Malkai's Tomb, Floor 30 - Garden of Eden
As Blake made his way through the flower fields, he could clearly feel that his strength had increased substantially. The mana flowing through his veins were clearly more vigorous than normal, especially when he casted spells, the fusion of Martial qi and mana was 2 times more in sync than it was with his original mana. After he took and refined the Mana Purification Pill, a portion of his mana had been thoroughly purified into an even denser and stronger mana. Blake named it 'Mana' with an uppercase M.
According to his past experiences, Mana will only be formed when a Magic Cultivator's mana has gone through millions and millions of filtration and purification before he or she develops a Mana Core. The Mana Core would then absorb and replace the body's original mana with the denser and stronger purified Mana.
Thanks to a portion of his mana transforming into the Mana, Blake could now cruise through 4 floors without worrying whether he needed rest or not.
Within this Garden of Eden, the strongest monster you could find here was the Immortal Snake, Nachash whose strength was on par with Nascent Soul realm cultivators. Nachash was also the floor boss of level 30. It's an Immortal Snake that can shapeshift into anything to make their prey drop their guard down. Luckily for Blake, Nachash's trickery and illusion have no effect on Magic Cultivators, especially Magic Grandmasters and above.
According to his teacher Chaos, the reason the biblical snake Nachash succeeded in tricking Eve back then was because God had spoiled the first two humans a little too much. They were so sheltered and were probably high (they probably tried all types of mushrooms at that time) that they could understand snake speech and be entranced by it into betraying their creator. What an idiotic accident indeed.
Since this incident, all other Gods of Creation refrained from spoiling their creations and instead gave them trials and hardships. The Eve betraying her Creator incident has also impacted the other gods to never allow their creations to enter their treasured lands and accidentally consume something that will rebel against their own might.
When Blake walked towards the giant snake Nachash, he only glanced at it once before he unleashed multiple Shock Palms at the giant snake's head. Nachash, who has also fought over 1000 battles, wasn't slow either as it immediately spat out giant fireballs to counter Blake's attack. Magical Energy collided with Holy Fire, resulting in a big explosion as their surroundings were vaporized...leaving only a boy and a snake in a giant crater.
As Nachash shook off the dust and rubble on itself, Blake jumped backwards to open distance before he took a deep breath and continued to rain the snake with basic magic spells. Sadly, because of Nachash's hard scales, only a small percentage of his spells actually did damage.
Seeing that his attacks were ineffective, Blake switched from basic spells like [Fireball] and [Icicle] to grandmaster level magic like [Fire Storm] and [Lightning Geyser]. Since Blake was a Magic Grandmaster now, he didn't have to worry about his mana consumption. Not to mention, his mana has been purified and evolved into Mana. It took Blake two hours to wear down the Immortal Snake's natural armor before his spells could properly pierce and damage the Immortal Snake.
When the last icicle spear pierced the snake's left eye, Blake casted one last intermediate wind spell - [Wind Scythe] at the snake's neck before its head slowly slid off its neck.
Just before Nachash died, the Immortal snake's head gave Blake a wink before the light in its eyes faded.
'Did...that thing just approve me? Heh, I appreciate the fight too.' As a respect, Blake dug a pit before he placed Nachash's head into the pit. After filling the pit back with dirt, Blake then made his way down, ignoring the treasure chest of Nachash entirely. Since he was acknowledged by the Immortal Snake, Nachash, it'd be wrong of Blake to take its treasure.
On the other hand, Blake could not help but gulp hard as he stared at the pile of green snake scales before him. The giant snake's scales were far more valuable than mere items of the treasure chest. Since the Immortal Snake's scales were strong enough to withstand countless Grandmaster level magic, if it were to be refined into a defensive artifact or even artifact armor, its grade would be undoubtedly high.
Floor 40 - Forest
The entire floor 40 was a forest. There were all types of trees covering the entire floor as monster beasts hid the bushes or in the canopy of leaves as they got ready to pounce on their prey. From where Blake stood, he could see a clearing devout of plants and trees at the center of the floor sized forest. And at the very center of the clearing, stood a staircase leading downwards as it was surrounded by 3 meter tall minotaurs wielding giant axes.
When Blake made his way to the heart of the forest, he stopped to grasp the situation first before he dashed to the minotaur closest to him. Just a moment before the other minotaurs spotted him, he slid under the minotaur and casted a [Fireball] at the minotaur's crotch.
BOOM!
The fireball burned through the minotaur's crotch and into its body before the minotaur exploded from the inside. The sudden explosion of one of their kin had alerted the rest of the minotaurs but it was too late as Blake had already dashed to his next target.
When he got to the second one, Blake casted [Illusion] at the minotaur followed by two wide area control spells [Mist] and [Mirage] on top of each other. After the minotaur was hit by [Illusion], its eyes blurred for a moment before it started to see again. Blake was casually meditating in the middle of the clearing, not even batting an eye to the minotaur as it charged over. Enraged, the minotaur brought his axe down with the intention to chop Blake in half, as Blake was still peacefully meditating, not caring about the impending doom that was heading for him.
When the axe chopped Blake in half, instead of finding Blake dying to his own arrogance, what laid before the minotaur was a head, a head of its kin nonetheless.
*Crack!*
Looking behind it, the minotaur was slack jawed to find out that Blake was meditating quietly behind him . Seeing that Blake gave it a cursory glance before continuing to meditate, the minotaur didn't bother to think about the specifics as it madly charged over to Blake before it swung his axe down once more. Just like before though, when the ax came down and something fell down, the minotaur was shocked to find he had instead decapitated another one of its kin again...and Blake was sitting in a new position, completely unscathed?!
Scratching its head, the minotaur roared menacingly at Blake but did not charge at him, instead it tried to look around to see if there were more of its kind anywhere. The minotaur was being cautious now. If he charged over, swung its axe down and found that it had killed another one of its species, its heart was going to bleed.
After the minotaur taunted Blake for another 15 minutes, it gnashed its teeth before it charged at the unmoving Blake. But just as its axe was about to slice his prey, Blake opened his eyes, wrapped his hand in Magical Energy before pushing it out to face the minotaur's axe, while also jumping back to open distance all within 5 breaths. When the axe hit the palm strike, sparks flew before the rebound transmitted through the axe pushed the minotaur back several steps.
"Heh, weak." Blake gave the minotaur a thumbs down before he sat down to meditate again.
After being played and taunted by a mere human, the minotaur had completely lost it. It wanted to hack Blake into pieces and feast on his meat and organs before it finally used his bones as jewelry to announce to the world, "YOU DON'T MESS WITH THIS MINOTAUR!!!!!!"
As the minotaur reached Blake and swung its axe down, Blake looked up calmly before he was chopped in half. Again, Blake was sitting 100 meters away from the minotaur, unscathed...whereas the place where the minotaur's axe dropped down upon laid another dead minotaur, its eyes wide with shock as it probably didn't know why it was killed by its own kin.
'What a tragic betrayal indeed.' Blake smiled wryly.