Chapter 425 - A Small Surprise

Cecil let everyone else discuss their plans while he walked over to the cave's entrance.

The footsteps faded after they lead outside of the cave. He sent out his Mana Sense to see if there was anything he could find but of course, there was nothing. Just as Cecil was about to turn back, he couldn't help but notice a slight difference in the ice that he had just scanned.

He turned around and scrutinized it even further and noticed that there were slight differences between the thicknesses of some parts of the ice.

A large and long portion of the ice right in front of the cave was thinner than the rest of the ice around the opposite sides of the cave. It was as if something large had broken through the ice and just kept on going far into the distance.

Cecil wouldn't have paid this any mind if he wasn't looking for clues about his missing family, but if there was anything among Angelia's monsters that would thrive in this harsh and cold environment then it would without a doubt be the water elemental ancient monster, the Hydragon.

Knowing his sister, Cecil knew that Angelia wouldn't hesitate to use her monsters as long as they would be of help to her. Her Nessie could easily dispose of the monsters hidden under the ice and it could also swim through this stage with ease.

'It has to be her...I'm guessing the other pair of footsteps belong to Kira.'

Cecil let loose a relieved smile after knowing that his disciple and little sister were here in the trials. He just couldn't understand how they got a head start before everyone else and another mystery remained unsolved, where was his brother?

"I wonder where Gabe is..."

"Master, did you find something?"

"Mhm, if I'm not mistaken, Angelia and Kira have already passed through here."

"Really?"

"Yeah, after I took a closer look at the ice, some parts are thinner than the rest. I'm guessing that Angelia used Nessie to get through this stage."

"It's good that she's safe..."

"We don't know that. They may not be safe now. If I'm not wrong, Angelia and Kira should have passed through this place quite some time ago."

Cecil shook his head and continued to send his Mana Sense out. He observed the ice and the monsters hidden in the freezing cold waters and felt a bit reassured. The monsters under the water weren't strong enough to pose any sort of threat to Nessie.

At least in this stage, his sister and disciple didn't have anything to worry about. What he was more worried about was whether or not they cleared this stage and continued to the next one. He didn't know the conditions of the next floor and what kind of monsters inhabited it so he still felt a bit uneasy.

"Master, we shouldn't dally any further. Shouldn't we quickly give chase?" Ren asked.

"If it was only us two here, I wouldn't mind leaving everyone behind. But don't forget, we came here in a group..." Cecil replied and turned towards the other members of his kingdom who were now shivering and huddled together.

Cecil pulled out a spatial ring and handed it over to Ren.

"Ren, give the beast furs here to the others. Inscribe some heat-insulating arrays on it before handing them out."

"Alright."

Ren returned to the group and began his work. He didn't notice that someone was scrutinizing his every movement.

'He is an artificer!' Luke thought after seeing Ren go back to his group and begin inscribing runic arrays on some beast furs he pulled out of a spatial ring.

Ren didn't take long to finish and before an hour passed, he had finished distributing the furs to his entire group. The furs were his wife's reserve clothing materials from their previous journey, but since they no longer had any use for it, they were left forgotten inside his spatial ring.

He only remembered about them after seeing his kingdom's people shivering in the freezing cold. They weren't processed into clothes or anything but it was better than having nothing on them.

Each person was able to receive one to cover their bodies, but if a fight were ever to break out, they'd have to abandon the furs since they wouldn't be able to fight with both their hands clenched onto the furs.

Seeing them gear up, the rest of the people that passed through the first stage began their preparations as well.

After some discussions with everyone else in their previous group, Ren, Karen, Cecilia, Gina, and the others decided to disperse their group for this stage.

Knowing about the conditions, it wasn't plausible for everyone to move in a large group again. Once the decisions were made, Ren began moving and so did Cecil.

The two led their people out of the cave first and this naturally attracted everyone else's attention. They were an unknown group of people but from this group was the person who had stepped forward earlier with the first stage's key.

"They're beginning their move. We should get going too."

"This isn't a good place to be...especially for our group..."

