Chapter 244: Treasure Seeking ’Mouse’
Unfortunately, Auric couldn’t continue with his thoughts because they had arrived.
The chopper landed smoothly at the spot they had chosen.
All of them came out.
As soon as he came out, the first thing he did was look at the barrier in the distance.
"Let’s go!"
"We shouldn’t be here for too long."
"We need to maximize the time here."
The other teams seemed to be rushing to hunt beasts or head to their destinations.
Meanwhile, Auric’s team remained calm, knowing that they could stay here for as long as they wanted.
"The military is quite smart. By making the hunt last for a month, you will need to spend your points to treat your body two to three times." Vera shook her head helplessly.
"You mean your uncle?" Ellia rolled her eyes.
"I know nothing about the hunt itself, alright? Do you think my uncle will tell me something like that?"
"Why is it clever?" Eric asked.
"You need to spend your points," answered Vera.
"Yeah, but you can hunt longer, right?"
"That’s true, but after the first one or two weeks, the number of beasts in this area will decrease significantly. In other words, the second half won’t be as effective, but the people are forced to treat their bodies if they want to continue, meaning using the precious points. This way, they will have fewer points to spend.
"We are talking about an event that the military is hosting. They won’t accept real money trading, unlike in most universities. That’s why the points are extremely precious."
"Oh!" Eric didn’t know about that trade, so he finally understood the reason.
"So, how are we going to win this?" Katarina asked. "If we want to take first place, we need to kill more beasts than anyone else. We have an advantage with Auric here, but it doesn’t change the fact that our team is slightly weaker than most top teams. That’s why this will be a challenge worthy of all of us."
"It’s not exactly a challenge. With Auric here, this is not a competition anymore." Ellia shook her head.
"Pardon? What do you mean by not a challenge? It’s a challenge, you know?" Katarina couldn’t connect Auric with the championship.
Auric was strong, and he was also an evolution master, but that wasn’t enough to reach the top. They needed a concrete strategy.
"No, it’s exactly as I said. With Auric here, this competition is boring." Ellia pointed at Auric.
"Auric? Do you mind explaining what she’s talking about?" Katarina asked, but there was no response. "Auric?"
She turned around and realized that Auric wasn’t with them. In fact, he was already far away from them.
Auric stopped after a few more steps before pointing his finger at the ground. Then, the roots started to appear, scooping the soil up.
There was actually a helmet buried underground. It looked old and rusty. If it were a normal helm, he wouldn’t be able to find it. But this helmet contained energy.
That was why he could see the energy coming from the ground when squinting his eyes.
He bent down and picked up the helm and returned to them.
Katarina was confused at first but soon became dumbfounded. She could clearly see the energy on the helm, meaning that this helm was an artifact. It might be a relic of the past or the helmet of someone who died a decade ago and has been turned into an artifact by the ruins.
Nevertheless, they just got an artifact. More importantly, it wasn’t just a normal artifact. It was a rank 2 water element artifact.
Katarina dropped her jaw, finally realizing what Ellia meant by no competition.
Ellia already knew this from the first ruins they had gone to together. Auric could find artifacts easily, sweeping the entire place clean.
This place was also surrounded by other ruins. There was no way Auric would stay quiet.
Unless they banned Auric from taking any artifacts, there was no way to stop Auric.
Soon, the military would be shocked by a sudden influx of artifacts.
Auric returned and handed it over to Ellia. "Store this, please."
"Yep." Ellia tossed the artifact into her space storage.
Auric looked confused about why the surrounding people had their jaws dropped. "What’s wrong?"
Eric looked away, thinking, ’I thought I wouldn’t be surprised by any shenanigans he’d pull in the future, but...’
How could he not be surprised? This was the artifact they were talking about. In the market, a rank 1 artifact could fetch tens of thousands. Some even went as high as a few hundred thousand.
What Auric found was a rank 2 artifact. If he sold it, Auric could get a few hundred thousand at least. Depending on who he sold it to, he might get one or two million.
An artifact was worth more than ten times his job as an evolution master due to its rarity.
But with Auric, the rarity of artifacts would decrease significantly because no artifacts could escape his eyes.
Vera, on the other hand, realized she had underestimated Auric. No, it was more accurate to say she had only seen some of Auric’s abilities, but it was clear that Auric still hid so much more from the public.
Katarina suddenly facepalmed. She thought that teaming up with Auric would create a challenge that would be hard but not impossible to complete. This was a challenge that could prove her abilities.
However, Ellia was right. If Auric could find an artifact that was buried underground in a few seconds, he would find even more artifacts in the next thirty days. At this rate, they would get more points from artifacts than they would from beasts.
Meanwhile, Eva raised her hand and stiffly asked, "D-Do you need a maid? I can clean and warm your—!"
Eva suddenly felt a chill down her spine. For some reason, it felt like a killing intent was directed at her for a split second.
She looked around and saw all of them look normal, but she wondered what was going on.
Auric looked awkwardly at her. "Well, how about we get moving? We need to hunt beasts after all. We should head deeper first and familiarize ourselves with—"
Before Auric finished speaking, Eva’s expression turned grim. She grabbed the shield on her back and immediately took a step to the right, raising her shield.
Bang!
