Alex activated his mental domain the moment he stepped into the wilderness.
Now, even without the high-tech gadgets embedded in his body armor, he could clearly perceive everything within a six-kilometer radius around him.
As for his real eyes, he could still see, but the vision resembled night-vision footage from movies, only with noticeably higher quality and sharper detail.
This limitation was precisely why humans were forced to hunt in teams when entering the wilderness. Their natural vision alone was insufficient. A surprise attack in such an environment could easily prove fatal.
However, within this hundred-kilometer zone, more than twenty Saints were secretly keeping watch, ensuring that no monster above the Martial Master level could enter the vicinity. So it was safe for them to hunt alone.
Alex sped up his flying capability and headed toward the deeper regions. His goal was simple. He wanted to hunt powerful monsters and deliberately leave the weaker ones for the other students.
Ten minutes later, he had already crossed more than eighty kilometers when he suddenly halted mid-air.
Because within his mental range, he detected at least twenty-one monsters, and every single one of them was a high-level Beast Master.
Alex hesitated.
The instructor had never mentioned how many points would be awarded for killing high-level Beast Masters.
After a brief pause, he contacted his instructor.
"Hello, Mr. Arnold."
"Yes, Mr. Moriarty? Do you have something to ask?" the instructor replied immediately.
This was part of the protocol. Each student was allowed to contact instructors for assistance up to three times without being forced to withdraw.
"If I kill a high-level Beast Master, how many points will I get?" Alex asked directly.
"Wha...!" The instructor froze for a moment before hurriedly responding. "You will receive one hundred points for each high-level Beast Master. I strongly advise you not to attempt this. They are far beyond your league. It could be fatal."
"Okay, thanks," Alex replied calmly and ended the call.
He then began observing the movements of the twenty-one beasts.
There were seven Tiger Mastiffs, five Shadow Wolves, four Earth Boars, and five Dark Flame Cats.
Alex wanted to test something.
With a thought, he controlled his ten flying knives.
Hush!
With a sharp cutting sound, all ten knives vanished from his side and reappeared near the necks of ten monsters. He snapped his fingers.
Instantly, ten heads rolled to the ground.
Alex glanced at his wristband.
No points were added.
He sighed softly. It was understandable. The wristband sensors could only record kills within their detection range. He had just killed ten monsters six kilometers away.
And he was the only Spirit Master on Earth capable of pulling off such madness.
"Looks like I have to kill them manually. Cheating like this will not earn me any points."
He urged his surfing board to accelerate to full speed.
His first target was a Black Flame Cat. He wanted to confirm whether monster talents could be copied as well.
With a deafening sonic boom, he appeared beside the beast.
It was the size of a normal lion, its body wreathed in constantly burning dark flames.
He activated the Eye of Revelation.
[Name: Black Flame Cat
Talent: Dark Flame Attack (C)
Rank: High-level Beast Master]
Alex looked at the talent rank and sighed.
He could not copy anything below SS rank. Still, the fact that monsters possessed talent rankings meant there was a very real possibility he could copy monster talents in the future.
"Die."
He raised his index finger.
A flying knife shot forward and pierced straight through the beast's body like a hot knife slicing through butter.
Alex checked his ranking.
[Alex Moriarty: 100 points (1st rank)]
He could only see his own rank. The rankings of others were hidden.
At that exact moment, Aren, who had killed six mid-level Beast Warriors and accumulated thirty points, dropped from first place to second.
"Who is it? Who surpassed me so quickly?" Aren's eyes burned with fury.
But there was no way for him to know.
"Damn it! I have to find high-level Beast Warriors immediately."
He melted into the shadows and began moving at terrifying speed. He even created five clones, drastically expanding his search range.
There was no way he would lose to Alex.
Unfortunately for him, Alex had already forgotten about Aren completely.
He was having fun.
He hunted down high-level Beast Masters one after another, surfed toward them, and cut them down like livestock. He used his hand sword, flying knives, and sometimes even his bare fists, smashing monsters into nothing but blood and fragments.
Within fifty minutes, he had killed thirty-five high-level Beast Masters.
[Alex Moriarty: 3500 points (1st rank)]
"Alright. Let us practice gravity manipulation."
He chose a Tiger Mastiff as his test subject.
The beast was wandering alone, completely unaware of what was about to happen.
Suddenly, Alex appeared above it like the embodiment of death.
He pointed his index finger and activated the talent.
Boom!
The Tiger Mastiff did not even have time to react before it was crushed into a pool of meat paste.
"Damn. I need to control the output."
He had gone all out without meaning to.
Alex had extremely high expectations for gravity manipulation. His ultimate goal was to train his body under extreme gravity, but first, he needed precise control.
He continued slaughtering monsters relentlessly.
As usual, once Alex became fixated on something, he completely lost awareness of everything else. It was his bad habit.
He tested different outputs according to his will, but it was far more difficult than he had expected.
Even after three continuous hours, killing hundreds of monsters, he could only reduce the output to around eight hundred times gravity, and even that was still overwhelmingly powerful.
"Can Anna control hers? Or is she just a walking disaster?" Alex muttered while practicing.
.....
Inside the control center of the base camp near Sector Seven, the instructors stared at Alex's point total, their throats completely dry.
[Alex Moriarty: 13700 points (1st rank)]
"No way! What is he?" one instructor screamed in disbelief.
In the three-hundred-year history of the Aurora Martial Institution, no freshman had ever surpassed one thousand points in this test.
Yet this monster had crossed thirteen thousand within just a few hours.
.....
Anna was engaged in battle with a high-level Beast Warrior, wielding her sword with calm precision.
She was deliberately not using her talent.
There were other students nearby, and she could not control her gravity manipulation yet.
If she activated it, everything within sixty meters would be annihilated, including the students.
She tried to move away, but the students kept following her, fear evident on their faces. They had wanted to follow Alex, but he had vanished without a trace.
Though these students were not exceptional, they were still powerful enough to hunt monsters on their own. They simply chose to remain close to Anna.
"Why is she not using her talent?" they wondered silently.
.....
Selena, on the other hand, was having an easy time with her space manipulation.
She stayed far from her targets. With a simple sword swing, she slashed the air and then activated her space manipulation.
The monster in the distance was sliced apart as if it were tofu.
She currently stood at third rank, mainly because she struggled to find monsters. Other students kept tailing her and stealing her kills.
.....
Rey was charging headfirst into battle, piercing monsters one after another with his spear.
"Hahaha! This is so fun! Come at me!" he roared like a madman.
.....
Twelve hours passed.
Alex could no longer find any high-level Beast Masters, not even mid-level ones. He had exterminated them all while practicing gravity manipulation.
He could now reduce the output to as low as three hundred times gravity.
As for range, he could precisely control it from a single inch up to six hundred meters.
[Alex Moriarty: 36543 points (1st rank)]
"Time to rest."
Constantly using gravity manipulation had taken a serious toll on both his body and his mind.