Month- May 18th, Afternoon Tuesday Morning
"Can you tell me now why I am climbing this mountain!?"
Ryder was forcibly pulling himself up the side of a mountain not far away from the cave he spent the night in.
With the sun rising the heat beat against his body as he claws his way through rock and dirt with a piece of paper stuck to his back. On it a rune that seemed to place more pressure on the boy.
When he accidentally clawed into a loose rock lots of dust and little rock shards fell out almost causing him to fall only to have the rune intensify pushing him up against the side of the mountain.
"D-Damnit! I hate this rune! Every time I almost fall I'm forced to shove my face into the mountain!"
He was obviously irritated, he wanted to go and kill more beasts while heading back to the safe zone. Yet Cain forced him to climb the mountain closest to him.
This mountain wasn't a basin or a small one either. It was also very steep making him carve out his own footholds. Currently he was 75% done scaling the mountain.
His body was covered in dirt and grey dust as he took a second to wipe his eyes.
'Stop whining, your strength has taken a large leap even breaking into the gold rank! If we don't train your control then you might accidentally hurt someone with a hug! I'm telling you to do this for yourself, be happy I'm being thoughtful about those around you! Though having more control is always good'
Hearing those words made Ryder stop climbing, he took a second to calm himself before the pain got to his emotions again. This time he quickly recovered from the shock before climbing again.
"Fine, I won't argue. I do have a question though, what is up here that you were so insistent on going right now?"
'You'll see when you get to the top'
Like this Ryder continued his hellish climb, this mountain wasn't smooth either, even if he had to make his own footholds it was mainly because of the nature of this weird jagged and twisted mountain.
The entire mountain looked like a twisted towel almost. It started off as a very wide mountain at the base before it's body would twist around in a very tight hold leaving almost no place to rest besides some spots that looked almost carved out from other climbers in the past.
The rest of the body of the mountain was covered in jagged rotating rock making it feel almost alive. When he finally reached the top he was dead tired with minor injuries around his body.
After 10 minutes of rest he finally pulled out a pill and ate it. He had a limited amount of these little red pills that he got from Caleb. At the time Caleb called them a [Life Essence Pill] he didn't know how high grade they were but he was only given 6.
When he finally swallowed the pill a sudden burst of energy ran through his entire body. Quickly this energy began to stimulate the healing process in his body causing it to quickly close up his wounds while replenishing his stamina.
"That is better… phew! Now then why am I up he-"
He was about to continue but when he sat up from his sprawled out position on the ground he noticed something odd in the distance. Currently he was on one of the tallest mountains in the region and what he saw made him feel a chill run down his spine.
He looked over to the basin he was at before, that place had been completely fine yet the others were completely over run by beasts!
The first thing he noticed was a very bright light raging like a wild fire on top of one of the basins.
Another had a massive creature swirling around it while two others had 2 beasts on top. From far away he couldn't see the exact details of the creatures but after seeing one of them using some of its power made Ryder understand what happened.
Their is 9 Basins in total, the one he was at is in the middle of the other 8 surrounding it.
Now that he was so high he noticed large runes carved into the ground. When he saw them before he just thought they were natural caverns or maybe caused by a fight.
Now those thoughts were pushed to the back of his mind as he examined the place.
"T-this! This is a massive array made by a powerful expert!? Why!? Was it for those fruits?? Is this the vampires doing!?"
Currently the array seemed to be inactive yet a smaller version still gathered soul force inside the basins. He didn't understand what the use of this array was besides turning soul force into a liquid.
'Don't bother trying to learn this array right now. Your mental power would need to be at legend rank just to comprehend it. If you are really interested in it then I can at least tell you the name of it. The name is [Apex Ethereal Soul Orchard] it is a powerful array that uses many different forms of power to creature those fruits from before'
"Woah… those fruits must be a legendary treasure for so many different beasts to make a truce just to get their paws on one of them!"
'In this dying world becoming a peak legend rank is a must if you want to leave. These beasts must have known what is happening so they are taking a chance to quickly raise their power to leave this world'
Ryder almost didn't want to take his eyes off the powerful beasts but he knew he already spent way to much time climbing the mountain. Even though he had gathered a lot of points while he was out he still didn't have enough to pass.
When he turned to look back towards the edge of the Star Light Mountains he noticed a purple fog running through a large portion of the mountains and forests in the area seemingly traveling deeper into the hills.
The feeling he got from the cloud like purple fog was the same he got from looking at the stars in the sky. It was odd to him but made him grow even more curious.
