Releasing his pent-up anger that had accumulated during the last 20 minutes, Shane hurled his frustration at Aimy whose eyes shone with tears.

Taking a deep breath, he decided to ignore her afterwards before he turned around to gather the others around him, whom he lectured as well while complimenting the other students that were prepared for the possibility of a beast attack.

Being a large group of more than 100 humans, they were easy to trace and many starving beasts might desperately try to attack them, which was rather unlikely but still possible.

Even if most groups of beasts avoided them, it was better to be safe than a dead corpse, which was an obvious choice.

As such, Shane told himself that it was necessary to tell off Aimy about her behavior because it was simply childish, dumb and suicidal.

Their current surroundings were only filled with beasts at the wild stage and a handful of elite beasts but as the other youths noticed, it was still possible for them to be attacked and not something one should be surprised about.

After Shane lectured the others, the Valkyries and Aisha smiled lightly about his decisiveness to tell off the students that were stronger than him, which was not something everyone would dare to do, for fear of being beaten up.

Nevertheless, it was important to be fully focused on their surroundings instead of running around unguarded or even worse, bothering others and distracting them.

If someone were to die because of that, it would be devastating and an utter waste of life.

In the end, Shane would rather be seen as a bad person who complained and lectured if they were to survive, instead of being an angel who praised everything without lecturing others in the slightest, only to see them dying next to him.

He was not their leader, but Shane was sure that his experience with such things was the highest, even if one only included his childhood where he was sent to an island with hideous, evil, and merciless beasts only to learn such a simple lesson.

The windwolves weren't really considered dangerous and Shane was sure to be able to defeat them single-handedly because his physical strength alone was more than enough to cope with them. But Aimy annoyed him so much that it caused him to be slightly distracted, forcing him to deflect the wind blades shot towards him with the arrows he fired.

Even if he liked Aimy, enough was enough, and telling her off caused him to feel neither happy nor guilty because it was something she could have avoided if she had acted properly.

After their group encountered the first beast group and Shane lectured them, the whole atmosphere turned quieter and everyone focused their attention on the surroundings.

However, Shane felt that he was avoided by a few students more than before which he had already expected.

Leon was still next to Shane, and he even praised him after he told everyone off.

Shane lifted his right eyebrow in surprise as he heard Leon's praise, he couldn't help but feel curious about the young man, who so far had only revealed that his grandfather was also in the military.

Nodding his head, Shane refrained from asking more questions to Leon about his personal life despite being curious because he was of the opinion that everyone was allowed to have their own privacy.

For the next few hours, they kept moving forward and encountered multiple beast groups, but there was not a single major incident anymore because everyone wanted to avoid being lectured by one of the weakest members of their group.

Even if they wanted to retort, it was obvious that Shane's words were right and teaching him a lesson was not possible under their current circumstances as Aisha and the Valkyries were behind them.

After they passed many hidden and narrow paths, they were forced to form a tight line as they entered a small hidden area with an ordinary-looking cave next to a small clear lake.

The group spread over the flat ground, and pointing to the cave, Shane told everyone that this was the cave he had excavated which caused everyone to eye him weirdly.

The cave didn't look special and the mana particles they found were nothing special either, yet Aisha's eyes lit up, as she said

"Beautiful!

"

With her high-quality mana gathering technique, she could perceive much more mana particles than others, even from afar.

As such, she could easily perceive the mana particles inside the cave and also what they could expect inside it.

Only now did she fully believe Shane's previous words, as she turned around to the small group of students.

"Your task now is to conquer the cave! We will only intervene if strong beasts appear or if someone were to die. With this in mind, please give your best and don't become a burden to your other teammates!

"

After she was done, Aisha stepped back without adding anything else.

Seeing this Shane couldn't help but feel that the expedition was not as simple as he previously expected.

Apparently, the expedition was also held in order to improve everyone's teamwork with a team of all stages, weapon proficiencies, occupations, and also to figure out what everyone lacked.

It was much easier to point out the flaws in others than seeing one's own mistakes.

If everything worked according to Aisha's plans, the whole expedition team's combat prowess and survivability would most likely increase manifolds.

Thinking about this, Shane couldn't help but praise Aisha, Aunt Kia, or whoever had planned this, as they slowly formed a combat unit.

With many close combatants, Shane decided to use his bow and arrows to support everyone from behind, and there was only one more archer which was less than expected.

Other than that, there was also Aimy and she used a wand. She could control and manifest water with mana, which also indicated that she most likely picked a mage occupation.

This was not necessarily the case, but it didn't really matter because she could use her affinity in order to attack from far away and raise a thin water wall in order to deflect attacks.

With such an affinity, everything turned slightly easier, as the remaining close combat occupations could go all out without being forced to rely on their own defenses too much.

Shane wouldn't really act as relieved as the others, because he couldn't really trust anyone in the expedition team with his life.

In the end, this was another reason for him to act as an archer, as it was also easier to observe the whole situation around them.

Once everything was done, they entered the cave slowly, only to see a few drained elemental crystal shards lying on the ground, which Shane didn't pick up.

As such, nobody thought much about the stirred-up soil all around the cave, as only Shane knew what exactly he had done inside the elemental crystal cave.

'Something is different!' He immediately noticed, which he also said to the others, who immediately tensed up by his words.

However, there was still nothing in the first layer, not even beasts or many crystal shards remains, while they only saw drained crystal shards.

Shane frowned a bit as the cave turned more chaotic and dug up, as he left it.

The second layer was the deepest that he had excavated and he also mined lots of elemental crystals there.

However, he was barely able to excavate a few thousand crystals in the second floor and not the whole layer, as everyone glanced around to see if there was something left.

Right as someone was about to ask Shane if he mined all of them, they suddenly felt the ground below them vibrate, as six several dozen meter long creatures pierced out of the ground, surrounding them, staring at them with crystallized eyes, as they screeched out their desire to kill.

*Screeechhzz*

"Ugh….This will be dirty!

"

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