12: Secret Guard Invasion

As soon as Su Ze entered the formation, he felt waves of heat rush towards his face.

He looked back; with the last person entering, the formation had closed, and only a blurry light screen could be seen.

The heat from the volcano was thus trapped within this formation, unable to dissipate.

"Hiss, it's so hot here!" Wang Zi, who feared heat the most due to his physique, immediately wiped the sweat from his forehead as soon as he entered the formation.

"Of course it's hot, look what's up ahead?"

Following Su Ze'srefer todirection, everyone saw a tall mountain without a peak.

Due to the climate, although there were many trees here, they were mostly sparse coniferous forests, so they didn't obstruct their view.

They could clearly see thick black smoke rising from the mountaintop, and the heat made the air around the summit ripple like water when viewed from a distance.

"Gulp..." Wang Zi swallowed hard and then said timidly, "This volcano... it won't suddenly erupt, will it? We're stuck in this broken formation; we won't be able to run even if it does!"

Seeing this, Xu Yao comforted him, "Don't worry, volcanoes have eruption cycles. During their dormant period, they accumulate energy to prepare for the next eruption. Tianyun Volcano is currently in its dormant period, and it's far from a full eruption cycle since its last one, so it won't erupt that easily."

Wang Zi patted his chest, which even girls envied, and said, "Since School Beauty Xu says so, I'm relieved."

Then he looked at the others who had already started moving and quickly said, "They've already started. Let's hurry and hunt monsters, or we won't get an admission token!"

Su Ze, however, smiled unhurriedly and said, "What's the rush? Ten fragments make one admission token. That means even if we don't get duplicate fragments, the three of us would need to find at least thirty monsters to complete them."

"Considering duplicates, we'd probably have to kill hundreds of monsters. That's too much trouble."

Wang Zi asked, puzzled, "Then what do you want to do?"

Su Ze wagged his finger, "Of course, we'll wait for others to collect them, then go 'borrow' them from them."

"This... wouldn't that be immoral?"

"No, trust me, there are quite a few people with this idea. After all, everyone likes to be lazy."

It was precisely because everyone had their own hidden motives that they all immediately dispersed after entering the formation, to avoid being targeted by others. At most, they would move with a few acquaintances.

In a moment, only Su Ze and his two companions remained.

Xu Yao looked at Su Ze and asked, "Where do we go next?"

Su Ze pointed at the volcano and said, "Let's go check over there. Since the examination board specifically chose the Tianyun Volcano Area as the test site, there must be a reason. Let's go to the volcano and see."

Xu Yao also nodded in agreement; otherwise, she couldn't understand why this particular location was chosen.

Wang Zi hesitated slightly, but finally gritted his teeth and followed... Shortly after everyone left to search for monsters, a hole, like melting glass, suddenly appeared far from the formation's entrance.

A group of mysterious figures in black hooded cloaks, shrouded in shadows, slipped into the formation. The last person to enter held a bizarre bronze mirror.

The mirror surface shimmered with dazzling light, and it was under the illumination of this light that the formation was silently opened, so much so that the principal and teachers maintaining the formation didn't even notice.

After he entered, he immediately put away the bronze mirror. Without the obstruction of the mirror's light, the formation resumed operation and sealed the gap.

They then conversed in Fusang language, saying, "The formations of the Xia people are nothing special."

"Alright, everyone, don't be too careless. We were only able to break through the formation with the power of the yata no kagami. Now we have to rely on ourselves to bypass the Great Xia Spirit Guards inside the formation."

"Don't worry, Captain, in other aspects, our Fusang Dark Guards might not be as good as the Great Xia Spirit Guards, but when it comes to stealth, they are definitely no match for us."

Then the group concealed themselves in the shadows, approaching the Tianyun Volcano like specters... "Huh?" Outside the formation, Xu Yiming, a teacher at Azure Dragon Beast Taming University responsible for maintaining the formation, let out a soft exclamation.

"What's wrong, Teacher Xu?"

Xu Yiming replied, "Just for a moment, I seemed to feel that the part of the formation I'm responsible for was not operating smoothly, but it's fine now. Perhaps it was just a misconception."

