Odyssey of the Blind God

Baffled by the nonchalant comments of the friends he had just made, Mathias's gaze jumped from the Instructors to the two on his right side.

p Because of that, he couldn't properly listen to the introduction of the woman who represented the military.

Thankfully, Nial had heard her so he repeated her words easily.

"Her name is Orian San, and she will be in charge of our physical training…"

Nial was not sure if that was good or bad, but from the way he perceived the situation, the Instructors had been allotted the subjects in a simple manner.

While Junades was most likely to be in charge of their martial arts and combat training, Orian San was in charge of physical training and improving their physique.

Meanwhile, Kassandra was supposed to help everyone improve their proficiency with mana and the abilities they used.

She also said that nobody had to tell her what kind of abilities they bound, but if they did, it would only allow them to improve faster.

After all, if she knew the name of the abilities it would be possible for her to focus on teaching the most important points of her respective ability.

In Nial's case, this was quite difficult, which was the reason for him to question whether he should share that he had bound a curse to his body or not.

'If I say that I have bound an ability that enhances all of my senses several times over, there shouldn't really be a big difference, right?'

In the end, Nial's assumption was most likely correct as the difference between his curse and the said ability was negligible.

At least, he couldn't detect much of a difference if one excluded the black Miasma that his Curse could leak at specific occasions.

With that in mind, he was relatively calm, while Bella, who was beside him, sighed deeply.

She could barely contain her excitement and tried speaking in a low voice.

However, her attempts had failed and Kassandra, who had her eye on the young woman nearly all the time, had heard her.

Somehow, this made Nial feel sorry for her, even though he had no idea why this was the case.

Smiling bitterly, he could barely avert his attention as Junades looked in his direction.

Master Junades seemed to be slightly astonished about finding Nial here.

But then he realized that it wasn't truly surprising to find Nial here as even he had noticed that the young boy had a spark in him.

Only a moment later he recalled that Nial had just awoken his Origin.

It hadn't been that long, after all.

Thus, Junades had been against Kira and Mara's idea of recommending him to the Teradan military camp.

However, somehow, he ended up helping them to fill out all the forms and ensure that there are no errors in the application.

Nevertheless, Junades still felt weird.

It was not that he had something against Nial, but it was obvious that he was rushing things too much.

As such, Junades just shook his head, before returning his attention to the points that required more focus.

These were the other Originals that had also been recommended by the influential families of Katu.

There were not many, but owing to specific circumstances, there were still a total of 103 participants that had been recommended in Katu alone.

Such a high number of recommendations had never been seen in Katu, and even other shelters had a sudden spike and an oddly high number of recommended youths.

Owing to that, the number of instructors had increased, while the total number of entrants to the Teradan military camp had reached a high number like never before.

Thus, the most important thing was to figure out if everyone was worth being nurtured, to begin with.

"Before everyone reaches the camp, you all will be tested to assess your competence.

Your first test will be to find a way to the camp. There is a teleportation circle in the second basement in which five Originals can be teleported at once.

The location to which you get teleported will differ a little bit after every usage, but the final destination will be the same.

Your first task is to bring all Originals to the Teradan military camp! You have to ensure that nobody is left behind, and the degree of everyone's injury will be directly proportional to the deduction of points in the overall evaluation.

Everything will be observed, but nobody will rescue anyone!

To make it clear, everyone should be aware of the high death rate of the Teradan military camp, and the fact we won't rescue anyone, just for the sake of your family!"

Upon hearing this, Nial initially thought that the last part was a lie.

He knew that the death rate was high, but Kira and Mara had been quite relaxed every single time he had mentioned his possible death in the camp.

As such, he was not sure whether they had been simply trying to calm him down, or if some of the participants would die even before entering the camp.

In the end, mankind always claimed that they required more and stronger Originals.

Allowing future prodigies to die just because they were young made no sense to him, and even the others doubted this.

However, when they saw Junades' ice-cold expression while sensing his eerie aura, it was impossible not to believe him.

When he thought about it further, he realized that even if they were to fail and be possibly rescued, in the end, they would be disqualified.

For some, dying while heroically advancing towards the Teradan military camp was much better than being disqualified, and returning to their family with shame.

But that was fortunately only the case for a few descendants of extremely influential families.

After giving it a second thought, Nial realized that he could not afford to fail, either.

Yet, death was something he accepted even less.

Thus, he figured that they would have to search for two reliable partners to team up with.

After all, they would be teleported somewhere and had to pave their own way towards the Teradan military camp.

As such, Nial used his mana fluctuations to sense if there were any other trustworthy participants.

Meanwhile, a few other participants lifted their hands, indicating that they had certain doubts.

"I heard that we are not allowed to bring cultivation resources and other means of protection with us.

It's not that I have something against this, but will it be possible for us to receive a little more information about the place we will be teleported to?

