"Yes sire," The silhouette bowed slightly as he spoke before turning around to leave the darkroom.
———————-
Just like that, a few days went by.
The hype and constant discussions about the cadet challenge battles were not dying down anytime soon. It remained a widely discussed event all over the MBO camp. It was even discussed amongst the seniors who were in attendance.
Even though the second years were stronger and could perform better presently, they were still astonished by the strength of the first years.
They could recall that they weren't as powerful back then.
During these past few days, the cadets had continued their morning routine with their bloodlines sealed.
They had thought the morning routine would change or stop, but they had thought wrong.
Officer Briant explained to them that if they wanted improvement on the expansion of their bloodline channel points, it was necessary to maintain the routine for at least a year or more.
The special class cadets had been informed that they would be undergoing bloodline strengthening by Friday, which was only two days away.
On this particular day, the weather was very cold.
The first years had woken up for their morning routine, but then the rain started to pour.
Tra! Tra! Tra! Tra! Tra!
Crystalline-looking droplets of waters fell from the sky, repeatedly showering the residential areas, roads, and practically every area of the MBO camp, causing the fog to spread across the place.
It was still some minutes past five am, so obviously, the skies were dark. However, the coldness of the environment, along with the slightly heavy rain, had the cadets wondering if the morning routine was still gonna hold.
To their disappointment, the alarm still rang out by thirty minutes past five am.
They rushed towards the starting point the instant they heard it underneath the pouring rain.
Gustav and the others made use of E.E's vortexes to arrive there promptly.
A massive circular structure with flat surfaces was floating above the starting point.
Officer Briant, along with his two assistant instructors, were waiting for their arrival.
A lot of cadets were there already waiting.
The rain was unable to touch them underneath this massive circular structure.
For unknown reasons, even the winds couldn't infiltrate this vicinity.
Regardless of the cold, the cadets were unaffected since they were all-powerful, but they couldn't imagine how bad it was gonna be when their bloodlines got sealed.
"Well, you guys didn't think the drill wasn't gonna continue, did you?" Officer Briant voiced out with a burst of light laughter.
Some of the cadets' faces paled slightly after hearing that.
"The weather is gonna make it even more fun… Let's see how long y'all are gonna take," He said before dashing forward.
Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah!
Slaps rang out as Officer Briant went about the place, putting seals on the cadets once again.
The instant they lost their bloodlines, everyone felt the cold seep into their bodies due to the weather.
-"Damn I didn't know it was gonna be this bad,"
-"Oh my, we're supposed to scale through those landscapes in this state,"
-"This is impossible,"
The voices of the cadets complaining in the background could be heard.
"Haha, now we'll be here waiting, good luck to y'all," Officer Briant said with a loud and dismissive tone.
The timer began again, counting down from three hours.
Even though most of the cadets were reluctant, they had no choice but to obey.
Tah! Tah! Tah! Tah! Tah!
The sounds of footsteps stomping all over the wet and muddy grounds reverberated across the place as the cadets ran towards the direction of the forest.
The wind blew fiercely from time to time, making some cadets shiver subconsciously as they ran.
In a few seconds, some of them had been soaked by the rain from head to toe.
They were struggling to see up ahead due to the reduced visuality from the excess fog covering the environment.
Gustav dashed across the forest of dense trees along with everyone else.
This wasn't a race of speed now. To him, it was more of a race of endurance.
Gustav made sure to observe his surroundings with utmost caution as he darted across the forest.
Occasionally cadets would collide with trees since they couldn't see the environment properly.
Also, a lot of cadets were falling into traps due to the distorted view of the environment.
Swwoovv!
Gustav quickly squatted as he noticed something in the distance.
A body came flying through the air passing over him before slamming into the trunk of a tree.
Gustav moved a few feet towards the side as he continued to run forward.
More and more cadets gained injuries as they fell to different kinds of traps that they would have been able to avoid on a normal day.
Gustav, at this point, had his hair falling as it stuck to his face and ran down his neck due to being wet. His uniform stuck to his body, and water kept running down his face.
Misty-colored air oozed out of his nose as he ran forward.
A few minutes later, he arrived in front of the mountain area and started to climb along with many others.
There was not much gap between cadets in front this time. However, there were still hundreds of cadets behind in the forest area trying to find their way here.
Most of them were even going in the wrong direction without realising.
In about twenty minutes more, cadets that had climbed started to experience difficulties in holding onto the pieces of rocks piercing out of the rocky mountain.
The rain had made them slippery, and now that their grip strength had reduced, they could barely hold on tightly to it.
'It's just a matter of time before someone…' Before Gustav could complete his thought process, a scream was heard below.
Someone's fingers slipped when they grabbed onto a piece of rock above them to climb higher.
Luckily for them, it was only about twenty feet above ground level.
Gustav shook his head as he continued climbing upwards after a short break.
He predicted that only about half of the cadets would be able to scale this mountain today.
