World of Laws and Magic

Nick watched as the tiger sized wary dog eyed him with its ruby red eyes. Right now, a tingling sensation went down Nick's spine as the wary dog drew near, slowly, step by step.

(Do I turn and run? No, that would be exactly what this thing wants. With its dog like physique, it definitely has greater speed than me; running would just expose my back to it which is probably equivalent to suicide. Looking at it now, its clearly observing me to determine my threat level. I guess that's why its called a 'wary' dog.)

Nick took out one of his throwing knives from his vest with his right hand and held it firmly and then took five steps forward. The wary dog reacted by also moving forward, seemingly keeping its eyes on the blade in Nick's right hand.

(What's going on, it still hasn't attacked even though I'm approaching it; that's clearly not something a vicious animal would hesitate to do? This thing is so tame compared to the other wary dog that just ran towards me earlier. Its been looking at the knife in my hand since I took it out; these creatures seem to also get smarter as they age and not just bigger. Who knows how many wary dogs might be in the vicinity; I can't maintain a stand-off with this wary dog anymore. Since you won't take the initiative, I will.)

Nick decided that he could not wait anymore and ran towards the wary dog. As soon as the wary dog saw Nick's movements, it opened its terrifying maw and made a loud growl.

GRRRRRAAAAWWWW!

The sound was ear-piercing and it echoed within the surrounding space. Nick steeled himself and continued to run forward while the wary dog also took large strides towards Nick; they were 4 meters apart from each other within 10 seconds.

(Big.)

Nick pointed his knife at the approaching wary dog and activated his spell; the tip and blade of the knife broadened and extended forward at an incredible speed that the wary dog failed to keep track of. By the time the wary dog noticed something amiss, the blade of Nick's knife had already completely pieced its left front leg near its shoulder region.

GRAW GRAW GRAW GRAW

The wary dog was visibly suffering from the pain of being impaled and no longer moved forward as it had before because the blade of Nick's knife had pierced its leg, partially damaging its leg bone and then exiting its leg and piercing into the semi-hard rock ground. The wary dog was only three meters away when this happened and so Nick, knowing that the creature's movements would be hampered by its injury let go of the knife in his right hand and ran at a curved angle towards the war dog's left side. Nick took out another throwing knife from his vest and when he was less than a meter from his target, while the wary dog was biting at its disabled leg trying to get the blade out and moving erratically, Nick held his knife firmly and raised it above his head and swung it down with all his strength.

(Big.)

The blade and hilt of Nick's knife widened by about an inch and extended by over 1 meter. 

SSSHHHHIIINNNGGGGGGG SSSSPPPPPLLLLAAATTTT

As the knife was slammed down on the wary dog, the middle if its spinal column was cleaved into, the enlarged knife not stopping until it reached the center of the wary dog's midsection. Blood poured from the creature's wounds and hit the ground with a harrowing sound. The wary dog's body fell on the ground, motionless.

(Success!)

Nick didn't waste any time, he quickly used his knife to cut off the heads of both wary dog carcasses and tapped them with his space band; each head disappeared, Nick hoping that they were now stored within the space band but since he was worried about other wary dogs appearing because of the scent of blood, he ran to the entrance of the underground space, throwing his enlarged knife away and left the area by pulling himself up by holding on to the edge of the opening in the ground. Nick's clothes were wet with stream water and blood but there was a sort of comfort that he felt in knowing that the two wary dogs that he had met were now dead.

(Those wary dogs were really ugly and the second one was huge compared to the first. The first one was similar in size to the one that Rebecca killed so it must have been a baby; it was still really fast though. The second wary dog didn't run towards me as eagerly as the first but that's probably a sign of increased intelligence. With those experiences under my belt, I now know that I should avoid dark, enclosed spaces.)

Nick ran some distance from the entrance of the underground space along the bank of the stream and then threw his backpack to the ground and jumped into the stream attempting to wash off some of the blood that was on his skin and clothes.

