Gaming Sword Magician

Chapter 247: Speculations

After he finished speaking, the early birds among the remaining newly enlisted students darted towards the portals. The students were teleported to the northern, western, southern, and eastern regions of the grizzly bear mountain range as each portal led to one of the four safe zones established by the royal frost fall academy.

'This examiner isn't simple. He is an A-rank mage. Maybe he is one of the Academy's Dean? Or a friend of Headmaster Yeon.' Whittaker's thought with narrowed eyes when he saw that examiner Rio cast a spatial spell without summoning his spellbook.

Only A-rank mage can assimilate with their spellbook. A mage can use elemental or special magic by himself once he has assimilated with his spellbook. All the spell pages become a part of an A-rank mage, after all, but that's why an A-rank mage is a thousand times rarer than a B-rank mage.

"I believe that each safe zone will be located at a similar distance away from the dungeon which is located in the central region. So there's no problem in choosing any of the portals, as we'll have to cover the distance to the central region ourselves. So let's take the same portal. That the way we will arrive at the same safe zone." Shadow said to his teammates as he stood before the portal leading to the southern region.

Each portal is connected to different safe zones and they will split up if they won't take the same portal. Besides, the Grizzly bear Mountain range is very vast and spans over a thousand miles. Thus, it would be troublesome to locate the party members if they split up.

"Sure," They naturally agreed with his decision as they were all sensible.

Shadow took the lead as he jumped inside the portal. Then, Whittaker and the rest also followed and jumped inside the same portal, one by one.

A second after taking the portal, they were transported to a campsite suited in the southern region of a vast forest with many overgrown trees and bushes that stretched to the horizon. The safe zone they had just arrived at was just as big as the training ground they just came from.

They looked around and saw that this place had a few shops seeking items at an extrovert price and a magic barrier that stopped beasts from entering the safe zone. Four war towers were located at each corner of this safe zone, and weapons that shoot out steel arrows, mana bullets, and magic beams were spotted at the top of these buildings. These weapons shoot down beasts that tried to leave the mountain range and head to the trading route.

Lastly, the portal they used to appear here was still open. That means they can head back anytime they want to.

It was the first time most of the students had arrived on another planet, and even for Quinn, it was a significant difference compared to the shelter he was at before. The streets were full of people walking left and right, with the children by their side.

"This safe zone resembles a fortress. It's like a mini fortress!" Yato said, "I wonder why there are so many defensive system installed in this place, and there are also so many powerful mages and battle master."

"I think they're overdoing it with the defenses." Ruth couldn't help but say what he felt after he saw wide magic barrier that surrounding the entire safe zone, and the various things in his surrounding.

"Yeah, there are so many war weapons and even high-ranking mages and battle masters. It feels like they're here for another reason, rather than just providing a safe zone to us students," Peter said as they walked through the streets bustling with students and guards.

Almost all the students here had some kind of beast gear on them. Though only the richest ones were fully equipped from head to toe with beast gear suitable to them.

"It's for protection," Shadow said. "If you carefully look around you, you'll notice that most of the guards stationed here belongs to the nobles family belonging to the cities located nearby this mountain range. Most likely, all of them were send here by the noble families to protect the trading routes in case we are too weak to hold our own against the monsters coming out of the dungeon. They will kill any creature that is about to escape the mountain range and enter the trading routes shared by the nearby cities."

Shadow said as his inky, black eyes glistened in a thoughtful and calculating glittered, and he then moved forward to walk up to a shop nearby, and the rest of the teammates followed after him.

"But is protection really the only reason?" Whittaker said, "It must have cost the academy a lot to set up these safe zones and purchase the rights to this D-rank dungeon."

Dungeon were brimming with treasures of various kinds. Furthermore, the dungeons were one of the biggest source of energy, as it was filled with monsters that dropped mana and battle energy crystals. After the purification process, these crystals were not only consumable by mages and battle masters, but they can also be used to fuel thins like magic barrier formations and magic items. Thus, dungeons were treated as treasure grounds that the nobles won't easily let even headmaster take for himself.

"I don't think they covered the entire cost, otherwise it wouldn't have been possible to see so many guards belonging to different families here," Shadow said. "There is a very high chance that the academy struck a deal with the ruling parties here. They probably shared the cost of setting things up equally."

"Hmm, now that I think about it, we only have seven days for a day. After seven days, these high ranked experts stationed in the safe zones will move out to clear the dungeon's creature and also subdue the dungeon outbreak," Peter guess was the most probable thing to happen in the nearby future, and it's all because he was able to pick up subtle hints from their talks that he came to such a conclusion.

"You might be right. If we really have only seven days, then we should focus on reaching the dungeon as fast as we can." Shadow said as he led the group to the shoping section of this safe zone.

"What are we here for?" Yato asked.

"You'll find out soon," Shadow replied, as the group walked up to one of the stalls that sold potions, consumable weapons used for capturing or killing beasts, and also information.

"How can I be of service to you, young ones," Barry, an old man with croocked teeth and a patch on his right eye said with a pleasent smile from behind the counter.

"We're here to buy a map of this mountain range. Do you have one?" Shadow said.

In truth, Shadow haven't a single clue about the terrain of this place, and he was sure that it would be tiresome to just charge their way through a horde of monsters and beasts to reach the central region. But they'll get a better understanding of this mountain range if they use a map. Thus, the reason why they were here.

"Yes, my shop do sell maps of this mountain region. These maps are created by expert adventurers and their credibility is 100%. Though the better the map, the more pricey it'll be." Barry said as he placed four types of maps on the counter.

The maps were graded according to the color of their seals. Bronze containing the least amount of information and the platinum seal containing the most amount of information.

"We'll purchase this one," Shadow said while pointing at the map scroll with a platinum seal.

"That will be a total of a 1000 platinum," Barry said as he beamed towards the rich kids infront of him.