Chapter 2286: Break through
Chapter 2286: Break through
Sam increased the intensity of the energy vision.
He is not just focusing on the energy of the whole area, instead his focus is mostly on the white wind itself. Whatever formation that is dragging this white wind from all sides, must gather the ice elemental energy within the wind.
And all of that energy should pool up at the core from where it dissipates to the nodes. So, he is trying to get to the core. However, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't see it through the energy vision. It is being masked my the ice elemental energy of the surroundings.
A similar tactic to the one used in the tunnel challenge.
Sam deactivated the energy vision and started thinking.
Meanwhile...
"One hour... not too bad." Elder of the Loki academy clicked his tongue and praised Sam. "What's so great about it? Its just the first of many." Mangus of course tried to undermine it. But that statement itself is not enough, so he went on with more words.
"There will be other kids who could understand the wind pattern in less than an hour. There could be some who could do it in thirty minutes.
This just shows that the first prelim is just a fluke for him. He was coincidentally in possession of a blueprint that fits the challenge."
The other elders looked at him.
His bias against Sam is almost non-sensical to them. Of course, they knew all about the controversy and stuff. In fact, in the Norse region, Thor academy was the biggest victim. But Olaf made sure that none of them will go after Sam for their personal grudges.
And also made sure inform that the academy grudges will be dealt with in time and they are his to take care of.
It is just a subtle way of saying everyone to stay out of his lane.
So, the elder put everything aside and kept a neutral stand. He is not going stoop his own level and dignity just to make things difficult to one of the participants.
However Mangus is crazy about this. He is the first one to go and pick a fight with Sam. Even his words were out of the line the moment he opened his mouth. Knowing Sam's temper, which most people do, there is no way he could take it lying down.
He did exactly as it was expected of him.
He shut Mangus up with the most arrogant response they could image and now this madman is trying to screw Sam over. It is great that he is way ahead of others. Otherwise, the elders thought about what Mangus could have done with his dirty tricks.
The other elders completely ignored his comments and discussed.
"It is indeed a bit weird that it took so long for him to notice the oddities of the wind patterns. Judging by how quick he was for the first one, I kinda assumed he would be done in an instant here too."
One of them commented.
The others nodded as well.
"And I don't know why he is observing so much. All he need to do is stick with the wind patterns and await for the winds to grow in intensity. Both of them combined will solve the puzzle.
Until then, he just needs to use formations to either trap the Jotnars or block their attacks." "I mean, that is the obvious choice, but once again, the standard procedure takes too long. I wonder how he can speed up the process to find the nodes. The answer to the first round was pretty unique."
"He is moving."
Only then did they move back to look at the screen. Sam indeed made a move, however this is different from what they initially expected.
Sam dashed down and started placing formations. These are similar ones to the energy gathering formations that he has created in the first round. However, there is some small tweak which is he added with space elemental energy.
Sam focused at the central point and placed his formations only there. He felt some space for him to stand in and place four formations around him.
Front, back, left and right.
He stood in the middle and connected himself with all the four formations before activating them.
*GRRRRMMM*
The formations gave a coarse humming sound as they activated and started glowing. At that moment, the wind in the surroundings of Sam started increasing in intensity. The formations also started concentrating the wind, creating four tornadoes around Sam.
At first, they are small and feint. If not for the snow trapped in the wind currently, it would have been hard to identify the presence of the wind there.
However, with every passing minute, the intensity grew more and more. They thickened in diameter until they were close enough to almost touch Sam before they stopped growing. From then on, the wind became denser and compressed.
The surrounding snow finally reacted, it was also being sucked into the tornado and Sam opened his eyes to activate the energy vision.
Now there are ten Jotnars at the moment and they are all trying to hit Sam. But they are unable to come past the tornados that are acting as a wall. Finally, Sam also discovered something. These creatures can be attacked.
He cannot just attack them on his own, rather the formations can be used to engage against them.
He is glad that the 'no attacks policy of the competition had some leeway. He might have had to pay some price for trying to attack the giants at the start.
*BAM*
As one of the giants attacked the tornado with its club in full force, it was repelled and sent flying away. It crashed into a large rock and looked around in daze.
Sam now kept his full focus on the four formations. He could sense it, the formations are forcefully sucking the wind from all the directions. The wind flow that was originally controlled solely by whatever mechanism inbuilt into the challenge is now being forcefully controlled by his formations.
Which means, the mechanism is not working properly anymore.
And when the wind suction by the formations reached a certain point, Sam finally felt it.
Some invisible force, an energy that he couldn't sense, see or even detect with his energy vision is trying to suck the wind out of his formations.
It is trying to wrestle the control away from Sam.
Sam smiled at this and restricted the wind even more. There is no way, he would just give it up that easily. As minutes passed another Jotnar appeared right behind Sam and as soon as it did, it was thrown away by the tornado.
At the same time, the force of that energy increased. It was trying harder and harder to take the wind currents away. It is happening to all four tornadoes and even the directions in which the force is dragging became more apparent.
Sam now closed his eyes and he carefully observed, the ice elemental energy that is circulating in the tornadoes. Previously, the challenge area formation has the whole control over it and it used to surrounding ice elemental energy to mask it.
Now, Sam has control over the energy circulating in the formations, and he can easily observe
in which direction it is going.
'1, 5, 16, 24.."
Sam counted how many directions the force is pulling from and slowly gave in a little bit. Just
a small amount of control was reliquised.
The energy from the formations started moving in multiple directions. Sam divided his consciousness and followed the trials of energy.
Soon each trial stopped at different points. All of them just merged into the environment.
When all the trails disappeared, the wind currents now established new paths following those trails and all of them moved in those directions.
Sam mentally marked the directions and located the points where the trials disappeared.
They are the nodes.
Even though he doesn't know how these nodes are connected and what type of energy
network they established to create a formation that gathers the wind currents from all
directions, Sam knew how to deal with it.
Sam flew out from the tornadoes and went to the first node, he placed a trap formation similar
to the one he placed in the first round.
*SWOOSH*
A club was swung at him. He dodged and it landed on the trap.
*BOOM*
It was destroyed.
*RUMBLE*
The ground trembled from the explosion. The Jotnar was blown away like a broken kite. Sam
knew he succeeded. He destroyed a node. Only a few more to go.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
One after another the nodes fell within a couple of minutes. Sam is fast and precise. After five
more nodes, the broken formation revealed the energy network that was already broken and
fluctuating wildly.
Sam then saw the glitches in the illusion.
The Jotnar that was swung at Sam flickered and collapsed into itself. Sam with the rocks and
snow and a few patches of just cold grey floor were revealed.
*BOOM*
One more node and that is it.
*SWOOSH* *ZOOM*
Weird sounds followed before Sam found himself in a large grey room with nothing but a
stairway in it.
He stepped on in confidently and reached the next floor and he don't know why and when, as if
it his mind glitched, he found himself in a wasteland It looked like a desert, but from the fairly solid ground instead of just plain sand, along with some signs of some life that existed in distant past, he believed the waste land could be more suitable term. The bright sun that
almost looked like it is right next to him, made him feel parched in an instant.
*GRRR*
A growl could be heard from behind.
*KAT*
Sam leaped forward and missed it. Something was ready to take a clean and swift bite out of
him and he barely escaped. He turned around to look at a large creature that looked like wyvern except it didn't have wings.
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