Limitless Evolution: The Path To Immortality

[A/N: HUGE thanks to BlazZzer & Travis_Ryan for your gifts]

The sun rose in what felt like a blink of an eye. Silas slowly walked out of his tent with his emerald hair tied back. He quickly looked around and saw that no one was up yet.

"Hm?" Silas couldn't help but narrow his eyes when seeing this. Usually, he was the last person to leave his tent, but today, he was the first.

He could see that some of them were awake in their tents, but none of them had come out yet.

"Game?" A feminine voice entered Silas' ears. Of course, he knew that she was there, but he acted shocked anyway.

"Oh... Hello-" Silas paused for a moment. He was trying to remember what her name was.

"Call me Leader." She tilted her chin upwards and puffed out her chest.

"Yeah yeah... Whatever you say." Silas waved off her words without thinking about them for more than a moment.

After an instance of silence, Silas glanced around the tents again before looking at the woman beside him.

"Why are they all still in their tents." He asked.

"They have a big day ahead of them. Why would they choose to wake up early." The woman laughed.

"Fair." Silas shrugged.

"Though, it seems like you didn't even sleep. Worried that you'll die today?" A provocative smile stretched out from the corner of her lips.

"A little." Silas narrowed his eyes and heaved out a staggered breath.

The woman beside him widened her eyes as a slither of fear entered her mind.

If the man who beat her with a single attack feared death, what did that mean to her? And why was he scared? Why, in this specific situation, would he be scared?

She knew that the army had surrounded the entire place and closed it off from any stronger monsters or beasts. Every single soldier was powerful. Hell, most of them were possibly as strong as the pink-haired girl, if not even stronger. And even among them, she could feel that a certain person with power surpassed that of every single person within the forest.

"W-What makes you say that?" The beast woman asked with a stutter.

"Oh... Nothing much." Silas chuckled before tapping the woman on the shoulder. 

"You'll understand soon enough." He spoke again, yet his tone had completely shifted, now filled with a grave feeling that shook her to her core.

"I'm going to go warm up a little." Silas waved before beginning to jog. It didn't take him long to get out of sight, leaving the woman behind in her own stupor, trying to figure out what Silas was trying to tell her.

For an hour, Silas ran through the forest at moderate speeds and collected from fruits before returning to the camp, where not only was everyone now awake, but the ones that had stayed in the town had also arrived. 

Landing nearby, Silas returned to the camp and stored his tent in his dimensional pouch. It didn't take long for everyone to get ready, and within the time period, Silas remained to himself, eating the fruits he gained as others eyed him with slight envy.

Silas was slightly surprised that Ivy hadn't come to him yet. She had been annoying him since he met her by constantly wanting to be around him, but she was keeping her distance right now. He could even see her in the distance, minding her business without much care for the people around her.

'Hmm... Maybe calling her one-dimensional was wrong of me. She may seem that way, but I can tell.' He narrowed his eyes.

'She holds many secrets.'

Standing up from where he sat, Silas looked around and spotted the beast woman who had already turned away from her colleagues and was now looking at the students.

Raising her chin toward the sky, her voice boomed throughout their section of the forest, causing many of the students with heightened senses to close their ears with grimaces.

"SILENCE!" She roared.

After the students were forced to be silent.

"Now, today will be the official beginning of your expedition. The expedition will only go on for three days, but for those three days, you will try to get as many points as possible." She explained before pausing to allow everyone to digest what she was saying.

She then continued, "Gaining points is simple. You collect valuable materials. Some might choose to collect mana cores; others might choose to collect the body parts of a monster that can be used for something useful. Some of you alchemists might even collect plants from around the forest. In the end, it is your choice.

You will be ranked on individual and team points. Individual points are simply a way for you guys to rank among yourselves and won't affect your chances of going to the tournament by much. 

Team points are what matter in this expedition. Understood?" She asked and watched as everyone nodded with understanding.

"There aren't many rules for this expedition. There are three main rules, though—rule number one. Don't kill your classmates. Two. No infighting between teammates. Three. The item must be in your pouch by the end of the day for it to count as a point." She explained, causing everyone to widen their eyes as a realization hit them.

'You're allowed to steal from others, huh...' Silas thought without much amusement, yet, he could still feel the life forces of many in the crowed stir at the woman's words.

"Alright. With that out of the way, if you take out your talisman and inject your mana into it, you will see the images and names of your teammates, as well as your team number. There will be 103 teams. We have about 512 students here, so three teams will have only four teammates. Those teams will be the ones with the strongest students, so it will be equalled out between all of you." As she finished explaining, everyone shuffled to get their talisman. Everyone had mana within their bodies, and even though Toki users didn't use their own mana, it was well known that they had a tiny amount of mana within their bodies that they could inject into things such as armor. Of course, Silas knew that even non-awakened humans had mana, but not in the same way as mages. They had a natural barrier of mana around their bodies, like a natural coating of toki that had their mana signature. 

While trying to understand and learn how to use toki, Silas understood that one would need to increase the size of this "natural toki" even to use toki in the first place. The problem was, despite being able to control Toki to a certain extent, no matter what he did, this natural coating of mana around his body was weak and never increased in size. 

Actually, it was even smaller and weaker than the average person. He didn't understand why that was happening, but it just was.

Sure, he wouldn't need toki for now since he could simply increase his body's strength by destroying it repeatedly or increasing his mana core grade. Still, he knew that there might come a day when he would regret not investing more time into using mana the same way toki users do.

However, for now he needed to focus on the more important things, like learning how to use pure mana through runes.

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