Looking around he didn't enter any shop again instead he just continued going deeper and deeper. The sun was still up in the sky, monsters and malformed animals were filling the streets. Walking he even tried running by the tree branches but it was a rude thing and would offend many people. Along the way, he analyzed the things sold by the shops but none of them attracted his interests, they were too crude.
Even though he walked for 2 hours straight he didn't see much difference. The power level was still average, not even going up. Wasn't it supposed to be the deeper inside the more powerful the creatures are?
But this wasn't the case at all, no matter how deep he went he didn't encounter any second-tier beasts except for one case.
Thinking that he didn't know how much time he will spend, he went to a shop before asking where all the second tier creatures went. The answer was surprising, they were stationed up in the air.
It was actually that there were nine entrances and ten parts. The city was divided into ten parts.
Nine of the ten parts were in the entrances of the city, surrounding one core part. In a simpler way, it was nine entrances connecting to nine big circles surrounding one big circle which was the core part.
There was no way to enter the core part except for going to the teleportation array which he had already passed it.
After asking for the specific location and paying for it he went directly to it.
He had already spent hours here, and there wasn't anything that he wanted here. Most of them were raw things, this place may be a paradise for newcomer monsters but him, it was just too crude and he suspected that the other parts were also like this.
As for whether they were like this he didn't want to know, it would waste too much time.
After arriving at the location he knew why he missed this part. In front of him, a majestic building like a church was standing. Monsters didn't dare to go near it but occasionally some monsters who didn't know the purpose went there curiously.
But they came out very quickly and didn't come near it again.
The hall exuded majesty but its existence was hidden, slight examination couldn't detect it at all.
Standing in front of it he pushed the door open. Just as he opened, a whole new look greeted him, a plain spacious hall that was built from wood. Within a man with a blurred face smoking on a chair, calmly his aura alone seemed to be sacred.
Without looking at him, his voice rang out within the hall.
"Trainee, this year is special. Any below 2 is not allowed. Humans are sacred, entry is allowed. The darkness needs punishment." his voice sounded ethereal but his words were chaotic, he would say. His words were few and the sentences were crude.
Still, he felt great pressure exuding from the man and in the next moment he was in a dark room, with a large stone array beneath him. Again in the next moment, several runes lit up illuminating the room, with only a glimpse of the lit-up rune, he was transported to a completely different place.
"AAAAAAAAAHHH" a blood-curdling screech came out as he pressed his right eye with his palms. Forcefully suppressing his voice, he pulled out his hands to support his body.
His whole body shaking, blood dripped down from his chin.
As he pulled out his hands, a bloody hole was revealed. Within the space that the right eye was in, nothing was there. In the space, only an empty socket with scarlet red blood dripping down was seen.
In the slightest glimpse, the lit-up runes had polluted his right eye, destroying it.
He had permanently lost his right eye. If it had only been a fleshy wound it would've been fine and it could be grown or replaced again. But this wound had been polluted by the dimension rune and was permanent.
If he doesn't force it or clean it up then there was no chance of him getting a right eye again. Even transplanting a prosthetic eye wouldn't work, it would just get destroyed by the rune, so unless he nullifies it his eye will forever be like this.
But the glimpse of the lit-up rune wasn't without any benefits, with it he had comprehended a part of the dimension rune, he was now a second tier!
To restrict the pollution from expanding he had to make a decisive move to swallow the defensive metal gene to break through into second-tier. Or else the pollution might have spread throughout his body making him a disabled person.
Directly skipping limit-break to breakthrough into the second-tier, his power had increased tremendously. Now, he didn't need to defeat the strangling tree's whereabouts.
This enemy of his was just a small pebble on the way, if he encounters it he will kill it but he won't take the initiative to search.
Even though he was now confirmed as a second-tier, his foundation wasn't stable and he needed to stabilize it. Only after stabilizing it would he have the proper prowess of a second-tier.
Right now he needed to find a secluded spot to stabilize his foundations and then try to comprehend the death rune. The comprehension of the death rune wasn't too hard, with the data from the various runes he was sure he could comprehend the death rune.
Previously he was already at the border, but he was unsure because of the weak defensive rune but now that it was gone and he had already become a second-tier existence there was nothing to worry about.
...
Moving his hands, he could feel the fluctuations of small string like things in the air. In it, he felt great pressure and the strength compressed in it was terrifying. There were various colors, void black, gray, black, scarlet red, aqua blue, holy white, gold yellow... there were all kinds of colors.
Even if it was colorless, he somehow recognized the meaning and the power compressed in it. The world he once viewed was entirely different and he suspected that it was because his soul had advanced and had adapted to the existence of rune.
Viewing his soul, he felt an imprint very small but very powerful, engraved on it. Looking at it he immediately knew that it was the exact rune of dimension. It was only faint now but when he understands the rune more it would also become more and more clear until it would become an absolutely terrifying existence!
But he was also surprised that his soul was very compliant with the rune, it almost seemed as if it was made for it. He once read that engraving the rune on the soul was the most difficult but this didn't seem to be the case for him after all.
What was even more astonishing was that the faint rune engraving has become clearer and his soul seemed to be the reason.