Julius found himself impressed by the efficiency of their teamwork. Tia had gotten even better at restricting monsters with her plant magic, and Jas had gotten a new skill, or at least evolved one of his old skills. His fellow first-year was now able to pack a much larger punch into his fire magic.
The damage was similar to Julius's previous fire constructs, making him think it was a pretty good rare skill.
Polux was a demon in close combat like usual, but he had tempered his aggression, sothing that had been an issue several months ago when Julius had been delving with them. Instead of always being in the monster's face and sotis getting in the way of his teammates' attacks, he had learned how to create separation to allow them to throw in an attack or two.
This helped Polux recover so of his stamina and charge his new mana-based skill.
Nessa helped keep everyone protected at all tis, never wasting mana and constantly monitoring their flank.
Joshua was truly impressive, though. While he didn't defeat the most monsters, he commanded the rest of them with such precision. He always knew the correct ti to push the aggression and when they needed to just be patient.
He ensured that nobody overextended and used the most optimal amounts of mana to help the others take down their opponents with minimal effort.
While the boy hadn't made that many large increases in pure power, he had, without a doubt, improved his skills as a leader and as a director of the battlefield.
Julius wouldn't be surprised to learn that Joshua had acquired so skills that helped him with this.
After he watched the team slaughter the last group of wolves, he looked at Professor Rowe, who had a weird expression on his face.
"Is sothing wrong?" He asked the man.
"I'm not sure. But I spotted a couple of unique variants in that last group. Usually, they spawn pretty rarely, and I haven't ever seen more than two of them in a single pack before," Professor Rowe said with a frown on his face.
"Is that a bad thing?" Reinera asked. The three of them were standing a bit away from the others who were actually fighting. Since they were mainly here as supervisors, they gave them so space, which also allowed them to speak amongst each other without anyone overhearing.
"I wouldn't say it's a particularly bad thing. But it is sowhat odd to see. That usually ans sothing within the rift has changed," Professor Rowe explained to her.
"Aren't the rifts heavily regulated, though, so that doesn't happen?" Reinera asked.
"Yeah, but that doesn't always work. The issue with regulating a rift that has hundreds of students delving into it is that you can't predict how much mana or other kinds of energy the rift will absorb. We do our best to estimate how many groups need to be killed in order to keep the balance, but it's still difficult."
"So why is the appearance of multiple variants a weird thing?"
Professor Rowe scratched his chin. "Because it's likely sothing else more drastic has occurred within the rift, and the variants are just the symptom of it."
"What are we going to do then?" Julius asked after he glanced over at the others, who were in the middle of reviewing their fight and making adjustnts.
"The safe thing would be to leave and then co back to investigate further," Professor Rowe said softly.
Julius nodded his head. He agreed with the professor, if there was anything wrong with the rift, he didn't feel good about them all staying in there. He thought that the three of them would be fine, but the others were still Tier 2 and if sothing happened, it was hard to predict how well they would fare.
***
The others weren't so happy when they found out that their delve would be cut short. However, after Professor Rowe gave them a quick explanation of why he made that choice, they quieted down.
Additionally, Julius found himself being surprised by Professor Rowe's next words to him.
"Would you two like to join ?" He asked.
Reinera looked surprised. "You want us to join you? Are you planning to head back in right now?"
"I don't see a reason to wait any further. If sothing is happening, I would much rather find out now than later," Professor Rowe explained to her.
"And you're okay with us coming with you?" Reinera asked hesitantly.
"We left mainly for their benefit," he said while pointing at the others. "You both are Tier 3 and should be able to handle anything that the rift might throw at us if there is sothing wrong. Another set of eyes never hurt anyone when investigating rifts. I also think this could be a good opportunity for to do a quick examination and see if you are ready for Tier 3 rifts. "
Julius perked up upon hearing that.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
"You an if we co along, then you will give us approval to enter higher-ranked rifts?"
"Well, it depends on what we find in there. But yes, if there is a problem in there and you two handle it appropriately, I will give you both permission."
"We accept!" Reinera exclaid instantly, not even asking about Julius's opinion. Although he would have said yes, too, so she wasn't exactly wrong.
Professor Rowe grinned. "I had a feeling you might feel that way. Let's head in and take a closer look, huh?"
***
When they re-entered the rift, Julius made sure to take a closer look around. It was the sa forest environnt as usual, and he didn't detect anything approaching them.
Professor Rowe spoke up. "If there is anything wrong with the rift, it is going to be closer to the center. We should head there first."
Julius and Reinera nodded at the man and followed him as he headed deeper into the forest.
