This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

As the sun began to dip below the horizon, the battle continued unabated. Thankfully there were no serious injuries due to the low strength level of the creatures. However, Kain and his contracts were running out of spiritual power.

Kain could tell that his same-year peers were also in a similar predicament, they've switched to combat styles that conserve spiritual power, and more often elect to use physical attacks that don't even require spiritual power.

The only exception was Serena, who was either foolishly choosing not to conserve her spiritual power, or perhaps she had a quick way to replenish it, such as another higher-level elixir that can be used even after she's already taken the Spiritual Elixir.

'Although…now that I think about it, I don't actually recall her ever taking the elixir…'

Everyone else had also given up on concealing their strength, including many of the seniors, and released their remaining contracts after the first ones released ran out of spiritual power.

Again, everyone except Serena, who faithfully only revealed the one contract…

Most of the first, second and third years had already used the Spiritual Elixir, so they were completely tapped out. But the sea of spiritual creatures seemed endless.

Suddenly amidst all the background notifications of death that Kain had been tuning out, one was finally different.

*Ding Host has completed the hidden achievement of killing 1000 spiritual creatures in one day and will be rewarded 3000 GP*

Kain was pleasantly surprised by the completion of a hidden mission. Although the completion requirements without a beast tide would be almost impossible to complete.

However, considering that the System had stopped providing GP for white-grade spiritual creatures after the first upgrade, probably because they are only slightly stronger than ordinary animals, it was nice that when in special situations like this they still met the requirements to complete the mission.

Majority of the 1000 spiritual creatures he'd killed today had definitely been white-grade, and it would have been challenging to fulfill a mission like this limited to creatures red-grade and above.

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This hidden mission, when combined with the mission to hunt red-grade spiritual creatures that he'd completed several times over, Kain was more than half-way to the amount he needed for the next System upgrade. If he was lucky this beast tide may help him raise the full 10 000 GP, plus give him some extra to spend in the shop and Simulator.

If he can live…orange-grade spiritual creatures had begun to appear more frequently in the hoard. They wouldn't normally be a problem, but the earlier cannon fodder had consumed majority of their energy.

The orange-grade spiritual creatures smartly chose to only begin appearing after they had already consumed the Spiritual Elixirs and began to run out of spiritual power for the second time. They were definitely being directed, and by a spiritual creature that was intelligent and knew about the limitations of the Spiritual Elixir.

Kain had heard that the average high-level spiritual creature was as smart as, if not smarter, than, the average human. However, the tactics displayed now definitely proved that fact to him.

The difficulty in hunting spiritual creatures at the higher-levels probably increases exponentially since they are not only much more powerful with each breakthrough, but also smarter.

"All students and day-shift guards are relieved from their post. The night-shift guards will take over your duties."

'Oh thank god! The Vespirae can't see well in the dark nor are they nocturnal, it would have been challenging to fight through the night. Not to mention that none of us had any energy left'

He had wondered why it didn't seem as though there were as many guards as expected, but it looks like most of the guards were allowed to rest during the day while the students and professors were responsible for guarding the walls, and then would take over guarding the city against the hoard at night.

Some of the strongest members of the college, those 7-star and above, never made an appearance, so Kain assumed that they were on standby 24/7 in the event of an attack that the students, guards, and other professors couldn't deal with.

Kain and the others weren't sent back to their dorms. Instead, they were provided with a simple dinner of sandwiches and sent to sleep in temporarily living quarters set up close to the city wall. All of the male students in their squad, 11 in total, were housed together along with the male day-shift city guards. The girls were housed with the female guards in another tent.

Kain was exhausted and almost fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

Tap

"Mmm…"

Tap Tap

"Ugh go away…" Kain said before turning over.

Tap Tap Tap

"WHAT THE HELL IS IT?!" Kain screamed while sitting up only to be faced with surprised eyes of Oliver. The rest of the students, and some of the guards, also turned his way after hearing his outburst.

"Geeeeez…what crawled up your ass and died to make you so grumpy"

Sigh. Kain rubbed his tired eyes and sighed in resignation. This pesty senior likely won't let him go to sleep until he got what he wanted.

"Sorry…senior. I am just very, very, VERYYYY tired and want to just go to sleep. Aren't you?"

Oliver wiggled his head back and forth noncommittally. "Sure we're tired, but since this is a rare opportunity for us all to be together, we figured now would be a good time for some team bonding."

Kain looked at the exhausted Soren and Kairos nearby. They also looked exhausted. For once Kain and Soren were on the same page and looked fed up with Oliver.

"If you wanted to do team bonding, why didn't any of you invite us to a get together with you all before a BEAST TIDE."

"Well you see…it's customary to wait until after the first re-ranking to bother getting to know the first-years. Some of the seniors won't even bother remembering all of your guys' names until after the re-ranking. After all, the first re-ranking is usually when there are changes among the top ranked students.

The lower ranked students exchange rankings all the time, but usually the top 20 is fairly stable.

"Surprises usually only occur during the first re-ranking after the entrance exam, since the type of exam given that year may cause some students to be ranked higher or lower than their actual 1-on-1 combat ability warrants. It happens almost every year. A member of the enter top 5 drops out of the top 5, or even the top 20, after the first re-ranking."

"So…continue ignoring us. We're dead tired." Kairos said with a deadpan expression. Kain couldn't help but agree with him. Every second holding his eyes open felt like a chore.

"Well, we saw your guys' performance today, and we figured that it's unlikely that you 3 would drop out of the top 5. And so we'll likely all be teammates at the National Competition at the end of the school year!"