Chapter 200: The Thief Among the Candidates
People standing in front of the team could see wooden stakes inserted at both ends of the river bank, with uncut hemp ropes wrapped around them. There were also a few wooden boards and sawdust floating on the river, which were obviously deliberately broken not long ago.
The leader grabbed the map he bought in the town yesterday and shouted in confusion: "Where is the bridge here?! Where is a bridge that is so long and wide?!"
"It must have been those guys who did it!"
“How abominable!”
In this situation, if they or their companions do not have magic to cross the river by themselves, they can only swim if they want to move forward.
A clever person suggested: "Is there anyone here who can use ice magic? If we freeze the river, can't we travel together?"
At this time, another voice behind him retorted: "Are you an idiot? It's not winter now. The ice surface created by our magic will collapse if we walk together!"
"Who are you calling an idiot?! "
"Tell me what's wrong with you?"
"You guys, you wanna fight?"
"Who's afraid of you?"
As they were talking, they started arguing, and as they were arguing, they started fighting, and as the fight progressed, several people around them were dragged into it. When they got tired and stopped fighting to rest, they... discovered that the magic stone on them was missing!
"Oh no! My Philosopher's Stone is gone! Did you just steal it?!"
"Asshole, it was you who stole my Philosopher's Stone! Give it back to me now!!"
The two angry shouts startled the people around and they all moved towards the places where they hid the stones.
The person who touched the stone breathed a sigh of relief: "Fortunately, fortunately, my Philosopher's Stone is still there..."
But soon someone else shouted: "Ahhhhhhhh!!! My Philosopher's Stone is gone too! How could this happen?!"
At this point, no one else could stand still. A group of people began to touch each other's bodies and made a mess. Many people began to quarrel with the people around them, and forgot about the two people who had quarreled at the beginning.
What they didn't know was that all of this was seen by a boy with smart eyes.
"In my arms...in my sleeves...in my hat...in my bag...hehehe..."
In the air, on the flying carpet, Kira looked at him with interest. Kira had seen this boy before. He was the one who called Conas Auntie in the examination room yesterday, and the one who just shouted that his Philosopher's Stone was lost. It was him.
"Is this to find out where the other people hid the Philosopher's Stone? What will be done next?"
Kira soon found out the answer.
Only a small number of people lost the Philosopher's Stone, and more candidates' attention was still on crossing the river. They originally wanted to send a few people into the water to find out the ambush in the river, but no one was willing to take the lead, so they had to give up this plan in the end.
Then, all kinds of magic were performed.
First, the elemental magicians showed off their magic, building wooden bridges, stone bridges, and ice surfaces, providing convenience for some of their companions who could not swim; the shaping magic was not much worse, and the roads they made were more stable; in addition to this, there were also side doors like gravity magic and space magic; of course, there were also some who thought they were good at swimming and just swam directly.
Just when about one-third of the crowd had successfully reached the other side, an ambush occurred.
There were about 300 candidates who were eliminated yesterday, and one third of them appeared here. This group of little robbers surrounded the candidates who had just crossed the river, and their shouts shook the sky!
"Brothers, follow me!!"
“Grab it!!”
In the panic, the candidates' response was poor. Faced with the large number of robbers, some chose to flee, but were quickly caught up and had to retreat together.
Those who crossed the river shouted: "Hold on! When others cross the river, we will..."
At this moment, a voice behind him interrupted him: "Oh no! Behind us... those people just now are catching up! "
At the beginning, there were about 50 people ambushing on the hillside. After the first attack, half of their members were lost, but the number of candidates also decreased by more than 20. The battle situation was quite tragic.
Now they are making a comeback, taking advantage of the terrain to attack from both sides.
The pursuers behind began to attack with magic, directly destroying the road on the river, causing the candidates who were crossing the river to fall into the river, and then used magic to beat the drowning dogs. The candidates had nowhere to gain strength and were affected by the geography. They could not exert their strength and could only passively take the beating.
"Hahaha, you've been surrounded! Just hand over the Philosopher's Stone!"
The leader of the candidates struggled desperately, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and provoked, "Hand it over? With so many of you, how are you going to divide it?"