The other teacher shook his head, intending to drop the matter, but at the center of the formation, a middle-aged man with an imposing presence, even without anger, opened his eyes and said, "Misconception? The Beast Taming College Entrance Examination is a national matter; how can you be so casual?"

"Teacher Xu, haven't there been enough mistakes caused by your casualness?! Immediately contact the Beast Tamer Association and have them check outside the formation for any suspicious activity!"

Xu Yiming immediately bowed his head in trepidation and admitted his mistake, "Yes, Principal!"

The middle-aged man was none other than Xiao Xu, the principal of Azure Dragon Beast Taming University, who had not appeared until now.

He was also the youngest and most talented of Beishan City's three strongest figures.

After that incident, his initiative to take over from the dismissed former principal was actually a bit of a waste of his talents.

After arranging for people to investigate the perimeter of the formation, he closed his eyes again, concentrating on maintaining the formation... "You guys wait for me, I really can't stand this wretched place, I sweat profusely every time I move."

Soon, the few of them understood the purpose of choosing a volcano as the test site for the Beast Taming College Entrance Examination.

Wang Zi's Blazing Flame Leopard Cat had just unleashed a Fire Blade, splitting a fiery red scorpion in half.

Perhaps influenced by its master, in just over ten days, the Blazing Flame Leopard Cat had already gained several sizes.

Its formerly slender and agile figure now appeared somewhat clumsy, its elegance gone.

Seeing this, Su Ze said, "Wang Zi, why has your pig grown fur?"

Wang Zi walked to the scorpion's corpse and said, "You're the pig. Lieyan is, at most, a Fat Cat."

Xu Yao also advised, "But feline monsters excel in agile movements. Too much bulk will affect their performance, so it's best to pay attention to that."

Wang Zi immediately smiled and said, "I'll definitely pay attention to what School Beauty Xu says, but Lieyan really does eat a lot... I guess that's why its compatibility with me is so high."

As he spoke, he retrieved a broken token from the scorpion's body, then pulled out a small dried fish from his pocket and tossed it to Lieyan as a reward.

The Blazing Flame Leopard Cat, having devoured the dried fish in two bites, immediately rubbed affectionately against Wang Zi's pants, a complete change from when it had scratched Wang Zi's face.

"This is already the fifth monster, how have we only found one fragment?" Wang Zi said, shaking off the sticky liquid on the token.

Su Ze thought for a moment and said, "The teacher made it very clear when we came in that they released ten thousand monsters with tokens, but that doesn't mean there are only ten thousand monsters in this area!"

Tianyun Volcano covers a vast area, and the fire-attributed energy emanating around the volcano makes it a natural gathering place for fire-elemental monsters, numbering far more than ten thousand.

These monsters will follow their instincts to approach the volcano to absorb fire-attributed energy, and the stronger the monster, the closer it will be to the volcano.

"If I'm not mistaken, it's impossible to gather a complete set of admission tokens on the outer perimeter of the volcano. The crucial components must be hidden on powerful monsters, and they will live in areas close to the volcano. Let's wait at the foot of the mountain."

Of course, this was just an excuse Su Ze found; he secretly wanted to try and go to the crater to throw the diamond egg down to hatch it.

However, his deduction was not wrong; the closer to the volcano, the higher the chance of monsters carrying admission token fragments.

In a short while, Wang Zi had already obtained five or six fragments, though two of them were duplicates.

"Huh? The fragment is glowing again, it's right ahead!"

The admission token fragments have a mutual attraction andhinteffect, making it unclear whether it's to facilitate candidates in collecting fragments or to leave those with fragments nowhere to hide but to fight over them.

Although Su Ze didn't intend to actively hunt monsters to collect fragments, since the target was directly in their path, he didn't mind taking it.

But as the group rounded a tree blocking their view, what they saw was a pig-like monster already disemboweled, and Lin He, whose hands were covered in blood, waiting for them.

Standing beside him was another person, wearing a relatively simple Great Xia Spirit Guard standard light armor.

"You guys, you've kept me waiting!" Lin He wiped the blood from his hands, laughing cruelly.