"I wonder what is producing that cloud? I've heard of some beasts here able to shroud themselves in a purple mist but never full on clouds that can cover such a wide area"
He was planning to head down but Cain soon stopped him once again.
'What are you doing? Do you think I had you come up here just to climb back down a couple minutes later? No, you are going to sit down and bathe in the purest soul force in the area. Your body needs to nourish itself since your soul force isn't able to keep up right now!
Since you have climbed up here now you are going to feel out how much energy your body needs. Until you balance out your cultivation you will have to absorb large amounts of soul force into your body every day or your body with start to deteriorate from lack of nutrition'
"T-that sounds like it makes sense… so what do I do? Eat it like normal?"
'Didn't I just say you were going to bathe in it? Why would you eat your bath water?'
The next second Cain gathered some of his energy before information began to pour into Ryder's brain!
Images of different symbols filled his mind before 1 word appeared in his mind. [Soul Catalyst Nourishment Array]
"So you even know how to make runes and arrays? Why didn't you mention this before?"
'Because I didn't feel like it. I won't be teaching you everything I know, just everything about my technique and the way to grow powerful enough to devour the heavens. If you want to learn something else then find a teacher for that.'
He could only sigh at this response. He was hoping Cain could show him a little more about runes just to try and surprise Caleb or get an upper hand against others. Now that dream was crushed before it even started.
"Fine, I won't ask you to teach me runes then."
He soon used his claws to dig out a hole big enough to place a large portion of his body inside before carving out the runes around the hole.
Each of the four cardinal direction had a major rune while the other directions had minor supporting runes with little portions of beast blood poured into each hole.
He then sat inside the array before activating one of the supporting runes just for the whole array to activate all at once!
Instantly the area around the tip of this mountain began to have large amounts of soul force and air funneled towards the array before it all was poured onto his head showering him in a powerful force of pure soul power.
The quality of soul force had drastically changed as well. Usually when you reach high places you start to have trouble breathing. Yet when cultivators get higher the purer the soul force is.
Almost none of the soul force in the sky was tainted by another's soul force. Though there are mainly flying demon beasts it still wasn't enough to stop the atmosphere from catching the soul force purifying it before sending it back down to the planet.
"W-wow… I feel like I'm being pushed further into the ground! It's like gravity just tripled!"
He was able to withstand the powerful force but it definitely wasn't comfortable. After an hour of nourishing his cells with the power it finally slowed down having exhausted the beast blood before finally turning off.
"Ha! Finally! I thought I would have to suffer through this for the rest of the day!"
'Quit crying, it only took this long because your body was seriously starving for more soul force. You have been starving it since you started training. After all you did focus more on your body then your own cultivation'
"I will try not to make the same mistake in the future then…"
'Good, now go to the edge and jump'
"Ok, … wait … what do you mean jump!?"
'Are you stupid or something? I said jump off the mountain, make sure to jump into that massive cloud of purple smoke got it!'
"I-I don't think this is a good idea! If I hit the ground from this fall I'll definitely die! Are you trying to kill me!?"
'You won't die! You are a gold rank martial artist now! Though your cultivation is behind just hitting the ground with your protective techniques won't kill you, it will just hurt a bit. Now do you want to spend all day climbing down or will you jump into that purple cloud?!'
"Damnit! Damnit! DAMNIT! Fuck! Fine! I'll do it! No pain no gain right? Right!?"
He was seriously trying to trick himself into doing it. Though his body and mind knew it would hurt, or knew that it was a stupid idea he couldn't help but think back to the contract.
He understood that Cain isn't able to do things that wouldn't help him. In this case this was just helping Ryder save time in Cain's eyes.
"Why do I always have to do crazy things! First I was eating bugs! Then I was surrounded by powerful beasts! Next it was those stalkers! Now I have to throw myself off of this mountain too!? Cain! If I survive I'll be sure to get you back for telling me to do this!"
He was fighting with himself, he knew it was stupid but if he wanted to pass the test and get back before the deadline he couldn't spend all day climbing down!
Even if he tries to go down fast if he hit jagged rocks or caught onto a loose rock he would fall and hit the ground anyways! So instead he did as Cain said!
He backed up as far as he could before running at the edge closest to the purple cloud before leaping off the edge with a loud bang as his feet crushed the ground under him.
"I'm so dead!"
He yelled as he surrounded his body in a wolf projection made of soul force as he guards his body waiting for the impact as he fell out of the sky above the purple cloud.