Merely after a few minutes, Noah had arrived inside the lower forest of the mountain. Unfolding his consciousness to its max, he immediately picked up more than 20 individuals in a radius of about 3 kilometers. Most were also running, and they could sense his consciousness, however, they let him be.
Uncertainty of what the inscribed stones would be like, forced Noah into searching the trees around him. Thanks to the still low altitude there was still a visibility area of more than 10m, and the winds around him were still in a state of normality.
His consciousness picked up something interesting and he didn't hesitate to dash towards the over 400m distance to arrive in front of two large trees covered by a thick layer of snow, but he could still spot their green leaves.
A shining stone no more than 2inches in size lay on the soft white ground that was snow. Immediately picking it up, Noah felt his consciousness spot another one less than 100m from his position, he sprinted towards the position without empowering his body, and almost immediately arrived in front of it.
However, instead of one stone, Noah laid eyes on three stones shimmering with multiple shining lines. That success rate made him scour the radius of one whole kilometer around that area.
At the end of the tens minutes mark, he successfully gathered six more, an incredible finding. He had almost run into other aspirants, but his expert agility in moving at that speed allowed him to avoid anyone that could pose trouble.
In total, Noah had gathered ten stones in less than twenty minutes of beginning the stage, so he immediately moved towards places that had not been touched by anyone yet.
Noah didn't stop until a whole portion of the lower forest had been traversed by him, and at the end of the two-hour-long mission, he had gathered ten more!
This caused him to look towards the higher locations of the mountain and run towards it. There was no countdown of any sort, at least not yet, which meant the aspirants had to be careful of time.
Noah had to sprint for entire kilometers to exit the lower forest and burst out into a white plain.
Uncountable footsteps diverging in all directions appeared in front of him, as even his consciousness failed to pick up anyone in his area.
The others seemed to have traveled higher, and something told Noah that things would get harder from that point since the mountain path experienced a giant upward slope.
Taking a deep breath and reveling in the strength he experienced, Noah immersed himself in the coldness of that environment, for it strengthened him. A few seconds had to go by before he continued his journey.
At some point, he had to take a hard decision between scouring the area or continuing on the mountain path since the distance to the peak remained immense. It felt as though he hadn't even left its base yet. This was after traveling tens of kilometers to that location.
Noah's steps continued to remain rapid, as even the gradually increasing density of the snow couldn't make him stop.
Trees appeared in his sight again, followed closely by large rocks covered in white snow. That new elevation featured a heavy atmosphere, and very soon Noah's instincts warned him of the danger surrounding him.
Barely a minute into that treed environment, the sounds of different battles occurring reached his ears, but he felt unbothered. Noah continued to run on paths previously traversed by his fellow aspirants since the path featured no signs of combat.
To make their way to the top, the aspirants had to circle the mountain to reach higher elevations, but those paths were more than just a few kilometers in width and were capable of holding small forests spanning more than half their width and length.
The sounds of clashes quickly got louder. And Noah had to unfold his consciousness while he searched the areas relatively close to him for inscribed stones. Disappointment tried to reach his mind when he found nothing even after an hour of searching.
By this point, most battles had died down, and the ones that were still on were distant.
Notwithstanding, this seeming safe reality didn't stop the ground beneath him from bursting forth with large spikes made out of the earth.
Of course, Noah simply sprinted away from his previous spot, while his unfolded consciousness spotted his attacker.
Noah soon laid eyes on his attacker, but instead of attacking back, he simply focused his gaze on a different location and ran toward it. The magical beast that had attacked him was a large brown bear, featuring multiple white patches of fur. The beast opened its jaws to voice a roar when it saw that Noah ran away.
Unfortunately for it, its targets figure quickly became unnoticeable in the whiteness of that environment.
Noah's decision had been based on the fact that he found it unnecessary to waste time and energy on something that wouldn't produce any benefit. Although its body would be stored and its orange mana core retrieved; he found it useless anyway. He would only begin to kill beasts when he had gathered more than fifty stones or was required to.
Gradually the wind began to pick up and it started to snow. The area of visibility plummeted to less than 5m, as it seemed like a white wall had appeared before his eyes.
Noah however, saw it as nothing. And although the day looked close to ending he had, gathered only four more stones, a result that would normally be depressing, but because he currently utilized the emotionless portion of his mind, he remained unfazed, merely running calculations on what moves to make next.
The darkness of the night eventually arrived, but Noah continued to run. His stamina proved once again how monstrous it was. Moreover, the coldness of that environment didn't deter him.
pαndα,noνɐ1,сoМ 'I have to find a place to stay for the night,' Noah thought seeing as it had started to snow heavily, and it didn't look like that situation would change anytime soon.
Only a mentally sick person would be seen journeying in that environment, but because of the advantage his affinity granted him, he could do so comfortably.
The only issue remained the beasts that he could sense all around him. The mountain had stopped being silent hours ago, and things changed when tens of wild aura's sprung up in different directions. The mountain had come alive at night, a situation he felt unready to face.
With the visibility being around 2m Noah had to almost completely rely on his consciousness and instincts, so when both led him to arrive in front of a white cave, he could only nod in satisfaction.
However, to claim that natural spot as a resting place, he had to deal with the auras within it.
'Seven peak stage tier 2 beasts, and one middle stage,' Noah thought standing at the entrance of the dark cave.
His cold eyes fell on a series of crimson red lights in the cave, they felt like eyeballs since he could feel dangerous gazes from them. More so from the larger one at the far end of the cave. They all gazed at his cold and valiant figure.
Loud clacking sounds soon began to exit the cave. The creatures were trying to scare him away, but Noah limited himself to retrieving his daggers while inspecting the eyes that were in groups of eight each.
[Snowy mountain Jawed spiders:[8]]
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