They quickly passed the area that they had been around before and walked by several signs that said 'restricted area'.
On their way, they ca across several wolf monsters, and unlike scaring them off like Julius expected Professor Rowe to do, the man gestured them toward the monsters.
Realizing what he was telling them, Julius shrugged his shoulders and looked over at Reinera.
"You want to handle them?"
She crinkled her forehead. "Sure, unless you want to take care of them yourself."
He shook his head at her. "You ntioned that you wanted to test a skill out several days ago, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to see how it works on a real enemy."
She had got a new skill and the other night she had talked to him about wanting to see how it worked on a living opponent.
She grinned at him. "Wish luck," she said while preparing her skill. He could feel so sort of manipulation of mana coursing through the air towards the approaching wolves.
Then, with one final pulse, he watched as a series of brilliant white chains ford and wrapped around two of the wolves.
Two more had avoided the chains, but she quickly dispatched them with a couple spears of light to the chest, killing them instantly.
The other two who were still trapped, struggled desperately to escape, but the chains were much to tough for them. He sensed so sort of Concept compressed into them, which must have made them more sturdy than they would appear to be.
He could also tell that it was a new skill because she wasn't quite familiar with it, like she was with her other skills. He doubted many would notice it, but there were tis when the mana to one of the chains would be interrupted, but Reinera, being the genius she was with mana control, quickly fixed it.
Then, in a complicated weave of mana, the chains made of light wrapped themselves around the wolves' throats and constricted like a python.
The monsters struggled even more, but it was already too late. They died not long after.
Reinera quickly manipulated so mana and tore the cores out of the monsters before looking back toward him, giving him a very satisfied look.
"What did you think?" She asked him with a hopeful look.
He shrugged and played cool. "Not bad."
He hid his grin when she pouted at him.
***
As they made their way deeper into the rift, there were even more signs that sothing had changed within it.
There was a gradual shift in the feeling of the rift. This powerful mana radiated from the center, unlike anything he had ever seen before from a rift.
Professor Rowe definitely noticed this too, as the man took out several tools from his storage ring and started to asure sothing on them.
With these changes and as they made their way deeper into the rift, there were more encounters with monsters. This ti, it wasn't just wolves.
Or maybe they had been wolves, but they were now bipedal creatures. Not only that, but they had gotten significantly stronger than before. He would estimate that they were on the edge of Tier 2.
Seeing these changes, they all started believing that sothing was happening. That feeling of wrongness was quickly being confird before their very eyes.
On the bright side, these more powerful monsters gave Reinera a better opportunity to test out her new skill. While it was nice to see how they worked on a real-life enemy, the fact remained that the other wolves were too weak to get a good gauge on how powerful they were.
However, these new monsters actually did a good job of testing the strength of these chains. Their physical abilities were quite high for Tier 2 and rivaled so of the Tier 3s he had co across.
Being the amazing friend he was, he let her deal with most of the monsters they ca across, it was only once in a while that he chose to punch a monster in the face if it got too close to him.
Professor Rowe just watched on calmly. To Julius, the man seed much more focused on finding out the reason for the sudden changes and letting them deal with the monsters.
Eventually, they ca across an interesting scene.
It was a large clearing in the forest, but what had caught all of their attention was the way the trees looked. These trees had changed from their normal deep brown bark and green foliage to a darker, almost silver color.
"Do you think it has sothing to do with the change in monsters?" Reinera asked their professor.
"Certainly seems that way," Professor Rowe said as he walked up to a random tree and placed his hand on it.
Julius took the ti to use his senses to investigate as well. It was weird, but he could have sworn that he felt so kind of mana that he had only felt from those who used so sort of tal magic.
It would definitely explain the silverish color of the trees.
However, before he could examine the trees much further, his perception skill pinged an incoming monster coming towards them from ahead.
However, unlike the wolves or even the newer versions of the wolves, this one was different.
He wasn't the only person to sense it either and he saw Reinera already preparing her skills. She must have already realized the sa thing as he did because she began the process of throwing out chains.
When he spotted it with his two eyes, he was quite surprised because the creature itself was quite adorable. It was a small monster, much smaller than most he had co across. If he had to say, he would compare it to a larger version of a squirrel.
But instead of a reddish brown coat, it was covered in a dark silver sheen, glimring in the soft sunlight that cascaded through the trees.
Moreover, what was the biggest surprise was that this monster wasn't a Tier 2, like one would expect from a Tier 2 rift. No, this was a genuine Tier 3 monster.
This was no longer just a simple issue, but was quickly becoming much larger than he thought.
What the hell was going on? He thought to himself with a frown.
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