The fortress we made was as tall as 20 meters, and it covered the entire surroundings, protecting us from absolutely any monster that would dare get closer. However, some people quickly began wondering how we can get out.
"Ah that's easy, we just made an Automatic Gate! It only reacts to you guys mana wavelengths, so just imbue a tiny bit into the walls and a gate will open and then quickly close once everyone pass through." Said Erika.
"The whole fortress is technically an Earth Golem." I said.
The whole class was once more shocked.
"T-These guys really don't know how to hold back." Rosen sighed.
"Hey just give us a break!" Clarice cried.
After explaining to everyone how it worked, we quickly continued making the tents. After around an hour of doing that and finishing off, we decided to get ready to work. The instructors also worked as… well, instructors, so they were going to lead us to the Haunts areas to find Monster Nests and Demon Tribes.
But what we do with them will be left to our own devises, they want us to also develop the ability to plan strategies and the like, things we've done always back in my village, so we are the most experienced.
Because I wanted to take care of this myself, I decided to make a meeting with all our classmates. The leaders of each party will discuss with me how to handle things.
Thankfully, we were only four, Rosen, Clarice, Eduard, and me. Eduard was a stoic and silent blue-haired young noble with an affinity for water magic, his spirit was a rare Ocean Whale, and it was extremely tanky and powerful. He also had a Dolphin spirit, which was fast and nimble unlike the whale.
Eduard seemed the most cooperative while Rosen and Clarice were always doubting any of my strategies, quite annoying.
Ultimately the instructors taught all the students about every area of the Eastern Wild Jungles, pointing the important Areas where the largest concentrations of Monsters and Demons were, the Demon Tribes and Monster Nests.
The map showed six circles, indicating these six areas. There were two to the north from where we were, three to the east, and a last one to the southwest. The last one was the most dangerous, as it was detected to have the largest concentration of mana, where a dungeon is speculated to have emerged.
"Essentially what we would need is to begin with the weakest ones first. Everyone, all of you, need to grow stronger. You've been slacking a lot in terms of leveling up, you need to slay more monsters and demons. If we dare go to the dungeon with your current stats you're all going to get slaughtered." I said, quickly bringing everyone down to earth.
"What?! You're calling us weak?! We've been training all this time!" Clarice angrily said.
"Hmph… Sigh… For once, he's right. We've barely managed to keep ourselves in the academy. At our current pace, we're all going to get expelled aside from Blake due to or weakness. But now, we'll end up dragging them into our own mediocrity." Sighed Rosen, finally having some sort of realization.
"Lord Rosen, how can you say that?!"
"Don't belittle yourself like that!"
His bootlickers seemed completely shocked by his words. They were all manservants and maidservants from his own household, so they probably grew up with him and see him as this almighty and talented leader.
"Everyone…!" Rosen said, in tears.
Ah, come on, stop making drama now…
"I know you're saddened of my words, but it is the truth!" He cried, using a handkerchief to clean his tears.
Even Clarice ended looking at the stupid scene with a dull expression, and so all other students.
"AHEM! So anyways…" Clarice sighed. "The amount of monsters is still large even in the smallest of highly populated areas. However, if we go with too many students, the distribution will become thin, right?"
"You're finally using your brain." I said with a nod. "Correct. This is why I am going to recommend this new strategy, so we can hurry things up more and also level up faster. We'll form groups made up of only two parties, and we will move to two different regions at the same time."
"Wait, what?! Are you sure?! But the monsters are going to demolish us even more with two parties!" Rosen said.
"And to make things worse, the party that goes with yours will obviously have things easier." Sighed Clarice. "But I like the plan nonetheless."
"Well, that's why we'll divide two parties." I said.
"D-Divide them?!" Rosen and Clarice reacted.
"Oh, interesting." Eduard final spoke, as he had been watching everything with a calm smile.
He was the second-best scoring party, so although he was silent and had a dumb smile, he was very strong and so was his party.
"Eduard, do you think it would be possible if you could split your party? We can merge both of our parties and distribute them to these two weaklings." I said.
"Heh, that sounds interesting! Okay, sure!" Eduard laughed cheerfully. "I guess it can't be helped, you guys are really weak, and even within my party there are a few weaker ones, so this is convenient."
"T-That makes sense…" Rosen sighed. "All of Blake's party is composed of powerhouses, not even a single one of them is weak."
"Eeeh? Is this okay Blake?" Asked Erika from the back. "I don't want to be separated from my friends though!"
"It's fine, calm down, Erika." I told her, quickly glancing back at the party leaders. "I'll go with Clarice's Party and Erika will go with Rosen's Party."
Erika was the only one most annoyed by it. She really wanted to stay at my side. And honestly, me too. But she was too strong to just waste her strength at my side.
"Erika, it is better to distribute our power equally. You're the second strongest after me, so we need you in the other side." I said. "This means I trust you."
"You… trust me?" Erika blushed a bit.
Everyone were watching us attentively…