After a few minutes of walking through the busy streets of the base and asking several guards for directions, Lian finally found the building he was looking for.
The academy center.
Unlike the grand and calm buildings of the main academy, this place looked more like a military base than an educational center.
A massive building made of metal and stone, with dozens of armed guards at its entrance, students were constantly coming in and out.
But what caught Lian’s attention were their faces.
Some were tired, some were wounded, and some still had their clothes stained with monster blood.
And some others... were standing in front of large boards, staring at the names with heavy faces.
The casualty board, Lian kept his gaze on one of those boards for a few moments.
Dozens of names, dozens of students, all of them from his own academy.
’Probably none of them expected such a thing.’ He sighed.
Young and new awakened ones, when they first enter the Ruined Realms, have an uncontrollable excitement and enthusiasm, they think they are the main character who will reach the peak of the world by hunting monsters, embrace beauties, and obtain endless wealth, legendary treasures and legacies.
But this was not even close to the truth, none of them were special, none of them were main characters with plot armor.
They were just a few excited young people who were not aware of the real danger of this hell, a hell that at first glance looks like a game world.
But in reality it is a place where many can lose their lives daily, and the problem is that for every human who dies, cracks open and monsters can enter their world and start killing and massacring.
The reality of the Ruined Realm reminded itself to him again, and then he entered the building.
After registering his information and announcing his entry to the Ruined Realm, one of the employees issued a wristband for him.
"This is a smart wristband that records all your kills, if you want before leaving, bring it and hand it over and we will add student points to you based on the number of kills, it also determines your alive or dead status."
Lian then nodded, and after putting on the wristband, he went toward the place that had caught his attention the most.
What caught his attention more than anything else was the main hall of the center, dozens of massive holographic screens were floating on the walls.
All the area’s information was displayed on them.
Lian went close to one that was showing the overall statistics of the base.
Current population of awakened ones registered at the base: 24,381 people.
Registered students: 1,209 people.
Last month’s casualties: 1,294 people.
Note: Casualties are shown from the day the base was opened for public use.
Closed areas: 12 areas.
High-level warnings: 7 active.
Lian looked at the numbers for a few seconds, more than a thousand deaths in one month, of course, more precisely, this casualty count was for less than two weeks.
And that was only in this area, this number was even higher than what he had expected.
How exactly did so many casualties happen? Did the awakened ones not pay attention to the warnings at all? Or did they act foolishly and leave the safe zone?
Why would they do such a thing when they did not have the ability for it...?
He checked a few more screens, reports of new monster appearances, reports of activity by large monster packs.
Warnings related to forbidden zones and several military announcements.
After a few minutes of studying, he realized the reason for so many casualties, beyond the 100 kilometer safe zone, there were three specific races of monsters that only moved in herds.
And in very large herds that included dozens and hundreds of monsters, their levels were above 15.
Most of these casualties were from the early days when no one knew about the existence of these three monster races, and it led to widespread massacres of awakened ones.
And now because of that, few dare to leave the safe zone, and professional teams have not yet been formed to hunt those monsters.
Then he changed his path to the registration status section.
His target was clear, Kain.
When he entered his name, it took a few seconds for the AI to find the information, and then a screen appeared.
[ Name: Kain ]
[ Surname: — ]
[ Status: Active / Alive ]
[ Last recorded sighting: 5 days ago ]
[ Location: Unknown ]
Lian took a deep breath.
It was the same as what he expected, Kain was still alive... probably, but the location was unknown?
This gave him practically no useful information, he had to ask the officer again, and after that he understood what these meant.
Status: Active/Alive indicates the wristband given by the academy, this wristband checks the heartbeat at all times and updates the status in the academy system every three hours.
If the heartbeat is normal and still working, it means the person is alive, but if it is semi-active/reduced, it means they are in a bad condition, and if it is inactive/off, it means they are dead.
Whenever they return to the base, the wristband automatically announces the return and registers a check-in.
If no check-in is done for thirty days, the status changes to unknown, missing.
As long as they are within the hundred kilometer radius, their location is completely clear, but if they go beyond that, the location changes to unknown.
Based on all this, the conclusion was simple, Kain was alive but far from the base.
After that he looked at the status of his friends, Selina, Liana, Seraphina, Cassius and Marcus, all of them were alive and of course in unknown areas.
But their last check-in was for two days ago, so they clearly had not gone too far.
Finally he left the information section and went toward the mission hall, massive holographic boards were floating all over the hall.
Hundreds of missions, maybe thousands of missions, from hunting weak monsters to exploration missions, protecting people and caravans, extracting rare resources and assisting in discoveries.
Lian checked them one by one.
The rewards were attractive, but he did not find anything that caught his attention, besides, before choosing any mission, he preferred to get familiar with this place first.
Then he went to the geographical information section, several large 3D maps were floating in the air.
Maps of the surrounding area of the base, and he started examining them, very soon he realized that the portal officer had not lied.
Up to a hundred kilometer radius of the base was truly considered safe, most of the registered monsters were below level fifteen.
Many of them were even below level ten.
For new awakened ones, this area was ideal.
But Lian very soon found something more interesting, up to eight hundred kilometers from the base, there were many areas on the map that had only been initially identified.
Reports showed that most of these areas had only been examined by professional exploration groups.
Mercenary groups, elite guild teams, and special government teams, but many of those areas were still considered unknown.
There was no accurate information about their monsters or resources because they had only been examined in a limited way.
Because of the existence of those three monster races, they could not explore those areas without complete worry.
This made him understand the true greatness of the Ruined Realm better.
After finishing his examinations, Lian finally decided to do the next important thing, buying a mount, he had no interest in running all the way.
Especially now that he would probably have to search vast areas.
In the Ruined Realm, having a suitable means of transport was almost as important as having a good weapon. After a little asking around, he soon found the location of the country’s most famous tame monster store.
Its name was almost known to all awakened ones.
Golden Saddle Consortium
The largest seller of tame monsters in the entire country, it was said that its central branch kept thousands of different monsters.
From simple pack monsters to expensive combat creatures, the entrance of the border base branch was almost the size of a small square.
On a massive golden sign above the building, the image of a winged horse-like monster was carved.
The sound of monsters could be heard from inside, armored horses, riding wolves, giant pack lizards, and even a few stranger creatures that Lian had never seen.
He stood in front of the entrance.
If he was going to stay in the Ruined Realm for a long time, he needed a suitable companion, and this was probably the best place to find one.
With that thought, he opened the massive doors of the store and entered.
And right at that moment, he realized that choosing among all these different monsters would probably be much harder than he had imagined.