Growling sounds roused up Felix. He quickly opened his eyes and sprang into a defensive position.
He carefully peeked through the entrance of the tent and heaved a sigh of relief as he saw elders near the fire.
There were twenty cages with beasts placed outside the camp now.
Soon the trainees gathered near the campfire.
"Good morning, young ones!" Elder Xi greeted the kids and walked in front of the crowd.
"Today, we got some weak beasts to show you some tricks!" Elder Xi walked towards the cages and hit one of them to make the beast roar.
"I believe some of you never left home and have no experience in the wilderness!" Elder Xi observed the children and was disappointed to see so many of them shudder at the side of a colossal beast.
Felix had only a slight frown, so he was an exception amongst the frightened kids.
"This is a hideous creature." Felix evaluated the beast.
The beast was a simple three-meter-high abomination with some scales, fur, piggy snout, and fangs. It was fat but muscular, and everyone could see a dangerous feral beast.
"This is a mutated warrior class beast. There are millions of such beasts in this mountain range." Children frowned even more, when they heard Elder Xi state the numbers.
"Please compose yourselves!" Finally, elder Xi disciplined the kids, as it was unbearable for her to see such behavior.
"This beast has only one weakness! Its size makes it slow! That is it! It is slow but strong, so you have to outsmart it and kill it in a few moves!"
Elder Xi looked at the crowd and tapped the cage again.
"Before I explain more, I want to give one of you an opportunity! Step up if you want to try your chances against this beast. If you kill it, I'll reward you according to your performance!"
Kids stayed silent, and Felix saw that none of them dared to fight this beast.
"Damn, I will try it! At least I will have protection near so that I can test my spells!" Felix quickly decided and stepped forward.
Marcus gasped, and so did all other trainees. But, of course, they didn't expect someone to step up, especially one of the minor kids!
"Nice courage, child! I will now release this overgrown pig, so you prepare. Everyone else steps behind the fence!" Elder Xi commanded and went back with the others.
Felix looked at the cage and soon saw how it opened with Elder Xi's remote energy control.
The beast howled and charged out of the cage. It was clever and ran towards the forest, avoiding any fights.
"Not so easy!" Felix thought and quickly stimulated his earth rune and made some incantations with hand signs.
"Earth spike wall!" Muttered Felix an incantation in a different archaic language.
Soon everyone saw how the ground vibrated, and spikes sprang up with deadly speed.
The pig beast rammed into spikes and screamed in pain.
"Now, let's see how strong your defenses are!" So Felix thought as he roused his wind rune and compressed it with haste.
Wind energy appeared near Felix, and he used his palm to grab it and press it.
Kids were shocked to see that that wind energy didn't hurt his tiny fist, and even some sonic sound screeched as the energy formed into white light.
Felix threw that wind blade with high accuracy into the beast's back.
The wind wailed through the air, and the crowd saw how the beasts back were lacerated with this magic spell.
Even though the wound was deep, the beast quickly turned around and saw only Felix behind itself.
"Oh shit!" Felix cursed in his mind as he saw the beast charge into him.
Marcus was cheering Felix from behind, but he screamed louder than the beast when he saw that.
"Careful, Felix! RUN!" Everyone heard the fatty shout.
Elder Xi smiled at the kid and looked to see what Felix would do now.
"Fuck, I must use that thing. I can't outrun this mad Peppa!" Finally, Felix decided on a spot to use his new rune.
Everyone watched him smack the ground and loudly scream some word full of mental power.
"Rise! Form!" Felix used a metal rune and conjured a sharp metallic blade the size of this beast.
This blade's sharp edge was pointed into the pig's face and had a deep root in the ground.
It was skinny, and the beast seemed not to notice it.
"Now to send you to hell!" Felix roused his earth rune again and used all energy in his mind to move the metal blade towards the pig.
It all happened in a blink of an eye.
A vast three-meter blade shot towards the beast and cut it in half cleanly!
The mutated pig didn't even know how it died. Only two halves of its body remained on the ground, twitching and streaming blood.
Soon his conjured blade shattered into energy particles and flowed back into the soil.
"Excellent, this performance was not wrong! However, this beast was in captivity, so its movement and instincts directed it to flee, not to fight. Hence, your fight was a lot easier!" Elder Xi evaluated Felix.
