"Running, then running, only running. Don't look behind you, think of nothing but survival."

This sentence was the only one currently on her head. 'Where are the teacher and the others now? I have to find at least one.'

The sounds of hissing and cracking began to increase as the seconds passed. It is getting closer and get speed is not enough to escape.

"Hiding my presence doesn't work on it at all. Is it because it depends on tracking my smell since the beginning?"

Aliana pumped mana into all the rings, all five spirits appeared and Aliana asked their help to delay this ferocious beast. Wood spirit pulls out wooden poles from adjacent trees and tries to block or at least delay the beast's path. The spirit of the earth forms cavities and voids under the ground forming traps to trap it, the basillesque has fallen into the pit but it came out in a few seconds. This would have given Aliana a few seconds but the speed of the basillesque had compensated for this. At that time, the water spirit was making the soil muddy all the way behind Aliana to make progress harder for the dragon-like predator and once it fell into the mud the fire spirit would dry the clay to hold it in place. Stopping the beast did not work but it was enough to buy some time for Aliana, whose heart almost stopped from the severity of the situation.

After thirty minutes of hellish running, Dante was the first to meet her as she shouted directly, 'Run if you want to survive.'

Dante, who did not understand what was happening, immediately started running next to her and then asked her:

'What are we running from? Is it the teacher?'

'It's a monster that doesn't die. Let's get together with others before trying to confront it.'

'Follow me; I can lead you to one or two... This way.'

After a few gestures, Dante found the way to the nearest one of the others. They met Orion first, then Mira, and then the rest minutes later.

'Let's look for a wide, treeless spot to enforce the siege and restrict its movements.'

'This way. I passed by a place like this an hour ago, I think it's here.'

Dante and Yoon Hwa spoke respectively; the rest followed, and arrived within four minutes.

'This confrontation is similar to our confrontation with the teacher, but this time it is more serious, do not approach recklessly. I'll give you the signals to attack, otherwise stay close but keep enough distance.'

'Tai Min and I have a way to try to eliminate him. I will target his eyes and you keep him away from me.'

After Dante gave them instructions, Eric came up with an idea to ensure success. His proposal was not flawed but he wasn't careful last time, as he did not think that the crocodile would be smart enough to attack him with a tree. This spot is treeless and its terrain is easy, so he thought it would be easy to escape if any emergency happened with him.

Dante, Orion, Tai Min and Yoon Hwa advanced and circled the monster keeping a distance of twenty meters from it, and when it relaxes its defense during the attack, Mira and Aliana targeted him with magic to hit his belly, which is less stiff than the rest of his body. After half an hour of dodging, evading and beating his stomach with witchcraft, the hard scales at his stomach were damaged but not a damage that is significant. At the blind spot of the basillesque, Eric fired an arrow reinforced with the halo towards the right eye, the basillesque noticed the arrow and closed his eye but that was not enough to protect it, both the eyelid and the eye were damaged but the arrow did not hang in his eyes, which soon began to regenerate.

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"There is no chance, let's endure until the teacher shows up at any moment."

An hour later, the basillesque ran out of patience and began to blow poisonous smoke. Everyone noticed its changed behavior and stepped back to avoid the poison they did not even know existed. At this very moment, Maximus descended like a meteorite, ran over the basillesque, blowing up its organs, crushing its bones, to a point it died instantly.

'Finally we survived...'

The team fell to the ground after seeing the Master and the invincible beast perished with their own eyes. After exhausting mana and tireless running and suffocating humidity, fatigue had accumulated and exceeded its limit a while ago.

'Mmmm, your survival is a miracle in the face of the basillesque, luckily I arrived in time.'

'By this you mean you weren't watching from afar and waiting for the right moment to intervene.'

'I wasn't in the woods basically in the last hour, I was somewhere else.'

A tear of laughter, another of despair, and a final tear of shock came down from the eyes of each of them, and one phrase echoed in their minds:

"That's why he told us that our survival is our own responsibility, and I thought he cared about our lives. We have been deceived!!"

With a snap of his fingers, he moved everyone to the private room of the academy along with the body of the basillesque, left the boys there, and moved to Albus's office.

'I have a gift for you, comrade; can you come with me for a moment?'

'What are you talking about? ...'

Maximus did not let him finish his speech and he took him to the room.

'We hunted a basillesque by accident and I need a favor from you.'

'What do you want after you kidnapped me from my office?'

'I want you to talk to a famous craftsman and make appropriate armor for my students here from the scales of the basillesque and the rest of the corpse is either for you and your own laboratory or for the academy's laboratory. Frankly, after thinking, I do not care what you are going to do with it. Can you do that?'

'Not a big deal if that's all; sure you don't want anything else?'

Albus rubbed his beard after he came forward and examined the body of the basillesque closely, blood still dripped from it which meant it was a fresh specimen, which aroused Albus's curiosity about how they obtained it. He turned to Maximus' students but they were not strong enough to subjugate a monster of this caliber, which meant it was Maximus who wiped him out.

"He died of internal bleeding and broken bones, yet we didn't lose any components. Even his bone powder is useful!"

Albus got more and more excited the more he examined this corpse waiting for Maximus' response, who was thinking of a suitable answer, Maximus found no other need for himself from the body of the basillesque and was content with armor.

'Nothing in particular.'

'So the armors will be ready in two weeks. You will find it in my office when you visit me. I ask your permission to leave.'

The director turned and took a final look at the body of the basillesque and was surprised by the clean blow that wiped him out again, and then left through the gate. Maximus waited for a while to make sure that Albus has already left before he started talking.

'Let's go back to where we were... Each of you has achieved impressive success both individually and collectively. Tomorrow will be a break, take it to develop yourselves because next time we will be heading to a different place.'

To the children, it seemed like a living hell, a hell they could not even leave of their own volition. With a tired psyche and an injured body, everyone had crossed their limits for the first time.

'Clear.'

In a tired tone and even more tired body, they were exhausted by the injuries that combined with the depletion of mana causing even more damage. Each of them got up from his place with difficulty and went to the Academy Hospital to receive appropriate treatment for their injuries. None of them had the intention of training more today. Like a dam that was completely filled, the bodies of the little ones would have collapsed if they had pressed themselves any further.

"If my condition improved tomorrow, I'll train hard. Otherwise, I won't leave the room."

Everyone agreed on one idea and spent the rest of the day walking around the academy exploring what they had never seen before and kept walking and each of them talked about what was found and fought in the rainforest today...