Author: M_W Cancer

With the new changes to the trial competition, Leo also decided to make new changes to his plan.

"Guys, change of plans!" Leo said to the other leaders of the alliance.

"Is there something wrong about the new plan?" Justine can't help but ask.

"There is nothing wrong with it. But, I talked with teacher Smith for a bit just a moment ago and he said that there are new changes to the trial competition now due to only having 12 class remaining." Leo replied.

"And what exactly are these new changes..." Alfred followed after.

"Well, every nexus can be transferred now. So Justine, please go back to your base and gather your remaining classmates, your nexus will be transferring to somewhere nearby our base afterward for the sake of convenience!" Leo finally revealed his intention.

"Very well!" Justine nodded his head as he motioned for his classmates to follow after him. He doesn't have any problem transferring their base nearby Leo's Class 1S- base. It's better that way anyway, since they can easily help each other. As for when they are the only class remaining, then they could just simply give themselves a bit of a grace time period to transfer their nexus. So, no problem at all.

The moment Justine and the Class 1S left, Leo quickly motioned for the leaders of Class 1S- to come closer, "Angel, I will be leaving you in charge the moment Justine comes back."

"Why?" Angel curiously asked.

"I need to do some scouting around the Floating Mountain. I need to know which specific class was eliminated aside from the Class 1B and Class 1A+ that we ourselves have eliminated."

"When will you be back?"

"The next day, I guess..."

"How about just do your scouting tomorrow morning?" Alfred quickly suggested, "You're pretty worn out right now after eliminating 2 class, right?"

"Don't worry about that, I still have a lot of energy left in me!" Leo assured.

"But..."

Angel suddenly put her hand on Alfred's shoulder as she said, "Just leave him be."

"Okay..." Alfred could only reply helplessly.

The truth was, Leo is the only pillar that's keeping together this alliance and Class 1S- right now, so the moment he gets eliminated, the Class 1S- might potentially break down inside, and the alliance might even also break.

That was the exact reason why Alfred was worried about Leo.

Since Angel and Alfred agreed, naturally the other leaders of Class 1S- also agreed, without any choice. It's not like they can change Leo's mind or something.

"Just tell Justine to go and collect some information about the Class 1E+! I'll be needing that after I returned." Leo waved his hand as he went to the forest.

.....

After a while, Leo finally arrived back at the ravine he had stumbled upon before.

To be honest, his purpose for scouting wasn't only to scout for who was the class that got eliminated but to also does his own investigation about this sudden appearance of the ravines and the Magical Beast that used the holes as tunnels.

He was now fully aware that the teachers were currently investigating about that case and the best thing he should do right now was just to leave it to them since they were the teachers in charge of their safety, and just focus on the trial competition, just like what teacher Smith had said to him a while ago too. However, he knows for sure that the moment the teachers found out that something is wrong, it wouldn't necessarily mean they would be able to quickly relay the information to all of the students. Obviously, it would take time, and there might even be some unexpected variables that might prevent them from easily informing the students.

Although those were just possibilities, his past experiences tell him that he should always prepare himself for those unknown variables the most than those expected outcomes or results. He doesn't want the same thing as what happened in the Royal Court to happen to him again, since his Master Olivia wouldn't always be by his side and protect him.

Looking down inside the ravine, Leo quickly noticed that there was already water filling up the ravines.

"Water?"

Looking closely, Leo immediately noticed that the water came from the tunnels. Shockingly too, all the tunnels seem to work as a sewer system, and it looks like more Magical Beasts are passing through the tunnel as the water level goes higher and higher.

The only fortunate thing for Leo this time is he finally knew just what kind of Magical Beast they were.

"Magical Beast Sharks?!" Leo exclaimed in shock.

Indeed, the Magical Beast swimming around from tunnel to tunnel was Magical Beast Sharks. Moreover, these Magical Beast Sharks are even creating more tunnels.

To be honest, he had actually considered the possibility of those Magical Beast using the tunnels being Sharks. However, he just couldn't deem it as a fact yet since Magical Beast Sharks wasn't the type he should expect to dig tunnels. Although that could indeed happen, considering the fact they are in Shark Cemetery.

*Roooosh! *Boooom!

Suddenly, a wall at the side of the ravine collapsed, causing the ravine to become much bigger right after.

