After waking up in the morning, Aaron ate some rations that he brought. Just like yesterday, this is the only way for him to fill up his stomach and stop the hunger.
"Ah, I already miss cooking food for myself", Aaron muttered, but that didn’t stop him from stuffing the dry rations down his throat.
It has been more than a week since he tasted his own cooked meals. Five days of train travel and then two days of stay at the hotel, now this.
For more than a week, he had to eat food prepared by others. Though it was free, it wasn’t as nutritious as the food he usually prepared for himself, nor was the quantity sufficient to please his hungry stomach.
This would not be good for the body in the long run, but there was nothing he could do about that for now. He could only endure it until the end of the tournament.
After having a heavy breakfast, Aaron left the cave where he slept for the night.
The stage would be completed by evening, and he had to return before dark or else he would be disqualified from the tournament. That can’t happen. So, he quickly found the direction to exit the mountains.
The reason he found a direction was that he had to go south, and depending on the rising sun, he found the south direction easily.
As he continued to go south, the number of monsters that he encountered reduced drastically. With that, even the number of tokens that he gained was reduced significantly.
There is nothing that he could do about that. Most should have already become resources and points for other students. He could but only search in hopes that a few escaped or new ones came from other areas in the time gap.
Luckily, he got a few monsters to kill, but these didn’t carry any tokens at all. Though that was the case, it didn’t make him worry a bit.
He was already in the safe zone. The only reason he was even looking for tokens was to improve the academy’s ranking, by which he could reap a lot of rewards.
Though that was the case, he wasn’t worried at all about the low number of tokens that he had. If he couldn’t gain many points here, he can do so in the next stages.
Moreover, the monsters that the students have killed belong to the students. Only the tokens would be collected by the tournament coordinators. So, there was no loss regarding that for Aaron.
He continued to move towards the exit, when he started to hear battle clashes from far away.
Hearing the clashes of battle nearby, Aaron went to see who it was and why the clashes were so noisy, alerting everyone nearby that there was an ongoing battle here.
"Wait, is that Diana?" Aaron recognised the girl who was facing two monsters at the same time.
He originally wanted to ignore the student when he saw that the person was fighting with two monsters. There are alliance guards who are present to protect the person in case of danger to the student.
It was why the bracelet was given to the students.
If this one was eliminated without many points, that would be good for him, as everyone participating in the tournament was a competition to him and also for his academy, but that changed when he saw the face of the student and recognised it.
When he saw her, he felt that the face looked familiar, but didn’t recognise her due to the dirt and blood on her face. Only after keenly observing did he finally recognise her to be Diana.
Though Diana can be considered a competitor, he, as the leader of the group, has to consider the overall rank, rather than his own rank.
The more students that can move to the next stage from an academy, the better the chances for that academy to get a better ranking.
With that thought, he didn’t waste a second more and started to attack the monsters, reducing the burden on Diana.
With the help of his undead soldiers, the battle ended quickly, and there were actually two Red tokens, which he gave to Diana. After all, she was the one who fought for so long.
For the help given to her, of course, he took a corpse of one of the monsters. Even though both are in the same team, he is not going to give out freebies to her. That is not a good thing.
Once he starts, everyone would be after those freebies and would suck everything out of him. Even when had given everything, others would only blame him for not giving them enough.
It is why he gave her the tokens and kept a corpse for himself, as tokens have no real value for him. He already earned a lot of points and if the tournament is based on how many points one has earned, then he was sure that he can get them in the next stages.
After the battle was completed and the monsters were defeated, Aaron didn’t retract his skeletons. In fact, he increased their number. This was because he perceived a lot of students watching the battle, hidden away from the fighters.
Though they may have hidden well, that works only for others. Aaron’s perception is very high, and he has a skill, Insights, which can help put one and one together perfectly.
He easily found everyone hiding nearby. Their skill ranks are very low, and no matter how rare their skill might be, they are useless before Aaron.
They were waiting to get the benefits without doing anything. He hates such behaviour and would love to punish them, but he knew they might be watched by the alliance. So, he could only pull out the skeletons as a warning to them.
Normally, he would have skipped away, but Diana was injured a bit and was tired. No way she can keep up with him. So, they had to rest there for a few minutes.