Ray didn't bother to look at the corpse of the creature, and instead he continued on his way towards the checkpoint.
Running at great speeds and dodging the threes and other natural obstacles that he found in his way.
It didn't take long for him to finally reach his destination.
Unlike the last checkpoint that Ray had found, this one was not placed on a beach but instead it was at the edge of a cliff that dropped into nothingness, the void between each island.
«Participant Detected!»
«You are the second participant to reach this checkpoint. Because a participant reached here before a point was deducted from the original reward.»
«You have received 4 bonus points. You have now 9 bonus points!»
'This checkpoint also had an original reward of 5 points? Is it a coincidence?' Ray thought.
There was only one way to confirm this hypothesis. Find the other checkpoints and check how much their original rewards.
Without any wait, he sprinted towards the mountain peak of the island. This time, he reinforced his body with both mana and aura.
The ground shook, the stone shattered, and the sand flew up raising a cloud of dust. If one looked from an aerial view, they would notice a cloud of dust going up the mountain at great speeds.
Ray was still not running at full speeds, of course, after all he wasn't using all of his means to increase speed on his arsenal. However, the speed that he was now demonstrating was one that couldn't be ignored, not by the academy and not by the participants.
All around the island, the various participants that were there, could faintly feel the rumbling sound of his run. The ones with a better view of the island could actually see the cloud of dust.
The ones closer to the cloud of smoke had to cover their face in order to prevent dust and sand to get into their eyes or inhaling it.
Ray kept moving forward, dodging trees, rocks and small rivers, he kept running to the top. However, at some point he had to stop.
"This will be a little harder to go by."
The ground in front of him was quite steep and therefore not suitable for him to run in. He could just use magic to overcome it, but he was following a more safe approach of spending mana, meaning that he didn't want to use mana in meaningless ways.
Because his body had been crafted using his old body as material, both his mana core and magic channels had certain characteristics that reminded him of his dragon heart.
Not the unending amounts of mana, but the speed at which it replenished it.
However, the academy hadn't given them a certain time limit for the test, meaning that there were certain conditions that needed to be met so that the test could end.
Besides that, in a normal survival situation, Ray believed to be really important to be prepared to face something or someone vastly stronger than you and one should be prepared to face it in order to escape and survive.
Saving mana was one such method, one that Ray believed would score him some points.
So, he looked around, looking for any way up.
He found an entrance to a cave a few meters away from him.
"It either leads to the core of the island way down, or it has a way up. Ah! It is worth the risk."
With this, Ray entered the cave expecting to find a way upwards, what he found instead was a large room occupied by one single being.
It was a large monkey, with red fur and blue tail, its hands lacked fur, but they were definitely purple.
It was curled into a ball, sleeping.
Ray looked around, searching for any way up. His gaze was soon directed to the ceiling where a hole was, leading upwards.
He was not an expert at climbing, but this should do the trick.
Not bothering wasting more time, he sent a pulse of magical energy in the monkey's direction, waking it up.
"You are the one meant to guard this place, right? Do your job."
As he said this, Ray entered in a stance.
Although he spent most of his life in the body of a dragon, he found himself rather comfortable in a humanoid body.
During his life, there had been some instances where he had switched to humanoid body. His battle with Gideon, his life on the different world, and some of his adventures when he was a young dragon.
Point was, that a human body was strangely easy to use for him, it had always been the case, actually.
The monkey's giant body rose from the ground and looked at Ray, his eyes burning with fury, his golden eyes shining.
Before Ray could make a remark on how he ugly he looked, the monkey shot two condensed beams of mana through his yellow eyes.
Reinforcing his body with aura, Ray dodged swiftly, not bothering to show any reaction on his face.
'This beast is much more intelligent, my dominion element will not take effect unless I reinforce it with demonic power, but that would be overkill.'
Instead of using his dominion affinity, he switched to his flame element, creating various fireballs of the size of his head.
He then made them rotate on themselves, turning themselves into pure balls of light and heat.
With a wave of his hand, they shot forward, making exaggerated turns to confound the beast.
Still confused after waking up, the beast struggled to keep up with the beams of flames that soon reached him, piercing certain parts of his body.
"Grrr"
"Oh Come on, don't look at me like that, you were lucky that I didn't aim for the head directly-"
Before Ray could finish his sentence, the monkey's red fur lit up, revealing an enormous red light.
"Graah"
Roaring, the monkey opened his mouth, spewing a torrent of flames in his direction.
Ray smirked and prepared to defend himself. Charging his legs to the brim with both mana and aura, he kicked the air with fluid motion. Following it, a sudden roar of the air being turned open was heard caused by a shockwave that blew away the flames directed at him.
Regaining his stance, Ray didn't lose any time attacking the beast again. Creating an explosion beneath his feet, he shot forward, looking to strike the monkey in physical combat.
He pulled his fist back preparing to punch the monkey's jaw right off, for that he made his mana leave his body and rotate in a large area around his fist, increasing the area of contact, otherwise he would get his fist stuck inside the beast mouth due to the size difference.
Bam
As soon as contact was made, the Monkey staggered back and struggled to keep his jaw in place, which was already out of place.
Soon the monkey's blue fur in his tail lit up as well. Still using one of his hands to keep the jaw from falling, he raised his other hand, creating a water ball.
"That's it? A water ball?" Ray mocked him.
The beast, seemingly detecting his mockery, reacted. The sphere of water started increasing in size, reaching his own size.
"Oh~, that's a lot of water, it will get you wet, I should get rid of it."
With these words he conjured several flames and made it rotate around his fist and entered in a stance.
With a roar, the monkey slammed his hand down, guiding the massive water ball in Ray's direction, who was smiling in excitement.
Ray exhaled a deep breath, concentrating. He then punched forth as if punching someone who was actually close. Once he completed the motions, the flames around his arm flew in the direction of the water in the form of a spiraling column of flames.
Once the two attacks made contact, a massive cloud of steam formed around them, rustling their fur or clothes. Ray covered his face, shielding himself from the explosion of steam.
In order to clear his view, Ray decided to wave his hand with great amounts of force, forming a shockwave that cleared the cave from the steam.
The giant monkey was breathing heavily, his eyes burning with fury were glaring at Ray.
"Wow~! That one was pretty good, could you throw me another one, I don't think I'm satisfied, you see?"
Still glaring at Ray, the monkey finally let go of his jaw, that was now at the verge of a full recovery.
"Oh~, so you can heal yourself, not much of a healer myself, but it's not about skill for you, it's about biology, huh?"
Gritting his teeth, the colorful monkey's hands started glowing purple. He then brought them closer to his mouth, forming something similar to a funnel, before blowing on it.
A gigantic cloud of poisonous smoke surged and rushed in Ray's direction.
However, before it could distance itself from its caster, the smoke lit up on fire as it exploded.
BOOM
"Oops, that was more flammable than I tough."
The monkey was dead, he could now keep moving forward.
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Hey! It's me, the Author, as we finally reach the destination that is the tenth chapter I believed to be a good idea to speak with you the readers.
So, firstly, if you have any questions regarding the story, either about some things that have already been written or some things yet to be, do so.
I will see to writing a section after the next chapter meant to answer your inquiries. Naturally, if you comment on previous chapters, I will answer your questions by replying.
You can read this novel in Webnovel, Scribble Hub and Royal Road.
If you have the time and are interested in a fan fiction where the MC uses the power systems of various animes, go read my other novel, a fan fiction called Transmigrator Competition.
Now, cya in the next chapter.