"Are these Magical Beast Sharks planning to sink the entire Floating Mountain or something?!"

The only reasonable thing Leo could think after seeing that collapsed wall was that the Magical Beast Sharks are trying to destroy the entire landmass of the Floating Mountain. And what's the purpose of destroying a landmass of an island aside from sinking it.

*Roooooosh! *Booooom!

*Rooooooosh! *Boooom!

Soon after, many more walls collapse down, further turning the ravine much more bigger than before.

Without any hesitation, Leo quickly went up north.

Basing from what Justine had told him before. There are four ravines, specifically located at the four directions of a compass, and the middle part of all these ravines seems to be pointing towards the mountain tip in the middle.

If what he was thinking was correct, then the starting point of these ravines are right in the middle of the Floating Mountain.

.....

After an hour of traveling, naturally, with an interval of resting and running again, Leo finally arrived nearby the mountain tip.

What appeared in front of him was a mountain tip with many tunnels, and these tunnels had become canals where water flow out from and flowing straight down back to the ocean.

"They are indeed trying to sink the Floating Mountain!" Leo further confirmed his suspicion.

The only thing he needed to do now to finally confirm his suspicion is to look inside those tunnels, which, to be honest, he should not do since it seems unnecessary. Just with this discovery alone, he could somewhat confirm already that the Magical Beast Sharks are indeed trying to sink the Floating Mountain.

However, he wanted to find out something else.

Base on his years of experience in hunting Magical Beasts, the Magical Beast wouldn't just destroy an environment, or more appropriately called a habitat, without any reasonable reason, which at this moment he still doesn't know about.

His Master Olivia has told him that Magical Beast would only destroy a habitat for 3 different reasons. First, they found Magical resources that they can use to strengthen themselves. Second, someone attacked them, which is almost always the case why a habitat is destroyed due to the battle. Lastly, someone is manipulating them, which is a very, very rare case to happen due to the sole fact that no person can control a horde of Magical Beast. What his Master Olivia really meant to say about manipulating the Magical Beast is just by simply trying to set up something that will make the Magical Beast destroy a habitat, which in most cases is by tempting them using the Magical resources that they needed.

He almost forgot. There is actually another reason that his Master told him, which is next to impossible to happen; Magical Beast is trying to expand their territory, which some of the time would cause the destruction of a habitat due to the reason of compatibility. Like for example, in the case of a Magical Beast Shark, they are not compatible to live on land, hence they will need to sink a landmass in order to expand their territory. Another example is when Magical Beast Birds tries to expand their territory but the place they wanted to expand to is a desert, hence they will grab some trees or any kind of plants seeds in order to make a forest out of a desert, and making rivers too, in order for water to flow down to the desert to help the greens to grow.

However, in the case of Floating Mountain, such a thing is next to impossible, as to why? Floating Mountain has been existing in this place even before the Silver Kingdom was established in the west of Floating Mountain. And the Floating Mountain has remained untouched from the beginning till this present moment by the Magical Beast Sharks living in the Shark Cemetery.

To be honest, despite him already knowing those facts, he still wanted to know the exact reason because the likely situation happening right now seems to be the third option, which simply meant that someone is trying to tempt the Magical Beast Sharks using Magical resources.

And what does that mean? Well, if those Magical Beast Sharks are still trying to dig tunnels, then that only meant they still haven't found this Magical resources.

So, if he can find it first, then he will be able to use it to strengthen himself.

After all, the trial competition purpose wasn't only to make the students compete and see who can triumph over everyone else, right? Especially since there is the obvious fact that Silver Mage Academy had even specifically chosen a large island as the venue for this trial competition.

To further confirm his speculation, teacher Marvin had even said before too, that this trial competition's main purpose was to train the Silver Mage Academy's students and hence making the end of the month competition different than the usual ones. If that was indeed the case, then obviously choosing the Floating Mountain as the venue for the trial competition confirmed his speculation.

Just by analyzing all the Silver Mage Academy's actions, he could already deduce that the Silver Mage Academy wanted its students to look for Magical resources in the Floating Mountain, obviously to aid their students for the upcoming end of the month competition.

"What a great opportunity!" Leo silently murmured to himself before walking towards a random tunnel he had chosen.