The two of them set off towards the sun (hooray future knowledge!), along the way. They maintained maximum alertness. Scanning every bush, rock or shrubbery that seemed a little too large.
"Stop. That large bush in between the two smaller rocks. I can see one. "
"Your eyes are such a cheat code already when it comes to archery, you also have an insane talent for it and you have a potential score of 96. Now you're even taking Killian Halu'an's inheritance. What are future archers going to think?"
She's didn't reply, instead she grabbed an arrow and nocked it. Drawing the bowstring back, she aimed at the bush and took a deep breath.
Upon exhaling, she immediately released it. Sending the arrow whistling through the air. With a thunk and a squelching noise, Raymond knew she hit her shot.
Walking towards the bush, he pried apart the few branches to discover the poor creature impaled into the ground. An arrow straight through it's brain.
Pulling the arrow out of the ground, Raymond inspected the monster as he did so.
Honestly to Raymond, it looked exactly the same as a regular desert horned lizard, albeit it was the size of his forearm and probably more spiky?
The amount of mana in this thing was so miniscule that even Raymond could barely sense it. The fact that Ellen managed to see and shoot it from so far away showed off just how much of a cheat her eyes were.
Handing the arrow back to Ellen, the two of them continued moving. Occasionally Ellen would stop him and fire an arrow away at some lizard in hiding. Each time Raymond would walk over, collect the arrow and they would return.
"I'm running low on mana. I'll dispel the shield and our resistances for now since it seems like we won't need it in arena 1."
"Thats fine, honestly I don't remember this part being this easy as well. I was sure it was way more dangerous back then. "
Dispelling his shield. He felt immense relief as his mana reserves no longer needed to sustain the numerous spells anymore.
After the twentieth something lizard killed however, something interesting finally happened.
As Raymond went to pick up the arrow as usual. His mana sense told him something was off about the lizard. It was unusually dense in a small region near its heart.
Picking it up, he used the arrow as a makeshift knife in order to dig out it's insides. Disgusting but practical.
With his hands covered in lizard blood, he fished out a small stone, the size of a marble.
"This should be an unranked level mana core right? Lucky us I must say. Who would've thought these weak little things could actually grow mana cores?"
Casting a spell to summon some water, he washed his hands and played with the small crystal in his hands. Tossing it back and forth and rolling it around in his hands.
"I hope you know that since I killed it, it's mine. "
"Yeah yeah I know, let me live a little will you? This is my first time seeing something like this up close. "
"Didn't you say you lived in this dimension first a few months? Those few months spanning for several years, how have you not seen a mana core?"
"Well, I say I lived here for a few months but to be honest. I didn't really do much in those few months you know? I mainly just spent it watching you guys for my novel. "
She pursed her lips at that last sentence. Something he regretted saying immediately.
"I still think it's weird how a grown man like you was watching a bunch of teenagers in school while they were unaware of it all and even wrote an entire story about their lives. "
"Arghhhhh! just let it go will you?"
Their banter continued back and forth for a while only stopping when the harsh desert sun over then had abruptly disappeared having been replaced by a humid tropical jungle.
The large compound bow Ellen had holstered was gone as well, replaced with a recurve bow. Similar to the one Raymond held. The several dozen arrows in her quiver had now become 10.
Examining the new arrows, Raymond recognized these ones quickly as well.
Bullet point arrows, also used mainly for small game like the earlier field point arrows they had.
The problem was the quantity. Only ten arrows and with his dense the jungle looked any arrow fired would likely be gone for good.
Otherwise however, still good news. It was all panning exactly as it did when Ellen first entered. As long as there weren't any unexpected changes the two if then could still finish and hopefully be on time for the academy entrance exam.
"Ellen, tell me if you see anything. Ill shoot them instead. Dont waste any arrows unless you need to. "
"Alright, but how good are you with a bow?"
She nodded, she had likely been thinking of something similar as well.
"Thats the beauty about magic, Ellen. I don't need to be good with a bow to hit my shots. I can just use magic! Watch. "
Drawing his bow, an arrow made of mana soon materialized itself already nocked.