"Yes, Elder Xi." Felix cupped his fists and waited by the side.
"Nevertheless, it was your win, and you deserve a reward! Here, this is a moving rope. With your commands, you can move it with energy and make it as tough as steel! It is a straightforward but effective tool for survival in the wilderness." Elder Xi passed a small roped with some golden threads to Felix.
"As you can see, there are nineteen more cages, so all of you will have to fight! We will begin from the oldest trainees!"
Elder Xi directed the fighting training, and soon the evening came.
Most of the kids were unable to defeat the beasts. So elder Xi had to save them at the last second.
Only Marcus, Amelia, and Wang managed to defeat the beast. But, of course, their performance was a lot worse than Felix's.
"Now, let's go eat!" Elder Xi led the crowd towards the fire.
"How did they do?" General Feng asked in a commanding tone.
"Only four managed to kill the beast." Finally, elder Xi reported and commented about everyone's performance.
General Feng frowned as he listened. Soon he stood up and walked to the center of camp.
"They are too weak for this mountain range! But, sadly, they will still experience it, so tomorrow, we will teach them one compatible ability!"
General Feng instructed the experts and left everyone to sleep.
Felix was very tired after the meal and went to his tent for some much-needed sleep time.
The last preparation day came soon. After that, the trainees waited for General Feng to begin the final preparatory training.
"Listen up! Form a line! We will examine your attributes talents and ask some questions. Then we will teach you one compatible skill! Don't expect anything fancy, as you only need practical abilities to survive now!"
General Feng commanded and began the examination.
Quickly the kids were taught a variety of skills. Some got some weapon skills, others fist skills, or even hiding skills.
Felix watched as Marcus turn came and listened to what the fatty will say.
"Hello, General Feng, Elders!" Fatty politely greeted seniors and began to talk.
"I am a complete body cultivator! I don't have bloodlines, but I have Innate Titan Body! Currently, I reached the first change of my body, so I am fairly strong and have barely passable defense!"
Felix was surprised as he heard fatty talk about his talent for the first time.
"Hmm, an Innate Titan Body is very rare. They need no bloodline or other talents. Demonstrate your power, young man!" General Feng commanded.
Marcus stood and jumped quickly. While landing, he hit his fist on the ground.
Felix heard a massive bang as the fatty punched a small hole in the rocky ground.
"Very good, this is a natural body! I will give you a small trick instead of an ability!"
General Feng smiled and instructed fatty.
"You can use your body energy to cover your skin so that all damage would spread over your whole body! This method will enhance your defense! We can see that you have enough offense, so I recommend you to use some heavy weapon!"
General Feng instructed, and soon Amelia's turn came.
She received a concealment method that helped her hide her prying.
Wang and the twins got spear and communication skills accordingly, and Felix's turn soon arrived.
"So, kid, what do you want me to teach you?" General Feng smiled at Felix.
"Well, I have a lot of runes now, but I only got spells for fire, wind, and earth energy! It would be nice to get some simple spell for some of my other powers!" Felix asked for what he wanted the most.
"You are a greedy child but smart nonetheless! So fine, tell me what other runes you have, and I will try to find you an easy spell in one of them!"
Felix hesitated for a while, but greed overcame him, and he listed his runes.
"I have water, light, darkness, life, metal, and gravity runes which have no spells. Please help me, General Feng!"
The experts were shocked when they heard Felix say this absurd amount of runes!
They knew that even the most talented mages only constructed four or five runes in Min Palace Stage.
"Well, you are a weirdo kid, but you have some fortune as well! You see, one of my disciples is a mage, and he reached the Titled Mage stage recently! So I got this small spell from him."
General Feng took a small scroll out of his pocket dimension.
"This is a simple water arrow spell! It sounds weak, but it is highly lethal. You see, high-pressure water is like a blade!"
General Feng smiled and gave the scroll to Felix.
"If you can comprehend how to control this spell, you will have a very lethal weapon in your command!"
"Thank you, General Feng!" Felix was quite happy to receive such a practical gift.
He didn't waste any time and rushed to read the scroll.
"This is so easy to understand!" Felix was delighted to see such a simple method with explained diagrams and procedures.
It was miles apart from the tomes he found in the Purple Sand Branch.
"So that is how you put water energy particles into formation!"
Felix had an epiphany when he saw the picture of the diagram in this simple spell.
