109 The Black Book

As the commencement of the tournament echoed throughout the coliseum; one of the gems carried by each participant glowed and floated up, then it crashed towards the wall and a stone arch emerged from the wall.

The gem's position was on the topmost part of the arch. The glow then began to disappear and reappear in a pattern, as if it's a pulsating heart.

Symbols surfaced from the stone arch as the pulsating glow travelled from top to bottom like blood flowing out of a heart, circulating towards the different parts of the body.

A spark appeared and the part of the wall within the stone arch liquified and turned into a portal.

"Whoa." James couldn't help but express his amazement by the sight, "Mr. Allen, you will go through that to enter the first round?"

"Yes." Allen nodded.

"I wonder what is inside that portal." The kid murmured.

Without replying, Allen then dropped his satchel beside the portal. It was unallowed to bring in any kinds of object, aside from clothes of course. If anybody tried to do so, the portal would repel them back.

As Allen entered, the portal dispersed into nothingness.

***

The first round would be mainly for elimination.

In this round, each of the contestants would be presented 101 books. Each book has 1,000 images of countless varieties of plants, making a total of 100,000 images of plants to be filled up of their description.

The requirement to pass this round is to obtain a total of 40,000 points. How were they to be calculated?

There were 101 books, however, each of them also has different kinds of difficulties which could be determined through their covers.

The easiest to fill up were the 35 white books. Each of the images filled up with the right description would be 1 point. Making it a total of 35,000 points.

Next would be the 45 purple books. It would be 3 points per each image successfully answered. Making it a total of 135,000 points.

The third type of book would be the red ones. There were 20 of them and each of the plant rightfully solved would give one 20 points. Which was a total of 400,000 points.

Lastly, there was the single black book, with each of the plants drawn within it would be worth 40 points if correctly answered. Making it a perfect total of 40,000 points.

It was also the most difficult book.

All of the participants were teleported to another separate single tall chambers. Allen looked at the towers of stocked books, then he glanced at a single desk and chair with a working lamp on top of it.

He also noticed that his strength was suppressed to the point he could be considered as a normal human after he entered the room.

Although his strength was generally clamped down to a nil; his senses weren't fully suppressed and noticed that his speed was much faster, or rather, the time was slower in the room. The slowness of time was a familiar sensation to Allen, he had encountered it before in the Mount Watchtower and inside his consciousness where the Erchian Dagger resided.

Allen walked around the room first. He searched all around before picking up a book.

It was the black book.

He proceeded to the desk, sat down, and opened the book.

***

Meanwhile, in the other rooms Dorothy, Gavin, and a few others also picked up the black book and opened its first page.

As it was a single black book. A lot of them thought that it was best to answer it first because it would also provide the most points.

On its first page, they all saw a drawing of a blue lotus flower, it was so realistic as if they could feel the coldness that the real flower would emanate just from the drawing.

"Blizzard Crown Lotus?" All of them recognized the said plant.

***

"This is so easy!"

***

"Isn't this supposed to be in the white books?" Said a baffled old man.

***

"Talk about free 40 points." Another contestant clicked his tongue in surprise.

***

They all wrote the Blizzard Crown Lotus' description, from its petals towards its stems, its possible origin, even minor information such as its other variant names, etc.

As soon as they finished writing each and every one of its definition, the page glowed, signifying they successfully obtained 40 points.

Majority of the people who initially tried the black book was taken aback by the ease of the first image.

As they were about to turn to the next page, the scene before them changed to a dark frozen snowing wasteland.

***

"Oh no.", Gavin said as he unconsciously stood up, after he did so, the desk and the chair along with everything else on top of it disappeared out of thin air.

"This wasn't written in the gems!"

***

Allen realized what was happening. He tried to sense internal energy within his body but he noticed that it was still suppressed.

It was also the same occurrence with the contestants who answered the black book. Some of them began cursing themselves for their stupidity, while others started to ran towards in different directions as soon as it occurred.

