Talismans are items that do not require much Ki to activate, yet could bring about surprising, and sometimes powerful, effects.

Naturally, such items need incredibly rare materials farmed from monsters to make, cost a hefty amount on the market, and have limited uses.

In the silence of their victory, they felt the damp, cold, air tensed and shivered. A chill crawled down their spines as they noticed that they were not alone.

*Gahouuuuuu!*

*GAHOoooooo!*

*HOOOUUUUU!*

A series of furious howls made everyone to put their hands on their weapons nervously.

“They are here…,” Leaf warned.

“Who?”

“Cave trolls of course. They live in a group you know?”

“T…they do? I thought this one was a loner. How many are there usually?” Jim asked alarmed.

“A nest is made up of five to fifteen individuals. We should be able to handle them without a problem,” Flora explains. As the heir of a blacksmith’s family, she is the only one in the group that had ventured into an underground mining cavern before. When the others heard her explanation, their expressions eased up a little.

“Unless…,” she added.

“Don’t jinx it Flora...,” Alucard interrupted. When he saw the others look at him questioningly, he added, “Because somehow, her predictions often come true.”

“Nah, just purely coincidental,” Flora denies.

The guys felt the ground tremble as the sounds of trolls running through the tunnels towards them became louder.

“Un...unless what?” Alan quickly asked.

“Umm, unless more than fifteen appears, then it’s likely that we had intruded into a troll’s colony…”

“…”

There was a moment of silence as over thirty trolls came charging out from different tunnels to surround them. Even the path they came from they could see filled with those creatures snarling menacingly. Each of them larger than the first cave troll they fought.

They finally realised now that it wasn’t protecting any rare spirit ores. The lone creature on the tiny island was standing guard for its colony.

“You had to jinx it…,” Alucard rolls his eyes.

“Ahhh!! This always happens around Flora,” the young girl with beautiful green eyes, Fauna, from the Inscriptionist family sighed, causing everyone to laugh.

They had all fought through hordes of Orcs in the past. Thirty trolls are hardly worth mentioning, besides they are now all around the level of C rank while these creatures are only around D rank.

“Let’s quickly break through them and return to the mining station. We cannot stay in these tunnels any longer, the Cave trolls prey on everything, and now they have marked our scent, we aren’t safe here any longer.”

“How big is a colony,” Kairos asked.

Everyone else turned and looked over. They were more than willing to give up and return. Even if they could defeat these monsters, more trolls will arrive and continuously hunt them down until either they escaped the tunnels, or dead.

Yet Kairos is seriously asking if they could take on the troll colony. Just how uninformed one needs to ask such a question?

Sometimes, they forget that the young Earl was from such a humble background that many generally understood knowledge is lost on him.

Why would the Rutea villagers need to know about trolls or how big a monster colony is?

“Hah, how retarded must you be to ask such a question. Did you even listen to class properly? I beg you to please brush up on your general knowledge, otherwise, if you let others know we are from the same school, I’ll be ashamed of myself,” said Calculus despite no one wanting him here. The reply was also instant.

Alan who suddenly clapped and said extravagantly, “Whoa, that’s some generic bad guy stuff you spouted there.”

Calculus’ expression instantly darkened.

“Ahahaahahahaa!! Alan, you’re right. I think I’ve listened to stories with villains saying the exact same stuff,” Jim added in, throwing salt on Calculus’s wounds.”

“I think I’ve heard similar stories as you, even a theatrical play like that. Those are usually the lines of low-tier mini villains,” Leaf added while giggling.

“The ones that die immediately after offending the hero?” Fauna asked.

“Y...you lot..., dare…”

“… to insult me?” Alan said, completing the sentence Calculus wanted to say.

“… to humiliate me?” Jim asked, giving him a second option.

“… to ridicule me?” Leaf giggled.

“!! I will…,”

“Remember this…?” Fauna finished him off, causing Flora, and the rest to burst out laughing.

“…”

The trolls did not give them any more time to chatter. The creatures communicated among themselves with strange gushing sounds and decided the young humans are prey then charged forward, each as fearless as the last.

Their armoured bodies were hard and extremely durable, even against students with higher ranks. It was hard to wound the trolls, and any minor injuries will be rendered useless with their impressive regenerative abilities. It was bound to be a long battle, but as the fighting dragged on, more enemies rushed in. For every troll they defeat, two or three more joined the fight.

Soon, they were swarmed by over fifty of such creatures, and even Flora, the blacksmith family’s heir, started becoming worried. She is the most experienced amongst them to deal with subterranean monsters and had heard from a few old miners the stories of a colony of cave trolls larger than any previously known before.

Yelling she gathered the attention of the others, “Ahem… guys… Remember what you were asking before? About how large a colony is?”