It was only a formation of energy bubbles. However, it quickly governed the water's fluid behavior and physical states.
"So when I arrange the energy particles in a formation, I can achieve such results!"
Felix had so many applications for this method that he became overly excited!
Previously he only found spells with useless diagrams and weird explanations that made no sense!
Now, this was a beneficial method, he was already trying to use Water Arrow, and he needed only a few tries to succeed!
Felix conjured a small water rod and compressed it almost to a boiling point when he wished it could even become an icicle!
He only needed to readjust the energy particles in the formation to achieve this. Soon he got the hang of it and could freely move the Water Arrow and even increase its speed.
"Wait, so this is how the energy converges, and ice appears..." Felix had another epiphany.
He connected this spell formation with a whole new magical energy form. It was the Ice Magic.
Felix felt how inside his Mind Palace, white and icy energy particles flew towards his avatar and were quickly absorbed.
He received a tremendous amount of information about ice and cold, and soon he understood that this energy was called yin energy!
It governed extreme cold and even some evil attributes. Felix found the information on condensing Yin Rune and began immediately.
However, during his Yin Rune construction, he received more and more information about yin energy.
Yin Energy was soft, dark, and chilling! It could even become the extremity of cold!
He felt that this vast information helped him understand his other runes even more.
After a few hours, he created a weird new rune, and his Mind Palace hummed in joy.
This rune looked very different from the others.
"It looks a bit like a ghost!" Felix was surprised to see this ghastly rune hover around the darkness rune.
The water rune followed and stayed near the yin rune. Felix was shocked to see the three runes nurturing each other and very slowly growing stronger!
"So this is how they can interact!" Felix was happy to see such massive growth.
"Damn, I am so tired after this. I better go to sleep." Felix ignored the bustling outside and calmly went to sleep as fatigue hit him like a hammer.
He had a strange dream this time. Felix was inside a small pool of cold milk-like substances. Around him, darkness revolved, and water dripped slowly.
He dived into the pool only to see a blazing light deep beneath it.
"Wake up, boy! It is time to go!" Abbadons voice sounded near his tent.
Felix awakened from this vivid dream with a sweat-drenched body.
He quickly got ready and followed Abbadon towards the mountain range.
"Finally, everyone is here! We will travel all day, so don't even think about stopping! Our next destination is Gorgon Mountain!"
General Feng's voice sounded through the crowd.
The experts were in the front. Then, behind them, the kids walked into one big group.
On the sides, Victoria and Elder Xi walked. Thunder and Elder Sound followed everyone from behind.
General Feng, however, floated on a glassy platform while lying down comfortably and drinking wine.
"He sure knows how to enjoy life!" Felix envied General Feng's ability but soon composed himself and prepared for a long walk.
After about two hours into the mountains, some beasts began to appear.
If the beasts were weak, they were left for the children to fight. If not, the experts took care of them.
Soon Supreme Core Stage beasts began to attack, and the kids had no more training to do. Only endless walking remained.
"This is also part of the training! Soon you will feel what true hardship is, you little twerps! Hahahaha!" General Feng laughed and continued his drinking.
Felix felt that the journey got more and more taxing. Soon third and fourth stage beasts aura pressed on them and made even walking absurdly hard.
"At this rate, I will have to use magic even to move!" Felix felt how much this pressure from the strong beasts impeded his movement.
It was like walking in water, so much more complicated than on land. But, unfortunately, this water was getting heavier and denser.
Other kids had it more manageable as their bodies were more muscular than Felix's.
However, after a few hours, the sun started to set, and first with rank beasts appeared.
Demigod beasts had the intelligence of humans or even better.
After a few minutes of colliding with the beast's aura, they heard a majestic voice.
"Hello, trespassers! You are in Rock Giant God's territory! State your business, leave or prepare to fight!"
Felix could see a vast snake-like creature appear from behind a mountain top.
It looked mighty and scary.
"Little snaky! We are here to train our cubs! So if you want to die, you can come and fight. However, if you could release your aura and help us consolidate these twerps physiques and minds, I will reward you with a few drops of latent blood of Demigod!"
General Feng laughed and dismissed the snakes killing intent without even moving a muscle.
Felix saw how the snake showed fear in its eyes, and soon he heard it speak again.
