A while back...

Unlike Muku who was dropped in a forest-like pocket dimension. Raya found herself in a desert. The desert was so dry that there were literally no plants at all.

Again, unlike Muku, she didn't immediately spot the enemy. However, she had a feeling that she knew what that was.

While she had no psychological issues like Muku. She had a deep impression of

a place which looked like the pocket dimension she was dropped into. And that place was the Beast Forest desert, which she had only seen once.

The same place she and Muku had escaped with tails tucked in between their legs before. It was easy to identify the unseen opponent just from the location alone.

Her nerves instantly tensed. While she had dealt with Earth element opponents before and come out on top. She had never dealt with the kind of opponent coming her way...

While she was still stuck in thought. The ground began shaking. Then...

BOOM!

"SKKKKRRRRR!"

A mad screech sounded after an explosion on the ground Raya was standing on before.

A large sandworm was exposed to the world after the sand cleared. It then looked in the direction of Raya who was now several metres away.

To say it was looking at her would be far-fetched since it didn't have eyes. It was more appropriate to say that it could sense her. As creatures without eyes which lived below ground but hunted things above ground, sandworms had super keen senses. They were among the best in the category.

Anyway, the creature was mad because it had missed Raya whom it had sensed clearly before. With its speed of attack, escaping shouldn't have been so easy for her.

Raya wasn't much quick to act as she studied the huge creature. She was only ten meters and it was around fifty metres long and fifteen metres thick. And this was when a significant part of it was still hidden underground.

So it was safe to say that it could easily swallow Raya whole if it got the chance. And just biting her once with its unknown number of teeth which filled its mouth would probably be enough to end her. No, not probably, it would definitely be enough to do the job.

Its mouth looked like it was designed to bite down on the hardest of defences and destroy them.

Even Raya's peak body might not stand a chance. And she didn't even have that peak physic at the moment as Mrs C had taken it away. So yeah, she was in a very delicate and super dangerous situation. She couldn't avoid any mistakes.

Which was why she didn't hesitate to use her teleportation which took quite an amount of mana to use. Just using it once took five percent of her mana.

That might not seem like much but one had to know that it wasn't an offensive spell. It was just for getting away. And using it twenty times would leave her dried up. Which was simply nonsense!

That meant that in her weakest times when she had less than two percent mana when she needed it the most, she wouldn't be able to use it. And most of her stronger offensive spells took around that amount. So yeah, the spell wasn't cheap.

Then again, it was the space element, with everything included in its workings, that it was kind of understandable that it took so much power.

However, Raya didn't like using it too much. It was more of a strategic element. It was never wise to completely let yourself run out of mana in the Beast Forest. Muku's situation was a perfect example of why that wasn't good. Such a thing could lead to death after winning.

Fortunately for her, she didn't have one element. She was one of the rare bastards who had multiple elements. And she didn't just have multiple elements. She had three super-rare elements.

Those elements being, space, light and darkness.

The dragon's elements made even Muku envious. Her elements made it obvious that she was definitely one of life's main characters. Not to mention her bloodline which buffed those elements and pretty much every other significant quality she had.

If she and Muku were to face off without their bloodline. There is pretty much no chance he could beat her. Maybe with luck, he might be able to. But in a battle of stats. She was his superior by far. A true dragon showing a true dragon's advantages over everyone else.

Anyway, for the trial, she didn't have the support of her physic or bloodline. So, she was relatively weakened. But she was far from defenceless with her three elements.

With that being said, the sadworm didn't linger too long above ground. It expressed its anger and dug back into the ground.

Raya wasn't quick to attack. She wanted to study it first. This wasn't her initial plan but she had to do it after finding something out.

Unlike her who was a LR4, the sandworm was actually MR4! Had Mrs C made a mistake? Weren't they supposed to be the same rank level?!

{No, I haven't made a mistake. Everything is as it should be. I wanted you to have an equal-level battle. But a certain someone said that it wouldn't be a challenge for you. And after looking at your track record, I was convinced. You probably would have won quite easily if you were faced with an equally strong opponent. After all, unlike that son of mine, you kept up with every aspect of your training. While I do wish you had told him about the importance of mana quality, I think it was okay that you didn't. After all, learning the hard way is quite effective for him. Anyway, enough about him. The point is, you, girl, are too outstanding. For that reason. You're gonna be facing a higher rank level opponent. And unlike Muku, your trial actually counts. With that said, good luck, Little one. I believe in you} Mrs C's voice sounded in Raya's head.

Time seemed to have frozen when she spoke, so Raya didn't lose any time. Unlike when she spoke to Muku. She wasn't trying to distract Raya, after all.

As for how she knew what Raya was thinking. She didn't read her mind, she read her eyes instead. It was quite obvious from the look in Raya's eyes what she was thinking. Mrs C had really stopped reading the duo's minds. Maybe she grew a conscience.

"Oh, okay... Thank you for telling me" Raya replied. Her mood which had taken a dive after finding out that her opponent was stronger than her instantly rose. Like most females, she was weak to compliments.

If everything Mrs C said, what she paid the most attention to was when she complimented her. She quite liked being called outstanding, especially by a being of Mrs C's calibre. Hell, she didn't even know what that calibre was, but she knew that it was definitely somewhere at the very peak. Beyond Monarchs.

Anyway, she didn't linger too much on the compliment. She would think about it again later on. She currently had a beast to take care of. She had to prove Mrs C right for trusting her after all. She also didn't think about why Mrs C said Muku's trial didn't count. She'll find that out soon enough..

Not long after she had that thought, the ground beneath her began shaking again.

She couldn't help but roll her eyes at the predictable action by the sandworm. Then again the beast had little to no intelligence, so it was expected that it would do something like that.

Speaking of which, since sandworms didn't have much intelligence, they couldn't deploy domains or use domain armour. However, that didn't make them less dangerous than other beasts. If anything, it made them even more dangerous.

That's because their bodies were countless times stronger than normal beasts. Even dragons at the same level weren't as good as them unless they went through something which enhanced their physics.

This was because the domain armour had naturally merged with their bodies the very moment they reached R4. It was something done by nature. Like how the slow tortoise naturally has a tough shell because it's slow and marine mammals can hold their breath longer than land mammals from birth. It was just how things were.

While this limited them in some ways like focusing their armour on specific spots and some stuff like that, it wasn't too bad as it cost less mana among other advantages.

Then there were their domains. It was turned into a few spells that the worms know by instinct. The spells were all extra strong.

Raya didn't know most of the information mentioned above, but she was about to find out.

From that battle, she never forgot an important life lesson. And that lesson was, just because you're smarter than someone, it didn't mean you were better than them...

WHOOOO! WHOOOO! WHOOOO!....

Raya's eyes widened as she looked around her. She couldn't believe what she was looking at...