Elite Mages' Academy

It was already evening when they reached their destination point, and night quickly fell. The landing point did not provide any accommodation services, so Xiao Lin and the others had some of the bread they brought along before taking advantage of the cover of the night to walk toward the Rosa Kingdom’s borders.

The gods seemed to be helping them on that day, as the moonlight was obscured by the increasing number of clouds. In a wasteland without any sources of light, their field of vision was very low.

It was a vast wasteland when they got down from the hill. Ever since the Rosa Kingdom was embroiled in the civil war, a lot of refugees had to escape from their hometowns, and many of them would set up camp here, establishing simple accommodations, which was why Xiao Lin and the others could hear the sound of people in the distance.

The refugee camps had a lot of bonfires lit up, and they could somewhat make out some armed patrols. The camp had a flag with a black rose in the middle, signifying that the area was under the care of the rebels. Xiao Lin could guess what the rebels were planning. After all, the most important resource in the world was manpower, be it troops or labor. If the rebels wanted to take complete control of the Rosa Kingdom, they could not let those refugees leave so easily.

“Let’s avoid the refugee camp!”

Cheng Ming was at the head, already having his full suit of armor on. He had even brought a large tower shield for the assignment, and was holding a heavy sword in one hand. His shocking strength was obvious.

Xiao Lin followed closely behind, his Holy Sword in hand. Being behind Cheng Ming guaranteed that he could respond to anything immediately. Other than Ibeiya, the twelve class monitors were three women and nine men; the mages had all been placed in the backline. Ibeiya was following Xiao Lin closely. Xiao Lin had wanted to place that powerless girl in the middle of the team, but she violently rejected it.

The other men could not help but give Xiao Lin a big thumbs-up in envy; they could see how much Ibeiya relied on Xiao Lin.

The monitors were all confident in their strength, and their probable opponents, the rebels, mostly consisted of commoners.

With that in mind, a few of them were quite carefree, even feeling like it was too dark and wanting to light torches, but they were rejected by Xiao Lin and the others. No matter what their combat strengths were, they did not want to invite unnecessary trouble.

“I actually feel like we’re being too careful. This level of visibility really affects our travel speed. Don’t forget, our time is very valuable. After getting into the Rosa Kingdom, we still need to sneak into the royal city as well as find the royalty. All of that needs time.”

“We might be able to move a little faster if you would just shut up!”

“Excuse me?”

“What are you fighting over! Do you want everyone nearby to know we’re here?!”

Xiao Lin exclaimed softly. The entire squad fell into a brief silence. If it came to a leader among all the monitors, Cheng Ming was definitely the public one. However, in terms of threat level, they could not deny that Xiao Lin had the advantage, even if most of the monitors would not verbally agree to it. Even Han Manman, who hated Xiao Lin, understood in her heart that Xiao Lin’s skills were at the top of the class monitors.

The more powerful one was, the more weight their words held. That was the law of this world.

The team advanced in silence, and their speed slowly increased. They could only approximate the road in the darkness of the night. After about half an hour, based on the map they had seen before, they guessed that they were already at the border of the Rosa Kingdom. It was just a pity there were no landmarks around.

Based on their approximate route plans, they would need a few hours after entering the Rosa Kingdom to get through the scarcely populated wasteland. After that, they would reach the furthest city, where they could either buy or rent new mounts to head to the royal city.

If they did not want to sleep in the wild, they would need to increase their speed. That way, they might be able to arrive at the city by dawn, and would have a chance to nap after.

After another half an hour, the bonfires from the refugee camps slowly disappeared from their sights. They would occasionally hear some wild animals, but otherwise, there were no sounds.

“Speaking of that, I think we forgot to buy one map.” Since they had distanced themselves from the refugee camp, Chen Dao’s voice started to be slightly louder.

“What kind of map?” Xiao Lin asked.

“A map of magical beasts. Don’t you think that our nighttime journey is just like a food delivery service for them?” Chen Dao half-joked.

“The Rosa Kingdom’s magical beasts are all low-leveled, and they rarely appear in these places.” Class Six’s Li Jiayi said earnestly.

“It seems like you listened very closely during our lessons.”

“I saw it in the library.” The girl really did like going to the library.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

As everyone wasa chatting away to fight off the boredom, Xiao Lin suddenly narrowed his eyes, lowering his voice as he said, “Everyone quiet!”

Xiao Lin’s perception was quite high. As he quietened them, the others started to feel like something was off as well. High perception could help them detect danger, but even with Xiao Lin’s current rank, he could not accurately tell where the danger was or how far it was.

In the night, the whooshing sounds started to get more obvious, and it did not sound like an animal’s cry or breathing. It seemed erratic, making it hard to make out clearly. The monitors closed ranks quickly, forming a circle as they moved defensively.

The darkness of the night turned into the most troublesome thing then. The lack of vision caused them to be unable to tell what their surroundings were like. Even though Xiao Lin quickly fired a few flame bullets into the distance, the flash of lights did not allow them to see anything clearly.

Now, it was too late to lament not taking up specialized detection classes. Xiao Lin knew that they could not just keep defending passively like that, so he activated Miracle. Alongside his constant increase in attributes, the amount of points he could convert with Miracle increased as well. The time he could maintain it also followed suit, but he could still not repeatedly use the ability in a short time.

However, it was not the time to be concerned about that. After he converted all his attributes to Intelligence, Xiao Lin’s perception strengthened as well. Even if the strengthening did not result in a complete change in his perception, he could still sense more things. He suddenly raised his head. “The sky! Watch the sky!”

The whooshing sounds that constantly changed distances was clearly the sound of the friction caused by high-speed flight with the air. In the dark sky, at some point, something had started circling over their heads. Whatever it was, they did not seem to have good intentions.