Chapter 223 - Team Test (part 9)
The team were both efficient in dispatching the ants. In less than 20 minutes all 30 elite rank ants were killed and placed in their dimensional amulets.
"How did it go?" Beyoni asked as the team arrived.
"It was way too easy, I am thinking if we could increase the next batch?" Blake said.
"I agree, but remember it isn't as if we are to decided the number in each group." Sach pointed out.
"Let's just hope our luck is good." putting that into consideration the team returned to the hive and began waiting for their next victims.
"Seems lady luck is on our side." Blake said with a grin on his face as they saw a trail of 45 elite rank ants leave the hive.
…
On different parts of the map, the other teams were quite shocked when they saw team 6 move up to 3rd place.
Among the most likely to win the exercise, Blake was at the top but from the beginning of the match, his team was almost out of the list.
Unlike most teams that had begun hunting for beast right away Blake's team had delayed to sort things out.
But after they killed their way through the forest and unto the hill where Blake had slain the 3 headed python. The team had risen to the top, but it didn't last for long.
As they killed their way to the lake they remained on the top of the leaderboard but the day they had failed to secure the Knight rank armored hippo, had dropped to 4th position.
Also because of the journey ant hive, combined with Blake's meticulous preparations, by the next day team 6 had dropped one step lower to 5th place.
As of that morning, team 6 was in 5th position with 10250 points, while team 1 was in the first position with 22700 points.
After Blake's team had wiped out the first batch of ants, they had gained a whopping 6000 points that shot them straight into third place.
It was quite shocking when the other teams saw this, but since Blake and Damon were part of the team it was quite reasonable.
Well, that was until 2 hours later when they saw team six in 1st place with 25250 points!
It was unimaginable and the first thing that came to most people's minds was that they were cheating and they had found a way to bribe the school. But when they realized there was no one high profile enough to even bribe a normal their previous thought sounded very useless.
The next question that was on everyone's mind was how were they able to take on 6 Knight rank beasts and in less than an hour still have the energy to fight 9!
Not every student in the school was like Blake who could solo knight rank beasts. That is why the school had made it so that it would be a team of 6 that would face them.
In this case, it seemed as if each one of them were soloing a knight rank beast at the same time which was quite impossible.
This was because even if they were powerful there was no way 15 knight rank beasts were to gather in one place waiting to be slaughtered.
The mystery led to people coming up with theories that Blake was way stronger than what he had shown in school and since his team was in a bad position and he didn't want to lose he used his full strength.
"We take a break before we continue hunting." Luciano commanded and without uttering a word, the rank 1 of the 2nd year, Serhan obeyed his command.
'Keep hunting Blake, I won't slow down just because we are friends.' A smile appeared on Luciano's face before quickly returning to his usual indifferent expression.
…
Back to their shelter.
After wiping out the second batch of ants, the team had decided to call it a day because, by the time they had waited and trailed the third batch, it would have been quite dark and that was a situation he was trying to avoid.
Once they had returned and they were done with dinner they began sharing the spoils of the battles. In total, they had gotten 75 elite rank beast cores and since everyone had contributed to the mission, it was to be shared equally.
Each member of the team got 12 and since the success of the mission was all thanks to Blake's scouting and planning the extra 3 were given to him.
"You can have half of mine." Sach said as he passed 6 beast cores to Blake. "Trust me I have no use for them."
Since there was a very high chance that he was dying after the team test, of what use was it to hoard beast cores?
Not being someone to shy away from gifts, Blake collected the beast cores.
That night, when Beyoni and Ansgar were standing watch, Blake and Damon went out once again to scout the area.
Blake wanted to see just how the ants when they found out that 75 of their brothers had gone missing.
Hidden by Darkbringer, Blake and Damon watched the entrance for a while and before heading to the areas they had barricaded the ants.
"Just like I suspected." When they had reached the area, they found a larger trail of ants and it seemed they were searching for their brothers.
Ants used pheromones in several different ways, such as releasing 'danger' pheromones upon death to alert nearby ants, or to create chemical trails from the nest to promising food sources. Ants in the colony could use their antennas to detect these pheromones and respond accordingly.
Blake had put that into consideration, that was why they had use fire to char the ground before the geomancers changed the top layer of the soil.
'I had taken into account that their pheromones and antennae were a whole lot stronger, but not this strong.' The situation was giving Blake a headache.