Chapter 486: The Fright of the Night

Wu’ke and co. were not the only team to taste a Parazonian offering for their first night. Fortune appeared to be generous that day, as a first-grader that had zero experience in Mount Parazonium soon found out.

When Jawflower X attacked, causing his separation from his teammates, he thought he would fail his test. Amid the chaos, however, he was met with a stroke of luck, accidentally catching a Parazonian Gazelle’s lamb.

The poor lamb, too, had been separated from its parents during Jawflower X’s sudden attack. It had hurt its legs in its attempt to escape the chaos; this was why the lucky student had been able to capture it.

The first-grader did not know that Parazonian Gazelle lamb stew tasted was a heavenly dish. He also did not know that no one — including the toughest students in his faculty — dared risk their lives to hunt a single lamb within the herd.

Good zoologists classified Parazonian Gazelles as one of the apex species of the goat family. In terms of power, Parazonian Gazelles was only slightly inferior to Hadean Goats and Dragon-blooded War Goats — the goat reared by the Alpine Barbarians.

Parazonian Gazelles were renowned for being muscular, strong, and nimble, with an infamously cantankerous temperament to boot. They bore long, sharp horns that were so lethal, nothing in Mount Parazonium could possibly tank its full impact. This was probably why these gazelles’ preferred method of solving problems was to ram their head into whatever was agitating them.

As a magical beast, Prazonian Gazelles also possessed an uncanny ability to scale rocky spikes and even hanging cliffs, therefore allowing them to transverse like a phantom. Worse, despite clearly being powerful enough on their own, these gazelles only traveled in herds and shared unbreakable solidarity between members, so raising the ire of one was really raising the ire of all.

Once an entire herd had set a student as their shared enemy, it was basically the cue for Da Xue’s life-protecting transporting spell to activate on its own.

Truthfully, Parazonian gazelles were equally aggressive to humans and other beasts they encountered, so even subdragons, such as lindworms and Parazonium Wyrms, knew better than to attract their wrath. They were so deadly that when Mount Parazonium was to be prepared as one of Da Xue’s training grounds, Baiyi had floated the idea of removing these monstrous goats out of the ecosystem completely. He only dismissed the idea because the goats were, ultimately, not the type to offend the students if the latter wisely stayed out of their territories.

Baiyi had also wondered if a human belonging to a certain cult from Earth, with their penchant to form “morally-questionable relationships” with goats and camels, might end up being the beta if they ever met up with a Parazonian gazelle. [1]

Regardless, no matter how powerful these gazelles might be, they were still outmatched by monsters with unbalanced stats such as Jawflower X.

For a dish delicious enough to make one accidentally eat their own tongue, a Parazonian Gazelle lamb stew was surprisingly easy to prepare. All one needed to do was to skin the lamb, season it with common Parazonian prickly ash and a few pinches of salt, and cook it similarly to other kinds of broil.

The student was too bogged down by his anxiety over his missions to recognize his fortune, however. In fact, to him, this bothersome lamb was slowly becoming another problem to worry about, too. It was then when his good fortune struck again — he met a fourth-grader who was out hunting for food, and as the senior recognized the treasure in his hand, the lucky rookie was immediately invited back to his camp.

One of the members of this senior’s team was a famous warrior by the name of Eisenrose.

Due to certain biological differences between sexes, female students were scarce in the Knights Faculty such that the ratio of male to female knights was about ten to one. Indeed, it was exactly because of this scarcity that had compelled many of the knight faculty students to sneak into the female dorm for company. Then, due to an underlying appearance bias on Grand Principal Bai’s part, every female Da Xue student was young and ravishing. It was said that the beauty of a random girl from Da Xue could easily dwarf a majority of female students from any other academic institution.

With these two factors combined, it was not surprising that every female knight was an Amazonian beauty boasting both prowess and grace. [2]

Naturally, Eisenrose fitted the description to a tee, and was even awarded the moniker “Attie Lite”. Face-wise, she might not be as gorgeous as the Kitty Cat Maid, but for her slight lack of beauty, she made it up with her lean and sexy physique. Her skin was even a similar shade of healthy bronze, while her bust and butt were way more 3D than Attie’s could ever be.

Honestly, if one were to rate them by their bodies, she should be “Attie Plus” instead. The students’ insistence that she was a lite version of Professor Attie, however, belied the fact that they simply thought a woman’s facial appearance was slightly more important than her figure — much to Baiyi’s consternation. [3]

Eisenrose herself was a big fan of Attie and did her best to emulate her idol. For that reason, she had deliberately trained herself in dual swords, assumed an “ice princess” persona, and even took up cooking classes as a minor course.

The affection was apparently mutual. Attie cared about her little clone enough that she gave the girl a few personal tutelage and advice, thus improving her already-outstanding talent even further. Eisenrose was such an exemplary fighter that she was consistently one of the top scorers in every practical exam, including the Trials in which she had participated three times before the current one. The only reason why Eisenrose was ineligible to contend for the platinum necklace was only that she had selected too few subjects for her study, which severely limited the total amount of merits she could accrue.

Nevertheless, there were rumors that Attie had passed her secret fighting techniques to Eisenrose, as that seemed to be the most plausible explanation to the latter’s skyrocketing prowess. Those who knew Attie a bit more personally, meanwhile, even wondered if this Attie Lite had a secret cat-ear hairband — just like her idol’s — hidden at home too.

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The rumors were obviously false; Eisenrose could not possibly inherit any of Attie’s true powers. For one, unlike the latter, Eisenrose was not a certain scatterbrained god’s favorite mortal. Secondly, she did not have the tutelage of a certain, nigh-invulnerable Soul Armature.

