Chapter 61: We need to Adapt
All the candidates walked towards the box and picked the tokens one by one and came back to their groups. Each token has a number between one and six. An attendant came forward towards the group and said.
"Form a group according to the number on the token." After he spoke everyone started moving and soon six groups formed, but this time the members are all jumbled. Sam looked at the token in his hands which showed number six on it and then looked at the new teammates he has to work with for the following days.
He didn't know how to react, when he saw that there is only one person that he is familiar with in the team and that is Jack. The rest of the team are completely strangers to both of them.
Sam and Jack stood together and took a look at the rest of the team members. There are two girls in the rest of the team and one of them is the part of the Falcon Cliff team. She wore an exquisite dress and has a proud look on her face. She must have been from an affluent family. He remembered that the girl has obtained 19 points in the tower of will.
Another girl is a bit normally dressed compared to the first girl and she is from another subordinate city. She has a normal face which will easily blend in a crowd.
The remaining six members are mostly from the other subordinate cities except for the two people who are from the Falcon Cliff city, two of them stood on either side of the proud girl and tried to talk to her as if they are sucking up to her and are only replied with her arrogant face and light words. But they didn't seem to be bothered with it.
From the remaining four two people are from the Mountain lake city, one is from the Misty river city and the remaining one is from another subordinate city named Blue lake city.
Sam didn't try to make a conversation with them as he saw the hostile looks from the rest of the team. They seem to hold a deep opposing opinion against him and didn't look like they want to talk to him.
Sam and Jack didn't bother with them and just stood side by side silently waiting for the Elder to continue. After a few moments, when everyone is settled, the Elder continued.
"We will be placing a seal, on you which will bind your cultivation as well as your eyesight. After we leave you in your respective spots of in the forest, you will regain your sight after some time.
The round will go for seven days at maximum. The one with the highest points wins. The points which you gain individually, will be yours and the points you gain together as a team, will be divided among the participants according to their wishes.
Some elders will be monitoring you in the woods and are also responsible for the point records. If you are in a disagreement with the teammates about the points allocations, you have to solve it within fifteen minutes or else the elders wouldn't note your points down.
The Elders won't be helping you directly and they would not interfere even if you are in a life and death situation unless you break your token. If you break your token, not only will they help you but also you will lose your right to compete further and will be escorted out of the woods.
On the matter of how you can earn your points, there are three most basic ways.
One is eliminating the opponent teammates. For every opponent you defeat, you will be awarded with a point and if you are fighting against multiple opponents at a same time, you will be having a progression on the points you have obtained. That is if you are fighting against three opponents, you will get one point for the first one, two points for the second one, three points for the third one.
The second way to obtain the points is to collect the point scrolls in the forest. There are point scrolls kept in various places in the forest. Every scroll you obtain is a bunch of points. You have to find the scroll, obtain it and then you have to open the scroll and place your token on it to claim points.
Not only point scrolls, you can also find attack scrolls, scrolls which can unseal your cultivation, weapons, food resources, medicine kits in various places.
Whatever you obtain depends on your awareness, adaptability and your intelligence. I only have on advice for you guys. Every danger leads to an opportunity and every opportunity leads danger to you.
The final way to obtain points is simple, you just have to survive. Every single day you survive is a point to you. That means, even if you don't do anything and just manage to survive for seven days, you will still get seven points.
So, I hope you can survive and all the best.
Elders, seal the cultivation."
As soon as the elder finished his speech, other elders came forward and walked towards the participants and started using some scrolls and seal their cultivations.
Sam looked at the elder, who took out a scroll and used it on him. His vision turned black and he felt his spiritual core completely sealed. Then he felt someone holding his hand and started guiding him somewhere.
After some time, Sam opened his eyes and looked around. His eyes blurred by the sudden light. By the time his eyes adjusted to the surroundings, his teammates also came to their senses and looked around the surroundings.
They are in middle of woods, where is a patch of plain land surrounded by a bunch of densely packed trees.
"I am Dustin from the Falcon Cliff city. Let us introduce ourselves." One of them spoke. Then one by one all of the teammates introduced themselves.
"Val from Falcon Cliff city."
"Jessie from Falcon Cliff city."
"Jack from Starwood city."
"Sam from Starwood city."
"Eve from Sand stone city."
"Vales from Mountain lake city."
"Shor from Mountain lake city."
"Tom from Misty river city."
"Kiba from the Blue lake city."
"Okay, now that we knew each other, we need to have a team leader. I would nominate myself to the position." Dustin said as he looked at others proudly. Everyone looked at each other and then looked at Jack and Sam. After all, those two guys hold top positions in the first round. They thought that they might have some objections, but they only saw Jack observing Sam while the latter is touching and sniffing the surroundings.
