Aaron and the other students had to wait for a few minutes before the timer reached zero.
The game has started. It's time to hunt.
Once the timer has reached zero, the protection that stopped the monsters from entering or students from leaving has disappeared. They can now hunt the monsters but that also means that the monsters can hunt them.
Even though that was the case, no one was afraid. Almost all of them have reached level-8 at the least. There are a few who reached level-12, which was the previous record but no one else crossed it, except for Mary, who has already left for the capital to attend the academy.
Since she was not present here, the record appeared that level-12 is still the highest, for now, which would change in the future. The higher-ups kept that a secret as they didn't want to alarm the enemies this early.
If they knew how fast she was growing, they may increase their efforts to eliminate her. It may be good in a certain point of view, as the enemies that come to kill her can become her stepping stones to godhood quickly but there is a large drawback.
She could die beforehand because they overestimated her or underestimated the enemies. Moreover, the collateral could be very high. There is always collateral, which is something that they can't stop but they didn't want to increase the collateral caused. If there is a way to avoid it, that would be for the best.
So, Mary's progress was kept secret. Only the guardians that are protecting her and the ones at the top of the alliance know about her true progress.
Once the protection dome disappeared, Aaron sent all his skeletons to hunt the monsters around. He kept five around him, while the fifteen spread to hunt the monsters.
Individually they are on the weaker side, even with the increase in attributes with his growth but as a group of fifteen, they started harvesting the monsters as if it were as simple as harvesting grains from a field.
Aaron moved slowly as he followed the skeleton's path, making sure that he never strayed far away from them and also never in the line of sight of the monsters that those skeletons engaged in.
Though they are monsters and aren't intelligent enough to think, they have their own instincts that help them survive. So once they see him, they will attack him, even if they have no idea that he is the summoner of these skeletons.
Once the summoner dies, so does the summons. This was something only the intelligent ones could think of but the instincts of monsters help them survive in the harsest places.
So, it is why it was advised to never look down on even the lowest monsters. They have their own ways that can cause serious damage to humans.
"Should I increase the rank of the skill?" Aaron wondered while observing the ongoing battle a little distance away. Even with fifteen skeletons, he felt that it was taking too long.
He originally had five skeletons at Rank-0, and there was an extra +5 per increase in rank. Though it wasn't much, they were more than enough.
If he increases the rank to 4 or 5, then the number would reach 25 or 30. Since he was at level-10, the experience gain is very low. It was only because of his talent that he saw the experience gained was good enough to improve his level.
To actually reach level-11 or 12, he would need a lot of experience. There are level-15 monsters here and with his 10xExp bonus, he can reach that level, if he clears the entire dungeon but at the rate this was going, there is no way that he can be able to achieve that.
It is possible to reach 11 or 12 and if he increased the number of skeletons, he could reach level-13. The only way to increase the number of skeletons was to increase the rank of the skill.
The only reason he didn't increase the rank was that it requires 10 and 20 SP, a total of 30 Sp to increase the rank to 5.
"Hmm, I have 191 SP, and since this damned skill won't increase with usage as it was less likely to use, I should increase to Rank-5. Even after consuming 30 SP, I would have 161 SP. What are they for, if not to increase the difficult skills quickly? Even though it may appear as a waste, I can earn a lot in the future", Aaron decided that he would increase the rank of the skill.
[You consumed 10 SP on Undead Summon (Skeleton) Skill.]
[Your Undead Summon(Skeleton) Skill has reached Rank-4.]
[You gained +10 Skeletons.]
[You consumed 20 SP on Undead Summon (Skeleton) Skill.]
[Your Undead Summon(Skeleton) Skill has reached Rank-5.]
[You gained +10 Skeletons.]
When Aaron saw those notifications, he was flabbergasted.
"I got +10 per increase in rank but I only got +5 back then. Wait if for three ranks, there is only +5 per rank increase and now it is +10, then that means from Rank-7 it would either be +15, which is an increment of +5 to the previous or +20 which is double to the previous".
"Which of these would be the increments in the future, I have no idea but whatever that would be, knowing that this matter made me happy. If it was only +5 till Rank-9, then I may not have increased the skill rank".
"Hahaha, with the increase in skeletons, I can easily mop every mob there is in this dungeon quicker than others. First, let's stop here for now and summon the remaining skeletons. Once that's done, I can easily breeze this dungeon and increase my levels faster', Aaron thought and decided.
He summoned back his skeletons that were hunting and postioned them all to guard him, while he summons the twenty skeletons. It would take a long time and he would be quite vulnerable in area such as the dungeon.
So the skeleton perimeter.