“Ridiculous! Bringing that up right now,” Calculus scolded while busy fending off a few annoying pests that are chasing him, “Everyone knows that a monster colony is about a thousand in number. Only bumpkins like Kairos needed to ask."

“Umm… well,” Flora said hesitatingly, “There are larger umm.. colonies… You know… when several monster colonies merge to form a Supercolony?”

“That’s hardly possible,” Alucard disagreed from nearby, “Even between the same species, monster colonies would not merge together unless one group is nearly destroyed. The monster kings could not tolerate the existence of each other.”

“Alucard, there are exceptions to this,” Snow explained calmly.

“Umm, yes… and we are kinda in one, such, case. Right now!” Flora spluttered.

“The cave trolls are one of the rare few monsters that bond well with others of their own kind regardless if they encountered other colonies before. It has something to do with their remarkable regenerative abilities that cause the cave trolls not to bother to challenge each other and work together.”

“Since they couldn’t trounce one another?”

“That’s right!”

“Thank you for the explanation Snow, but I think it’s more important that we get away first. We can guess how many there are after we are safe!”

Flora did a mental calculation and paled, “Yeah… With such a large vanguard, my guess is, there should be three or four thousands of them. We have to get to safety, and fast!”

With her leading in front, the others started turning back towards the tunnel that brought them here, fighting their way through these hideous child-sized monsters.

However, the four Origin Energy users had grim looks on their faces.

In such dire situation, they unsealed their Soul Perception allowing it to seep into the area, extending their reaches to the furthest depths they could go, and yet none found an end to this maze of tunnels.

Within their detection range, the place was crawling with countless cave trolls. So numerous that Flora’s estimation was way off.

“There are about ten thousand cave trolls beneath us,” Kairos whispered urgently to his brothers, making sure the others could hear. An explanation of the source of his knowledge would be too tedious.

The three boys turned green from his words. This place they are at is merely a fraction of the entire subterranean jungle. Encountering a large supercolony of cave trolls is definitely possible.

Compared to Kairos, their detection range and clarity are far too lacking, and they did not doubt his count. There’s a great difference between his cultivation style and the others although they are all using the same methods.

Kairos had customised the Origin Cultivation method to adapt to each practitioner’s ideal state, but when he cultivated in it, there was nothing he needed to change. It was as though he was born for it, and as a result, everything seemed to be more potent for him. Not only that, everyone slowly develops their own special traits while cultivating in the Origin methods, and Kairos’ was an increase in all areas of his mental capacity and the Veritable Sight; both abilities seemed over the top.

On the other hand, it is also harder for him to progress. Every cultivation stage demands him to fulfil certain – unexplained – requirements, and each time the difficulty seemed to be increasing.

“Snow, will their pursuit end if we take out their leader?” Kairos asked seriously.

“What! Are you crazy? If you want to die, go do it by yourself!” Calculus screamed in protest. Even if he brings out his Five-Clawed Golden Dragon, it will be difficult to say if he could survive the cave trolls’ relentless attacks all the way till he reaches the mining station.

Once there, at least the place will have defences set by the professional miners that could protect them.

“Trust me, you won’t make it,” Kairos seeing past his intentions told him frankly, “The passageways we used to get here have all been blocked. They are far more numerous than we expect.”

When their group had taken out the first cave troll, the supercolony only sent a few scouts to deal with these humans. However, over time more joined in when the creatures realised these preys were more formidable than expected.

For these creatures, there no place underground that their preys could hide and they hunt in groups driven by their endless hunger. Any brethren that fell will only serve to sate a little of the worming emptiness that burns their gut ceaselessly.

The cave trolls had been steadily increasing in number till recently their reaches came towards the surface, but this isn’t their first time encountering humans. Their astronomical numbers had killed all the miners they had met before. With every victim dead, the news of such danger had not yet travelled to the ears of the relevant authorities.

Furthermore, their lair is located deep underground; it is only because the group of students had been too adventurous that they ventured to this place.

Kairos, Alan, Jim and Edward, especially, had believed that the deeper they went, the greater chance they have to find rare Spirit Ores.

Snow, their walking monster encyclopaedia, quickly answered, “Yes! If we can take out the king troll, we will be freed from their pursuit. These monsters live in a society with strict hierarchy built upon power, as long as you can beat their head, they will listen to you. Their king would be the strongest one among them, but also the most foolish one.”

“Foolish?” Jim had to ask. Being a King of their species is definitely a good thing if he is the strongest cave troll, he too will aspire to become the king.

Edward stared at him and sighed, “Because all the other strong trolls will be aiming for their King’s head.”

“… Oh. Yeah, that’d be a problem…”

“Well, why don’t we waltz into their city, take its head, and make Kairos the next king troll,” said Alan.