Chapter 443 - End of the Trial in Sight

While Gabriel and his crew were clearing out the underground factory, Cecil and his group had been wandering around the fifth stage's desert for a long time now.

"W-we're almost out of water...My mana is nearly dried up and I can't create any more for us," Celestina wearily said, her head drooped down in exhaustion.

"We've been walking for forever and we haven't seen an oasis or anything... Are we just going to die here?" Karen asked drearily.

"D-don't give up...if we continue walking, I-I'm pretty sure we can find something..."

The group had shrunk by a large degree. On the previous floor, they had to deal with the ancient monster's attacks which overpowered their strongest member, Cecil, and were barely able to escape with their life once they passed through the transfer gate to the next floor.

They all thought that their lives were saved but unfortunately for them, although they survived the fourth floor, the fifth floor was slowly killing them.

They had lost contact with a few of their members as they were moving along the desert so now there were only a few of them left. If that wasn't the worst thing that could happen, they had also lost contact with Cecil.

There was a large illusion array on this floor which was the cause of the manaless environment. The array directly sucked all of the mana on the stage to function so it left nothing for the trial participants.

Cecil had long been aware of this array and had set out to look for the core of the array to destroy it. He thought that this was the only way to clear the trials because after sticking with the group for so long and exploring the desert, they still hadn't been able to find the stage's transfer gate.

It was on the third day that Cecil finally realized that they had been caught in the large array's illusion and were only moving around in an infinite loop. He was able to quickly break out of the array's illusion and with his help everyone else broke out of it as well.

Cecil had decided to head for the array's core by himself since the closer they were to the core, the more powerful the illusions. He didn't want anyone to get caught in it again so he left by himself, but he didn't think that the administrator would screw him over again.

The administrator still needed some time to prepare his plan because Gabriel was doing something unnecessary at the underground factory. His factory 'cleaning' was taking too long and the administrator had to keep Cecil and the rest from finding out that the transfer gate was located underground.

So, the administrator amplified the effects of the illusion array which caused everyone to be swept into the illusion again. They did their best to stick together and not move around, but after some of their members began to disappear one by one, everyone began to panic.

It became even worse when the monsters started attacking from under the sand. This made them move away from their location just to get away from the monsters, but this only served to split the group even further.

Celestina, Karen, and a few others were together, while Cecilia, Ren, and everyone else was missing. They didn't know how many from their group were still alive, but they could only hope that not many had perished in this desert.

Their only hope now was Cecil who was going to destroy the illusory array.

*****

At the center of the fifth stage's desert, there was an oasis. This oasis held the fifth stage's massive illusory array's formation core.

Cecil had just arrived at this oasis. He had to break through numerous illusions and defeat many S-rank and above monsters to get here.

He was a little haggard from the journey. It took him much longer to get here than he had expected. The biggest problem in the battles on the way here was that he had to minimize his mana usage.

The illusion formation had changed halfway on his journey here and it was sucking out mana from his body to help power itself. His body was able to start generating mana on its own after the recent upgrade, but the illusion formation's change sucked out mana at a rate that was nearly the same as his own mana regeneration.

This forced him to use his mana sparingly. The change was the reason why it took him a few weeks to break through all of the illusions and monsters. Now that he was finally at the oasis, Cecil was able to locate the array's core with his Mana Eyes.

"Finally, this little thing was causing all of us so many problems...I hope the rest are okay..." Cecil mumbled to himself.

Cecil was worried about the companions he had left behind. He was worried that they were caught up in the array's illusions and something bad happened to them.

The best way he could help them was to quickly destroy the formation's core and go search for them right after.

It would have been safer if he brought them with him on his journey to the formation's core, but the problem was that he'd have to worry about them and the progress wouldn't be as fast. With the progress slow, he'd have to worry about his mana consumption and their safety.

The illusions of the array were so real that if a person with a weak mentality and mental force were to face the illusions, it would be very problematic for them. If they couldn't overcome the illusion, their minds could be killed or trapped forever in the illusion.

The illusion only served to be a slight problem for him since he could just break through it forcefully with his strength, but even that had limits. He wouldn't be able to help his friends constantly break through the illusions forcefully like him if they were too weak themselves.

With that in mind, Cecil decided that it was best if he went alone. It was to keep them safe and it was also for the sake of quickly clearing the stage.

The illusion array should have been used to temper everyone's minds and mental capacity, but the administrator's meddling had destroyed the purpose of this stage of the trial.

