I ended spending the rest of the week doing a variety of activities with my friends, helping them grow stronger, exercise, and also spending time with Erika, Elizabeth, and Eleanora separately. Eleanora in specific seems to be slowly getting closer and closer and has begun kissing my forehead in the morning. She's quite shy still, but she's slowly getting over that embarrassment.
Nonetheless, the day had finally come. The entire process was going to be done with the students only, but each of the party's assigned teachers, such as Evelyn and the others also joined us as protectors. There was a total of four teams left in the class, so there were four of these instructors. Evelyn was the only one whose name I should remember anyways.
We finally left the city of Stronghold since we entered it months ago, and we passed through the gates through a large automatic golem carriage, or car, as I would call them. Though this one had the shape of an enormous steam punk-styled truck.
Everyone was excited and they wouldn't stop chatting about how much they wanted to get there as soon as possible. It took like an hour until we finally arrived. This area of the surroundings had many names. From Outer Lands to Wild Lands, but it was composed of large forests, lakes, and cliffs leading to labyrinthian cave sections underground.
To be honest, the surroundings of the city were all desertic and filled with inhospitable areas. It was too much to cover of course, so each region was qualified as its own "Haunt".
But what is a Haunt? Well, the easiest way to explain them are as Regions infested with Miasma and Demonic Energy, so much that monsters and demons appear as if they were dungeons and demon gates respectively.
They're incredibly dangerous open areas, and they were classified with Ranks much like Dungeons too. This Haunt was a D Rank Haunt that covered the entirety of the Eastern Wild Jungles, a place that used to be filled with many animals and normal monsters, but which is now infested with dozens of tribes of demons and powerful monsters.
It is even speculated there could be hidden Dungeons that might have formed here, so it is totally worth the further research and exploration.
Even though it's a bit harsh for the first year, but this is something that every first year goes through, if they cannot complete something as clearing a Haunt off monsters and demons, which will be our primary job once we graduate, then what's the point of coming to the academy?
Like us, many other classes were having the same test, just really far away in other Haunts around the Stronghold City. To secure the lives of the students as much as possible, the teachers assigned to each party were going to be there to aid them, although not directly in battle unless things get out of control.
After all, they want the students to grow stronger, if the powerful teachers help them even in killing monsters, then what will be the point of it? So they're more like observers.
Once we arrived at the field, we swiftly began building our base of operations, a camp. We had to quickly build several tents and also a surrounding defense, mostly made of large logs we brought with ourselves, but magic was also allowed to be used.
"Alright, we're on field, students! Let's begin setting up all the tents and also the trenches and walls!" Evelyn commanded alongside the other three professors with us.
All students quickly began getting ready, we had already studied how to make tents and the like. So everything went quite smoothly, even the most spoiled of nobles was cooperating, although all of them were still expressing their discontent with this.
"Should we build the walls?" Wondered Erika.
"Yeah we can build them." I said.
"Huh? You can build… the whole walls?!" Asked Evelyn in surprise.
"Leave it to us!" Erika nodded.
"We'll get it done in a minute." I agreed.
The two of us walked outside the camp and then merely conjured some magic. Erika's arms began expanding all around, her roots and branches quickly shaping themselves as an enormous wall made of hardened wood all around us, with fruits, flowers, and leaves growing around them.
The ground trembled a little bit, but aside from that, things were done incredibly quickly. Naturally, the four instructors were utterly flabbergasted, even Evelyn.
"W-What in the world?!" Evelyn was shocked.
"Hey Evelyn, what the heck is wrong with that girl you've got?" Sighed one of them.
"T-This is unfair, why did you get all the talented ones?!" A third one said.
"Damn, and she isn't even breaking a sweat from doing that? I did heard Erika was a half-dryad, but this is incredible!" The fourth instructor said.
"It's not done yet though?" Erika tilted her head. "Blake, it's your turn!"
I touched the ground, channeling around 800 MP and conjuring Tier 3 Earth Attribute Magic.
"{Reinforced Stone Fortress}!"
An earthquake happened. The floor began cracking open around the wall Erika made, as stones emerged out of the bedrock and got all the way up here, fusing together and building a beautiful fortress using Erika's wood as the pillar.
"And it's finally done. Not so hard, isn't it?" Erika smiled without having a clue that what we did might be quite incredible for these people.
"Why are you taking it so easily?!"
"Seriously… Erika and Blake are monsters!"
"I can't believe it…"
"I feel like they're going to handle everything at this point, do we even need to try?"
"Hahh… Such an enormous gap in strength."
Many students felt more depressed than anything… We did this to cheer them up, everyone was rather nervous, but it ended creating an opposite effect.
"W-Why are you guys not happy?" Erika sighed.
"Hah~ And you guys call me crazy, you really lack common sense, don't you?" Ah, to be talented!" Sighed Rosen.
"T-This is… okay, I have to admit it's pretty insane." Clarice sighed.