After Nick had killed almost half of their numbers, the ghastly serpents started to move around in a frenzy, cannibalizing their now dead brethren. Nick watched them biting off and swallowing the dead flesh as he began preparing his spell again; they didn't even look for the enemy that had killed their companions.

(Simple minded creatures, aren't they?)

Nick formed the laws for his spell in about eight minutes but before he cast it, he moved from his position, sliding down the sand dune he had occupied using his back. His vest made his movements down the slope of the sand dune almost comfortable. When Nick got to the foot of the sand dune he was five meters away from the pit of serpents and so they finally noticed his presence and turned their heads towards Nick's position, hissing at him and looking like they were about to attack.

"It's too late for all that."

(Soul Pressure.)

From the serpents' perspective, an irresistible pressure overwhelmed them, stopping their movements and then they became out of touch with their five senses. Nick watched as the rest of the ghastly serpents died with almost no resistance whatsoever. Looking at the dead serpents in the pit and remembering them cannibalizing each other, a thought came to Nick's mind.

(Can I eat these things? I once heard that snake flesh tastes like chicken. There has to be some benefit other than becoming more proficient with my spell involved in killing these things.)

Slade replied to Nick with a weird tone:

[Well, I've never eaten one but I know that generally once you remove their poison producing glands, even venomous magic beasts can be eaten but you already have ample food. Why would you want to eat these beasts, remember that they aren't actually related to snakes as you know them?]

Nick shrugged his shoulders and said:

"Just curious about the taste."

Nick went to the pit of carcasses and used his space band to store one of the carcasses. The space band somehow seemed to prevent organic materials from going bad so Nick was not in a rush to cook the dead serpent. Nick continued to move along his determined path; over the next six hours Nick came in contact with a fair number of magic beasts. After he had moved one hundred meters from the pit of serpents, he ran into a pack of tiger sized wary dogs that consisted of eight wary dogs feeding on the carcass of a large scorpion like magic beast. Nick used Soul Pressure to immobilize them then used his spell, Big, to turn one of his throwing knives into a machete and proceeded to behead all of the wary dogs one by one. The effects of Soul Pressure seemed to last as long as he had magic energy and would only stop if Nick himself wanted it to stop. The spell consumed about 360 magical units per second while Big's base consumption was about 590 magical units per second, more if Nick used it on a living being and even more if that living being had magic within their body.

By the time Nick had killed all the wary dogs, his magic sea was almost bottomed out resulting in Nick taking about a minute to rest before moving again after storing all the carcasses. Nick then went on to face a six foot tall crab magic beast, then a six meter centipede like beast with razors moving along the perimeter of its carapace; after Slade indicated that the 'blade centipede' was a magic beast that had laws related to blade magic all over its body, Nick stored the corpse using his space band to be inspected at a later time. Nick had never forgotten that his third highest aptitude was for blade magic. After traveling for three hours, Nick spotted a mountain in the distance and knew that that was where Slade was leading him.

Nick then went on to encounter and kill a large burrowing mongoose, then a supersized diseased brown rat that could spew toxic blood, then a large flying vulture that had glowing scarlet eyes that almost beheaded Nick with its beak; Nick was able to defeat the vulture after its surprise attack from above by moving under a large rock formation where the vulture could not enter. Nick used the opportunity to cast Soul Pressure and after the vulture was immobilized while on the ground from trying to get at Nick, he beheaded the vulture. Nick left that battle feeling far more confident and went on to kill a few more groups of wary dogs, most of them consisting of tiger sized wary dogs, then when he reached the desert's edge at around sundown, he encountered a fox that was three times the size of the ones on Grand Earth; the fox moved along the desert floor with great speed and agility so much so that Nick wanted to avoid facing it so Nick hid himself behind a nearby sand dune until the fox moved far away from his position so that it would not notice him when he entered the neighboring mountain path; the mountain seemed to extend beyond the clouds so Nick could not see its summit. The mountain path consisted of a road that led to multiple other roads along the mountain's face; Nick couldn't tell whether these roads were naturally formed or not.

Slade sensed Nick's thoughts and clarified:

[These roads are most definitely not naturally formed. They existed before I came to this realm so I have no idea who engineered them. The way they were made seems to prevent the vegetation from growing on them or encroaching on them which has kept them looking so 'pristine' up until now. For some reason magic beasts don't seem to come near these roads either; magical engineering and botany are not my specialty so I cannot tell you the reason for the avoidance of these roads by the flora and fauna.]

Nick walked along the road while the sun was going down and decided that he would make camp on the road while he could still see the surroundings. Nick approached a nearby tree that was about six meters tall and pointed his knife's blade at its trunk and used his spell, Big. Because of the nature of his spell, the knife was sharp enough to pierce through the trunk with relative ease and after its width was increased, the tree was cut in half. Nick did the same kind of thing to the fallen tree in many places giving himself a quick source of firewood. Nick carried the pieces of wood onto the road, making sure that he would have enough to make a fire that would last for hours.

