It takes more than five extra minutes for the Apex Elites team to finish up this trial. According to Natalie, there's a more battle-equipped healer on their main squad. He is their tank with an extreme strength skill, but also has a similar healing ability that must have healed the mechanic in the same way Nat did to get a time like that.

However, their bit of lag time behind us must have been the need to allocate more hunters to defending the village from rogue monsters.

One team must have been sent to clear both dungeons individually while the other stayed behind in the valley to fend off the dozens, if not hundreds, of monsters attacking.

I keep this bit of information to myself as it takes another fifteen minutes for any other teams to finish this round.

Once the timer runs out, there are even four total teams that don't finish and miss out on the basic completion points.

Even after the long rest we're allotted, I can tell that the stamina of my teammates is not going to last forever.

Ember and I may be able to play these games for hours or even days on end without having to rest. At the rate that I see the other three restoring their MP and even HP after a simple round like this, I realize soon I'll be doing some of these rounds solo with Ember.

This becomes more and more clear as the rounds go on.

Trial three begins, and we're put in a large open icy cave environment. Hundreds of level 500-550 ice golems attack us, and a few dozen between level 600-650 in total spawn once all of the lower mobs are defeated. There is no boss room or clear exit to this large icy lair; there is only a prompt reading [Defeat All of the Enemies[⅙]] in the sky. There are multiple waves, and the next waves only begin once the previous are cleared entirely. We take about forty minutes to clear all six waves, and once the trial is complete, we come in fourth place.

Ember wins the MVP point, as he must have gotten the most final blows on the golems.

The fourth trial is a similar event; with a clear goal and no way to really cheat it. We have to escort three carriages through a mountainous region and protect them from enormous monkey creatures that wield fire magic.

We also come in fourth place this round, and I win the MVP point, but I'm unsure how we could have won either of the last two events. The team of Elites from the Apex Region has somehow won every event so far other than the one we managed to squeeze a victory.

I come to the conclusion that they're definitely working with more information than us.

However, it may just be that they're strategically positioning their most capable hunters to complete the tasks.

I believe this is the case because when they come in first place and win the bonus points, not all 6 of them are always rewarded. It's only a select few, meaning they've already begun to leave hunters behind during certain trials.

It's clear that both Dane and Natalie are nearing their limits after the labor-intensive trials we're completing. Dane has been giving it his all, launching hundreds of long-range attacks and contributing a lot to our battles, but he can't continue at this rate. Natalie healed up Marcie's arms after the ice golem dungeon as she was frozen pretty badly from continued exposure, while Dane got caught up in a large fire attack during the escort mission.

Marcie is holding up fine after the heal, but Dane and Natalie are considerably weak. Both Ember and I are still not showing any signs of wear.

They stay behind during the fifth round, and I assure them we'll pass it and get them points.

Since the second round, where we managed to luck out on a first place win, the Apex Region team has been hoarding all of the first place bonus points since.

While out of the sixty-six applicants on the board, I'm in the top ten because of my MVP points and extra points for the second trial, I still want to try to get ahead of some of these Apex region hunters. It's not like they've done anything in particular to make me want to defeat them; top twelve is all I really need to place in. I'm just feeling competitive and see a challenge in front of me that I want to accomplish.

My guess is I'll have a better chance at doing so once we get to the later trials and even these elite hunters must get tired at some point.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh trials go similarly to the last two. They're dungeon breaks, having to save stranded hunters at checkpoints and protecting villages from hoards of monsters.

Dane joins us for the seventh trial after he's rested up, but it is one of the most intense ones we've faced so far.

The seventh is another multi-wave trial, and some of the waves even consist of multiple level 675+ monsters. Ember and I push our speed and striking power to the max, clearing out waves of ogres, serpents, orcs, giant scorpions, and even some unique humanoid monsters.

Dane is overwhelmed by the ruthlessness, strength, and pure power of some of the monsters after a few stages go by. He's hit hard by a few attacks and stays high in the sky to wait out the rest of the waves while we continue to battle it out.

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We come in third place for this stage, but surprisingly only five total teams even passed this trial. This makes Dane feel much better about having to sit out the strongest waves.

Marcie holds up very well, but after seven hours of straight fighting monsters at and above her level, even she begins to get fatigued and exhausted, especially from the healing procedure done after this seventh trial to mend some of her deep gashes and burns.

Dane is healed up too, but falls asleep to fully heal once the process is complete.

Every time Nat heals, her own fatigue grows too, but she understands this is part of being a team player.

While the HP potions provided can heal standard injuries and slowly heal flesh wounds, some of the larger injuries being tanked would take many days to heal or even longer if not for our healer. No one on the team would be taking the risks in battle if not for this insurance.

Moving onto the eighth round, I can tell Marcie is getting tired, but we agree this will be her last one then she'll take a rest.

