This way wasn’t feasible or practical to me. Even if staying here took minimal time for me, it also put lots of stress on me.

This way I’d be worn out the moment I’d finish this test. Also who said I’d get a high score, enough to send a large number of my forces into the dungeon?

This… It was getting more complicated than it was supposed to.

Lost in thoughts, I walked inside the tree layer. Each tree was almost twenty metres tall, around three metres thick, with many branches and dense green leaves.

Just before walking into it for a few moments, I felt a weird alarming sting into my soul.

*Fwoosh!*

Just one moment before it hit me, I managed to jump to the side, blocking what was thrown into my face using my glaive. The dart fell on the ground and I found it was like a dagger shaped thing.

It was the size of my forearm, thick at the middle and pointy at both ends. It had a rough surface with deep lines and black colour, yet the tips of it were in a strange dark green colour.

“Poison?” it was the first thing that came into my mind before the same feeling resurfaced again.

And this time I felt like I was stabbed by sharp needles from five different directions, all were coming from up front.

*Clang!* *Clang!* Clang!*

Without a speck of hesitation, I called forth a very big and thick shield that was heavy enough to make my body lean forward for a bit. But its appearance just came in time to block these dangerous darts, with loud clanging sounds.

These things… They were dangerous! I held the shield hardly with one hand while extending my neck outside its protection zone, trying to see what was attacking me.

*Fwoosh!*

Yet just as I tried to see, a single dart just moved inches away from my face. That bastard or those bastards throwing these things were really something.

But during this brief moment before I retracted my head back, I managed to see something. Large number of monsters, smaller in size compared with those bull-like ones, were hanging over the thick branches of these trees.

I couldn’t get a clear look over them, but I noticed something arching from their backs. They must have some sort of mechanism to launch these darts at me, resembling those aquatic hybrid monsters I fought against before.

Wait a second… Was I going to fight against such hybrid monsters here? Damn!

Just the initial thinking about this told me how tough this situation was. These monsters seemed to be far agile and more aggressive than those bulls.

What made them dangerous was their darts. I looked at the few scattering around me. Something was drooling from both tips, dense liquid that looked like green blood.

The area that was touched with such a thing turned instantly into pitch black. That meant this thing didn’t only have a toxic effect but also a strong corrosive bonus.

Damn! I had to overcome them and ran towards the other basin. I looked up at my shield, with all these loud clanging sounds repeatedly coming from its surface.

These bastards… They were trying to force me to retreat or something.

The first issue I had to solve was this shield. It was enough to stop these darts, but it was damn heavy to walk around carrying it.

But who said I was out of options here?

“Let’s see how you’ll deal with this,” I held the shield and supported it using my back. I took out my two daggers, held one in each hand and looked mischievously towards the nearest tree.

I then moved slowly, step by step, while each step was covered with densely attacking darts.

The number of monsters skyrocketed during the past few minutes until I reached that tree. It was on the border with the basin region.

I didn’t believe these monsters couldn’t see me at the basin. With such sharp and precise attacks, they must have extraordinary sight. But they didn’t start attacking me until I trespassed their area.

That meant there was something preventing them from attacking me if I was out of their region. And that made me come up with such an idea.

*Sizzle!* *Sizzle!* *Sizzle!*

As I reached that tree, I started to work fast. I held the two daggers and started sharpening their edges against each other, releasing dense sparks of fire.

Just in a few minutes, these sparks caught up with the tree and started to burn fiercely. I looked at this in content, slowly retreated back inside the basin zone.

Yet even with that, I didn’t lower my guard. I kept holding my shield and protected myself with it.

In the next ten minutes, the fire started to run wild. I noticed the weather here was quite dry, and I didn’t see a single pond or lake or any source of water around.

The sky was clear with bright light. It was nearly impossible for it to rain today.

And now all I had to do was to wait.

As I expected, once I left their zone, these monsters stopped attacking me. But even with this calm situation, I didn’t lower my guard or even leave my shield.

I kept stealing glances every now and then. The fire spread fast, taking over a wide stretch of area with fierce orange burning thick tongues of fire that extended to the sky.

In less than five minutes, the fire reached these monsters. I heard many roars coming from the depth of this place, but didn’t intend to move out now.

In fact my plan depended entirely on causing a distraction by the fire, then slipping fast towards the next basin.

The fire wouldn’t differentiate between me and monsters, yet I had a weapon up my sleeve. I waited for another half an hour, while the roarings kept rising, and the side trees away from the fire started to show movement.