At the one-month mark, Bruce got used to the speed of the dragons.
At the two-month mark, Bruce began to attack back.
At the five-month mark, Bruce was finally able to contend against the dragons.
In the sky, Bruce panted as he continuously dodged the incoming darkness blasts for the past five months. He also managed to increase his battle prowess tremendously. His energy uses became much more efficient.
He also had to learn how to recover his stamina during battle because he never had any time to sleep. Every movement that he made had to be precise and correct. Otherwise, he would never be able to survive and make his way to the flag.
A dragon appeared right beside Bruce slashing its claws toward his head. Bruce slightly tilted his head and threw back an explosive powerful punch at the dragon.
BANG
The dragon was knocked back and looked at Bruce with admiration in its eyes.
'Damn, I'm so awesome that even the dragons idolize me' Bruce thought to himself. He was afraid to speak up his mind because he had a public image to protect.
He secretly hoped that some female dragons are watching him. After seeing his terrific performance, the female dragons would then send him their love confessions. Unfortunately for Bruce, he was deeply delusional.
Bruce stopped messing around and looked up to the sky. He saw a red flag protected by several dragons. He increased his speed to his utmost limit and broke the sound barrier. He flew toward the flag while dodging the darkness blasts and knocking away any dragon that comes his way.
When he reached the top, he saw five dragons staring at him with killing intent.
"Fellas, I'm only here to get the flag" Bruce smiled.
The dragons didn't want to chat with Bruce and began to attack him. As he fought off the dragons, even more dragons showed up. When Bruce saw 20 dragons looking at him threateningly, he began to rethink his plan and ran away.
Though his power and battle prowess have grown significantly over the last five months, he was still not strong enough to handle 20 dragons at once. Nevertheless, Bruce did not give up hope and continued to battle the dragons to increase his powers even further.
At the 6th month mark, Bruce still did not see any light at the end of the tunnel. The difference between Great Emperor and Divine King was simply too great. No matter how talented Bruce was, he could not close the gap even when the dragons were going easy on him.
Seeing that his time was almost up, Bruce went for a Hail Mary. Bruce flew down which got the attention of the dragons. A few dragons flew down to attack him. He then switched his direction to go back to the flag. He used Tiger Ascend to increase his speed to the maximum.
When the dragons saw him again on the flag platform, they started to attack him. Bruce ignored all their attacks and only focused on the flag. He skillfully moved between the dragons and reached out his hand toward the flag.
'Please let this work' Bruce prayed
Bruce's hand managed to touch the flag and pulled it out from the ground. As a consequence, countless dragon claws surrounded him leaving no way out. Bruce was certain to die if the claws got to his body.
"The second trial is finished" Aegon appeared in the sky once more.
The dragons immediately stopped their attacks as soon as Aegon appeared.
Bruce let out a sigh of relief because his plan had worked.
"I see that you like to gamble with your life" Aegon commented after seeing Bruce's plan.
"I only gamble with my life when I absolutely have to" Bruce didn't have any other way to complete the second trial. The dragons were simply too powerful for him to overpower them.
"You may rest in the River of Darkness for one week before the third trial"
Aegon teleported Bruce back to the River of Darkness. The other dragons looked in his direction with envy. Something that Bruce didn't know was that the River of Darkness was one of the greatest treasures of the dark dragon race.
Every single supreme being of the dark dragon race would die in the River of Darkness so that the future generation could use their energy to cultivate. Only the top talent in the clan would get a chance to immerse themselves in the River of Darkness.
Bruce calmly sat in the center of the river source and began to heal himself while rapidly absorbing the energy from the River of Darkness.
By his estimate, every day in the River of Darkness would be equivalent to absorbing 1000 profound energy cubes. Such a delicacy was something Bruce could not miss out on.
After one week, Bruce felt that he was nowhere near close enough to break through to Divine Emperor. It'd be nice for him to break through but the requirement for Divine Emperor was simply too much.
Aegon summoned Bruce in front of him once again for the third trial.
"The third trial is fairly simple" Aegon began to explain the trial.
'No, it's definitely not you old thing!'
"You need to overpower my descendants with your soul"
'How the fuck is that simple?' Bruce stared at Aegon with a straight face while keeping his smile.
"To make it fair for you, throw your strongest soul attack to me so that I can calibrate the difficulty of the trial"
"Alright" Bruce nodded.
"Soul Seeker" Bruce's soul vibrated and sent out a powerful attack toward Aegon.
Aegon merely glanced at the attack before obliterating it completely before reaching him.
"It's not bad, but nowhere near enough to even compete against my descendants" Aegon concluded.
"What soul cultivation manual do you use?"
"Uh… None…" Bruce bashfully replied. He never had to cultivate his soul because it was naturally powerful. His soul grew along with his cultivation.
"What?" Aegon was shocked for the first time.
"I never cultivated my soul using any cultivation manual"
"My soul naturally grows along with my cultivation"
"You're telling me that you managed to send out a soul attack on par with a Peak Stage Divine Emperor without using any special cultivation for your soul" Aegon had his eyes wide open because he had heard the most absurd thing in his life.
Any living being in the universe has a soul. The limit to one's soul power is the cultivation stage that one has. However, simply increasing one's cultivation stage does not increase one's soul power.
Normally, people would have to increase their cultivation and soul powers in parallel. Aegon had never heard of any being capable of increasing their soul powers by just increasing their cultivations.
"Yup, that sounds about right" Bruce answered honestly.
"What kind of freak are you?" Aegon was flabbergasted.
"Hey, that's rude!" Bruce complained.