Friday, the day of the last mock survival test in preparation for the National examination has arrived. Only three weeks remain until the examination and the remaining time is running out for Linus and Nyx. Nyx had reached LVL 9 iron rank the previous day while also reaching perfect mastery in her racial skill dark petal and the external skill charming petals.
She has also learned the skill mind mirror to novice mastery increasing her ability to resist all kinds of mental influences. She has, however, reached a roadblock and can only further improve her skills with only enhanced dark cells and mind mirror seeing obvious improvement.
Linus also further improved and managed to feel the limit of his contract space indicating that a breakthrough to bronze was imminent. This wouldn't directly increase his power though due to Nyx's required evolution and him not having enough money for a mature beast at the peak iron rank or bronze rank if he wanted to power up this way. That would, however, be a waste due to the beast not being nurtured from the beginning under the best circumstances.
They have challenged the nine realms of hell some more times, but Linus and Nyx never managed to complete the fourth realm before dying. Improvement could be seen though due to having reached multiple hazards further than the first time. They have also challenged the illusionary mists one time, but not a single mental influence was successfully escaped although some progress was made by Nyx after training for an hour.
The two were now waiting to be sent to the virtual survival site for the mock test and they were aiming to survive at least six hours this time, which is known as the limit for any iron rank pet or apprentice pet trainer. They didn't have to wait long before they were both transported to a winter wonderland of ice and snow.
Linus could feel the cold through his clothes and started surveying his surroundings. He learned that this was the nest of at least a bronze rank ice tyrant bear from the energies and traces.
Linus had Nyx use her enhanced dark cells to protect her from the cold as they would be leaving their spawn location which was a little cave which had been protecting them from a snow storm. They then left swiftly to avoid the ice tyrant bear's return and set out to search for another cave to shield from the snowstorm.
After entering the snow storm, they kept marching and encountered several ice elemental beasts of the iron rank which were easily dealt with by Nyx who was already at the peak iron rank and had perfect mastery skills.
After surviving for an hour, they had found a small cave inhabited by a family of snow foxes at the peak iron rank. Nyx ambushed them with her dark petal waves and they collapsed from their wounds after the darkness energy invaded successfully.
The two then secured the cave and spared their energy to keep warm and resist the cold. Linus was handling the cold much better than other students due to encountering the hazard in the nine realms of hell. Every five minutes an iron rank beast attacked the cave, but Nyx easily dealt with them no matter the strength or amount as long as they remained within reasonable amounts.
She did use a lot of energy and had recovered every 15 minutes within his contract space which started making him hungry. He could, however, not consume any of the corpses from the beasts due to their body had adapted to the environment to such a degree that he would be ice poisoned if he were to eat the carcasses without burning them, which he couldn't do as no fire could be made due to the cold.
After surviving for three hours, Linus started suffering from the cold very seriously due to exhausting his energy due to having Nyx recover. He did hang on through sheer willpower, but his mobility and speed were affected bad enough that going outside the cave later down the line would be a death sentence.
They could only survive by protecting the cave to the dead. Linus had retreated to the back of it and instructed Nyx to guard the cave while only returning when her energy was below 20%. The beasts started growing stronger until only LVL 7 or above iron ranks started attacking the cave.
Nyx managed to defend with ease, but the attacks had increased in intensity increasing her recovery from every 15 minutes to every 7 minutes by the time four hours of surviving had been reached. It was then that Linus and Nyx's greatest threat arrived, a LVL 2 bronze rank snow fox had reached the cave.
Linus was incapacitated and unable to move from exhaustion thus escaping was impossible like during the second survival test in the simulated desert. When the snow fox arrived, Nyx initiated by attacking with her strongest combination of three perfect mastery skills to create a wall of dark petal waves defending the entire cave entrance.
The snow fox was offended to be attacked by a lower rank being and countered. It used its skill snow illusion at proficient mastery on Nyx. It didn't work though as Nyx immediately escaped the illusion using her mind mirror and willpower to defend the cave. The snow fox was further enraged and used its second skill fox tail to sweep through the defensive wall of dark petal waves.
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The snow fox swiftly marched through dark petals which its snow-white hide resisted except for some minor cuts. The snow fox, eventually, breached through the defensive wall reaching Nyx's position swiftly before attacking with its tail again.
Nyx couldn't escape due to her way slower speed and could only slow down the incoming tail by using a more condensed bundle of dark petals which she had prepared while the snow fox was breaching the wall of dark petals.