Cecil wouldn't know the true purpose of the illusion array but if he did, he would have pushed Ren and everyone to head towards the array's core area using their own strength to train and strengthen their minds. However, because he knew that the administrator was constantly trying to make things difficult for him, he didn't even think about that at all and instead just brute-forced his way through every stage.

If this continental trial proceeded as per the creator's original intent, Cecil and his group would have come out with many leaps in their strength as well as having received many rewards. It was much different than the first continental trial he participated in, the World Tree's Trial.

Similar to the World Tree's Trial, the Myriad Tower of Strife was supposed to test the younger generation of Midgard through a trial by fire which would either kill them or strengthen them depending on their performance.

Rewards should have been distributed to the trial participants as long as they passed through each stage, but there was none of that here. The only rewards the trial participants received were the ones from the first stage. After that, no further rewards were distributed and this was because the administrator was too busy trying to screw Cecil over.

For now, the reasons behind the administrator's actions were still unknown, but Cecil had an inkling that he would find out why soon enough.

Cecil walked straight to the middle of the oasis and he immediately uprooted the rafflesia-looking flower which was the formation's core.

"I got the core... let's consider this my reward. I'll research the array's mana gathering formation then set one up back in the kingdom to help train our soldiers' cultivation stages. It's the strongest mana gathering formation that I've encountered up until now so it probably uses some of those ancients' techniques."

Cecil had long since noticed that the illusion array consisted of multiple layers of runic formations, but the one that intrigued him the most was the mana gathering formation. It had to be a very powerful one since it left the entire stage void of mana. It was even able to suck out mana from inside his body and store it inside the formation which was then used to power the illusion array.

If he placed it within his kingdom's lands and confined the mana in some sort of building or space, it would be a haven for all cultivators since the density of mana would be greater than anywhere else.

If he could combine this new and powerful mana gathering array with his mana storage array, then he'd be able to create a self-sustaining mana battery. Well, at that point, it wouldn't be called a battery but a mana generator.

After putting away the flower into his spatial ring, Cecil used Blink and disappeared. He had left a clone with Ren and the others so he quickly headed in the clone's direction. He flew in the air to avoid all of the monsters on the ground and under the ground.

When he finally arrived where his clone was, he noticed that it was separated from everyone else.

"Shit... how did they get separated?"

Earlier, when he was suddenly subjected to a strong illusion while within the array, his split consciousness inside the clone was forcefully retracted because he couldn't afford to have it split off.

Due to this, he had to release control of his clone so although he knew its location was near his friends, he couldn't control it to follow after them in the case they got attacked or wandered off due to the illusion.

He dispelled his clone and was just about to go look for them, but suddenly, the ground began shaking intensely all of a sudden.

"W-what the—"

The shaking continued to intensify and it caused the sand to shift around. It gradually became an earthquake and it wasn't long before Cecil was able to find out the cause of the earthquake.

From the center of the desert where he had just come from, something was slowly rising from under the oasis. A pointed spire emerged from under the water and it slowly began rising. Something was coming up and it wasn't small.

******

A few minutes before Cecil uprooted the illusory array that was on the surface of the fifth stage's floor, Gabriel and his group had finally made it to the underground factory's power station.

Gabriel and the automata had cleared out all of the machinery in all of the factory's districts and they had finished dealing with the machinery inside the power station as well. All that was needed was to activate the power station.

"All I need to do is push this button...and the power station will activate and begin running?" Gabriel asked.

"Yes, Commander," Hana replied.

"There may be a time lag before it fully functions because it's been turned off for so long and buried under all this sand. The power shield is still functioning well, so I'm guessing that the auxiliary power is still functioning."

Desmond said before Mary added.

"We did some repairs just in case but it should still run normally. You can activate it now, Commander."

"Alright," Gabriel nodded and pressed down on the button, and immediately the power station came to life.

It took a while before it began to fully function in earnest. As they were waiting for the power station to fully come to life, Desmond and Mary were moving around and checking some things around the main reactor of the power station.

"Everything is in order it seems. Now, we can wait for the entire battle fortress to come to life," Hana said.

Hearing her words, Gabriel couldn't help but ask, "Battle fortress?"

"Wait a bit, Commander. You'll soon see quite an amazing sight," Hana said with a tinge of excitement in her voice.

Gabriel immediately noticed the slight change in Hana's tone and was about to ask for more, but suddenly, the entirety of the factory began to quake.

"!"

"Commander, hold on to something! We're going to move out of the ground now!"

'Finally, we're almost finished with this stage...'