“Why is that fake exorcist taking so much time?” Rong complained as they were asked to stay in the room by the Nurse Panda even though they cleared the trainees for discharge.
“Maybe he frantically tries to make a new dungeon to overpower us.” Lein proposed with some bitterness in him for failing to defeat Jin. Could he have had fared better in a one to one fight? Honestly, he would not have a clue. Unlike Jin, who had some details on his technique, Lein had no idea what to expect against that peculiar dungeon supplier.
“Patience.” Grandma Yuan, who was sitting at the side looking out the window said the word with a heavy emphasis in her voice, and they immediately kept quiet. (Surprisingly, Jin had taken the effort to create a rather beautiful, tranquil seascape right outside the window. The cool ocean breeze made Grandma Yuan appreciate the beauty of what the System could do, and she savoured a bit of it.) At that moment, Jin happened to open the ward door and two luggage suits with him.
“Change of plans, your dungeon trial will consist of searching for a demon rather than fighting mere monsters. I had tweaked the settings a little after some discussion with Grandma Yuan.” He shifted the luggage at the centre of the ward.
“Find it and kill it without prejudice. I will be one of the observers in case things go haywire since I did say it was an untested version. Also, I heard a great deal about you guys from Grandma Yuan a few minutes ago. So treat it this seriously like a mock trial for your promotion examination.” Jin ordered as he opened the two luggage suits in front of them. Inside were laid with various Panda shaped cylinders, containing an assortment of potions. From strength enhancing to health recovery. Jin told them to choose and take three each for the upcoming trial.
“No thank you, we have our own potions which are definitely superior to yours, especially since they were made by the Royal Alchemists in our clan.” Lein refused the potions. Jin shook his head and told the trainees they could either take them or leave them alone. Both Rong and Lein had decided against it whereas Lian and Su Zhen took not only theirs but the boys’ portion as well. They probably figured Jin had his reasons to gift them those items.
“Alright, I will be doing the briefing. You will be entering near a forested area where multiple caves were seen in the vicinity. Your objective is to find this particular demon called the Transforming Spider.” Jin had taken longer than usual because he was preparing the short summary for them via a PowerPoint presentation. That was the excuse he gave, but he was performing other matters behind the scenes to make sure the cultivators can return back to Dungeons and Pandas. (Not to mention to check on the status with Yun on the shop’s operation.)
“While its figure is shown here, do note that the name Transforming Spider means that it could transform into anything to hide itself from its predators as well as its prey. However, there is one distinct feature of the Transforming Spider.” Jin showed the picture of the transforming Spider and gave explicit details as shown by the System.
“Its gem eyes. They should glitter slightly during the brief intervals after it has transformed, but some reports have also stated it might be hard for novices to find them. So, the other thing you could check is the irregularity of the current environment. Something like Finding Waldo.” Jin continued, but in his heart, he wondered if this current Transforming Spider would turn out similar to Keyrin who had evolved into a more superior species. If that turned out to be the case, it could prove a tough fight for the trainees.
“So the most important thing is to stay together as a team and- ” Jin was suddenly interrupted by the proud Ox Demon Cultivator.
“Not to worry! We have Lian and Su Zhen with us. They have superior searching abilities which will be able to hunt it down. That is if your dungeon is really able to simulate such minute differences.” Rong belittled Jin’s dungeon making skills, but he smirked back at the Ox Demon cultivator.
“Oh trust me, it will feel as if you had entered a whole new world,” Jin reassured them (though to them it felt more like he boasted) and concluded the presentation. “There is no particular time limit from my side, but it’s best to find it as soon as possible. Else you might stumble upon some… problems.” Jin left it vague as he opened the portal right in front of them. Su Zhen went in first followed by the rest and lastly Claire. In the meantime, he closed the portal and revealed his true objective to Grandma Yuan.
“Heh! Sneaky bastard. Fine. I will promote them if they manage to kill that monster. But you sure you do not need to kill it by yourself?” Grandma Yuan was satisfied by the twist since she had been wanting to promote them but hadn’t found any monsters that could match their current abilities. “Also are you sure this monster is a menace against four of them combined?”
“More than a menace. I had checked the status of the last seen Transforming Spider and apparently the knights in the area along with their mages (the Scholar of the North in Jin’s context) could only push it back to the wild. According to Peppers, the last documented case of one being killed was centuries ago. And as for your previous question…as long as I get to hit it once, it will be mine. So, no worries about that.”
“Too convenient. The System makes it too convenient for you.” Grandma Yuan shook her head, and he brought her back to the dungeon maker.
“However, there is one more thing I need to tell you. That is not exactly an instance. It’s another world entirely.” Jin said as he fiddled the controls a bit, so Grandma Yuan was able to see what was happening from the view. He had already deployed a few robot crawlers which Niu Lang had tinkered with to enhance its durability previously.
The System then imbued those robot crawlers with the “Magic Eyes” capabilities to monitor the surroundings since it does not have the satellite capability that it had in the Goblin World.
