Arin was still seated on a branch above the ditch when the game officially began. He wondered whether he should participate with his full strength like Grandma Lilly wanted or simply play the game the same way he always did with the rest of the family. If he used his physique, then the match would no longer be fair, as he could gather information from the forest in a one-hundred-meter radius around himself. Theoretically, he could extend that range even farther, but he was not physically capable of processing that much information at once without suffering serious consequences.
To be honest, the only reason he could maintain a one-hundred-meter perception range here instead of fifty was because he was deeply connected to this forest. He had grown up among these trees, knew every trail, and had spent countless years listening to the sounds of the woodland around him. When he had first entered the Black Forest, the heightened perception granted by his physique had only been effective within a radius of twenty-five meters. That limitation had frustrated him more than once during the expedition.
As he continued exploring the Black Forest, however, that distance gradually increased. The more time he spent learning its paths, observing its wildlife, and interacting with everything from the towering trees to the soil beneath his feet, the more the forest seemed willing to acknowledge him. The natural flow of mana regenerated more smoothly as he became connected with the forest's consciousness, allowing him to perceive increasingly subtle movements around him. Sadly, even after months of effort, he had only managed to increase that range to fifty meters.
No, Arin, enough daydreaming, he told himself as he shook his head. Grandma Lilly had specifically asked him to demonstrate the difference between the recruits and the Sonnenbergs at a level they could realistically achieve one day. She did not want him using abilities that even seasoned members of the family struggled to counter, because comparing that to ordinary recruits would be pointless. The difference between knowing exactly where someone was hiding and having no idea was like asking a blind man to fight a professional boxer.
Right, thought Arin as he dropped from the branch into the irrigation ditch below. He deliberately avoided landing in the mud, twisting his body in midair so that he would leave as few traces behind as possible. At the same time, he calmly released two arrows without even breaking his fall. Both shafts flew toward two recruits concealed behind the nearby boulder, hoping to ambush him once the ten-minute preparation period had ended.
Finding them had not been difficult at all. Even without relying on his physique, they had chosen hiding places that any experienced ranger would have checked first. The arrows struck them in the back, eliminating them from the game before they even realized they had been discovered. The difficult part would begin now, as he still had to hunt down the remaining recruits one by one.
Arin made his way toward the spot where the first group of recruits had climbed out of the ditch after their unfortunate fall. He paused there for a moment, studying the area without making a sound. They had spent nearly a minute catching their breath, helping one another out of the mud, and discussing what to do next. That short delay had left behind far more evidence than they realized.
Fortunately for him, they were still making small mistakes. Otherwise, relying solely on traditional tracking methods would have been extremely difficult, especially considering the cloaks they were wearing. To almost everyone else in the world, those garments would have been considered nothing short of miraculous. To the Sonnenbergs, however, they were simply another family tradition perfected over countless generations.
Originally, the cloaks had been nothing more than practical clothing designed to protect rangers from cold rain, rough winds, and thick undergrowth. Over the centuries, however, each generation refined their construction until they blended naturally into forests, marshes, and hillsides alike. The colors shifted subtly with the surrounding environment, making the wearer surprisingly difficult to notice at a glance. More importantly, every improvement had been based on practical experience rather than appearance.
One of the greatest improvements involved the way the yarn and wool were woven together. Ordinary cloaks constantly snagged on thorns and branches, leaving behind loose fibers that skilled trackers could easily follow. That was unacceptable for a family whose livelihood depended on remaining unseen while moving through dense forests. As a result, Sonnenberg weavers developed techniques that made the fabric remarkably resistant to catching on vegetation.
That weaving method alone had taken generations to perfect. It ensured that even when someone pushed through thick thorn bushes or tangled undergrowth, almost no strands of cloth would be left behind. Without those traces, following someone became significantly more difficult, forcing pursuers to rely on broken branches, disturbed leaves, or footprints instead. For a ranger, that difference often decided whether a hunt ended successfully or in complete failure.
The cloaks themselves could withstand astonishing amounts of punishment. They resisted tears far better than ordinary clothing and remained functional after years of hard use in harsh environments. Unfortunately, that durability came at a considerable cost, because maintaining them required countless hours of careful cleaning, repair, and reweaving. Every damaged thread had to be replaced correctly if the camouflage properties were to remain intact.
That was why authentic Sonnenberg cloaks were so expensive to produce. The material itself was valuable, but the real cost came from the immense number of hours skilled craftsmen invested in every single garment. Few people outside the family truly understood how much labor was hidden inside something that looked so ordinary. It was one of the family's greatest trade secrets and one they guarded carefully.