(Rebecca said that the wary dogs have an excellent sense of smell. If there are more down in that hole I should get rid of the scent of blood on me as much as possible; it would be a bitch if they followed me because of the smell.)

Nick spent a minute bathing himself with the stream water and then left the stream, picking up his backpack and running towards the nearby woodlands. Once Nick found himself among the trees, he stopped running and started to move cautiously through the collections of trees. This woodland was filled with green, shrub like grass that reached up to Nick's knees. Nick continued moving past the trees while stepping on grass for a seemingly long time and only stopped when he felt tired. Nick found a large tree that was separated from the others on all sides by a couple meters and sat at the foot of it. Nick opened his backpack to make sure that his beast capture scroll was okay and closed it again. 

(I have my beast capture scroll, my knives and my spell as my offensive capabilities. I have to admit that that doesn't seem like much and I can't even make proper use of my large reserves of magic energy because I only know one spell but I've got no choice but to make the most of what I have.)

GGGGRRRRRRRR

Nick's stomach rumbled with a distressing sound and with it came a hunger that he had not noticed before.

(Now that I think about it, I never thought about what I was going to eat during this exam because I thought that it wouldn't last that long and the information that we were given in the email about the exam did not expressly state that we needed to carry our own food and water. So...am I supposed to find those things myself? That seems a little harsh considering that most students would have never been in this situation before.)

As Nick thought about food, his space band released a green light and a container suddenly appeared in front of him.

"Huh?"

Nick picked up the container and opened it. Within the container, there was dried meat, bread and raisins. Nick looked at the food with joy and began eating without even thinking about what had taken place with his space band; normally Nick didn't even like raisins but in this situation, he wasn't going to look down on food that suddenly appeared in front of him. After he was finished eating, he inspected his space band and willed and the two heads of the wary dogs that he had previously killed appeared in front of him, most of the blood that had been oozing out from them before had already came out and the rest that was still present had already dried.

(Hmmm...let me try this.)

For a moment, Nick thought about food and water while focusing his attention on the space band and within the next moment fourteen containers similar to the one that had first appeared from the ring appeared in front of Nick along with fifteen bottles of water.

(Fifteen containers of meals and fifteen 2 liter bottles of water, that's 3 servings of food and water each day for five days which is the entire duration of the exam. It looks like those teachers of ours aren't complete assholes. They didn't send us to this place without food and water.)

Nick tapped on the containers of food, the bottles of water and the heads of the wary dogs with his space band and they all disappeared from sight, being transported into the space band again.

(What a nifty magical tool. No wonder Marsha is so obsessed with them. Alright, it's time to continue exploring this place...)

Before Nick could finish his thought, a fireball the size of a soccer ball flew over to his position.

(Oh, shit!)

Nick reacted by quickly getting on all fours and jumping away from the tree. His previous position at the foot of the tree was now a charred mess, smoke still rising from it. Nick looked towards the direction that the fireball came from only to see a bipedal lizard the size of a 10 year old child standing a few meters away from him. Seeing that its attack had failed, the lizard quickly ran away, using the trees behind it to cover its movements.

(Sigh, it looks like the wary dogs are not the only deadly creatures in this place, there are also other magical beasts within this realm.)

Nick wasn't naive enough to believe that that bipedal lizard had actually left so he backed away towards the direction opposite to where the lizard ran to until he got to a group of trees that he could use as cover and he ran as fast as he could, trying to find somewhere that he could use as a base of operations. Nick ran seemingly for a long time until he came upon an old tree with very thick branches. Since It seemed that it would soon be sunset as the daylight became dimmer, Nick wanted to take up residence on one of the tree's branches. Nick ran up to the tree and using the ball of his right foot, planted his foot on the tree and pushed upward towards a low hanging branch, making an extra jump with his right leg. Nick held on to the branch and pulled himself up; he then reached for other branches until he found himself a comfortable spot on a branch about 8 meters from the ground. The branch was large and sturdy so Nick chose to rest there for the moment. Nick willed and retrieved another meal from his space band as well as a bottle of water and spent the next fifteen minutes eating and drinking.

