After dancing back to avoid the chief's body slam I see the first guard charging at me. Moving back a bit more I let the first guard close the distance with me. This brings him further away from the other two, as long as I can keep them spread out I should be fine.

As I am dancing around the first guard, I keep an eye on the other two ettins. The second guard is still down, likely for good, but the chief is up and limping towards his sword. Easily dodging around the first guard I charge at the chief, I don't want him getting to his sword.

Before the chief can turn to face me I reach him and rake my claws across the back of his already injured knee. He once again falls to the ground, just a few feet shy of reaching his sword. I hit him twice more as I move past him and then I pick up his sword and take a swing at him with it.

As the sword moves it is again wrapped in flames and when it hits the chief it does a lot of damage. Just from the feel of the hit I can tell that the sword punched through his hide like it was made of paper. The sword's ability to pierce defenses is at least as good as my claws if not better.

Seeing the first guard charging at me again I move to meet him, as I duck under his attack I spin. The momentum of the spin greatly increases the power of the sword strike. As a result I manage to completely sever the ettin's leg just below the knee.

The only drawback of the sword is that the fire damage reduces bleeding. It doesn't completely cauterize the wound but it is still enough to prevent the ettin from bleeding out quickly. However, I still find myself liking the sword quite a bit, it's too bad I can only use it during the test.

Now that all three ettins are crippled the fight turns even more one sided. Using the sword I kill them one by one and the others aren't able to help. Once the two guards are dead I turn my attention to the chief who is on his feet but unable to walk.

Because of the wounds to his leg as soon as he tries to dodge my attack he ends up falling. Once he is down I make quick work of him and just like that the fight is over. Now that he is dead I finally have a chance to have a good look at his sword.

*Magic Item*

Sunfire Sword

Durability: 108/750

Str +50 Damage vs Undead +50%

Damage: +50 Fire Damage: +30 (+10 in Sunlight)

'Wow! It's even more awesome than I thought!'

Thanks to the new sword my hunting speed against the ettins shoots up. Now even if there are three or four ettins together I can hunt them without any problems. By the time the ettins retreat to the surface for the day I have killed a little over fifty of them.

When I check the crystal to see how many ettins I have killed in total the number is one hundred and seven. Based on what I have seen it should be roughly half of the ettins, maybe a little less. At this rate I should be able to completely wipe out the ettins in the next few days.

However, as the underground world goes dark I forget about the ettins and start hunting for shadow apes. The fact that the sword deals magical damage should mean it can break the shadow ape's protection all on its own. Meaning I will be able to hunt them without using so much sacred power.

So the hardest part of hunting shadow apes becomes finding them, but I soon figure that out as well. After all they are hunters who think they have no equal, if I make noise they try to hunt me. The sword works perfectly against them, just as I was hoping.

The first group of five that ambushes me dies within minutes, and they barely do any damage to me. Not even enough to counter my regen, so they are no threat at all unless they have much higher numbers. So I take to wandering around the rainforest whistling, luring in more shadow apes.

Without their shadow protection the apes themselves are fairly weak and easy to kill. Three groups of five die in the first two hours of 'night' giving me fifteen cores. Almost half what I need to rank up to rank six, at this rate I may try for rank seven.

Even though I am being noisy, trying to draw out shadow apes, I still do my best to keep my eyes out for danger. After all, I know there are predators out here, some on par with the t-rex. There are probably even more that I haven't seen yet, after all there must be a reason the shadow apes live underground.

That and when they are hunting they stay in the treetops until they drop down on their prey. If they were the undisputed top predator then they wouldn't have to be that cautious. Besides, everything is going my way right now, so it's obvious something has to happen.

However, it doesn't happen during this 'night' and by the time the crystals light up I have collected forty-four cores. That is thirteen more than I need to get to rank six, meaning this all has already been worth it. Even if I fail the test now, getting to rank six so easily is absolutely amazing.

That is, as long as I keep the rank up that I get in here, that seriously has me worried. After all, I have no idea what the rules of the test are, all I know is the other tests only improved my skills. I am fairly sure material things like the sword will vanish when the test ends, but I have no idea what will happen to the changes made to myself.

If I thought I could take things out of the test then I would be collecting more shadow ape cores to feed to Kechara and Asuna. Although, that does make me wonder if they are able to take the tests as well. Kechara at least should be able to pass the first two tests fairly easily and it would definitely make her stronger.

When I finally get out of here I will have to ask Yui if they are able to try the tests as well. If so, they can do that while I see about dealing with the temple. While I am thinking I climb a tree and find a nice branch to rest on for a couple of hours.

That will give me a break and allow the ettins time to come down and spread out. If my luck holds out I should only need one more full day to finish things here. With that pleasant thought I close my eyes to nap for the two hours.