'I didn't know what I expected,' Kyle thought as he just looked at a bunch of mountains.
He was at the World Peak, the biggest and highest mountain range in the world.
While its area was smaller than the Himalayas, the height of many of the mountains dwarfed Mount Everest.
Yet, he only saw mountains.
He felt like he should be impressed by something, but they were just mountains.
It was kind of boring.
"Everything you see from now on is to be kept top secret," the Captain said. "Sharing the location of any base you will see is considered treason."
"Yes, sir!" the group shouted.
A moment later, everyone started climbing the relatively steep mountains.
Some of the Fighters used their Souls to run along the walls of the mountains, but there were also a couple of Fighters who couldn't do that.
Fighters didn't have an improved Soul, which meant that doing something like this was quite difficult for them and took a lot of practice to learn.
Not everyone had learned that.
Naturally, the Captain took note of the performance of different people and teams.
Climbing the mountain range was a small test to see how the teams would adapt to the environment.
The Alpha Team had no issues. They all just ran on the mountain walls.
Surprisingly, team Mountainwall didn't seem to be very comfortable with the walls of the mountains.
Only two of them could use their Souls to cling to the walls, while the remainder had to search for other ways to get up.
Crevices, digging into the mountain, lower inclines, and so on.
The Captain noted that the team split.
The ones who could run along the walls followed the group, while the others had to search for their own ways.
'Bad cohesion,' the Captain thought.
Team Rapidstream had three people who could run along the walls, but none of them actually used that skill.
Instead, they walked with their two members who didn't have that skill.
'Good cohesion,' the Captain thought.
As for team Sandstorm…
They all just jumped onto Lily's flying golems, while the ground golems ran up the walls.
The Captain couldn't make a judgment on their cohesion since he couldn't see if anybody had any issues with the mountain walls.
"Stop!" the Captain shouted after reaching the top of one of the mountains.
Naturally, everyone stopped.
"Wait here," the Captain said before running forward on his own.
Everyone waited for about a minute.
Then, the Captain returned. "Continue!"
"Yes, sir!"
Traveling across the mountain range was not easy.
The individual mountains had sharp angles, and there were significant altitude differences between them.
For example, the first mountain was around two kilometers high.
The peak of the second mountain was around one kilometer away.
Yet, the lowest point between the two mountains was almost 500 meters lower than their peaks.
This put the Fighters in front of a choice.
They were already near the frontlines, and the Third Realm Winterfire People could already be ready for an ambush.
If one of the members decided to jump from peak to peak, they would be defenseless.
They were Fighters, and with their pitiful Souls, they couldn't use the Ether in the air to change their trajectories.
If there were an enemy Archer Grandmaster in hiding, they could shoot the Fighters down while they were in the air.
As everyone looked around from the peak of the first mountain, they realized that there were seemingly endless places where an enemy could be hidden.
Jumping from peak to peak was extremely risky.
The Alpha Team decided to run down the mountain and run up the next.
Since all of them could run on the walls, traversing the distance between two peaks just meant running an extra kilometer.
That was just a couple of seconds of extra running.
Nothing big.
The Captain watched how everyone decided to travel from peak to peak.
Team Mountainwall decided to split again. The ones who could run on the surface just ran down the first mountain and up the other one.
The remaining members just jumped from one mountain to the next.
Nothing happened.
Apparently, there was no enemy looking at them right now.
Team Rapidstream decided to go down and up, taking almost 30 seconds to reach the other mountain.
Team Sandstorm simply jumped down from the flying golems and hopped onto the ground golems.
Then, the ground golems jumped the gap while the flying golems circled around the space between the mountains, keeping watch for any enemies.
When everyone reached the other side of the mountain, the Captain also jumped over the gap and landed on the other side with ease.
After landing, he told the teams to go to the next mountain.
"Sir, if I may," Kyle said, approaching the Captain.
The Captain furrowed his brows.
He wanted to get to the base, and he didn't have time for interruptions.
Yet, his impression of Kyle was relatively good.
"What?" the Captain asked.
"I'm a half-dwarf, and I have quite advanced instincts," Kyle said before pointing at a random cave a bit away. "I feel some danger coming from there."
The Captain raised a brow in skepticism. "How dangerous?"
"Medium," Kyle said. "Some Late Second Realm beings or one Peak Second Realm being."
The Captain wasn't completely sure if he should believe Kyle.
"Martin," the Captain shouted.
A moment later, the leader of the Alpha Team arrived. "Yes, sir?"
"Do you trust his instincts?" the Captain asked.
Martin looked at Kyle for a moment.
"Yes, his instincts have helped us in the past," Martin said.
"Are you willing to prove that?" the Captain asked.
"Sir?" Martin asked.
"Tell him," the Captain said.
Kyle told Martin about what he felt.
"You're a Grandmaster, and you're faster than almost everyone here," the Captain said. "If it's a scout, it's easier to catch them on your own since they are quite fast. The others won't be able to keep up."
Martin looked at Kyle for a moment.
"Affirmative," Martin said.
Then, he ran down the other mountain, acting like he was continuing on his way.
Yet, on the low point between the mountains, he changed his trajectory and charged right towards the cave Kyle had indicated.
tg://resolv?domain=StrongestHammerGod
The author's patreon. If he gets more than 1000€ per month, he will increase the number of words in the chapter.