As soon as his meal was over, Nick put the trash back into his space band and thought about the events leading up to his current situation.

(I've encountered three magical beasts since coming here, none of them really all that strong but If I had made an error in judgement, they all could have killed me. My weakness of only having one decent spell has become apparent. Maybe I should have brought some of the scrolls with my first three spells along with me. Hmmm...I didn't bring them along because I did not want the extra load as well as I thought of them as insufficient to use against experienced Apprentice Magicians. Thinking about my current circumstances, my magic scrolls might have been very effective against those magic beasts though. Note to self, next time I should prepare as much as possible for an event that I know nothing about, using whatever means I possess to bring about the best possible outcome. It's clearly life and death in this place and I didn't bring my magic scrolls because I didn't want the extra load. Am I an idiot? Sigh, I just hope that one of those magic beasts doesn't send me off before the exam is over.)

Suddenly, Nick heard chatter from below.

"Mary, hold it off with your ice spike spell while I prepare my thunder cannon!"

(Huh?)

Nick looked down to the ground at an area near his tree where two students, a man and a woman were currently having a battle with a wary dog that was twice the size of the second wary dog that Nick had killed. The two students were clearly struggling. 

"Moose, hurry up and cast your spell, this thing is fast and tanky, If you don't come through, we're both dead."

The woman spent her efforts conjuring ice spikes in midair that flew over to the wary dog with a twisted motion. The wary dog didn't bother dodging the ice spike and let it stab into its body. The ice spike create a large bleeding wound and then turned into a cloud of vapor and faded. The wary dog seemed to be unaffected by its wound that was visibly being healed.

Nick raised his brows in silence.

(That wary dog can heal its own wounds! Sigh, those two are in trouble, should I help now? No, wait for an opportune moment to strike.)

Nick sat tight, not wanting to hurt himself by helping those two students. As the female Apprentice Magician, Mary, kept on launching her ice spike attack at the wary dog, the wary dog kept pushing forward while its wounds healed, slowly pushing the two students toward Nick's tree. Suddenly, the male Apprentice Magician, Moose spoke as they were now directly below Nick's position:

"I need thirty more seconds to launch my thunder cannon, keep it busy until then Mary."

The magic energy in the surroundings became turbulent as the young man was preparing his spell; his body started giving off blue electric sparks. Mary smiled from in front of Moose and cast another ice spike. The wary dog noticed the change in the flow of magical energy and ignoring the ice spike that stabbed into it, burst out with speed not inferior to a moving car.

"What?"

With that, the beast loomed over Mary with its maw wide open, its breath penetrating her nostrils; the beast was about to bite off Mary's head when suddenly something landed on its back.

.....

Nick saw the speed at which the wary dog moved towards Mary and was slightly shocked.

(With speed like that, those wary dogs must not have a hard time hunting down prey but they clearly have a cautious nature when dealing with unknown enemies so they only move forward violently when they understand the situation better or are left with no choice, the exception being the baby wary dogs that recklessly lunge at their prey. Okay, it's time for me to do something; those two might have some useful information so it would be a pity if they died prematurely.)

Nick placed his backpack at the corner of the branch, not wanting to risk damaging his beast capture scroll and jumped down towards the wary dog.

....

Nick landed on the wary dog's back, its fur providing a suitable cushion for his fall.

(This wary dog's knees didn't even buckle at the impact...it has an impressively strong frame.)

Nick immediately corrected his posture after the impact and reached out with both hands, grabbing the back of the wary dog's head.

(Big.)

The volume of the magic sea within Nick's mindscape decreased at a visible rate as he activated his spell. With a few moments the growling wary dog's head grew to twice its original size and it fell lifelessly on the ground.

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

Both Mary and Moose were at a loss for words, witnessing what just took place. They looked at Nick with some fear and gratefulness. Nick ignored the two other Apprentice Magician's for the moment and looked at the enlarged head of the now dead wary dog and thought:

(I think I'm going to get a really high student ranking during this exam.)