A white bat was roaming around a dark place. There was a solid platform under its feet that stretched as far as one could see.
Suddenly a loud scream tore through the air, making the creature stop and turn towards a peculiar region. Towards the north, the bat felt a very familiar presence.
The beast growled lowly and then transformed into a beam of light, rapidly advancing toward the scream.
In a few moments the bat covered an insane distance. In previously the empty horizon now stood a strange pile of various things.
Large sacks of dried food and basins filled with water. There was also a couple of large chest with numerous leather armors and black robes.
On top of one of them, sat a large black crow with two small horns. The creature was looking at a black robed youth sitting on the ground.
The bat stopped for a second, its eye narrowing. Yes, his instincts were correct: It was him! The demonic creature that held it in hostage!
Under the oppressive rule of that demon, the white bat had been forced to fight to the death innumerable times and even used to carry around baggage!
Such a humiliation would never be forgotten by the Bloodshed Bat. However, no matter how much the bat struggled for freedom, that damnable beast on two legs always came out the winner.
The demon could force the bat to do whatever he wanted, and sometimes it even took control of the bat's body, leaving the poor creature a passenger in its own body!
An aggressive look appeared in the bronze ranked beast's eyes.
The bat kept looking for a few moments and rapidly realized that the demonic creature seemed in trouble right now. There were visible veins pulsing all around its body and its usual brown color of its skin had left place to an unhealthy light red.
The natural instinct of the Bloodshed Bat started to seeth inside the beast. It was the perfect time to get rid of the tyrant!
Two rows of sharp teeth started to shine in the darkness.
The white bat started to move close, slowly crawly on the ground. Its long tail began to move right and left, trying to get the perfect equilibrium as the beast's body stretched in an attack posture.
"CRAA"
The moment the bat was going to dart in attack, the black bird sitting on the top of a wooden chest, stopped to look at the tyrant and moved its attention towards the bat.
It let out a loud sound, looking with disdain at the white creature on the ground and puffing its chest. Its long black wings spread out menacingly.
The bat was shocked.
He thought the black bird to be a prisoner as much as itself. He couldn't understand why the bird was protecting the tyrant that ruled over their lives.
From the crow prospective, however, the young human was its master. The bird was still grateful for the frozen cold pond and believed that if it followed wholeheartedly the human it would be allowed to cultivate again in that perfect environment.
Before being captured, transformed into soul beast and put inside a silver coin, the Red Eyed Crown had lived free and roamed the world. The strong ruling on the weak? That was a truth valid everywhere.
A strong pressure started to emanate from the bird, weighing on the bat.
The latter's eyes shined with a menacing light and a savage aura exploded from its body, being barely enough to shake off the pressure coming from the bird.
Loud grows and caws started to echo in the air, as the two beasts tried to assert their dominance.
Suddenly a cold voice thundered in the spatial pocket, silencing the two beast. "Enough you two morons".
Sif's dark eyes opened, shining with red light filled with Life Energy ondulations. Copious amounts of Black liquid started to pour out its body, dripping him in a foul mud-looking substance.
He sent his consciousness around his body, probing the circulation of Life Energy inside of him. The flow of energy moved across six opened meridians, circulating everywhere around his body.
Everywhere except his head.
The flow of Life Energy there was blocked by a colossal meridian, way bigger than the six that he had already opened combined.
'The Door of the Mind Palace'
There was a colossal difference between the first six meridians and the final one, situated in the head. To become a Rank 3 Fighter one had only to open a small part of the Head Meridian, opening it completely was something that only a late stage Rank 3 Fighter could do.
Even so, the majority of Fighters was never able to make the jump, remaining forever blocked at the second realm of the Path of Honor.
'It won't be that easy to become a Rank 3 Fighter...'
Sif looked towards his chest: there, a dark-colored rune still hummed brimming with light vermilion light, processing large quantities of Life radiations that still filled his body.
He had intentionally let his Energy Shield down to get his flesh to be bombarded by the powerful undulations coming from those walls made of Vitality Crystal.
Yet the youth could clearly feel that the amount of radiations that remained on his body weren't enough to break the final barrier to enter Rank 3.
It was enough to bring him from simple mortal to top rank 2 at least a dozen times. Yet, it wasn't enough to get to Rank 3.
He wasn't disappointed though.
Although he had seen plenty of Rank 3 Fighters around him since he had been sent back, he knew that it was only because this was a very peculiar ground where strong people went around in search of opportunities.
In the outside world, a Rank 3 Fighter was a very valuable asset that took a dozen years to form.
