In a couple of minutes, the eagle landed at the mountain foot, and after dropping the disciples, it flew upwards.
"Is anyone have the mission in the purple mountain?"
"Please group up with me if you also have a mission in the royal city."
All the disciples who had been assigned to do solo missions started yelling out to see if there was anyone who had a mission in the same place so that they could group up to complete their missions easily and quickly.
"Is there anyone going to sun feather city?" Max also tried his luck. After all, it was easier if he could group up with someone.
"What?"
Suddenly, out of more than forty disciples present here, one-third exclaimed and looked towards him with weird looks, which quickly became one of pity as they shook their heads.
"Mm?" Max's eyebrows shot up at their reaction.
"Friend, are you assigned to handle bandits there?" A girl with short light greenish hair asked after noticing that Max seemed oblivious of the reason behind their reactions.
"Yes. Is there any problem with that?" Max asked.
"Sigh! If I'm right, you mustn't be from a nearby region." The short-haired girl sighed.
"Sun feather city is infamous for its bandit groups…." She started explaining.
Sun feather city was one of the many cities under the control of the Cloud academy. It had a few mines of some materials necessary to craft magic artifacts.
Initially, it was very prosperous because many merchants would go there to buy the materials in large quantities at low prices and trade some of their own products.
However, because of this, many groups of bandits had made the area around it their hub and would rob the weak merchants. Because of this, the number of merchants going to the city decreased dramatically, causing the city many losses.
Therefore, Cloud academy sent out many disciples and Elders on a purging mission and annihilated every bandit group in the vicinity of the sun feather city, which caused the trade to prosper once again.
Unfortunately, this peace was short-lived as bandit groups started popping out once again. Helpless, Academy had to send some three-star mages to kill them. However, no matter how many they killed, more would come after some time.
Because sun feather city was a few thousand miles away from the academy, the academy couldn't afford to send people time and time again. Therefore, it decided to assign missions to kill them whenever any new group emerged.
"However, although these bandits are weak, they are very cunning and would set traps to kill the disciples. That's why most of the disciples don't dare to go there." She explained.
Hearing this, Max's eyes flashed. He realized that he was in a dangerous situation right now.
'There are only two ways out of this.' He sighed.
One was to give up on this mission. Although he would be punished by the academy and wouldn't get any resources for a few months, it wasn't a problem for him since he could just kill some beasts and sell their cores. However, this would reduce his chances of participating in the selection competition.
The second way was to go ahead and somehow complete the mission. But his chances of dying would be high.
"Thanks for telling me." Max thanked her before speeding in the direction of the sun feather city.
The short-haired girl was stunned. She hadn't expected him to head toward sun feather city even after hearing how dangerous the situation was.
However, she shrugged. It wasn't her concern whether he lived or died. She only told him all this because he was pleasing to look at.
…
After coming a few miles away from the foot of the mountain, Max took out an escaping talisman and crushed it.
Whoosh!
In the next instant, a strong surge of energy enveloped him, and his speed increased by at least a dozen times, and he seemed to disappear from where he was.
After less than half a minute, three clocked figures arrived where he was previously.
"Fuck! That guy used an escaping talisman." One of them cursed.
"It's okay. Its effects won't last for long. Let's give chase." The one in the middle calmly said before speeding in the direction Max had gone.
...
In just thirty seconds, Max crossed a dozen miles.
"Amazing!" He exclaimed. The feeling of running at hundreds of miles per hour was just amazing.
'This should give me some more time.' A smirk appeared on his face as he glanced back.
When he was talking to the short-haired girl, he had already noticed a few people looking at him with murderous intent and knew they must be the people sent by Dalton.
Therefore, he suddenly ran out and used the escaping talisman he had gotten after killing Bartan.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, he changed his direction, ran for more than half an hour, and arrived in a forested region. Looking back, he didn't see anyone in the distance.
'It's time to raise my Mana to peak two-star.' He sat below a nearby tree before opening his status screen and raising his Mana count to ten thousand points.
Hu~~
Mana around him became restless and started entering his body. His Mana core was filled to the brim in just a few seconds.
"Nice. Now I-" Max became excited. With this much Mana, he could afford to squander a little when he fought against the people chasing after him. However, he stopped celebrating as his expression changed dramatically.
[Ding. The requirement for the second evolution has been met. The system will start its next evolution in three seconds.]
"Damn it. Why now." He gritted his teeth in frustration. If this had happened at any other time, he would have been happy and expectant of this evolution.
But right now, he was in the middle of a forest where some beast could pop out at any moment and was being chased by people who wanted his life. Therefore, he couldn't afford to pass out right now.
Hu~~~~
However, before he could do anything, time was up, and just as he feared, the Mana around him started being sucked inside his body.
"Argh!" He groaned in pain as he felt countless needles stabbing all over his body, and his consciousness started blurring.
He could only pray that no beast or the people chasing him find him before he woke up.