Dustin and the other two from the Falcon Cliff city are also watching the duo, to see if they have any objections.
"Now that none of you have any objections, I will be the team leader now. You guys have to listen to what I have to say and complete the assigned jobs. First of all, we.."
"We have to get out of here as soon as possible." Suddenly Dustin's speech was interrupted by Sam. He looked at Sam and said.
"What do you mean, we have to get out as soon as possible? Don't interrupt when I am speaking." He said in a harsh voice.
Sam didn't bother with him and said. "We are in territory of a beast. We aren't ready to fight with it yet. If we don't get out of here soon, we might have to encounter it, which is clearly not a good idea." As soon as Sam said that, someone sneered.
"Why should we believe you? Just because you said we are in a territory of a beast, we are there? How come we didn't see any signs of beasts here?" The one who spoke this time is Val. He looked at Sam and said these words with an arrogant voice.
"I don't have time to explain to you guys." He paused as he looked at the sky and then continued. "If you guys don't want to get into trouble follow me, otherwise don't blame me later." As soon as he finished, Sam turned to a direction and started running while Jack followed after giving a look to the crowd.
Crowd were dumbstruck by his decisiveness. They didn't expect that Sam would leave just like that. While they are still in daze,
*roar* a roar pierced the silence and got them back from their daze.
"It seems like a bear's roar." Eve said in a low voice. She immediately turned to look at the direction in which Sam has left and then looked at the rest of group.
Soon, the roaring sounds neared them and footsteps could be heard.
The group immediately got tensed.
"Let us move." Dustin said and picked a direction as he moved when the rest of them are about to follow the low voice stopped them in their tracks.
"They went in that direction." Eve said from behind.
"We don't need to go there. The sound of stream could be heard from this direction. If we go there, we can have a water resource near us." Dustin said and started moving again, the rest of them followed and Eve also paused for a second but still followed the group.
Meanwhile, Jack and Sam ran for a distance and sat near a large tree. When they heard the loud roar, Sam smirked and Jack heaved a sigh of relief. Then the latter looked at Sam and asked.
"How do you know that we are in danger?" He was really curious on how Sam was able to do that easily. They clearly didn't have any spiritual sense as their cultivations are sealed.
Sam just smiled and said. "The place we are in stinks of urine of the bear and the trunks have some claw marks of the bear. The marks seemed to be freshly made which indicates it got the territory recently, so the bear will concentrate highly on this place to deal with the invaders. So, we have to leave the place as soon as possible."
"then why didn't we go to the stream nearby. We could have a water source nearby; wouldn't it be helpful?" Jack asked again.
"who said that near the stream is a safe place? We shouldn't be too near to the stream we want to stay safe. Now that we are normal people, we have to take care and it is not safe near the stream. After all, we are not the only people who needs water. If we stay too near the stream, we have to face all the beasts which will come to have water and we are too far away, we might have trouble getting water. That is why we ran this way. We cannot take any risk until we have a clear view on the situation. We just came here and we need to understand and adapt before we think about starting a fight."
Sam finished and Jack nodded in understanding.
"Ahhhhhh." Suddenly a shriek could be heard and both of them turned towards the direction, where the sound came and saw some people coming towards them. They are the members of the team. They are running with their lives as a bear was chasing them. Out of eight there are only seven people left.
"Climb a tree and stay still without making a noise." Sam instructed Jack and he stood up and took of his pants as he started peeing at the roots of the tree. The girls who are in the middle of the group didn't see anything but the boys who are in front felt like they were hit by a lightning when they saw the unexpected view.
Sam didn't bother with them and put on his pants and immediately climbed a tree. Then he turned towards the group who are still running and said. "you guys pick a tree and climb it. Then stay still without making any noise."
After that he stayed silent.
The group immediately made their way to the tree that are near to them and started climbing. Even though, they are normal people without their cultivation, since their bodies are refined by the spiritual energy their strength is absolutely superior to a normal average human. That is the reason, they were able to run away from the bear. Otherwise, they could just forget about running away.
All the members climbed the tree, but the bear still caught a man who is at the back of the group.
"Ahhhh, No, No." He is none other than Tom. He immediately took the token from his pocket and broke it. Then a shadow came to their view and then took away Tom from the bear's claws. The bear didn't understand what was going on for a second. It started sniffing around to find the scent of the group and started clawing the tree trunks. Even then the group stayed still from Sam's warning.
Suddenly, bear stopped its movements and walked towards the tree Sam climbed and started sniffing around. Then it looked around.
"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRRRR" with a loud roar, it turned around and walked away.