Chapter 1002 - Trials

The day the gate opened was greeted by euphoria from all cultivators there. This was one of the biggest opportunities in their life, so they were not going to waste it. After all, only those who were one hundred fifteen years old or younger could enter this place. If they combined with the time they needed to reach Martial Emperor, which was the basic requirement to enter this place, most of them only had around five tries before they were too old to participate.

Thus, not a single person who wanted to improve themselves wasted this opportunity.

Alex looked at the tower from afar with a smile. He might have noticed something they never had.

The Sword Qi that surrounded the tower was a Pure Sword Qi, but more than that, it was replenished by the Sword Qi from all the people. In fact, all the strength they expended during their stay in this city and inside the tower was converted by the tower to sustain its life.

Of course, it wasn't very effective, but with enough hype, the place was bound to be popular, diminishing that weakness.

The excess of Sword Qi was then given to the participants here by a certain someone in the tower. Although he didn't know who he was, he noticed a powerful existence inside the tower. Most probably, a Rank 3 God if not Rank 2 God.

It seemed to be the administrator that the Sword God told him.

The problem he needed to face was how to climb this tower.

The important people started coming to this place, watching everything unfolded. The crowd began getting into it, shouting how great those people were.

Alex ignored them all along and kept watching the tower with his Spirit Eyes.

Suddenly, many words appeared in front of the tower. They were separated into five parts.

The first part was the lowest one, and it made a certain riddle for the people to understand.

"You are cultivators who use weapons. Follow your own path."

As much as he wanted to decipher the first code, he decided to see the others first.

"Strength is not always the answer."

"Trust your weapons."

"What is a weapon to you?"

"Only those qualified may enter."

The riddles were not long and complicated, but they did hold deep meaning. Even Alex couldn't understand them easily.

When he was about to think about the riddles, the cracking sound echoed in everyone's ears as the door gradually opened, inviting everyone to enter.

"Hey, it's open!"

"We need to go now!"

"This door will only be opened for another ten minutes."

Many started coming toward the door, trying to get inside the tower, but Alex still had no intention of coming in.

He waited and pondered the five riddles.

The bottom was surely the first riddle and the first trial, so he wanted to at least understand what it meant.

"You are cultivators who use weapons…Follow my path?" Alex narrowed his eyes. No matter how he thought, he couldn't understand the real meaning of this riddle.

At one point, he thought that he only needed to believe in his path and continuously walked inside a white room that had no end, but he felt something was wrong.

The riddle still had its first half, which emphasized the weapons, but Alex couldn't understand it. He thought everything would be solved if he brought his weapon, but he knew it wouldn't be the case.

Anyway, several minutes had passed, and the people were reduced to only a tenth of its original number. Alex found Aria still standing outside, watching the five riddles.

At the very least, she wasn't rash in making decisions, so yeah, he was pretty happy about it.

"Well, I understand the latter part, so I think I should go inside as well. It's not like I want to go together with these people who seem to have big status," Alex muttered to himself before leaping from his inn.

He flew straight to the gate, passing everyone, including Aria.

Aria was still in deep thought, so she didn't notice him.

Alex didn't plan to meet her as well, so he also didn't look at her, and the scenery changed as soon as he entered the gate.

It turned out to be an enclosed space. Alex found himself in a small tunnel that could fit three people in at the same time. The height wasn't that great as well.

Alex took a deep breath, activated his Spirit Eyes and investigated the area. To his surprise, he couldn't see any people nearby. Even though the tower was spacious, he should be able to find many people because there were millions of people coming here.

But the fact that it showed no one and only Spiritual Energy that surrounded him, Alex knew that this was a special realm array or an illusion array. These two were the only ones that could mess with Alex right now.

He might have immunity to illusion, but his sense would still get messed up since the target was his sense of direction.

"Wait a minute…Is there a chance that this is not an illusion. But another realm or something? Or there is a chance that I am…" Alex suddenly realized something and raised his vision.

He was surprised to find many people above him. He then looked down and realized another clue by finding another batch of people.

When he saw the people of the town were also above him, he noticed the fact that they were underground.

"I see. This tower is not only going to the sky but goes deep down inside the ground. The goal is to go up, I guess?" Alex speculated and nodded.

"Alright then. What should I do?" Alex narrowed his eyes. This place was full of Sword Qi, so he thought about cultivating since it would be beneficial for his Sword Qi, but there was also a time limit preventing him from doing that.

