Marcius stood around a number of destroyed training dummies. There were eight of them.
And one dummy was left standing in front of him, but it was also badly damaged.
Marcius swung his sword and the slow moving dummy was cut in half.
It was difficult. It was really difficult.
The trial.
It was hell.
Marcius had to fight tooth and nail to destroy the ever-growing numbers of training dummies.
Although not getting stronger, the numbers of training dummies were increasing gradually.
But Marcius was a different story. He was getting stronger at a faster pace.
His techniques became more refined, something he thought was impossible.
He even managed to use One Sword to Cut Hundreds without much consequences. There were still minor injuries when he used the technique, but they became fairly negligible.
As a result, the fights became something interesting.
Pure strength versus pure numbers.
Quality versus quantity.
In the end, Marcius had to painstakingly take down the training dummies one by one.
And here he was.
*** *** ***
Marcius was chugging down the healing potions by the dozens to recover his stamina and heal his wounds.
He regularly got a few moments of rest after every phase of the trial.
At first, the moments to take a rest were short. But as the phases got more and more difficult, the time to rest got longer and longer.
"Incredible! You greatly exceeded my expectations! Congratulation on passing the ninth phase of the Trial of Strength!"
The voice suddenly greeted him after staying silent for the entirety of the trial.
Marcius just remained quiet and listened to what the voice had to say.
"But! If you are interested, I have a proposal for you." The voice stated.
"I'm listening." Marcius replied.
"The next phase is the last phase of the Trial of Strength. So, if you agree to it, I can up the difficulty of the test by a little."
Marcius expected this. It was the same in the original storyline of the novel. The protagonist got a special phase just like him.
"I'm not being unfair of course. If you could pass the more difficult final phase, I'll give you a special reward in addition to the ones calculated from the result of the trial."
"I accept." Marcius said.
"What? You are accepting this quickly? Are you not going to consider it for a bit? If you fail, it is over for you. All that hard works for nothing. I hope you understand this."
The voice replied in surprise.
"Do you want me to accept the new challenge or not? You are being annoying." Marcius replied with irritation.
"Of course not! I just wanted to make sure you are making an informed decision! Young people these days, so impatient! Alright! The final phase will start now. I hope you don't regret your decision. Good luck!"
The voice angrily replied as Marcius's surrounding also changed again.
'This is…'
The scene before Marcius was a large grass field. The wind was blowing gently and the sky was clear blue.
The heir of Aemilia clan noticed a figure slowly walking towards him from a distance.
As the figure got closer, Marcius could see it was a person.
No, it was a person with the facial features that matched him greatly.
'Huu… first, it was the training dummies with my strength and techniques. And now it is a person looking exactly like me.'
"Are you also a training dummy?" Marcius asked.
"Yes and no. I'm not human, yet I have the exact features of a human. Well, you could call me a clone." The clone replied.
"So, are we supposed to fight?"
"Yes. I'm your final obstacle to pass before advancing to the next stage."
"This is just getting old." Marcius sighed.
"Oho. I advise you to not underestimate me. I'm more intelligent than those useless puppets. I'm more creative. And most importantly,"
The clone's hand moved and the exact replica of Obsidian Edge appeared in his hand.
He slashed forwards and multiple Red Serpent Slashes appeared.
"My strength, skills and techniques are updated to match your exact capacity."
Marcius had to make a hasty retreat to avoid the numerous attacks.
'F**k. This is officially my worst nightmare. The totem updated his minions again. This one is capable of using One Sword to Cut Hundreds, my strongest technique currently."
Marcius had to evade the many Red Serpent Slashes again.
'He appeared to be stronger than me too, judging by his attacks. Exact capacity my arse.'
What happened next made Marcius widened his eyes in surprise.
A faint blue light surrounded the clone's sword. And the clone used One Sword to Cut Hundreds again.
But this time, instead of multiple slashes and the generated wind pressure, thin lines of blue energy rushed out of the sword and raced towards Marcius.
'Cultivation! The clone is using spirit energy! He is what I will be when I gain my cultivation. Sh*t! Sh*t! Sh*t! How am I supposed to survive that!"
Marcius had to defend the spirit energy with his sword, since he couldn't evade.
'That special reward better be worth it. Because otherwise, I'm using that totem as firewood!'
*** *** ***
'Rubrum Trivia'
The Goddess Sol, the divine being who governed the domains of Foresight, Knowledge, War and Victory was a deity worshipped by over the half of Rubrum's population.
The church of Sol was also the most dominant religion on Rubrum.
She was the goddess who accompanied High King Alexios Avitus and fought alongside him, during the war of First Tridon Invasion.
She was also besides the High King, when he set out to unify the entire realm of Rubrum into one single empire.
It was rumored that the High King named his empire as Solas, in honor of Goddess Sol.
Unfortunately, after the death of High King Alexios, the Goddess Sol disappeared. It was said that she went into isolation, due to the sadness and sorrow of losing a cherished friend.
Nevertheless, the goddess still watched over the realm of Rubrum. And she still sent out champions and heralds, time and time again, to aid the people of Rubrum in time of great crisis.
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Author Notes
Hello! MidnightMK here!
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