For today's exercise, however, the recruits had received a special privilege. As a reward for finishing among the top one hundred trainees, they had been granted priority access to those cloaks during the competition. Grandma Lilly wanted the challenge to be as realistic as possible, forcing Arin to rely on the same methods any experienced ranger would use. That meant tracking broken branches, faint footprints, subtle sounds, and tiny disturbances in the forest instead of depending on obvious visual clues.
Rather than seeing that as a disadvantage, Arin welcomed it. Traditional tracking was the foundation upon which every Sonnenberg built their skills, and it remained effective regardless of whether mana or special physiques existed. Anyone could rely on extraordinary abilities when they were available, but true mastery revealed itself when those advantages disappeared. That was another lesson Grandma Lilly wanted the recruits to understand today, and Arin intended to make sure they learned it thoroughly.
As Arin followed a trail that, to him, was filled with obvious signs that someone had passed through, Mya hid between a ridge and a large tree overlooking the path their bait had taken. She struggled to suppress a giggle as she imagined Arin walking straight into their carefully prepared ambush. After all, the recruits had quickly realized that they would never defeat someone like Arin in a direct confrontation. Their only hope was to lure him into a trap where numbers would overwhelm even his superior skills.
Henning had volunteered to act as the bait. As he fled through the forest, he intentionally left behind clues that would encourage Arin to follow him toward the clearing surrounding the old oak tree. There, the remaining recruits were concealed in carefully chosen hiding places, waiting for Arin to investigate before shooting arrows at him from every direction. If they managed to hit him before he could escape, then one of the strongest members of the Sonnenberg family would be eliminated from the game.
Normally, such a strategy would never have been permitted. The Sonnenbergs considered sacrificing one of your own teammates to be unacceptable, regardless of whether it was only a training exercise. The only reason the recruits had been allowed to try such a tactic today was because Instructor Lilly had explicitly stated that they could use any means necessary. Otherwise, they would have been in for a brutal lecture, just as Arin once had been after using a similar strategy during one of his own training exercises.
That memory was still infamous within the family. Arin had eventually won that particular match, but Grandma Lilly had made absolutely certain that he understood why casually sacrificing allies was a dangerous habit to develop. The lesson had been so memorable that no one in the younger generation wanted to repeat his mistake. Even now, most of them shuddered whenever someone mentioned that particular training session.
Unfortunately for the recruits, Arin had recognized the trap almost immediately. The trail was simply far too obvious compared to everything else around it. Every broken twig, disturbed leaf, and shallow footprint practically announced its presence to anyone with even moderate tracking experience. To an expert ranger like Arin, it stood out like a brightly painted sign in the middle of an otherwise untouched forest.
This was where the difference in experience truly began to show. Arin had spent his entire childhood playing games exactly like this against older family members who never took it easy on him. Every mistake he made was punished immediately, but afterward they always explained exactly why he had failed and how he could improve for the next match. Those countless lessons had gradually developed instincts that no classroom could ever hope to teach.
The recruits, on the other hand, simply did not have that opportunity. With classes containing nearly ten thousand students, instructors could never devote enough individual attention to everyone. They taught the principles, demonstrated the techniques, and corrected the largest mistakes, but subtle details often went unnoticed. Experience had to fill in those gaps, and experience required years rather than months.
That difference became painfully obvious the moment Arin examined the various trails crossing the forest floor. Every member of the ambush had inevitably left behind small traces while moving into position. Most of those trails were surprisingly well concealed, forcing even Arin to slow down and study the terrain carefully before identifying them. One trail, however, practically jumped out at him because it was so much easier to follow than all the others.
To Arin, that immediately raised suspicion. Good trackers rarely left behind obvious signs unless they wanted someone to find them. The moment one trail became significantly easier to follow than every alternative, it almost always meant someone was trying to manipulate the pursuer into making a predictable decision. It was one of the oldest tricks in ranger training, and precisely because of that, it rarely fooled experienced hunters.
A proper trail was often almost invisible. It was not unusual for an experienced recruit to walk 50 meters through the forest without leaving behind a single obvious clue that another person had passed that way. A bent blade of grass here, a pebble turned over there, or a faint disturbance in the moss was often all an expert needed to navigate. To ordinary people, such traces were practically nonexistent.
The bait trail before him was the complete opposite. Every ten meters there seemed to be another conveniently broken branch, another fresh footprint, or another disturbed patch of leaves pointing in exactly the same direction. Instead of blending naturally into the environment, each sign practically begged to be noticed. Rather than convincing Arin to follow it, the trail only convinced him that someone desperately wanted him to do so.
Arin almost laughed as he studied the evidence. Whoever had planned this ambush clearly understood the theory behind setting traps, but they lacked the practical experience necessary to execute one convincingly. Compared to the elaborate games he had played against his own family growing up, this attempt felt surprisingly amateurish. That did not mean he would underestimate the recruits, but it certainly meant he would approach the clearing with a smile rather than concern.