Now less than half of the candidates have crossed the river, and there is a clear gap in the number of candidates, so he can only delay time.
"Well..." Several robbers looked at each other warily and said, "Don't worry about it! We naturally have a way."
There is hope!
Seeing their eyes, the candidate leader was delighted and continued, "Although you have more people, we have a lot of people on our side too. We may not lose if we really fight!"
Some candidates understood the leader's plan and tried to delay time: "That's right, you are just yesterday's losers, a bunch of losers. How strong can you be even if you join forces? What? You don't accept it? Do you dare to fight me alone? Use my Philosopher's Stone as a bet!"
In the crowd, Ika, Akas, Kuwan, and Rufus remained silent, patiently waiting for the situation to change.
At this time, a voice rang out: "Oh no! Boss! They are stalling for time!"
"What?! Despicable brat, brothers, let's go!"
The delaying strategy failed, and the candidates rose up in resistance: "Brothers, we can't let them bully us like this, let's fight!"
The tactic of fighting with one's back to the river was effective again. The candidates were outnumbered 50 to 100, but they were evenly matched with the bandits. Moreover, the remaining troops crossed the river and joined the battle, making the outcome of this second melee even more unpredictable.
While the two sides were fighting, a short figure that Kira was paying attention to was constantly moving through the crowd, bumping here, rubbing there, bumping left and right.
Kira couldn't help but sigh: "This kid is really capable, he probably stole all their magic stones..."
What a talent!
"The 26th piece is in hand, and next is you ..."
The person he found this time was Ika!
Just when the thief in the examination room was about to hit Ika, a hand quickly reached out from the side, grabbed his collar, and then exerted force, throwing him out.
"I can pretend I don't know that you stole someone else's Philosopher's Stone, but I can't just ignore it when you come after my friend!"
At the critical moment, Rufus took action and protected Ika's magic stone!
The boy's pupils shrank: "You...what are you saying? I don't understand..."
"I've been following you for a long time. You use space magic, right?"
Rufus pressed down the noble hat on his head and said softly, "Just now you deliberately created a commotion to observe where other candidates hid their Philosopher's Stones, and then took advantage of their attack to leave. I guess you have taken the Philosopher's Stones from quite a few people now, right?"
The boy was a little flustered when he was hit on the head, and he stammered, "No... No!"
Seeing Rufus's gradually cold eyes, the boy panicked and quickly got up and ran away.
"What's wrong, Rufus?"
Kuwan's voice came from behind him, Rufus turned around and smiled softly: "No, nothing."
Kira smiled knowingly in the air...
The battlefield was in chaos. None of the more than one hundred examinees noticed that there was a traitor among them. This traitor was also a thief. With the help of his magic, he seized all the pass certificates that they thought were hidden well.
The battle by the river lasted for a long time. It was exactly noon, the hottest and hungriest time of the day.
The candidates in the resurrection group were in a state of rest and waiting for the opportunity to fight, and they had no worries. Anyway, they had already lost yesterday, so any opportunity they got now would be a win. In comparison, the candidates in the promotion group who had just set out from Hams City today were in a very bad situation. They had not eaten anything, and some had just crossed the river and were now exhausted, making it extremely difficult for them to fight.
Gradually, the group of candidates showed signs of decline, and in the end only less than a quarter of them were left holding on, while the rest were beaten to the ground in a mess, with their tongues resting halfway through.
Kira saw that some candidates had already started to give up and ran to the side to eat the lunch boxes they brought with them in the morning.
He even saw that the lunch boxes of some of the candidates had been messed up in the fight. He didn't know what they tasted like, but they definitely didn't taste very good.
Seeing that the outcome was about to be decided, the people in the snatching group unexpectedly retreated, which puzzled the candidates.
"They were about to capture us all, why…"
The remaining people looked at each other, wondering why the other side let them go so easily. But now they had no time to think about these things. The sun was scorching, and they were hungry, tired and thirsty, so they chose to rest on the spot. The remaining people saw that the large army was not moving, and they did not dare to walk by themselves, so they found an open space to recover their strength.