"I don't know how you two manage to narrowly miss injuries over and over and keep using so much mana in your attacks while not getting fatigued, but I guess it's best not to question it and just be glad you're on my side."

As she says this, I realize Ember and I have been outputting hundreds of thousands of MP over the last few trials like it's nothing.

I remember back to one of the exam questions about how much rest time a hunter needs after exerting 0.1% of their mana control, and if this were my true control that I'm showing her, right about now would be when I'd start feeling the effects of using up so much mana.

However, I shrug it off.

"We've been through worse. Don't worry about us."

Once the door opens and we walk through, the three of us are stranded on a desert island.

The sky is covered in clouds and there is fog that hovers over the sea in all directions, limiting our vision to a few dozen meters ahead at most.

Text pops up in the sky next to a timer.

[Memorize the pattern of safe stones to make it all the way to the final island. You have 55 minutes to make 100 steps. You must travel from step to step in order to complete this trial! Go back to the start as many times as you wish, but if you step on a danger stone, you have failed to complete this trial.]

As soon as we read this, massive rocks float up in the ocean in rows of three.

Two of the rocks are red while one is green on every step.

"Is this some kind of joke...?" I whisper out loud.

The rock all the way to my right is green on the first row of three, and I can see clearly that about ten meters ahead of it, in the next row of three, the middle rock is green.

I shrug and jump up in the air to land out in the ocean on top of the furthest right rock.

Nothing changes, then I motion for Marcie and Ember to follow.

They do, and once both their feet touch the rock, all three in the first row turn green.

However, when I look further out into the ocean, all of the other rocks that were lit up red or green in the distance turn grey and dull.

"Well... it was the middle one, I'm sure of it..."

I jump another ten meters off to the middle rock on the second set, and once Ember and Marcie follow, the second set of three grey rocks turn green.

"Interesting...."

I don't remember what the third set looked like at all, and neither do either of my teammates.

Marcie speaks up.

"Well, it said we can restart as many times as we want, right?"

I nod.

"Right..."

We all fly back to the starting island, and once our feet hit the sand again, the rocks reset.

One hundred sets of three massive boulders trail off into the ocean.

Two are red on each one, and one is green.

I stare off into the sea thinking about how exactly we'll remember this pattern in such a short period of time.

A few minutes have already passed, and every second we wait will only add up to make this problem harder.

It is possible if we concentrate hard, and split it up by taking 33-34 each, flying over the entire puzzle and memorizing as much as we can that could work, but there must be another way...

Marcie proposes exactly what I was thinking, and Ember agrees that it's possible, but there must be an easier and faster way to complete this challenge.

The corner of my lips curl upward as I shove my hand into my fake item box and pull out a bright blue recording crystal.

"Emrie, you're right. I think we have a much more efficient option right here."

I imbue mana into the gem, then float up in the air with lightning crackling beneath my feet while the recording crystal records a lifelike image of whatever I point it at.

I turn back to the two still standing on the island.

"Stay here. I'll be right back."

With the crystal pointed down at the rocks, I lightning step high above every one of them until I make it back to the final island we're supposed to reach.

Considering we haven't stepped on the first rock yet, the green and red patterns showing which rock is safe to jump on are still visible on all of them.

There's no need to memorize the pattern anymore now that I have a perfect picture of the answers in front of me.

Once I get back, I set the recording to play, and we hop from rock to rock with confidence, turning every one of them green, making it across the entire maze in less than 10 minutes.

Once we all step foot on the final island and all of the rocks are glowing green, the simulation around us disappears, and the silver door appears with a message above it.

[Congratulations! [00:44:52] Remaining! Trial 8 Complete! 1 Point awarded to all applicants! 1 MVP point awarded to Ray Anderson. You've come in 1st place, 1 additional point awarded to all applicants present! Please rest until your next Trial begins.]

I can't help but wave an excited fist at the door.

"Take that, Apex Region! One step closer, we just need to do that a few more times!"

Ember chuckles.

"You really want to win this thing now? I thought top 12 was all we were aiming for."

I shrug and walk through.

"It can't hurt to win in this event. Thanks to that written exam we're still pretty far behind, I say we get a little more serious."

I turn back and nod.

"It's time we start using our ranked up buffs. No more conserving energy."

Through our telepathy link, I send a message to Ember explaining that what I meant is we should start using a little more of our power because based on Marcie's body language, she's about to take a break too.

By saying we should start using our buffs, if there is anyone watching us through the surveillance system, this will be a proper explanation for any odd jumps in power.

If it's just going to be Ember and me completing trials alone for a few hours while the rest of my teammates rest, we might as well make the most of it.

As the silver door closes behind us and we make it back to the resting room, Marcie pops open another MP potion and sits on her bed, staring across the room with a puzzled look.

"Who are you two really...?"