But Niu Lang did not just increase its durability, he also converted and equipped those robot crawlers with four helicopter propellers and rotor engine that allowed the crawlers to obtain flight capabilities. Meanwhile, the System added the anti sound inscriptions on them and move the robot copters around to view the situation for Grandma Yuan to watch.
“A world made up from the System?” Grandma Yuan was not following him a single bit.
“No, as in… another world from our world. A separate world.” Jin tried to make it clear that it was not the System’s doing.
“So… you mean they are searching and fighting actual demons?” Grandma Yuan furrowed her eyebrows greatly and seemed both a little disappointed and surprised at the same time. Jin could not differentiate her expression out well enough.
“That is why I had decided to be with them, in case that the Transforming Spider was more dangerous as expected,” Jin remembered how Gold mentioned to him about the Thunder Goat Demon, but instead he fought a stronger variant of it.
In the meantime, the demon exorcist trainees were indeed teleported to the forested area which Jin had shown them. It was also getting dark with a slight emergence of a fog in the area when they teleported into the area. Su Zhen then took out two potions from her storage ring and shafted it to the guys.
“Drink it. you will need it to survive.” Su Zhen said as she opened hers out and began to drink half of it. Lein then realised that the potion that was given to them was allowed the cultivators to gain a temporary effect of the ‘Cat’s Eyes’. It grants a low level dark vision for a set duration of time and that was what they need if they were to search for the Transforming Spider in the dark.
“This is from that fake exorcist?” Rong could not believe he had to drink one of his items to survive.
“If you wish to see in the dark. While your praise for us to be able to sniff a spider is heartwarming, this odd looking fog and the weird stench of this forest is preventing me from searching on any clues. As usual, it felt too real for comfort.” Lian told Rong as she forced the potion open in front of him and demanded him to drink.
“Where do we even start? I have no idea what to do. There is no information about this Transforming Spider Demon other than the ones Jin had provided.” Lian looked around with a bit of anxiety. “We were not taught of such a demon too.”
“A lot of demons that our parents encountered were unknown too. We just have to find the basic steps to find the Transforming Spider.” Lein said as he started to look around for any possible clues after drinking the Cat’s Eyes potion. Any signs of cobweb, large indentations on the ground, dead animal remains and anything that looked out of the norm.
Separately, Claire was observing their movements while searching for the Transforming Spider herself too. She was occupied only until Jin came out of the portal right beside her.
“Grandma Yuan told me to pass you this,” Jin said, and Claire knew what that was from a quick glance. They were the very same kind of emblems which Jin had been bestowed with. The only difference was that the emblem pins were synonymous to trainees’ clans that they were in.
“She wants to put them up for the examination?” Claire looked Jin and he nodded his head but continued to keep her out of the loop despite the fact that she knew he had a system with him.
Jin instead lied to her that the transforming Spider that he encountered was one of the few most difficult demons he ever encountered. Even he did not know the full set of skills and managed to capture it live with the use of the System. (It will eventually be true if he did capture it alive.) Claire believed him in an instant since she knew how unusual Jin had become with the use of the System.
She remembered the days when she first scouted for Grandma Yuan, and this shop was barely out of its infant stage. Right now, it was bustling with cultivators from all walks of life.
“I understand, I will initiate the examination for them right this instant. In return, you have to be the only observer since I am not allowed to interfere.” Claire replied, and Jin acknowledged that he knew his responsibilities as Grandma Yuan had told him the same too.
“But do I have the ability to interfere if they are in trouble? Or will there be marks deducted if I entered the battle?” Jin asked.
“You can interfere if you find that they needed help sorely or the demon happened to be way above their grades. There are indeed consequences to aiding them at their desperate time of need, especially when the demons might have an alternate form which could have caught them off guard. But erm…let’s just say the marking scheme is too complicated.” Claire said as she shook her head when she kept the emblem pins in her storage ring.
“If you help them with a ranged attack, only some points will be deducted. But if you personally made your presence known by entering into the fray, major points will be deducted. And that is just a start, the marking criteria will get even stricter with every kind of action the observer had performed to aid the examinees.” Claire took an electronic tablet out and passed it to Jin to preview for a while.
“So…I guess its best not to interfere as much as possible.” Jin saw how ridiculous the marking criteria was. From searching for a monster to killing the monster, and there were even points for environment preservation. (He believed there were some exorcists who more than just killing the demons with their flashy skills which caused the examination committee to create such marking criteria up.) At the same time, Jin realised Claire gone all quiet, and he noticed that she was already marking the students based on their performance till now.
“I shouldn’t interrupt her, she looked too focused…System, any sight of that Transforming Spider?” Jin tried to perform his own way of search magic by extending his Maqi out to see if there any interference or disturbance around.
However, the moment Jin spread his Maqi out, it seemed as if the whole forest reacted to it and he quickly retracted it. His face turned into a horrid expression upon receiving the feedback from the surroundings, but Claire looked as if everything was as per normal.
“The System had analysed the vicinity when User released his Maqi. System believed that-“
“That the entire forest is part of the Transforming Spider…” Jin swallowed his saliva and realised he had placed the trainees and Claire in a very precarious situation.