"According to the information I got from Aria, each level had a time limit of five days…" Alex narrowed his eyes. "In that case, I should search for the entrance of the second stage and cultivate. When the time limit is near, I will then go inside. Wait a minute. There is no telling that the entrance will lead to the second stage, so I should spare a day to make sure I have enough time if I am wrong."

With that thought in mind, he finally took a step forward.

"Follow my path." Alex was muttering the riddle over and over again while he stormed inside the maze but to no avail. His first plan in believing his path had become a failure since nothing came in even after several hours of walking.

Well, he hadn't deemed it as a failure yet because there might be a chance that something would happen in a day or so. But at this point, he found something more interesting. It was on the first half of the riddle.

Why would the riddle specifically mention them as a weapon user? Normally, people didn't put any thoughts into it because they knew weapon users were people who used weapons. As simple as that. And all people coming here would think of themselves as one.

At first, it looked like a greeting to them, but if Alex thought about it even further. He felt there was a deep meaning behind the first half.

"Weapons huh…" Alex muttered to himself and almost forgot the fact that this place was surrounded by Sword Qi.

"This is not my Sword Qi…Yes. I have been led by this Sword Qi since the beginning. Even though I was walking while believing that my path is right, it wasn't enough. This Qi is the one making the path, and I just unintentionally followed it. In that case…" Alex seemed to have solved the problem and released his own Sword Qi.

Suddenly, a huge change occurred when Alex's Sword Qi influenced the other Sword Qi around him. The brown bricks for the wall, floor, and ceiling gradually turned black. The Sword Qi also retreated from his front.

Alex noticed that he was right and continued walking, believing his path was right. And as he expected, he found a giant door after several minutes.

"This must lead to the second stage." Alex smiled. "I will stay here for three days before opening this door. I can't waste this precious chance after all."

When he was about to sit on the floor, words appeared on the door, telling Alex something.

Alex furrowed his eyebrows and read it.

"Continue. The time will be acc.u.mulated and assessed for the last reward and time for practice."

"Does this mean it wants me to keep up my pace or even complete it faster?" Alex narrowed his eyes and contemplated. "I want the reward, but is it worth the effort? I mean, the training is more tempting to me. And it said I would have time for practice later?"

Alex was in a dilemma. On one hand, he wanted to jump straight to the second stage because of the time for practice. On the other hand, he didn't know the calculation process. If the reward were not worth it, he would regret it.

"What should I do?" He muttered for a moment. Ultimately, he decided to continue, gambling it all. With the Sword Pavilion's reputation that gave many people something useful, he believed the reward shouldn't be too disappointing.

He stood back on his feet and opened the door that led to somewhere. Unfortunately, he couldn't see it at the moment because it was just covered with light.

When his finger touched the door, he got sucked in and arrived in another place but still a maze.

"Again?" Alex furrowed his eyebrows, but when he found different types of energy appeared both on the floor and ceiling, he realized something was wrong. "Traps?"

Because he wasn't sure about this, he took out this water bottle and threw it.

The bottle rolled around the floor while smearing the floor with water. Suddenly, the floor reacted and swallowed the water as a whole before crushing the bottle.

Alex looked at the ceiling that suddenly dropped down and returned after crushing the bottle.

"Hmm…This is intriguing. Strength is not always an answer, huh." Alex contemplated for a minute before finding something interesting.

A bit farther away from here was a red button which seemed to be the clue to the next stage.

"I think I need to push that button, but I can't use my strength. No, if I enter the traps, I will be crushed. That means there is a way for me to get around it."

However, Alex was still a bit playful by summoning a Rank 1 Spear which could be thrown away anytime. He raised his stance like a baseball player and threw the spear as fast as possible.

"Spear Throwing Art, Spin Throwing!"

He used the long-forgotten Spear Throwing Art. The attack wasn't all that powerful, but the speed should be able to bypass the crushing ceiling.

The spear continued making its way toward the button, and none of the ceilings could crush it. Every time it almost hit the spear, the spear managed to get away with speed alone.

Since it kept returning to its original state, Alex could see the progress of his spear.

It had covered half of the distance and kept slipping past. A few seconds later, it managed to pass ninety percent of the distance, ready to hit the button after passing the last one. And as he predicted, it passed the last one.

"Well…That was easy," Alex muttered.

The trial might want to mess with him as right in front of the button appeared a transparent barrier. The spear struck the barrier instead, keeping the button from getting hit.

Alex widened his eyes, not knowing what to say. He thought everything would go smoothly, but it seemed the tower wanted to make the challenge harder by using that. Well, he couldn't really say it since he used the strength of a Divine Body that was far stronger than that of a Martial Saint.

"…"

"Never mind."