Have you ever felt like someone was watching at you; but you turn around to find no one? I would consider that to be paranoia most of the time, but this time I was fairly sure there WAS something watching me from the cave before me. The cave in question emitted so large an amount of chaos mana so that even a newbie mage like me could sense it. It was the makeshift den of the chaos seed.

The sect master put a finger to his lips and did a shooing motion (to tell us to be silent and stay still), then cautiously creeped towards the cave entrance. The legion complied, all of the chatting silenced. But there was one idiot who didn't get the message for whatever reason. It was Goldie!

She continued to prance towards the cave despite the frantic gesturing from the rest of the legion.

"Stop." The sect master whispered. "Go back while I check the area first!"

"But why?" Goldie whined. Her voice in the midst of the silence was jarring.

"Shhhhhh!" "Shhhhh!" "Shhhhhhh!"

A lot of the students (and the sect master) started "shhhhing" her. I think they were making more noise however.

"Old man, why are you and your friends making funny noises?"

"Shut up!" The old man roared in anger. Then he realised that he fucked up. "Shit."

"Bully! I will tell my mom!" She seemed on the verge of tears (stop being so childish!).

"Your mom? Cry to her all you want!" 

"You are a bad old man!"

And before I knew it, the duo were squabbling with a care about the situation. I couldn't help but wonder how someone as temperamental as him could have earned the role of sect master. Perhaps the role was handed by bloodline?

It was no surprise that the inhabitants of the cave took notice. A tiny mushroom man holding a long dagger of sorts skipped out of the cave, shouting excitedly in an odd combination of noises (a language perhaps?). 

"A rank 4 monster!" The sect master cried in shock. "How the heck did such a young chaos seed create such a powerful monster? Wait, it must have focused all it's energy into that one"

Just as he finished speaking, dozens of little mushrooms hopped out and started to shout as well; it was as if they were there just to defy what the sect master said.

"What?" He seemed shocked. "How is that possible?"

Despite his shock, he didn't hesitate to blast them all to pieces with the spell, leaving behind their cores and weapons. I shuddered. How high was his rank anyway? It made me feel like my quick advancement into rank 3 was nothing, a mere drop in the ocean. 

However, more and mushrooms continued to hop out of the cave, hundreds even! The sect master couldn't hold all of them back, which was honestly not a surprise. It was said that enough ants could kill an elephant after all.

"Girl!" He shouted. "Help me kill these mushrooms!"

"No!" She replied in a defiant tone while crossing her arms and turning her face away. "I don't help bad old men!"

"Gah!" Not wanting to argue anymore, the sect master directed the disciples. "Get into standard formation!"

The legion swiftly started to reassemble itself, people moving back and forth to form ranks. Unfortunately, I had no idea what to do.

"Alan!" Griaugh shouted as he started to move forward. "The melee fighters go upfront while the ranged guys cast spells from the back!"

"Oh, thanks." I said.

Seemed simple enough. I had a moment of indecision however. Should I move up to fight or not? I was itching to test out my new combat prowess now that I was rank 3, and it should be safe enough with the help of the legion. Still though, I was worried that I would get badly injured by the rank 4 mushrooms due to the fact that monsters often had better talent than most humans.

Whatever. I decided to step up and follow Griaugh.

"You're a melee fighter too?" Griaugh asked.

Wait, he didn't realise I fought melee after the fight earlier on? Oh wait. Come to think of it, I didn't really use any spells during the fight, did I? The enchantment spells didn't really have much use unless I had a proper weapon after all.

"Yeah." I answered while reaching into my bag and bringing out my hoe.

Griaugh turned away abruptly afterwards, taking a crystal dagger out of a sheath and charging towards one of the mushrooms. Before the mushroom could even raise it's weapon, Griaugh's hand flashed at an incredible speed, slicing the mushroom into half. Holy shit, that dagger is really sharp!

I held my new hoe in my hand, still slightly unused to the balance. For one, the smith added a pommel that made the weapon better balance than the hoe from before, but I was more used to a violent and somewhat slow weapon. It was somewhat lighter as well, which would lower the attack force. Ah well. I activated Strengthen Body and Flaming Hoe (I decided that fire would probably work better on a mushroom than electricity) and slammed my hoe toward the mushroom. I was pleasantly surprised; the flaming effect seemed stronger than usual due to the properties of the hoe!

The mushroom manage to react in time however, bringing up it's dagger to block. With a clank, my hoe knocked the dagger out of it's hand. The momentum wasn't finished however (the impacted was halved), the flaming blade of the hoe cutting deeply into the cap of the monster. If only my hoe was as sharp as his dagger!

Still, I was surprised by how weak the mushroom was. Could it be that the mushrooms had very low body strength ranks? I felt relieved and disappointed at the same time. Relieved that I was unlikely to be in danger, but disappointed that they were not going to be a challenge.

I looked around me and saw that most of the people up front seemed to be earth mages, raising the earth to form tall walls and controlling metal puppets to fight the mushrooms. Most of the mages at the back just tossed their spells randomly and without aim, but it was still effective since there were a lot of mushrooms to fight.

Huh. I looked behind, only to see that the wall was closed behind me since I headed out far enough to fight the mushrooms. Shit, was I going to be left to fight the mushrooms with barely any support? At least there were still the puppets and a few mages that fought without the safety of the wall, reassuring me. Then I saw that a fireball that accidentally flew towards Griaugh, bringing up the issue of friendly fire. Fortunately, he dodged. Damned bastards at the back, can't you spare a little time and aim properly? What happens if you hurt one of the mages (especially me) or the puppets?

"YUUUUOOSSSSSS AAGGGGGGAAAAAA IFJIJIJDODODODDODODODODODOODOD DDADADA!"

Just as I complained mentally, an extremely loud and inhuman voice rang out in midst of battle, shocking the mushrooms and most of the disciples into halting the fight (there were even less spells being lobbed over the wall). All of the metal puppets were unaffected however, continuing to hack at the dazed mushrooms. There were a few people that took the chance and attacked more viciously too.

"YUUAAUAAJJAJJJA.... UAJA... TEUST.. TESSSSS.. TEST. YES."

I was a little creeped out by how the voice started to form english words.

"HIIIIIII HOOOMAAANSZ. DISSS PROTUS. HII HII HIII STUP KEWL MOOSHROUM PETS PLUEAS. THANNNK."

This time, I think all of the disciples stopped slashing at the monsters due to shock (metal puppets still at it though). I didn't blame them. It wasn't a frequent occurrence to hear a chaos seed that could speak english.