about the boss monsters, a hidden reward if you will."

"And what makes you so confident that this reward even exists?" Kate asked.

"Trade secret, I'm afraid." Bradford said.

Kate was busy weighing the risk and reward of agreeing to this when Bradford spoke out once more.

"If you feel that it is still risky, we can do a deal instead. We'll help you reach one hundred points in the next half an hour. If we succeed and you reach one hundred points, then you will help us with the boss raids."

"Huh?" This time Kate was shocked as she looked at Bradford with a stunned expression. No matter how Kate thought about it, it was impossible to get 100 points in half an hour. After all, she had been hunting for almost half an hour and only got 10 points! Yet, he claims to be able to get 10 times that amount in the same time!

"That's impossible." Kate subconsciously replied, but what she didn't expect was for Allen to raise his wristwatch which showed something that left her stunned.

Seeing her stunned expression, Allen smiled as he said, "It's not impossible, I already have 40 points which were gained over the last half an hour, in which we spent most of the time looking for you."

Kate took a moment to process the information she just received, but even then she still couldn't comprehend what she was seeing.

While Kate was still trying to comprehend what she was seeing, Bradford looked as if he just remembered something as he casually smiled.

"Oh, and if you're still doubting us..." As he spoke, he casually unsheathed his sword before striking the tree beside him.

After a few seconds, Kate watched as the tree that was at least 30cm thick fall down as a clean cut was revealed underneath it.

"Is my strength enough to establish a partnership?" Bradford said as a small silver glint flashed in his eyes.

…

Lake had already been moving for another half an hour. During that time he had managed to secure 2 more kills. One on a Mirage Beast, a high tier creature that could camouflage into the environment and another on a low tier creature called a Two Headed Black Serpent, a large snake type creature with two heads.

During the battle with the Mirage Beast, Lake realized that he could use his Observer of Fate skill to find the position of the creature, even when it was camouflaged.

From the two battles, Lake had managed to absorb 2 more RP, something that had made him extremely happy as RP was extremely hard to farm up using the regular methods that he had discovered.

As Lake walked he could already see the grassland ahead of him. When he finally exited the forest and walked into the grassland, Lake's eyes were slightly blinded by the bright light of the sun. After his eyes had adjusted, he gazed forward only to go back to rubbing his eyes to make sure he was seeing properly. Ahead of him lied something that had left Lake questioning his vision.

Around three hundred meters away, Lake could see what appeared to be a fortress-like structure. A wooden wall surrounded it as guards patrolled and stood on watch towers overlooking the facility. At the gates, Lake could see a hunting party walking through as they hauled what appeared to be a large monster of some kind. Everything Lake saw was perfectly fine, if it wasn't for one major problem. The guards that were patrolling, and the hunting party that Lake could see carrying the large beast that seemed to resemble a bison, were all goblins!

Looking at their short stature and greenish gray skin, Lake could immediately tell their race at a glance. Soon Lake was beginning to have a headache as he looked ahead.

From what Lake had originally researched before the exam, he knew that goblins were extremely weak and could only be considered low tier creatures among low tier creatures. However, goblins were incredibly intelligent and were great at group tactics. Unfortunately, goblins seem to have an innate hatred for humans, something that mankind has never able to figure out to this day. If this hatred didn't exist, many people believed that goblins could have been a race they were capable of negotiating with.

Looking at the fortress, Lake was beginning to become filled with regret. Originally he thought he could fight one or two goblins at once which wouldn't be a problem for Lake to handle with his current strength, but from what he could see, there were at least a hundred goblins hidden inside those fortress walls.

Lake's eyes twitched as he was starting to become filled with regret for choosing to come here instead of staying and hunting creatures in the forest like everyone else. While Lake was wallowing in his regret, he suddenly saw something that gave him an idea. This idea was extremely dangerous and could possibly cost him a lot of time which he didn't have to spare, but if it did work out, then he would be swimming in points.

Looking ahead, Lake could barely make out the strand of Fates above the goblins' heads. Luckily for him, his Observer of Fate didn't have a range limit like the watch, he only needed to be able to see the strand of fate for him to be able to read it.

As Lake began to read through one of the hunting goblin's past, Lake began to smile more and more until he was grinning, something that looked extremely sinister with the blood stains that had covered his face. The more Lake looked, the more tempted he became until he saw something that made him give in and decided to follow through with the plan.