The examinees had to be careful and cautious. This delayed them from accumulating performance points as fast as possible.
If it were not possible to gain performance points by eliminating other examinees, everyone would have peace of mind and would be able to hunt beasts without fear.
But this wasn't the case. In this situation, everyone knew that whatever points they were trying to acquire could be taken from them at any time. This increased the overall difficulty of the test and made the average performance of the examinees lower than the first test.
The only solution they could come to was to form an alliance based on oaths using the Ethera tree as the witness. The basic oath was not to attack each other for points.
As easy as this was, it was not easy to execute because the oath wasn't acceptable to everyone. Some people wanted to be able to kill others. They didn't want to enter the dangerous water to hunt. They preferred to attack other examinees on land, so they didn't want to swear that oath.
This caused a delay in the adoption of the alliance. Instead of hunting beasts, the examinees were trying to convince each other to swear the oath.
It was in the middle of this delay that Arthur was killing beasts easily and accumulating points quickly. The unbelievable progress he was making made the other examinees anxious.
It was mostly the powerful children from cultivation families who wanted to reap performance points from the other weaker examinees. The weaker examinees didn't have any hope of eliminating other examinees, so they were the first to seek the protection of the alliance.
The powerful examinees thought it was smarter to steal rather than work for performance points. But when they saw Arthur's progress, they were no longer willing to wait for the weaker examinees to acquire points before they reaped it.
These powerful examinees became in a hurry to acquire points themselves. They wanted to narrow the gap between them and Arthur as soon as possible because if they can acquire points by eliminating other examinees, Arthur can too.
If they decide to wait until the later part of the one hour they have to begin hunting other examinees, the gap between them and Arthur would have surely become too big by then. The gap would only widen when Arthur begins hunting other examinees. So they made the oath and joined the alliance.
Not every one of them was desperate enough to join the alliance, though. They were still hoping to farm the weaker ones. Unfortunately, they weren't given the chance.
Those who had formed the alliance had also become desperate after seeing Arthur accumulate thousands of points quickly. They too didn't want to wait for the stubborn few to join the alliance. They decided to use force.
On one side were the predators hoping to steal performance points, and on the other side were the prey who had formed an alliance. The prey gave the predators an ultimatum. If the predators refused to join the alliance, the prey would attack them.
The number of prey was larger than the number of predators,s, and the difference in individual power of prey and predator wasn't that large. So the predators were quickly overwhelmed.
Soon the predators were eliminated or forced to join the alliance. This way, each alliance became united and could focus on hunting beasts.
Augustus clapped when he saw this. He said to the others in the room, "If you ask me, this test is more of a lesson in the need for unity. One might have powerful individual strength, but when faced with threats, it is always better to be united with like-minded people."
His cousin smirked and said, "That is the case if you are not as strong as Arthur."
Augustus didn't agree. He shook his head and said, "That's because the people around him are intimidated. They are scared of being eliminated, and he hasn't done enough to push them to the brink yet."
His uncle said, "You're right. The 1,000 people on his island weren't united enough. They didn't have enough incentive to unite. But that might change soon. Surely his performance point is enough incentive."
Augustus sighed and said, "That's what I'm afraid of. I have experienced this before, and it didn't end well. Hopefully his situation won't be as bad as mine."
His aunt said, "It might not be a bad thing if he suffers a loss now. In this test, his life will be preserved. All he will lose is 30% of his performance points. If you ask me, that's not too much to learn a lesson in unity."
Augustus's cousin shook his head and said, "I don't think the lesson in unity is the only lesson he can learn here. He can also learn that he needs more power to triumph over the need for unity. A loss here might mean he goes even more extreme."
Augustus nodded in agreement. "You might be right. It would be bad if he learns the wrong lesson."
His cousin laughed and asked, "Why do you think learning the lesson of supremacy is bad?"
Augustus frowned and replied, "Because personal strength is not always enough to solve problems."
The cousin asked again, "Can the strength of others solve all problems? If we can't rely on our strength, is the strength of others so reliable?"
Augustus replied confidently, "It all depends on who you rely on. If it is the family, then you can always count on your family. If your individual power is not enough, you can always have the power of the family to help you."
The cousin nodded and said, "You have a point. I'll concede to that. But tell me this. If the power of the family is so great, why do we want a cultivator of the fourth mortal coil to appear in the family? Why do we need strong individual strength to elevate the power of the family?"