Chapter 481: What Is With These Cheesy Names?

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

When the students spotted the Jawflower, they froze, befuddled to find their arch-nemesis out here during their exam. Did the female dormitory no longer need its famous security guard? Did the skirt-chasers from the Magic Faculty and the Dragon Knights’ Faculty, who were just as perverted as they were, pinky-swear that they would no longer try to sneak into the female dormitory, causing the Jawflower to become obsolete?

As the students slowly recovered from their initial shock, comments ensued.

“Why is the Jawflower here? I thought it patrolled only the ladies’ dorm!”

“Hey… Wait a minute! We’re not here to protect it while it’s in Mount Parazonium, right? Seriously, though, it likes to act like a badass, but I tell ya’: if it wasn’t for Grand Principal Hope, I would have crushed that little thing underneath my boots!”

“Speaking of which, where is my beloved Professor Attie? She attends every Trial, but she isn’t here this time. Why? Not seeing my dear Professor Attie for an extended period time makes me lose my will to live…”

When the Hitman Walker heard the students’ unnecessary questions, he gave a loud, cold grunt, prompting the students to shut their mouths immediately.

Satisfied with the silence, the Hitman Walker said, “Grand Principal Hope has already said that it is high time we introduce a change to the Trial of Parazonium. It’s pretty sensible, so we decided to do just that.”

That was all the Voidwalker’s explanation entailed. He faced the Soul Armature Practitioner and gave a meaningful nod.

The Soul Armature Practitioner looked hesitant, though. He lowered his voice and asked tentatively, “Are you sure about this? If Hope finds out that you poached his floral doggy for something like this… It’s not going to be pretty.”

“Bah, he’s too damn busy to worry about this, for now. He’s got that mysterious armor to work out; those otherworldly technologies, which our nerdy friends are fretting over, need his input;  and he has to invigilate the Sorcerers’ Faculty’s exam. Trust me; he will have the time to check on his dog,” the Hitman Walker said reassuringly.

“If you say so…” The Soul Armature Practitioner shrugged and placed the cage on the ground, after which he undid the latch. As soon as the Jawflower was out, the Soul Armature Practitioner quickly poured an unknown potion over the creature.

The flower, which considered itself a tough mutt, almost immediately began to wobble before toppling to the ground. It stayed still, as though it had died!

The students were aghast. No matter how much prowess their principals had, neither of them should be stupid enough to experiment on the Grand Principal’s precious ‘dog’! Before the students could say anything, however, the Soul Armature Practitioner activated his Demigod Territory — Wildlife Growth Spurt.

The Jawflower suddenly sprang up, as though paying a weird homage to Sleeping Beauty. It began to grow in size rapidly, without any sign of stopping. The students watched it grow to the size of a small hill.

Now taking up half of the plateau, the students’ faces were shrouded under the Jawflower’s looming shadow. With their eyes glued to the Jawflower, the students gave a collective gulp as a single streak of cold sweat streamed down from their temple.

” This is the new change to our exam this year. You are required to complete your mission while evading the Jawflower,” the Hitman Walker said, without pity. Then, with a good swing, he kicked the Jawflower on its bum hard.

An enraged Jawflower charged forward, its jaw stretching wide, barring its fangs, and then clamped down towards the little bastards who all had a personal vendetta against it.

“H-help —!” The students erupted into a frenzied stampede to all directions. The air was immediately filled with screams like these:

“No wonder I’m hearing boss music!!!”

“God above, I swear off the life of sneaking into the girls’ dorm from now on—!”

“Jawflower? What Jawflower?! All I’m seeing is just Mega-Maniacal Malignant Jawflower-X !”

The students were stomping through the plateau so much that it was a wonder the entire platform did not just give up and toppled. It was an expansive plateau, but it was not nearly large enough for the students to run in circles with the Jawflower at their heels. Soon, the students found themselves pressing towards the edge, with just one step away from falling into the valley of stony pikes below.

Despite their seeming helplessness, these students had already prepared just the right trick in their sleeves — they were too panicky to remember them. After all, they were never supposed to stay on the same plateau throughout these ten days!

Hence, with motivation as powerful as desperation, the students displayed their best escaping skills: some performed exemplary feats of aerial jumps, allowing them to land swiftly at the next plateau closest to the one they came from. Some brandished the tools they had prepared for this exact occasion, using hooks, paragliders, floating scrolls, and many more to get themselves across. Meanwhile, some took a brave leap over the cliff and plummeted down to the valley below; before their bodies smashed onto the rocky spikes, they timed their landing and used the rocks as a foothold, catapulting themselves to other spikes until they reached another plateau.

Thus, despite the Jawflower’s menacing snarls and sometimes, a close chomp just a hair away from the students’ skin, none of them were actually injured. Indeed, all of them managed to escape the gigantic flower-mutt without much difficulty.

To be able to escape — to preserve one’s own life — was one of the most important philosophies espounded by Da Xue’s Knight Faculty. Unlike most other knightly organizations which heavily emphasized honor, glory, and one’s sacrifice, the Knight Faculty believed that staying alive was the most important skill above all else. Indeed, the Hitman Walker had described their ideal as thus: “It doesn’t matter if one’s a glorious, admirable hitman, or a weak and cowardly knight. All of them share the same need to protect themselves before doing anything else.”

Soon, the fastest of the students had reached the other islands. The Jawflower, meanwhile, was stuck on its original plateau as it eyed the sea of rocky spikes in the surrounding and glued itself to the spot in fear.