"I will help you, mighty traveler!" Felix felt how a considerable gravity pressed his body to the ground.
He couldn't move at all. Almost half an hour passed until he got used to it, and only through sheer willpower did he begin to move.
Unfortunately, it wasn't just his body that pressured like a rubber ball.
He felt his Mind Palace rumbled as mental power descended as well.
"Hold on, kids! You can see Gorgon Mountain right in front! We only need to reach the top! Hahahaha!"
Felix heard General Fengs sadistic laugh and forced himself to move onward.
"Dear God, I think I will only maintain this pace for a few minutes before I faint!" Felix tried to calculate how much of this he could take.
"I must use magic energy to reach the top, or I will fail this miserably!" Felix decided with haste and began chanting.
Other kids came to the same conclusion and used various skills to move towards the top.
"I should lower the gravity first!" Felix moved his gravity rune and only forced some energy to repel this weighed on his body.
Sadly, this consumed his mental energy very swiftly. He knew he had only a few spells worth of power left.
"Now, let's make us fast!" Wind and darkness energy surrounded Felix.
He also used a small amount of earth energy to make the terrain easier to climb.
Shadow and wind lifted his body, and he only needed to run up as gravity made his body light as a feather.
He wasn't the fastest, but he was sure the most relaxed.
Spoon half of the children reached the top, and a few fainted near it.
Abbadon and others just collected the unfortunate kids and sat near the cliff widely known as Gorgon's Lair.
Some Titled God Beast called Gorgon lived on this mountain in the past. It was pretty popular in this Sub-Continent.
They made a camp quickly and healed the children.
"Oh, don't be such a wuss!" General Feng lifted some kid who puked.
"You need to grow balls if you want to survive in this world! You got nothing to be afraid of now!" General Feng just passed the kid to healers and stood before those who climbed up successfully.
"You all receive a reward! For managing to climb without fainting, you all get restoration pills bottle!" General Feng passed a bottle of some pills as a reward.
"I am so tired!" Felix screamed in his mind. His body felt like a wet sponge.
"Snakey! Where do you think are you going?" General Feng looked at the snake with a mischievous grin.
"What else do you command, sir?" The snake felt instinctive fear towards this older man, so it remained cautious.
"Keep your aura released! I want these children to become real men and women!"
Felix almost tumbled when he felt this aura crush on him again.
"Children, you can go get some food and go to sleep! Hahahaha! If you manage, of course!" General Feng laughed maniacally and looked at everyone.
Some fifth and below-stage experts felt some pain to withstand this constant aura.
The snake was beginning to feel some exhaustion as well.
"Oh, don't look at me like that! Our Clan has no weaklings. So if you feel this hard, just train harder!"
General Feng dismissed the expert's aggrieved looks and looked at the snake beast.
"Don't worry, Snakey! I will send someone to bring more beasts here! Haha!"
General Feng seemed to enjoy training drills very much.
"Is this why he became a general? " Felix wondered while trying to hurry to find some food.
Elder Xi and Senior Thunder left to bring more fifth-stage beasts.
Over seven demigod beasts stood quietly and released their aura in order in a few moments.
One after another, they tried to please this mad General.
"Fine, I must go to place my tent somehow!" But unfortunately, Felix had no more power to use magic, so he used his last strength to place the tent and quickly fell asleep.
What was unbearable was this constant aura pressure even while they slept.
Some of the kids were even hurt mentally, but General Feng said it was better to be injured now than die later.
Tonight Felix had the same dream and tried reaching the bottom of the pond but was unsuccessful again.
Even stronger aura blasted him out of his dream.
"Hahahaha! Good, Good. Be a good Rock Giant God and maintain your aura!" A crazy laugh sounded all over as General Feng commanded Titled God to release and control its aura to train the clan members.
"Listen Up! Everyone will have a training session, so don't even think about complaining! Soon, Eldex Xi will find more Titled God Beasts, and they will use their aura control to make you feel the pressure! This training will last as long as we can find someone to help us in this kind of endeavor!"
"It seems I won't have peaceful days for quite some time!"
Felix thought and felt his body numb as the aura of the beasts washed through him.
"At least, it is having a lot of beneficial effects!" Felix was happy to see his runes more condensed and powerful after the night's sleep.
"I should use this as an opportunity!" So Felix decided and thought of ways to train in this energy field.