The immense pressure from Reign crashed down on everyone around, some of the weaker players even had difficulty standing even though they weren't the ones taking on the brunt of it.
Seeing the still calm demeanor of the girl Reign was a bit impressed, it seemed that he had made a mistake as she was also using her mana to counter his. Previously he thought that she had about 20% more mana than Wolf, but after inspecting her again he was a bit surprised to find out that that was not correct, her mana was almost double Wolf's.
Mana of course wasn't everything, right now Reign was mostly using that to check the power of the players, but that was simply because his [Inspect] didn't work on players, it seemed that he needed to first rank it up before it would. Mana was incredibly important however, the more mana someone had the more they could use their ability and skills, not to mention that even though Spirit was the attribute that would allow for people to have more mana and to gather it faster, it wasn't the only thing that would increase it.
For example, after drinking the nectar that the queen elf had given them they were surprised to find out that not only did their stats increase, their mana did as well. Of course, there were the two points of spirit that increased, but the increase was simply too large to just attribute it to that. Training as well would allow for one to have more mana, the more someone focused on gathering mana from their surroundings and channeling it through their body the more they would be able to take in the next time.
Reign and the others were certain that there were more ways to increase it as well, but right now they didn't know what exactly those ways were.
Other than the amount of mana a player had, however, their control over it, their fighting capabilities, ability, skills, and other things were equally important. It didn't really matter if a player had a lot of mana if someone was incredibly fast and could behead them before they could even use a skill. The defense was also important, for example, Tank, even though he didn't have a lot of mana, his defense was so strong that he could easily defeat players that had more mana than him, they would simply use all of it before managing to do any serious damage to him after all.
The situation was suddenly looking a bit tense as both the Ice Angels and the Berserkers were looking at Reign and the others. How could they not, however, the pressure that Reign was giving them was immense, but even without him, the pressure that Wolf, Shadow, and the others gave off was also incredibly strong, even the leader of the 3rd ranked group was only on par with them.
Many players had different thoughts upon seeing them the first time, compared to the other top groups theirs was simply too small, but they understood now that numbers were meaningless to them as each one could fight and defeat multiple people without major trouble.
Suddenly the pressure was gone, and the lightning that danced around Reign disappeared as if it was an illusion, only the burn marks on the ground showed that it was real. Reign's smile disappeared as he looked at both of the party leaders with a calm gaze. The leader of the Berserkers was the first one to put his hands up in the air.
"Well, I'm not an idiot, I don't want to go against you and the Ice Queen and her little fairies over there." With those words, he turned around and went back to his men who were nervously looking at Reign and the other group.
The girl however stared at Reign for a couple of seconds before simply nodding a bit and turning around. The other girls and guys in her group all went with her as they sent a couple of glances toward Reign and the others.
The other players as well were glancing at them from time to time, the immense pressure from Reign still lingered on their minds as they nervously waited for the time to run out and the challenge to start.
What they didn't know however was that Reign had used everything he had back then, every single ounce of mana that was in his body was channeled outside while he was staring at the two groups previously. Even for him, that was not an easy task and there was sweat on his forehead while he could feel his body getting tired from it.
The reason why he went all out before was simple, dominance. If he could show the other players that he and his team were more powerful than any of them then the challenge would be a bit easier as nobody would dare have any thoughts of attacking them later on. The second reason was that he also wanted to look a bit cool and shock everybody that looked at them with displeased gazes previously, he knew that some of the players were looking down on them because of their smaller party size. He just wanted to let those people know that numbers meant nothing in today's world.
As the time tickled down everyone relaxed a bit, there were no more conflicts happening on the mountaintop thanks to what happened earlier. The half-hour that was present on the timer ran out fairly quickly as everyone made sure they were in top shape before the challenge starts.
Some squads made alliances in order to have better scores, of course after witnessing the power of the top 3 squads, especially after feeling Reign's mana, most already had Heaven's Hooligans as the winner in their mind. Some of the players hadn't even felt such power from monsters, not even the bosses they went up against and fled against were that powerful, at least they don't remember them being so powerful.
Out of the 25 squads that were present on the mountaintop, only about 7 didn't make any alliances with others, of course amongst the 7 were also the top 5 squads as well. Finally, the timer above the mountaintop finally ran out and came down to 0.
The timer disappeared as a new system notification was heard.
[ Challenge starting, the 3-day challenge, Jewel Hunt is commencing ]
[ The host will explain more ]
Before anyone could even think or ask anything they froze as there was an enormous head right next to the mountaintop suddenly. The monster next to them had orange and gold skin and its eyes were larger than an average person was. Even a slight blow from his nostrils was enough to cause a fierce gust of wind to blow on the mountaintop as its head was at the same level.
A dragon, a huge dragon had suddenly appeared right next to the mountain, not only was that a bad thing, but the sheer size of the dragon, which was larger than the mountain, made everyone know that one slap and they're all dead.
"Hello, guys." A bright voice was suddenly heard from the dragon, before anyone could react the enormous beast suddenly started shining before it disappeared. In its stead was blonde-haired, tanned guy that had a friendly smile on his face. He was about 180 cm tall with broad shoulders and some solid muscles on his body. The man looked around before starting to talk.
"Sorry if I scared you, the system didn't really give me a heads up so I didn't have a chance to turn to my human form before coming here."
'Yup, he's the dragon.' Were the words that flashed through everyone's mind after hearing the man's words. He laughed whole-heartedly after seeing their reaction.
"Well, I guess you guys are still not used to things like this, don't worry, a couple of years and you won't even notice these types of things." The man stopped laughing and came to the center of the mountaintop to where Reign and the others were.
Reign had already gotten off the rock previously after seeing the dragon and was now cautiously looking at the man. Blondie simply smiles at him before jumping on the rock.
"Alright guys, so the challenge will soon start, well, it starts when I give the signal, which is soon, you get it right?" Weird, incohesive words came out of his mouth as he tried to make a joke or something. Everybody looked at him with a weird gaze and he scratched himself a bit on the side before continuing.
"Alright, anyway, after my signal all of you will be teleported down, a giant blue curtain will cut off the challenge area from the surroundings and you will not be able to pass it, the blue curtain is also highly important since it will also interfere with time, thanks to that, one day here is only one hour outside, so, after you spend 3 days here and finish the challenge you will find that only 3 hours had passed outside."
The man suddenly turns a bit serious as he looks at the players.
"The challenge is simple, there are thousands of jewels scattered around, some can be found in the ground, some are on trees, some in caves, some in monsters, your goal is to find as many as you can during the three days of the challenge, also you may steal the jewels from other teams, killing is not prohibited so go crazy, oh and before we start, not all jewels give the same amount of points, good luck!"
Before anyone could ask the man a question he snapped his fingers and they all found themselves in a forest next to the mountain. The challenge had started.
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