Sure Summoners were stronger, but how much rare was a Summoner? Plus the latter tended to live around the Twelve City States, leaving the rest of the immensurable lands of the North Coast under the rule of various Fighters.
'I could go out again and try to get some more...'
Sif immediately discarded the idea. It was too dangerous. It could raise suspicions about him.
Even those Rank 3 Fighters that had been touched by the radiation will need a couple of days to get rid of them completely.
If he showed up again, people would start to ask themselves how he did get rid of all that Vitality in such a short amount of time. He didn't need all that extra attention on himself.
After cleaning himself from the filth and changing in a new set of clothes, Sif passed the next few hours inside the spatial treasure, sending his Willpower outside and checking what was happening.
Thunder Drum and Nia were still talking between each other as if nothing at all had happened. The rest of the Fighters had stopped amassing themselves towards the center and started to move towards the borders anew.
Those poor devils that had been invested by the radiation where cultivating to get rid of them as soon as possible, gritting their teeth and cursing their bad luck.
From the talk of some random Fighter, Sif managed to understand that there was a thin layer of Crystallized Vitality between each Level of the Grotto. That's why only powerful associations and sects could create ways to move rapidly from a Level to another.
The trip continued for another half day, with nothing particular strange happening. It was around noon that the moving plaza started to gradually reduce its falling speed.
A powerful voice echoed all around the square as the latter stopped in place a large cave that barely contained it all.
"Welcome to Iron Gates Outpost and to the Third Level of the Ashen Grotto."
Luminescent white crystals were embedded on the walls of the cave, illuminating the whole place. Numerous people in black colored plate armor were stationed in guard post dug all around the cave.
The people on the Elevator started to move towards a large arch on the east side of the cave, disappearing into a long tunnel.
Even the two Summoners moved along.
Nia gave the hovering piece of metal at her left a final glance filled with contempt before starting to move towards the exit tunnel.
Thunder Drum instead, stood there for a while, storing away all the things that he had put out during the travel. When he finished, he, the bull and the metal scrap were the only remaining on the large plaza.
"Listen, brother Sif, don't mind what I said before... that was only to get to that damn poisonous snake! You should join Ivory Tower side. Not only they will give you a better cultivation manual, if you do well enough there is a possibility that Stone Hurricane himself will reforge your core with one of his formations..."
The Summoner moved closed to the spatial treasure.
"The guy is quite good with that sort of things, I'm in line to have my one Two Guardians Core changed with a Three Guardians!" he murmured, with a prideful smile. Then he jumped on top of his mount and the large beast started to rapidly move towards the tunnel.
A couple of minutes later the flying scrap vibrated, twisting the air around it in a black vortex.
Sif emerged from the spatial distortion. He was wearing a dark colored robe with a hood on that covered his facial features.
[Radiation. Source: Life Energy. Danger: 1]
The pressure that he had felt before was still there, not as strong as when he had been exposed to the Vitality Crystal, but still enough to kill a Rank 1 fighter.
Sif let a sliver of those radiations to penetrate inside his Energy Shield and into his body. Immediately, the youth felt the rune on his chest starting to absorb the new source of vitality.
'It seems that this place is quite good for me... however, if I only want to use the radiation of this Third Level to progress in my Path of Honor it will take around in fifty years... that's a bit too much'
Smiling slightly at the idea, the youth started to move towards the exit, walking quietly across a long tunnel until he arrived in a new area.
This cave was bigger than the one that he just left. There were many buildings all around with countless people moving between them.
Sif moved joined the flow of people, and asked a couple people about the location of Mysterious Light's war camp.
Once he obtained it, he rapidly moved towards the large gates of the Outpost. The latter were identical to those in the Second Level, but they gave off a much stronger pressure.
[Attention: Domain of Attack Formation Detected.]
This time Sif managed to document a part of the array that was drawn on the giant metal doors and save it as a file in the Library of his spatial treasure.
"'t could be interesting to study in the future, when I would start to spend more time learning the Art of Arrays. '
Thought the youth as he exited from Iron Gates Outpost.
The Outpost was situated in a large cave with dozens of tunnels departing in every direction. Sif used the maps that he had obtained from Tong and the information collected in the Outpost to find the correct path towards the war camp.
'Uh?'
A couple of hours after he left Iron Gates Outpost, while he was walking across a cave that had a small river flowing in its middle, Sif suddenly paused.
The youth's lips arched upwards.
His Willpower just sensed a group of people rapidly closing on him from behind. They were all summoning their Fighting Auras and had already taken out their weapons.
The youth put a hand in his pocket, bringing out a small token with a smiling face on a side and an angry one on the other.
'Finally, I was almost starting to think that I got it all wrong...'