In terms of sheer combat prowess, Reed Newt remained an ordinary human, far from initiating his evolutionary path anytime soon.
When it came to slaughtering monsters, he relied exclusively on a single method: raw, unadulterated gunpowder.
He seemed entirely intent on riding this single trick to victory, gambling everything on its explosive firepower.
“Roar!” Within the holographic projection, lured by Reed Newt’s self-detonating decoys, the sea monsters caught the scent of his aura.
Their twisted visages contorted hideously as they bellowed without pause, surging toward his location.
Finally, over twenty sea monsters closed in from all directions, stumbling directly into the trap Reed Newt had meticulously prepared.
Then, a staggering five tons of high-grade gunpowder erupted in a single, frame-shattering detonation.
A deafening shockwave shattered the silence, echoing across the horizon as a towering mushroom cloud billowed into the sky.
Ten ancient, towering trees collapsed in a flurry of splintered wood, and brilliant flames consumed the landscape.
More than twenty sea monsters were incinerated in an instant.
Not a single screech survived the blast.
Reed Newt’s overall score surged dramatically, skyrocketing from 590 to 830 points in a heartbeat, and the leaderboard refreshed once more.
Driven by an unstoppable momentum, Reed Newt tore back into the top spot, dethroning Hanna Raelene and shoving her down to second place!
Yet…
the evaluating instructors were far from impressed.
Everyone present knew this triumph was merely fleeting.
Hanna Raelene had already breached the second order of strength; overtaking him was only a matter of time.
Furthermore, as the trials progressed, the sea monsters would only grow fiercer and more resilient, rendering basic gunpowder increasingly ineffective.
Forget maintaining his lead in the standings, Reed Newt’s very survival hung in the balance.
“Wait…
the perimeter wall…
It’s already finished?” Suddenly, an instructor shifted his gaze toward the construction zone, his eyes widening in utter disbelief.
Only two full days had passed, yet massive, impenetrable city walls now enclosed the entire settlement on all four sides.
Each wall stretched a hundred meters long, three meters thick, and fifteen meters high.
The monkeys had somehow extracted natural dyes from the surrounding jungle, painting the stone facades in a deep, timeless blue.
The finished structure exuded an aura of ancient, solemn majesty, standing resolute amidst the wild green jungle like an impenetrable fortress of antiquity.
Along the battlements, two grand archways stood open, left specifically to accommodate heavy iron gates.
“Just two days…
How on earth is his infrastructure speed this monstrous?”
“Did he seriously build a grand fortress from scratch on a desolate island stuck?”
“With a defense like that, he might actually hold out past the seventh day!”
Conversations erupted through the observation room.
The sight of a full-scale fortress emerging from a primitive wilderness left the seasoned instructors stunned.
They had witnessed countless prodigies over the years, but an anomaly like Reed Newt was truly a once-in-a-lifetime sight.
While other geniuses desperately refined their personal cultivation to withstand the perils of the Endless Sea, Reed Newt laid traps, manufactured black powder, and engineered an architectural miracle.
Surviving the seventh day…
was no longer an impossible dream.
According to the ancient rules of the Endless Sea, once an Island Holder survived seven full days, they earned the right to voluntarily forfeit the trial and exit with their lives intact.
“No…
look closely at Reed Newt’s island.
Something is terribly wrong,” Meinhard Janek, who had remained quiet until now, spoke up, his expression darkening.
The surrounding instructors paused, exchanging puzzled glances.
Meinhard Janek extended an authoritative hand, pointing straight toward the sandy beaches along the eastern coast of Reed Newt’s territory.
There, a six-meter-tall behemoth covered in dense, shimmering scales lurked silently beneath the tide before slithering onto the shore.
It moved without making a sound, no roaring, no thrashing, just silent, predatory movement.
“A First-Order Sea Monster!” Recognizing the beast, everyone’s pupils contracted in shock.
First-Order Krakens were entirely different beasts compared to common sea monsters.
“It’s only the sixth day!
Why are First-Order monsters appearing already?” an instructor questioned, his brows furrowed in confusion.
By standard assessment rules, First-Order sea monsters were supposed to spawn on the seventh day, ten of them arriving in a single, devastating wave.
Yet on Reed Newt’s island, one had arrived early on the evening of the sixth day!
“Look closer.
It’s not just the eastern beach,” Meinhard Janek warned again, shaking his head with a grave face.
The instructors focused their vision, only to realize that the First-Order beast was far from alone.
Swarms of common sea monsters were crawling out of the dark ocean depths in terrifying numbers.
A quick headcount revealed over a hundred beasts swarming the shoreline.
“My guess?
They were drawn here by the noise of his construction,” Meinhard Janek analyzed, taking a deep, heavy breath.
“Over the past few days, Reed Newt has been detonating gunpowder without restraint, shattering mountains, blasting stone, and forging walls.
The noise must have vibrated through the water, drawing every sea monster in the nearby sector straight to his island.”
In other words, Reed Newt was about to face a full-scale siege by over a hundred sea monsters simultaneously.
It was an unprecedented catastrophe.
“He…
might not make it to sunrise on the seventh day,” Meinhard Janek sighed, a conflicted glint in his eyes.
He held a truly complex love-hate sentiment toward the young man.
Though Reed Newt lacked conventional combat talents, he had somehow claimed the top rank through sheer ingenuity, obliterating the long-standing record of Valley View Academy in the process.
Yet, it seemed destined to be nothing more than a brief flash in the pan.
Attracting a horde of this scale before the seventh day even dawned was fatal.
Forget Reed Newt; even a top-tier prodigy like Hanna Raelene would struggle to escape such a nightmare alive.