There was a group of people that were fiercely glaring at Cecil's group, or more precisely, towards Cecil himself. It was the Baphamet Clan members.

They were rather fortunate to pass the first stage even after they were nearly driven to the brink of death by the Crimson Blaze Foxes on the first stage's second section. They didn't forget about the cloaked figure who had nearly screwed them over.

Well, they shouldn't blame anyone but themselves because they were the ones who first had thoughts of taking advantage of Cecil and have him act as bait while they made a run for it.

Of course, they wouldn't have it. Their failure and near-death experience was blamed entirely on Cecil and they held a grudge against him.

Cecil could detect their hostility but he only scoffed at them and thought that they were lucky that he was tired when they met him. If not, he would have erased them for daring to take advantage of him.

After walking out of the cave, the Silvaria Kingdom's group carefully followed the ice which was thinner than the rest. Everyone was able to tread above the ice safely thanks to Ren and Cecil's help.

The two had loaded their ice-element magazines into their rifle and gunsword respectively and began shooting at the ice below them.

The ice element bullets struck the surface of the ice but didn't break through it. Instead, they strengthened and thickened the ice so everyone was able to walk through it safely. Also, Celestina was with them, and being an ice-element mage herself, she was able to provide a second measure of safety for them.

It was a bit heartless of Cecil to forcefully separate Celestina from her sister's group, but Cecil didn't care. For all he knew, Celestina was already a part of his family so he naturally needed to travel with him so that he could keep her safe for his brother.

"Let's keep going like this... if my sister and apprentice cleared this stage, then they would already be at the next stage so naturally, their pathing would be the best direction we follow."

*****

In the administrator's subspace, the ball of light continued to observe Cecil and his group. When it noticed Cecil's actions, it couldn't help exclaim in excitement.

"Kekekeke~ this fellow is smart. I don't know how he figured it out, but if he follows the path that the girlie and that brat from before created, he'll easily be able to get to the stage's transfer gate!"

The ball of light began moving around the subspace before it suddenly stopped.

"It'd be too easy! How about I give them a small surprise?"

*****

"...Master, there's an update from the Guide..."

"What is it?"

Cecil stopped the group and turned towards Ren.

"It says...that the key to the next stage is the black crystals. 2 crystals are needed for someone to ascend to the next stage..."

"...So 2 crystals for 1 person... so where can we get these crystals?" Cecil asked.

"It's...the thing hovering above our heads...the guides..."

Now, this was going to be a problem. From what Cecil could tell, the only way to obtain another crystal was from another trial participant. This meant that this stage of the trials pitted everyone against each other.

"What're we going to do, Master?"

"...We'll wait."

"What?"

"We won't go around and actively attack anyone. We'll wait for them to come to us. We're only a small group so we won't need too much, thus, we won't antagonize the other groups. Don't forget, we have a few non-combatants with us."

Ren and everyone else nodded. Once Cecil took control of the group, everyone felt at ease since he was part of the prestigious Silvaria Family. Not many in the group knew about him but from the rumors about the elusive young patriarch, he was a powerful figure.

Everyone in the group had already seen the other heirs of the Silvaria Family and only the young patriarch remained anonymous. The others in the group who were in the know had already informed the rest of Cecil's identity so they didn't object to having him take control of the group even after Ren had done a splendid job already.

Besides, Ren was also Cecil's apprentice so it did little even if they did object to Cecil taking control since Ren would still obey his master's orders.

"That's the plan, alright? If anyone gets close, keep your distance, if they don't show us any blatant hostilities, we won't attack. We'll only retaliate if they do attack us. Also, don't show any mercy. Shoot for the kill!"

Cecil's words alarmed everyone in the group, but they could only steel themselves and nod. If they didn't kill, then they'd be killed instead.

The second stage of the trial wasn't supposed to be hard, but thanks to the administrator's interference, the difficulty had gone up for most of the people here.

Now, they had to be wary of not only the monsters hiding on the stage but also their fellow humans who were participating in the trials with them.