The endless sea stretched out, cold and merciless, surrounding yet another isolated island.
“Explosive!” Looking at the three sea monsters thrashing in the distance, Rudyard Wilf frantically gathered and condensed the flames in his hands.
Huge, scorching fireballs rained down upon the beasts one after another, incinerating the terrifying sea monsters into blackened coke!
“280 points.
Ranked ninth.” Breathing heavily, Rudyard checked his points with complete focus.
Through relentless battle day and night, killing sea monsters without rest, he had finally pushed himself up one place.
The gap between him and eighth place was now just three sea monsters.
However, the ultra-high-intensity continuous combat had taken a heavy toll; he had nearly been cornered and torn apart several times, sustaining severe injuries in the process.
He had no choice but to recuperate before he could hunt again.
“It’s only the fourth day…” Rudyard murmured, staring out at the hazy horizon.
“On the seventh day, a first-order sea monster will appear.
I can’t keep pushing blindly.
I need to recover and maintain my peak state.”
The sea monsters attacking now were at the lowest tier with relatively weak combat effectiveness.
But a first-order sea monster was a completely different story; its defense and attack power would double, making it an absolute nightmare to handle.
Countless evolutionaries failed and perished on the seventh day.
A single careless mistake meant death.
Meanwhile, inside the Observation Room at Valley View Academy, the atmosphere was thick with tension.
“Principal, today is the fifth day,” an instructor reported while standing behind Meinhard Janek.
“We lost 27 evolutionaries yesterday.
They were overwhelmed and killed by sea monster sieges.”
The instructors fell silent.
The Island Holder assessment had always been brutal; before the seventh day arrived, no one was permitted to forfeit or withdraw.
If an evolutionary couldn’t hold off the sea monsters, their only outcome was death.
“On a brighter note,” another instructor quickly added, “Rudyard Wilf has slain 28 sea monsters in total, holding ninth place on Valley View’s standings.
Helge Nollaig used the sea monsters to temper his physical body, killing 21 beasts and surging to nineteenth place.
The instructors went down the list of top-tier talent.
Out of the top 100 rankings in the district, Valley View Academy proudly held seven spots, with Rudyard, Helge, and Anna making steady progress.
“What about Reed Newt?” Meinhard Janek interrupted, noticing a strange omission.
The instructors exchanged hesitant, awkward glances.
“Ahem…
Well, he is still sitting in first place,” one instructor muttered, clearing his throat.
Meinhard’s mouth twitched.
As an ordinary person without evolutionary traits, Reed Newt was quite literally making history by clinging to the top spot for this long.
Suddenly, another mentor chimed in, “However, Hanna Raelene’s points over at Cypress Institute are skyrocketing.
She’ll likely overtake Reed Newt very soon.
I strongly suspect she has already broken through to the second rank!”
The room dropped into dead silence.
Second rank already?!
How long had the assessment even been running?
“I know Hanna Raelene,” Meinhard sighed, his expression complex.
“She has several ninth-level Island Holders backing her, funneling premium resources directly into her development.
She is a true chosen one.
But I never imagined she would reach the second rank this quickly.”
Such a monstrous talent was a crushing psychological blow to the other candidates.
At this moment, Hanna’s score had reached 570 points, just two more sea monsters away from snatching the throne from Reed.
“What exactly is Reed Newt doing right now?” Meinhard asked, turning his head toward the monitoring feed.
“Still…
building his city, sir.”
Meinhard’s face darkened instantly.
Building a city?!
Frustrated, Meinhard immediately pulled up the live projection of Reed’s island, ready to scold the instructors.
But the moment the image expanded, the entire observation room froze.
Before them lay a breathtakingly massive open space.
As far as the eye could see, thousands of creatures were moving in organized chaos.
It was a sea of densely packed monkeys, and every single one wore a makeshift hardhat woven from sturdy vines and foliage, bustling around the construction site like seasoned builders.
Some worked in teams around heavy mixing pits, furiously wielding shovels to blend concrete.
Others pushed loaded wheelbarrows filled with wet cement toward the base of a towering, rising city wall.
Elsewhere, monkeys rode atop giant elephants, seamlessly coordinating to haul massive quarried stones across the field.
The entire site was a spectacle of raw, uninterrupted industry.
Every single monkey and elephant worked with absolute discipline and tireless efficiency.
“This…
how many monkeys did he domesticate?!” Meinhard swallowed hard, utterly dumbfounded.
Only twenty-four hours had passed, yet the terrain was completely unrecognizable.
Yesterday, there were barely a few dozen monkeys hanging around; today, the site looked like a mega-corporation’s primary hub.
“A total of five hundred monkeys…
plus thirty elephants,” the instructor monitoring the feed explained with a bitter, admiring smile.
“He basically rounded up and drafted both wild monkey tribes on the island.”
Meinhard stood paralyzed, his mind spinning.
What shocked him most wasn’t just the sheer number, but their behavior.
These domesticated monkeys worked diligently without slacking off, loafing around, or causing trouble.
Their sheer operational efficiency put human construction crews to shame.
And the best part?
Reed didn’t even have to pay them wages, just keep their bellies full of fruit.
If corporate capitalists back home saw Reed Newt’s setup, they would weep tears of pure envy.