The plan was simple. To all sneak out one after the other before the instructors could realize the S-Ranks were missing.
Of course, they'd realize soon enough, but by then they were already in the dungeon, nowhere to be found, and when they were back, hopefully by nightfall, they'd happily accept their punishments, knowing each of them had tremendously benefitted from both the attributes and the loots they planned to auction or sell at a black market when they arrived back on Earth for the tournament.
They were currently doing uphill sprints. Felix's role was to grab the S-Rank already positioned beside him and dash uphills. The Sage instructor didn't find this strange, knowing Felix always outdid himself when it came to training.
Felix sprinted uphills like it were flat ground, and sprinted back down after getting to the top with the intention to sprint right back up again, or so they thought when Felix ran past them on his descent whilst they were still halfway to the top.
On getting before a certain person, he bumped into their shoulder with the speed of running downhill at his limits. Looking over his shoulder to lock eyes with the person as their eyes widened in shock at the sheer impact that involuntarily dislocated their shoulder and sent them flying and rolling down a ditch to the side of the hill.
This was also supposed to be part of the plan, except Felix added a little extra for payback. With a cold smirk, he didn't stop and kept sprinting downhill like nothing had happened.
"Athenae, you fell. Back to the starting line." The instructor spoke indifferently, moving along on his 'sword mobile'.
Felix also spotted Kelly at the rear, a smile blossoming on her face as another boy said some things to her. He couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy, as since the training began he haven't had the time to hold a proper conversation with her.
It was from general training to his personal training where he honed his skills in isolation. And by the time he was back to the dorm room, Kelly was already fast asleep. Rinse and repeat.
Kelly turned and spotted him ahead, speeding in her direction. She couldn't tell the last time she had seen him up close, as each time she woke up, he was already out. He was never at the cafeteria except he had come for something or someone, aside from food—he ate out. And he was never in till she had retired to bed.
She saw he was looking in her direction and raised her hand to wave, smiling sheepishly at his antics of carrying a person this time around. But before her hand was all the way up to wave in his direction, she saw him look away and the next moment he was already behind her, leaving a trail of stunned candidates who almost risked stopping—that'll send them back to the starting line—to stare behind.
"Damn, your roomie sure is something," the boy with her exclaimed.
But she didn't reply, looking behind her shoulder with conflicted emotions.
Felix soon arrived at the starting line, putting the boy he was carrying on her shoulders down on his feet. But there was an uninvited guest at the starting line about to start over again.
Felix looked at the S-Rank boy subtly nodding in the direction of the other candidate who just stood and stared in their direction. Probably waiting to catch his breath before he started again.
But the S-Rank boy nodded back at him with a serious expression and approached the uninvited candidate, and before he could process what was happening, the S-Rank blurred and was already behind him with his arm locked around his neck.
Felix watched with a slackened jaw as the S-Rank strangulated the boy till he fell unconscious. He quickly checked the boy's pulse to be sure he was unconscious and not dead, then sighing in relief as he'd never done this before, he looked up and nodded at Felix before dragging the body into the bushes.
"What the hell?!" Had the S-Ranker mistaken his nod, which meant "What do we do with him around?" towards the innocent candidate, as a "Take him out" order?
Just what kind of negative influence was he portraying for these kids?
Felix couldn't help but facepalm in embarrassment.
They then dashed into the bushes, heading for the popular waterfall according to Aaron's instructions.
The dungeon entrance was supposed to be behind the waterfall. But the last time Felix had been there to train, there were no entrances or exits to anywhere except an unscalable rock with its surface smoothened over the years of water running through it. But if Aaron had insisted there was an entrance there, then there was indeed an entrance there.
They dove into the water and began swimming towards the waterfall. Directly below the waterfall was more shallow than the river, so they could walk instead, but Felix snickered as the S-Ranker almost got swept away by the water pressure as they passed through.
He'd been doing sword training under them for a while now and was already used to the pressure.
On the other side was just a smooth curved rock that went all the way up, but one couldn't look that high up due to the water.
Something was different with the rock this time around though. There were spikes embedded into the rock bed, intended for placing of hands and feet—if one was careful enough—that led up.
"How the hell did he figure that?" Felix mumbled in surprise.
"No—what the hell was he looking for all the way up there to have discovered the dungeon?" the S-Ranker beside him mused.
Felix looked at him with interest, and the boy quickly flushed, "Name's Michael. Ladies first."
"What a gentleman you are," Felix smiled as he tapped Michael's shoulder, then slowly placed his hands and a foot on the spikes—which could be trickery as they were wet, he issued a "Be careful," warning over his shoulder and began climbing.