"Splitting arrow, aerodynamic arrow, faster arrow, power shot. "
As mana flowed from his own reserves and into the arrow, he let loose the arrow onto a random tree in the distance.
BANG!
With a loud crash, the arrow burst through the trunk ripping a massive hole through. While it didn't land exactly where Raymond had wanted it to land. It's sheer power and speed more then made up for it in Raymond's books.
Blowing on his bow as if it were a smoking gun, he turned to face her again.
"Not bad eh?"
"Thats nice and all, but how much mana did you use in that one shot just now?"
"... "
"A little bit over three quarters of all my mana"
...
After resting for a bit so that Raymond could recover his mana, the two of them set off through the jungle. This time they headed North.
As they trekked through the humid and uneven terrain. Raymond wished he brought along more with him.
All of his stuff was in his storage punches which were unfortunately inside of his luggage which was even more unfortunately inside a truck.
Right now all Raymond had on him were his clothes and staff. Mainly because his robes and staff were stuff he had bound to him and thus could be summoned whenever. But other then that he was essentially naked.
Although he knew there was a good reason for not bringing stuff like sleeping bags and food, he still cursed the last Raymond.
So what if he could summon drinking water? So what if they could just eat whatever they hunted? So what if Raymond could just conjure up a bed to sleep on?
Sometimes casting magic was just a chore to do. No matter how cool it was.
"Stop, you see up there. In between the two large branches that intersect?"
She stopped him from going any further. Drawing his bow, an arrow materialized itself.
Aiming at where she was pointing, Raymond focused his mana sense in the direction, trying to sense the faint mana that all living things had.
"I found it,how much mana should I use to kill it?"
"Just go for bare minimum and a little but to be safe. "
Taking a deep breath, he drew upon his now fully recovered mana reserves.
"Signature lock-on. Aerodynamic arrow. Power shot. "
Altogether nearly a quarter of his mana reserves. That should be enough right?
Once his body fully exhaled, he loosed the arrow. Sending it flying straight through several vines, leaves and branches before hitting the creature.
As it fell down dead from the branch it had been sitting on, Raymond had a brief window of time where he could briefly see the creature he attacked.
From what he saw, it looked like a mini gorilla. Which brought up an absurd image in his head.
"You know, I kinda feel bad for all this killing of these creatures we're doing. Honestly we haven't even been attacked once yet! These guys are just chilling and spending their lives until we showed up. "
"They didn't seem to be chilling and spending their lives the first time I entered here. The amount of rocks these monkey bastards threw at me would be enough to build an apartment complex. "
"Well that was then and this is this. Those monkeys don't even know they they threw rocks at you! Shouldnt you just let it go?"
She stopped responding to what he said, choosing instead to speed up and try to leave him behind.
The second arena went by even faster then the first one. Raymond himself only had to shoot 8 more times and by the time they managed to reach the next arena. Ellen hadn't even shot her bow once.
Looking around the third arena. Raymond unleashed a stream of profanities at Killian.
Because no matter where he looked all he could see was just endless mud and swamp. Even though he knew it was coming, seeing it made it a while lot more worse. His robes may have a self cleaning option but he didnt want to test how capable it was!
Ellen herself also seemed to hate this new arena. Her previous recurve bow had now become a long bow and was almost her height. Her ten arrows had now become 3 arrows.
Out of everything this was the only thing that changed. In the previous timeline, Ellen had access to 40 arrows each time. Now, the amount of arrows she had steadily decreased. Going by the pattern, at arena 4 she would likely only have one arrow.
As was usual however, they first examined the new arrows.
"Broadhead arrows, these things are usually used for big game hunting arent they?"
Turning her head to look around the swamp, she squinted her eyes.
"Yeah, but there's a bigger problem right now Raymond. My eyes are telling me that there's two creatures approaching us through the swamp right now, likely sensed us from all the disturbance in the mud"
Raymond also turned to where she was looking. His eyes couldn't see anything but after focusing his mana sense, managed to faintly detect two things approaching them.
"Based on the amount of mana they have, they're around G rank. The same as us. "
Stretching his palms and swinging his arms around, he loosened his muscles as best as he could. He nocked a mana arrow and aimed towards the approaching mana signatures.
"You better use your three arrows wisely. "