Something hit her shield, but Eva maintained her stance, showing that the attack was nowhere near enough to push her back.
"Enemies spotted."
The moment they heard the clanking sound from her shield, the entire group immediately turned around and raised their own stances.
"Look at that, boss, they’ve got an artifact."
"We really should enslave them and make them search for artifacts for us."
It turned out one of the groups that boarded the chopper with them was the one that attacked them. They were supposed to head into the jungle before they reached the bottom of the mountain, but they actually turned around.
There was supposed to be no reason for them to turn back, so the reason they stayed here mustn’t be a good one.
There were six people on the enemy team. Auric could see two people with guns. Two more shields and spears. One didn’t have anything, so it looked like he focused on elemental manipulation. The last one had two swords on his back.
More importantly, there were three rank 3 humans among them. The remaining three were rank 2.
Just looking at their strength alone, their two groups should be equal in strength.
However, they should have tried to kill one or two of them first in that ambush if they wanted to gain the advantage.
In fact, the bullet was actually for Katarina, who seemed to be the most annoying.
"Thanks." Katarina thanked Eva.
"Don’t mention it." Eva nodded while adding inwardly, ’What thanks? You reacted as fast as I did.’
It didn’t look obvious, but Katarina actually deployed a barrier. In addition, the part where the bullet would hit had actually been covered by her earth element.
In other words, even if she got hit, she would most likely be fine.
"In this scenario, we should kill them right away. This is self-defense. In addition, they already know this, so if we spare them, they will blabber it out and other teams will be chasing after us," suggested Katarina.
"Which is why my order is to kill them." Auric nodded.
Eva was quite surprised. It looked like Auric had no hesitation when it came to a cruel order.
Although it was justified, a lot of people would hesitate to give such an order.
Auric simply said, "We’ll close in and hit them. Get ready."
"I will take the lead!" Eva stomped the ground and raised her shield. "Shield of Aegis."
Her shield emitted light and formed an extension of her shield, turning it into a massive barrier.
"Charge!" Eva ran forward.
"Fire, fire!" The gunner shouted as he pulled the trigger. The guns rapidly fired at them, but each bullet was blocked by Eva’s barrier, allowing the team to close in. "It’s not working!"
The other gunner increased the power output and shot the barrier. His bullet exploded as though it were a grenade launcher.
Unfortunately for him, it didn’t even leave a scratch on Eva’s shield.
"What?"
"That woman must be rank 3... no, rank 4!"
"Ignore that woman. Kill the rest of the team first!"
They immediately spread out while the gunners continued to suppress them.
"I will take the left side." Vera immediately locked onto the two people who were circling around them from the left. She leaped toward them while charging her power.
"I will go to the right, Eric with me." Ellia went in the opposite direction, heading to the other two people.
"Aim for the ones on the right first." Auric told Katarina.
Auric placed his hand on the ground and summoned massive roots behind the barrier. These roots extended both left and right.
Vera didn’t know what was going on, but if Auric wanted to help her, she didn’t mind.
The two people on the right thought that they would hold this position while letting the other two go around them.
However, when they managed to pass the barrier, the vision that had been covered by the roots suddenly opened up. Instead of two people, there was only one person coming toward them.
"Huh?" The two of them widened their eyes, confused. Where was the other person? The only one they could find was Eric.
"Where is she...?"
Suddenly, they felt a powerful energy fluctuation from behind.
"!!!" Both of them widened their eyes. "Jump!"
Ellia had teleported behind them and drew her blade, extending the slash toward them.
With both of them in the air, they became perfect targets for Katarina.
Katarina had already summoned two types of bullets. She shot them both at once.
"Watch out!" The rank 3 sword user shouted and summoned a barrier in front to block her bullets.
However, the bullets suddenly dispersed to avoid the barrier before it curved back toward them.
The sword user was startled. His teammate had already raised his shield in front in case the barrier wasn’t enough, but it turned out the strength of the barrier wasn’t the problem.
Still, he immediately released his power, forming a thick sphere. "Guardian of Anghelhous!"
The sphere neutralized the bullets or so he thought. The sphere only neutralized the weaker bullets, which prioritized maneuverability over power.
Katarina’s other bullets that emphasized strength hit the sphere and cracked it immediately. A few more bullets hit the cracking sphere and pierced through it.
"Haaaa!" The guy put his shield forward, trying to block it. However, the bullet packed so much power that it knocked back his shield.
The next thing he realized was that Eric had already jumped into the air with two swords in his hands. Eric tossed the two swords and planted them into the guy’s chest before landing on this guy’s body, using his body to leap away.
"You bastard!" Before Eric could leave, the sword user tried to cut Eric down to avenge his teammate, but the remaining bullets curved again, hitting him.
"Kh!" The sword user failed to move because of these annoying bullets. In the end, he reached the ground without being able to do anything.
Unfortunately, the bullets weren’t the end of it.
Auric had already used his ’Edict.’
Piercing Thunder.
"What? He’s not a plant element user? And what is that power?" The sword user panicked and used both swords to smash Auric’s Piercing Thunder.
However, he seemed to have forgotten that someone was still behind him.
He suddenly sensed danger coming from behind, but he wasn’t in the position to escape.
Ellia reached the man and sent his head flying.
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