If somebody could watch the people who wrote on the black book, they'd be laughing from a number of the contestant's reaction.

Allen sensed something that set its sight on him, he slowly turned around and saw several blue eyes watching him under the blanket of darkness. The eyes made it seem like their possessor was some sort of a dangerous primordial beast.

A high-pitched screeched emanating coldness and destitute sounded out from the direction of the eyes. Allen ran towards the opposite direction, while running away, he looked behind him to see nothing but empty darkness.

Due to the heavy snowfall along with the suppression of his strength, Allen's line of sight was reduced tremendously.

"Mmmmhmm…" The monster behind him suddenly could be heard moaning, just after the moans the area around Allen became even colder, and he felt that the cold started to creep in his body and began corrupting it.

Allen felt the sensation was familiar and he determined what it was, "Magic Frostbite."

Ice gradually formed on his skin, beginning from his feet and from his hands. As his internal energy was suppressed, he couldn't put up a fight against the power that was corrupting his body.

A few moments of running later, he spotted a glowing dot from afar. Allen immediately turned towards the direction where the dot was and sprinted.

Suddenly, he heard the sounds of something piercing through the air from the sky behind him. Numerous icicles rained down on him from above.

The icicles hit the ground, and exploded into little bits of sharp ice which increased the danger of just being near them.

However, where he could he hide from them in this plain of snow?

There were short explosions every time those projectiles touch the ground. Allen carefully yet also hastily dodged the icicles and their remaining bits.

The ground began shaking and shaking more intensively. Allen knew that the monster was getting closer and closer towards him.

The rain of icicles stopped. At the same time, several blue eyes emerged from the darkness behind Allen. The distance between him and the eyes shortened by each second that passed.

As the blue eyes arrived several meters away from Allen, the glowing dot from afar became even brighter and a ball of fire shot out from it.

-boom-

"EEEK…"

The ball of fire hit the monster. Allen made a short glance of the beast behind him, and saw a giant multi-eyed four-legged beast.

The eyes were on some sort of giant petals which were emitting a faint bluish light. The petals were located at the foremost front of the monster's body, and in the part of the body where the petals were attached at was a mouth with numerous teeth made of ice.

In addition, due to the light that the ball of fire provided, Allen also spotted the beast's exposed spine on its back.

But Allen didn't waste a single chance that the monster was hindered by the fireball. With everything he got, he ran towards the source of the fire.

When the dot of light was already as big as his fist from his perception. He stumbled in an area devoid of snow. Unlike the snowy wasteland, grass and other kinds of plants were healthily growing.

The Magic Frostbite dispersed from his body. Allen searched all around himself for injuries and saw a small portion of his arm near the elbow was pierced by an ice shard. He then removed the shard right out of his arm without any hitch, leaving behind a holed sleeve soaked in blood.

He looked back from the direction from where he came from, and saw nothing but only darkness and heavy snowfall.

Allen sat down at the grassy ground. He knew that the monster wouldn't dare come closer to this location, if it could, he would've already been gobbled up by it.

After resting for a few minutes, he stood back up and discarded his already tattered cloak. He might not have been hit from all the monster's icicle attacks, but his clothes weren't given any mercy.

He approached the dot of light he spotted earlier, which was actually on the tower.

On top of the tower was a pulsating energy, the same energy that kept the cold at bay on the boundaries of its aura.

Vines and other invasive plants grew near the tower's base, extending upwards.

However, the most important thing now was that his internal energy in here wasn't fully suppressed unlike on the outside. Nevertheless, the energy wasn't enough to trigger his regeneration abilities.

He circled around the tower and sighted a furnace and other tools for creating pills and elixirs on the other side.

He knew what he had to do as soon as his sighted the alchemic tools.

Allen sat down in front of the tools and landed a glimpse on the energy on the tower.

The energy was slowly dissipating.

If it fully dissipated, the protection it was giving off would also die off.

Time was of essence; without delay, Allen stood up and gathered plants and herbs to concoct the needed pills and elixirs.