The students were quick to celebrate this small victory. Looking back at it, they taunted, “Hahhaha! What’s the matter, Big Ugly Mutt? Afraid of these little needles down there?”

“Can’t believe the Principal looked down on us by assuming that this thing is all it takes to stop us!”

“And I thought this updated Hard Mode is gonna be something challenging. What a letdown!”

They were enjoying their chucking out barbs at the Jawflower that they did not notice a new shadow looming behind their backs —

In a flash, a chorus of shrieks tore through the air once again.

“Holy cow, why is a cactus here?! And why is it so goddamn big?!”

“Cactus?! No, this isn’t a mere cactus! It’s… It’s ColossalxCruelty Cactus Z !”

The students immediately scrambled to the nearest edge of the plateau as they tried to search for the next safe haven to leap to. Before they could leap away, they caught another cacophony of panicked cries blaring from their intended destination, “Aaarghhh! Why the hell is that weird watermelon thingy here?! Isn’t it supposed to be guarding the goddamned garden?!”

“What kind of watermelon is this… No! It’s not just any watermelon! It’s… Bloodborne Mutant Watermelon-Omega !”

It was then when the students realized that the Jawflower was hardly the only one of Hope’s pets to be thrown into this examin the name of “higher difficulty”.

There were only three highlands that were the closest to the starting plateau. Now that two of them were shown to be occupied by two monsters even more ferocious than the Jawflower, the students quickly turned their sight towards the last sanctuary they could reach.

Once again, before they could make their escape to it, they watched, in horror, their coursemates jumping off from the island like a grotesque waterfall. As they fell they howled, “Don’t come over here if you value your lives, brothers! The… this monster… he’s even more terrifying …”

“It’s our f***ing Vice-Principal himself! Get out! ”

The last monster was none other than the Hitman Walkerhimself! Amidst the chaos incited by the Jawflower, he had somehow snuck to that particular island,unnoticed. Then, when the first batch of students arrived, thinking they were finally saved from those enlarged monsters, they came face to face with the Hitman Walker dual-wielding a pair of battle axes as he swung like a hurricane towards them…

Suffice to say, the entire Trial of Parazonium had just upgraded into Hard+ Mode. Not only must the students complete their assigned missions, but they also had to do so without being defeated by any of these four monsters. Failing either automatically meant failing the exam!

Even more critically, these ambushes had caused something unprecedented: the teams the students had formed prior to the exam had been broken up completely. Amid the snafu, the students had lost sight of their original teammates; so now the most they could find were a few of their other coursemates whom they could form a temporary team with. Regardless, they could no longer play out whatever role they had scripted themselves to do while in their planned teams.

Some of the students were quick to try circumventing this sudden split by calling their friends through their communication slabs. Unfortunately, to their dismay, the Soul Armature Practitioner had already jammed the signal of the entire micro-realm through a well-cast barrier.

In the end, these students were bound to two choices: try to form a workable team with regardless of who the others were, or survive these ten days in Mount Parazonium alone.

This was precisely the change Baiyi wanted. The team-up system could stay and he would cut those free-riding students some slack — but only if the students were forced to work together with strangers instead of their planned teams. After all, a knight may not always be able to remain with their original team during missions. Sometimes they might even have to form an alliance with unfamiliar classmates they’d just met unexpectedly to reach their goals.

Most importantly, was finding a niche while working with unfamiliar acquiantances not the most challenging form of teamwork?

The bald guy, who had acted as the Chief of the Northern lads, was one of those who had completely split off from his brothers. In his attempt to escape the “Bloodborne Mutant Watermelon-Omega”, he had been lunging from one island to another as he dodged and ducked barrages of watermelon canonballs.

When the coast was finally cleared, he found himself staring face-to-face with two of his despised “Southern scunners”.

The three of them sat down, fatigued from their individual escape. Between catching their breaths, they eyed each other suspiciously, not recognizing any of them in their class. It was safe to assume that the three of them were not even of the same grade.

“Welp. Looks like we’re a team now, huh?” The more muscular Southern student broke the silence with a helpless smile. He stuck his hand into his pouch and fished out the metallic sheets.As his eyes gleaned over the missions inscribed on it, he asked, “Have you look at yours yet?”

The two of them shook their heads. Who could possibly have the time to read their missions when they were being chased by “Mega-Maniacal Malignant Jawflower-X”?

“Hey… You’re from the Northern Continent, aren’t you?” The shorter Southern student asked the bald gu.

The bald guy nodded wordlessly and started skimming through his missions, placing the Complete Guide for Surviving in Mount Parazonium side-by-side to look for the best solutions for each quest.

The hunky student’s eyes lingered on the book’s cover for a while and suddenly cried out, “Holy s***! Who gave you that?”

“Ah bought it,” The bald guy replied flatly. He pondered on the possibility of the two Southern scunners pleading him for knowledge and secrets in his book — what should he do if that happened? Should he relent and help them? Or should he pretend not to hear them and ignore them altogether?

The shorter lad replied in bemusement, “Wait, someone actually managed to sell this thing?!”

Sensing his disbelief, the bald guy was briefly stunned before quickly asking, “How dae you mean?”

“This book is one of the many overpriced garbage those bloody bastards from the Business Faculty use to con freshmen!” The hunky one answered, slightly amused. “Of course, even the newbies knew better than to be suckered in by those dipshits, but you… You didn’t get the memo, did you?”

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