Ray kept running around, hoping to find something.
"Another thing to add to the list of reasons that I hate deserts..."
He looked around for a while before screaming.
"Why the hell does it seem that I have been running in the same place for hours?!?"
Before he could keep screaming, he stopped in his tracks and let the cloud of sand carried by the wind wash over him. Then, with a quick movement of his hand, he cleared it, revealing quite the sight.
A group of people was surrounding him. They had been hiding on the sun cloud that he had created while running, masking their presence with their aura.
Weirdly enough, they seemed to be all dressed in the same way, with fur of wolves and other animals and various necklaces and bracelets full of teeth of various different animals.
"Oho~, so you finally noticed us, what gave it away?"
The one who talked was the one with the wildest appearance. With his long gray hair and greish furred cape, he seemed like some tribe leader, or something like that.
"Barbarians have quite the various amounts of uses for aura, including masking their presence and smell, however, for someone familiar with their ways of doing it, it is easy to notice the aura waves that such a concealing method causes, especially in such a high number."
Ray was indeed familiar with their methods. Not because he had met barbarians during his time, it wasn't even a thing in the past. Barbarians were humans that refused to include themselves in society, instead living in the same way humans used to live three hundred years ago during Rex Draco's era.
Living of what they hunted and living in small groups, the people that were in the present day known as barbarians were people that lived like wild animals and followed their same rules. The rules of the jungle.
Having dealt with humanity a lot in the past, the barbarian methods were the norm for the time. While he was running and complaining about the sand, he noticed the familiar aura waves that he normally sensed when being approached by humans. Because he had trained himself to be able to sense such a thing even in his sleep, it wasn't hard to notice such a big group, especially if such a group was so young and so behind their ancestor's level, it was laughable, really.
"Oh~, so you're aware of our methods, huh? What does that matter? No matter what, we will make you fail this test and make sure that the academy loses another talented individual."
'This seems to be the constant no matter the time period.'
During his time, Ray had noticed that the bigger the group of humans, the more disdain they attracted. A place like the Nest that housed more than a thousand people was a complete pariah and had a bad reputation in the small groups. They live more like the present society and were the template and image used to form the current countries that fill the world.
Even after three hundred years, the barbarians that had inherited the way of life of the small communities, also inherited their view of society. They believed that strength and glory came from individualism. The goal for any barbarian is to reach a level of strength that allows them to do anything, anytime, anywhere, to anyone.
Their goal right seemed to be to cut down these countries supply of talented people by infiltrating the entrance exams and purposely failing while taking down their targets.
Because of his show of power, he was probably targeted by the barbarians.
"Well, no time to waste, kill him. Even if he dies, he will just wake up in that weird room."
Barbarians, although they were called that they were not unattached from progress, opposed to what their name and clothes might suggest. They were quite on par with technological advancements, not using them mostly to keep themselves inside their practices.
"It seems that you have chosen me as your prey, some things never change, really."
It was a constant problem in the past, humans would suddenly believe that they had made a perfect plan to steal one of my scales or, to more ambitious men, even kill me. They were not even worth making me reinforce myself to kill them.
"You have chosen the wrong prey."
"Oh~? Why do you say that?"
"If you want to hunt, the first step is to not hunt a predator."
"Is that what you consider yourself? A predator? You civilized bums are getting even more ridiculous! Did you get that line from the internet you tend to spend your day on?"
"Ah. Haven't had the chance to see it, seems to be quite the place, the internet."
"Huh?"
Caught in a sudden attack of confusion, the enemy leader failed to react to Ray's action.
He punched the ground while reinforcing himself, making the sand scatter everywhere, clouding the barbarian group's vision. Without their vision, Ray was completely free to do whatever.
Jumping in the air, he decided to deal with the small fries first. Several fireballs were conjured and shot forward in the directions they were. The punch in the sand was not just meant to cloud their vision. Ray had filled some of the grains of sand with aura, allowing Ray to sense their position.
With the sand grains pointing towards the correct path, his fireballs stroke true, causing multiple fireballs to explode. Once he landed, he shot forward towards the ones who were not affected.
Without any ounce of hesitation, he struck a reinforced fist in all of them. Either in their chest, jaw, kidney, gut or if he was feeling a bit resentful, groin. It was only one time, though.
It didn't take long. Although Ray had lost a lot of his power as a Dragon he still possessed his mana and aura control, his battle experience and a much more profound understanding of both energies that none of the people of this era had, except for Astra, of course.
Looking around, Ray noticed he hadn't killed anyone, they were all fine, just unconscious.
'Did I hold back that much?'
He was always holding back, otherwise fights wouldn't be as fun, and he wasn't really a fan of bullying children. Mentally scaring them for the rest of their lives was a whole new topic of conversation.
Apparently, the life that his soul had taken in the other world was affecting him in ways that he did not understand yet. The corruption of that existed in his soul was gone and would never come back, no matter how much demonic power he used, according to Astra. But he thought that he would remain as he always was, a merciless killing machine that could not appreciate any type of life in front of him.
So why?
Why did he make a point of only leaving them unconscious? It's not like they would truly die, was he worried about something else? Their feelings? They didn't want to enter the academy in the first place, they were here to mess with the academy, not join it.
'Am I worried about the way they would see me?'
It sounded ridiculous. It was ridiculous.
'What should I do, *****?'
Even now her name was still a blur, and yet he could always recall it, before forgetting right after.
He decided to focus. On the man in front of him.
His dark gray hair flew around him as the wind passed by. His green eyes glowed with a certain intensity, that Ray would never misinterpret.
'A beast.'
It felt like a beast, like the ones he had encountered. Unfiltered bloodlust and an enormous hunger for battle, that was what distinguished a magical beast from a magical animal. They were both magical creatures, but beasts had a certain bloodlust unique to them. Or it was supposed to be unique to them.
He was getting the feeling of a beast from this guy.
"Who are you anyway?"
"My name is Cù Sith, I'm the next Head of the Cù Tribe. What about you, talented city mage?"
"Ray, just Ray."
"Then, let's dance, Ray!"
A sudden surge of aura and mana erupted from Sith as he lunged forward at great speeds. Ray, with great reaction speed, dodged his attack, a swipe of Sith's hands as if using claws.
'His control over mana and aura is outstanding, even compared to other humans I saw back in the day, he is still quite the amazing talent.'
Cù Sith's mana and aura levels were average, otherwise he would have gotten Ray's attention before the entrance exams started, however his true strength lied in his control.
Little to no leaks of mana and aura, a control so refined and yet used on methods so brutish and straight forward, truly reminded Ray of a not just a beast. But a Monster.
A gleeful smile appeared in Ray's face.
"Let's dance indeed, Cù Sith! Let's see who the wildest monster here is!"
In the same brutal way, Ray rushed forward with a control of mana and aura much more advanced than Sith's, catching him by surprise.
A flurry of punches and kicks were traded off. In most of them, Sith was on the losing side, after all, he was being completely outclassed by Ray. Raw physical power, control over mana and aura, mana pool and fighting prowess. He only had a few exchanges because he had more aura than Ray.
As Ray started to get bored as the fight stopped giving anything new...
A sudden howl was heard.