Regardless, she was still one of the best fighters in class and was thus capable of giving a free ride for the more incompetent ones in class to pass a practical exam. Of course, quite a few of her classmates wished they could just ride her.

With the rookie’s tribute, Attie Lite finally had a chance to show off her cooking skill by making a pot of lamb stew seasoned with a few pinches of wild onions and pepper. When she presented the pot to her teammates, they could practically hear their stomach rumbling as their eyes were transfixed at specks of green herb bobbing welcomingly in milky white broil.

The muttons themselves had been sliced into fine, dandy collops through Eisenrose’s dexterous swordplay. It was perfectly cut such that each collop was light on fat without compromising the mutton’s original texture. The meat seemed to blend with its broil the moment one dug their teeth into it; several seconds later, the full glory of its taste would bloom dandily in one’s mouth before eclipsing their mind with a deluge of indescribable flavors.

Just as an experienced chef would recommend: fresh fish and mutton are best-served in the most simplistic way possible. The original flavor would simply be lost if one overdid their cooking.

The lamb stew was such a godly experience that Eisenrose had decided to repay the rookie’s tribute by completing all of his main missions for him — the stew was just that valuable to her. Without an S-class weapon like her idol’s War God’s Sword nor an assembly of powerful techniques to safely capture a Parazonian gazelle’s lamb, she would have never been able to taste something so heavenly had it not been the rookie’s offering.

There were more instances of impromptu fine dining across Mount Parazonium. For example, another lucky team managed to obtain a few lindworm’s eggs as their dinner. These eggs were as huge as an ostrich’s egg and could be cooked directly with fire. Once it was cooked enough, one needed only to crack a small aperture at the top of the shell and drink its fine, silky yolk with a straw. One would soon realize that there was probably no wine or moonshine that could bring this particular brand of wild tanginess.

There were even ample delicacies for vegans in Mount Parazonium, the most notable being an inconspicuous plant called the Earthfang Shoot. Superficially, with its dirt-yellow skin, it looked no different than a small rocky spike, but under its unpleasant skin was flesh so pearly white that it resembled the tooth of a large beast. Eating this delicacy required no cooking; one needed only to sink their teeth into its sweet, chewy flesh while its cool, smooth juice dribbled down the edge of one’s lips. It was the sort of food that was so scrumptious and pleasant that one sometimes remembered its taste again in their dreams.

Suffice to say that the first night of the Trial of Parazonium had become a night of fine dining in the wild. Many knew that every rare delicacy they came across could be used to enlist help for their missions, but this night, all of them have opted to salvage the food rather than bartering them away. It was hard to say if that was the result of their pride or the realization that while there were many ways to complete a mission — be it via luck, skill, or external help — one could only obtain these delicacies through sheer luck alone.

After setting up their camps and having their first dinner in Mount Parazonium, it was finally time for the teammates to banter, bond, and rest. Barring those unlucky folks who had found themselves stranded in danger zones where large, nocturnal wild beasts were on a prowl, most students were enjoying the picturesque night sky spreading across the micro-realm. Without sunlight shedding light onto every edge and prong of the plateaus and spikes, Mount Parazonium was suddenly shrouded in mysteries like a veiled woman, with only her mystifying silhouette visible.

Watching these tenebrous, looming silhouettes against the dusk, Bald Wu’ke was reminded of a beast hiding in the shadows, ready to pound and kill with one fell swoop. The imagery ignited the embers of dread in his chest, and he chided himself internally for the hubris he had displayed during the day when he had so arrogantly proclaimed his ambitions.

“Alas, th’ moontains become sae grotesque when night has fallen… How can men nae be stifled when they found shadows o’ goliaths starin’ at them?” He murmured in a low voice.

Short Morad and Hunky Joe did not share his sentiment though, and so they threw a laugh instead. “Scared, are you? I was terrified when I first came here, too. Man, I didn’t even dare sleep a wink for nights! But really, I can guarantee you that ten days later, you’ll find this whole place really boring,” Joe said reassuringly.

“Meh, I’m already bored… which is why I brought something that could really get my blood racing fast and hard,” Morad interjected, flashing Wu’ke a meaningfully coy smile.

Wu’ke understood his implication, but he did not understand his timing. “Um, surely there is a better time an’ place for… ribaldry than th’ present, nae?” he blabbered.

“Come on, ribaldry?! You’re a shy one… Hold on, you’re old enough to know about these stuff, right?”

The two seniors were just about to move their conversation to more risqué topics when all three caught wind of faint sounds in the air.

A succession of whooshes broke the silence of the night. Soon, sounds of something cracking followed by a series of heavy thuds — as if something heavy had plummeted — pounded across the earth towards them. It sounded as if something incredibly large had smashed through the rocky spikes in its path, causing the spikes to snap and fall with a terrible racket.

Just the thought that there was a beast capable of such a feat alone could send one to panic, let alone the realization that it was drawing closer to them.

The three’s expressions immediately twisted into one of abject horror. Joe froze for a second before snapping back to his senses, crouching low on the earth and assuming a fetal position. Using a strange technique Wu’ke had never seen before, he managed to quiet his breathing so much that it was as if he had turned into a rock.

Morad, who had doused their campfire off with a bucket of water, immediately dropped down onto the earth as well and did the same.

Wu’ke was the only one who had the least idea of what was going on, but at the very least, he knew that he should copy what his seniors were doing and played dead. Unfortunately, he was having trouble controlling his pounding heart, and against the quiet of the night, it felt like it was the only sound left. His heartbeat was getting louder and louder to himself, roaring like thunder.

He prayed he was the only one who thought so.