If that would be possible, we could, at the bare minimum, prepare ourselves mentally…"

The young woman, who had asked this question, had gathered all her courage to ask this question but had kept her eyes glued to the table instead of looking at the instructors straight ahead.

And, the moment she dared to look up, she realized that everyone including the three instructors was staring at her.

All of them had identical cold expressions, but that was only what her anxiety had caused her to visualize.

Only when Junades smiled faintly, did the young Original realize that her breath had caught in her throat as she sucked in air after seeing his reaction.

Taking a few deep breaths, while keeping her gaze on Juandes, she awaited his answer that followed suit a moment later.

"Don't be nervous to ask questions. Being informed and clearing your doubts is very important before a mission. As such, you made a great point right there.

There will be a little information I will share in a while, but before that, I want to make it clear that everyone will have five minutes of time to clear their spatial rings.

These five minutes start right now, and we will search through your spatial rings one by one.

For every single item found in your possession that has been forbidden by the camp's list, we will deduct one merit point.

In that case, everyone who attempts to cheat us will have minus points before they even set foot in the camp!"

After Junades stated this, more than 30 Originals accessed their spatial ring at once, before throwing out all kinds of smaller devices.

There were even quite rare tools that were considered a necessity for auxiliary occupations amongst them.

Sensing their mana fluctuations, Nial couldn't help but be a little bit astonished about this as he had not expected to witness the current situation.

It was kind of obvious that some Originals would attempt to bring stuff to the camp which they were not supposed to, just to gain a small advantage over others.

As such, Master Junades' statement was obviously a warning, which most young Originals took to their heart.

However, despite the warning, Nial presumed that many Originals were willing to accept negative merit points in exchange for the risk of gaining an advantage.

After all, a single merit point was not noteworthy in comparison to the minuscule chance that the three Instructors might miss out on detecting something.

The advantage they were bound to make was much higher than the risk in their opinion.

If even Nial had figured this out, Master Junades and the other two female Instructors wouldn't be stupid enough to no gauge this either.

Because of that, Nial questioned himself if it had been stupid to have been honest.

Just at that moment, his mana perception sensed something which was the mana fluctuations of the three instructors to be precise.

While their expressions remained the same, with Master Juandes preparing to continue speaking and providing the answer to the young female Original's question, the two women made specific engravings on the items that now lay on the ground.

It were the items Originals had thrown out of their spatial rings, confusing Nial for a moment.

Yet, when he sensed that the engravings were different in shape and density, he couldn't help but tilt his head.

'The items that have been taken out by one Original look the same, but the density isn't. Origin crystals have only a thin mark, and the same goes for potions. But the forging hammer that radiates strong mana currents has a thicker mark…

Does that mean Junades lied about the deduction of only one merit point per item, or that everyone has five minutes of time to expose themselves?'

Nial was not sure what was on the mind of the Instructors, but the marks etched on the items were quite clear.

In fact, Nial sensed that the marks signified a much more serious punishment than deductions in merit points.

'Maybe the instructors will make the life of a cheater harder? They will have a bad impression of them, that's for sure…but other than that, what could these marks mean?'

Unfortunately, he could not think about it further as his ears caught the words being spoken by Master Juandes, providing the necessary information about the first task.

"The Teradan military camp is in a specific place that is easy to protect, and at a location, we can reach quite easily.

What I just said should act as the first clue because the place you guys will be teleported to is the only island mankind reclaimed…partially!

In fact, there is even a small town, which is the place the lot of you will stay! However, don't even think that everything will be easy just because you guys will be teleported to an island.

The beasts living in the area you guys will be teleported to are as powerful as Originals between the 5th to 7th Origin rank.

However, there are many more powerful beasts on the island, which we left alive owing to multiple reasons.

If you can kill them, go for it. You might receive additional rewards from that.

Without revealing a lot, I will just conclude my short speech and hope that everyone would stay vigilant as there are beasts with a reverse day-night cycle too!"

After he was done, an awkward silence filled the room.

The pieces of information had just been thrown at them without any link.

As such, it was quite annoying to piece them together.

However, that was exactly what Junades had wanted to achieve- to make it sound like a puzzle and make the participants solve it before trying to teleport.

A few Originals looked at each other, not sure what to think about the provided information, while others nodded their heads, confident to reach the camp with the given information.

Even without the information, the vast majority of Originals were confident to reach the Teradan military camp.

However, that was only obvious.

After all, they had been trained for years just for this moment!

Yet, all of a sudden, while everyone was deep in thoughts, someone lifted his hand.

Turning his head in the direction of the hand that was lifted high in the air, Master Junades could barely keep a poker face as he asked while suppressing his frustration.

"I won't repeat myself, and I provided enough information… What is the matter?"

Junades was facing Nial, who was smiling lightly as he asked seemingly nonchalant,

"Sir, if I didn't mishear there are 103 participants present, right? If that is the case can I form just a team of three?"

**

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