Nick created a circle of stones and then piled the wood that he had into a pyramid within the circle and then place a mixture of dried leaves and twigs on top of the wood as tinder. Nick took out a small lighter that he had bought from the academy's convenience store some time ago from his bag and lit the tinder; the pieces of wood became fully lit within seconds and burnt brightly. Nick picked up a rock on the ground and used his spell, Big, to turn it into a large slab and then took out the carcass of the ghastly serpent from his space band and placed it on the enlarged rock. Nick started dissecting the carcass, removing all the internal organs and then removed the skin from the flesh. The scales of the serpent were hard but when Nick's knives were imbued with the magic power of his spell, cutting through the scales became only slightly difficult. Nick let the pink flesh bleed out the sepent's red-black blood. By the time the blood had been fully drained, night time had fully set in and the surroundings beyond the fire's light became dark. Nick cut up some of the serpent's flesh into chunks and skewered them with small branches from the nearby tree; he stuck them into the ground behind the rocks of the camp fire where they would be roasted by the heat of the flames. Nick waited for a little over an hour while the meat was cooking thinking about the day he had been through.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

(I now have a soul magic spell that seems to be very useful to me at my level; I wander how much money Soul Pressure would sell for on Grand Earth considering its effectiveness. Of course I'm not going to actually sell a spell that I use to the public, that would be troublesome for me since people would learn my tricks. I did fairly well against the magic beasts that I faced today, giving me valuable experience. Tomorrow, I'll cross this mountain using the roads and explore the realm further. I'm more interested in exploring this place than the exam; exploring realms is actually pretty fun. Maybe I should try to look for more wary dogs to kill...)

Slade chimed in at this moment:

[Kid, from reading your thoughts, I already know that you have plans that will give you a good score without having to kill more wary dogs. Don't waste time focusing on that. There are two areas each with a precious resource that I want you to get to before this exam ends. I did not retrieve these resources before because they were of no benefit to my previous soul eating lion host. Eat your meat first before I start explaining. I want you focused when I explain things.]

(Sure thing.)

Nick reached out his hands to retrieve the five pieces of the skewered meat from the fire but since they were hot, Nick used a trick that he had read about in a book to handle them. By concentrating his magic energy within his hands, he could actually protect them from being harmed by the high temperature; the same went for any other part of his body. Of course, if he threw himself into the fire, no mater how much he saturated his body parts with magic energy, at his level, he would be burnt alive. Nick started eating the meat and opened his eyes wide in shock.

(How comes this meat tastes so good? I thought that the taste might be strange because the serpent's blood had a blackish hue to it but this is literally the best tasting piece of meat that I have ever eaten.)

Slade answered Nick's question:

[Magic energy nourishes blood and flesh so most low level magic beasts will have a pleasant taste but at higher levels, because their magic energy gain more potent characteristics you'll find that you will have to use special methods to cook them for them to taste pleasant.]

Nick nodded his head in satisfaction. Nick was enjoying the meat in his mouth with the other pieces of meat resting on a clean portion of the rock that Nick was using as a table when he heard a voice close to his position.

"Mind if I partake in some of that meat?"

Nick looked towards the direction from where the voice came and watched as a young man whom he had never met before walked into the light of his fire. The young man had short blonde hair and green eyes, wearing a pair of light blue jeans pants and a zipped up leather jacket; the young man also had a backpack on his back. Nick saw that the young man had blood on his clothes and despite his attempts to seem calm and collected, his breathing was subtly labored and his movements were sluggish.

(This guy probably had to go through hell to get here. Thank god for old boy Slade guiding me to this place without having to run around like I was crazy, facing unknown magic beasts.)

[Ha, don't thank your god for me just yet. The future difficulties I will give you to train you will surely give you enough traumas for ten life times.]

Nick felt a little downcast at Slade's words but decided to focus on the man near him. Nick picked up a piece of skewered meat and raised it towards the young man.

"Why don't you take a seat beside the fire and have some meat. I can tell that you must be exhausted, just give me a bottle of water as compensation for my hospitality. Oh, and I can assure you that magic beasts will not approach this road so you don't have to be so wary."

The young man nodded silently:

"Thank you."

He walked towards Nick and took the piece of meat that Nick was giving him and released a bottle of water from his space band, giving it to Nick. Nick didn't actually want the bottle of water but from his experience there were many people that acted like ungrateful fools when you gave them benefits for free so he mentioned the 'compensation' to ease the young man's wariness and dispel his possibly flawed thinking. The young man looked at Nick before eating the meat and introduced himself:

"My name is Bart Johnson. May I know yours?"

Nick swallowed his meat and replied:

"Nick Capitol."

After hearing Nick's response Bart began to eat the meat and after he swallowed it his eyes opened wide in amazement.

"This is the tastiest thing I've ever eaten."

Bart proceeded to wolf down the rest of the meat and then looked at the rest of Nick's meat covetously. Nick laughed internally and said:

"Don't even think about it, this is my meat."

Bart visibly became a little downcast but then got over it in a few moments. He asked with a grateful look in his eyes:

"So...Nick, where are you heading?"