Is this really a Game?!

Upon killing all of the spiders and the boss Reign and the others all sat down to rest, the smell of burned meat permeated through the cave as they took out some food and drinks in order to replenish all the energy they spent during this fight. The boss was trickier than expected and they needed to go all out during the battle, Greenie also used his [ Vajra Might ] during the battle, the skill would be unavailable for him for some time as using it twice in a short period of time would bring damage to the user as well.

Wolf and the others wolfed down the food as if they were famished, it was to be expected as the amount of energy they used in order to fight all of the spiders was enormous. It wasn't all for naught however as they had managed to get a huge amount of jewels and points thanks to that, the boss even dropped two Transparent Jewels while the elites and variants gave them the purple ones after death.

Most of the spiders also dropped the jewels, ranging from green to red ones, they amount to over a hundred jewels. With all of those Reign and the others were certain that they should be in the first place now as a cave such as this one was definitely above what the other teams could defeat, perhaps only the top 5 could potentially stay alive inside and kill a bunch of the monsters, but the boss should be a huge obstacle to them.

It didn't matter however as this was not going to be all that they do, the next plan was to climb the mountain, they had already felt the mana from multiple strong enemies on the mountain and they were their targets. If they had time then maybe they would also climb to the top, the huge dragon was definitely going to be there and perhaps there was a reward if someone managed to get up before the deadline.

Of course, it wasn't going to be easy, judging from the aura and the mana pressure the monsters higher on the mountain exhibited, they were all level 40 at the minimum while there were also a couple of them that were stronger than the spider they had just fought against. To go after such enemies one after another was almost impossible, even for Reign and the others.

They rested for about half an hour before going back, their injuries were all healed by Laura, her ability was perfect for a party such as theirs as the more life force she used during the healing, the less mana would be consumed. That allowed her to have a large reserve of mana all the time and she didn't need to worry about it.

Of course, if someone else was to get such an ability it would be hard for them to use it as well as she did. Healers were usually always at the back of the party, for one to actively fight alongside the party was incredibly rare, not to mention that most parties were unable to kill a huge amount of enemies like Reign and the others.

Even if they did kill a large number of enemies, those would be lower-leveled enemies. The stronger the player that had an ability as Laura did, the more life force would be consumed for attacks, and the stronger the player being healed, the more life force would be used as well. On the contrary, the weaker the opponent, the less life force could Laura take from the corpse as weaker monsters and humans simply had a lower amount of life force.

During their trip back all that the party had seen were the many carcasses of the spiders. Thanks to their abilities and the way that the party fought, no spider was left alive. Near the entrance, however, the party was surprised to see another team entering the cave.

"What happened here?" The team was still oblivious of the fact that Reign and the others were standing some 30 meters away from them, the team surveyed the first cave, the carcasses, and the trails of battle before turning left towards the tunnel where Reign and the others stood at.

"You guys!" Upon seeing them the team was shocked, they knew who Reign and the others were, everybody did as their display of power earlier was branded in their memory. Immediately they got ready for a battle, they knew it was for naught as their power was not even close to being at the same level, even their leader was weaker than any of the 7.

Gulping nervously they watched as Reign and the others slowly approached them. Each step was like thunder in their eyes and before they knew it, the two teams were only 3 meters apart. They clenched their hands as they held their weapons, but none pointed them at Reign or anyone else, it would be pointless after all as Reign alone could probably kill them all with ease.

"The cave is cleared, I would suggest going to another spot if you want to get jewels, I do recommend that you don't enter places like this one however, you would just get killed." Reign calmly states as he and the others pass the team and leave the cave.

"Haaaaa, I thought we were goners." One of the members exclaims as a couple of them immediately uttered sighs of relief while others collapsed on their knees. Even the leader of the team was shocked to find out that his whole back was drenched in sweat. They had fought plenty of monsters in the last two days and they had managed to get a fair number of jewels, if Reign and the others wanted to, they could be taken all of that by force. Luckily it didn't come to that and the team was able to continue, they were, however, a bit warier now after hearing Reign's words.

On the other hand, Reign and the others started climbing up the mountain. They had thought about looting the jewels of other teams previously but they all scratched that plan, all the teams here were supposed to be the cream of the crop in their area, they didn't know how large each area was, but since there are 100 of them, and the planet was 10 times bigger now, each should cover an incredibly large amount of land. They were the only ones from the castle and the city that was currently in the challenge so even the weakest team should be stronger compared to Neil's and Cameron's, of course, there was the fact that each team was also bigger compared to theirs as well.

Cameron's team consisted of 4 players right now while Neil's had 5, the teams here however all had at least 10 members. In the future, there should be more teams from their territory, but for now, Reign wanted to leave a good impression on the others as it was never a bad thing to be known, perhaps they might come across the territory of the other team and if they had a good relationship they could form an alliance or merge together if they discriminately killed everyone during the trial and stole from them, however, that possibility would be gone.

The whole town of Doncaster was fairly large and there was more than enough space for everyone, in the future Reign would need more players to join them as it would not be long until he and the others would conquer the other two anchor points.

Slowly they climbed the mountain, the wind blew hard as Reign's hair fluttered like a flag. Every couple of meters the wind would become stronger, that was definitely not something natural and it was probably a kind of test for them and the other players, it seems that their thoughts were correct, there was probably a reward for those that managed to climb to the top before the deadline.

They were not going to fully focus on that however, no matter how good the reward was, they were still targeting the 1st place as well. It was not just a matter of rewards but also reputation, the immense mana that Reign displayed previously to make everyone pressured would quickly be forgotten if they didn't get the number 1 place at the end of the challenge.

He wanted to create an impression that he and his team were above all of them. The reason why was simple, nobody would dare mess with them in the future, even the newer teams that would enter the challenge, later on, would find out about them from the others as well and in their whole area, Reign and the others would face less resistance when entering the territories of other players, of course, the prerequisite for that was that the players in that territory were strong enough to enter the challenge.

Soon Reign and the others came across their first enemy, it was a group of monsters that were highly familiar to Reign and the others as they had faced them many times in the forests. Each of them was as big as a bull at the very least and their sharp fangs protruded out of their salivating mouths while staring at Reign and the others.

[ Lvl 40 Dire Wolf ] ( AN: the fan-favorite monsters return!!! )