She counter-attacked to the snow fox's surprise injuring the tail with many deep cuts, but she was hit incredibly hard with the tail almost killing her. Her skill dark enhanced cells and the converted life force saved her allowing her to start recovering.
The bronze rank snow fox on the other hand wasn't as pristine as it had been upon arriving with its hide filled with shallow cuts and its tail lacerated with cuts in its entirety. It had become both enraged and wary from the now critically wounded Nyx and first circled Nyx a couple of times before attacking again.
Nyx couldn't react and was about to die, but the fox's attack hit nothing as Nyx had disappeared and vanished to nowhere. The snow fox was stunned and started searching the cave entrance and outside, but didn't find her. It then found a spot at the cave entrance where it could look out for other beasts before lying down and cleaning its painfully injured tail.
Meanwhile, Linus was still at the end of the cave where he remained incredibly calm but also anxious. Right before the snow fox's last attack, he sensed Nyx's weak state and anxiousness retrieving her inside his contract space inside the energy pool.
He is lucky that due to the snow fox's previous fury and its injured tail, it didn't pay attention to the rest of the cave, while his current weakness also concealed his breath and presence. He was, however, growing weaker due to Nyx recovering inside the energy pool.
After three minutes passed, Nyx had recovered completely due to combining enhanced dark cells and the energy pool. Linus then communicated with Nyx to have her attack the now injured snow fox again.
He released Nyx next to him and had her form her most condensed bundle of dark petals combined with sharp blossoming. After a couple of seconds, the snow fox sensed something and turned its head in the direction deeper into the cave. After heightening its senses, it discovered Nyx's presence which had appeared again and sprung up from its lying position before sprinting towards Nyx.
When it finally saw the end of the cave, it saw both Linus and Nyx but before it could do something a concentrated bundle of dark petals reached it to double as strong as before injuring its torso severely. It screamed painfully and retreated several steps, Nyx started forming another bundle which the snow fox sensed.
It screamed aggressively before wanting to pounce forward while using its strongest tail attack, but its two hind legs collapsed rendering it immobile and helpless. It tried to escape even using its snow illusion multiple times on Nyx, but it was ineffective. Nyx finished the bronze rank LVL 2 snow fox with another two concentrated attacks killing it.
Nyx then headed toward the cave entrance to start guarding again. While Nyx was guarding the cave, Linus was keeping himself alive and awake from the cold and exhaustion using his willpower. He also kept himself busy by introspecting the entire fight and determined that they had been incredibly lucky.
The first lucky point was that a snow fox has a very weak defence making it possible for Nyx to injure it. The second lucky point was Nyx's capability to resist the snow illusion skill using her willpower and new skill mind mirror. The third lucky point was Nyx having enhanced dark cells allowing it to survive the first attack. The fourth lucky point was him having the shadow kingdom ability allowing Nyx to swiftly recover after retrieving her. The fifth lucky point was the fox not inspecting the cave due to wanting to clean its wounds, the last lucky point was the invaded darkness energy incapacitating the two hind legs allowing Nyx to patiently kill it without further risk.
While they had been lucky if Nyx hadn't been trained sufficiently well then killing it wouldn't have been possible. Time slowly passed and Nyx had to defend the cave from groups of peak iron rank beasts, but she held on while recovering every 5 minutes.
Linus on the other hand had become weaker and weaker losing his sense of sight and hearing, only remaining conscious by using Nyx's mental connection to sense her emotions and thoughts. The duo managed to survive for 6 hours and 42 seconds before being killed by a bronze rank LVL 3 ice tyrant bear.
Upon returning, Linus discovered that he was the person who survived the longest in his class while also being the person to survive the longest inside the entire school as the first ranking student at the professional bronze grade died from the cold and the snow fox's snow illusion. In the end, he managed to score 4011860 points which would place him inside the top 100 of the National examination's survival test making him desired by the top 10 universities, even the top 3 would be willing to take him in after surviving for six hours while only having awakened less than four months ago.
Linus didn't remain with his class although they wanted to cosy up with him, due to being incredibly exhausted from the mental torture of cold and exhaustion. Nyx too was exhausted from continuously fighting for 6 hours and resisting a couple of snow illusions from the bronze rank snow fox.
Linus went to the cafeteria for food, before leaving school as was allowed and returning to his home. Linus and Nyx decided to relax and play with each other for the remainder of the day as they would be giving it their all during the coming three weeks to try and clear the nine realms of hell while fighting in the battle coliseum occasionally to increase rankings and gain combat experience against diverse opponents.