While the participants were taking in the new environment around them and also being wary of their surroundings, the old man reappeared.
The area outside the trees around them was finally visible after the old man appeared in front of them, as he had removed the restriction.
His main job was to conduct the competition without any hiccups and impartially get as many talents as possible for their own reasons.
"The third test for you is taking over that fort in the distance as well as defending it. You all are free to use any methods that suit the goal."
"You have to defend it as well as develop the areas near it since you'll be needing those resources."
"The only limit is that none of you can break through to the next realm; otherwise, you'll be disqualifying your power entirely."
As the old man was explaining the rules, let alone the disciples, even some Elders felt it was a bit too harsh to not even stipulate a time limit for them to be doing this task.
The only good thing was that the fort was built in such a way that it only needed protection from the front, as the other three sides were covered with mountains, making it a natural fortress.
It was also bad for developing the nearby areas, as no one would be willing to risk their lives while others rest easy, but this was a test, so could such a thing be possible?
The disciples only took five days to arrive at the fort in their small groups, and the first scene they saw was the insides being pristinely clean.
The fort was literally just a fort; it had no buildings inside it except the barracks built along the walls for the city guards to stay in.
It only had one entrance to move in or out of the city, with the inside being filled with trees, beasts, and rocks.
The only positive was that there was a river that passed through the center of the city from the upper corner to the lower corner of the fort.
The entrance was located on the lower side, with it being in the center to give a much-needed opening.
It was quite certain that it had been used as bait to allow the enemies to enter before swarming them from the high ground.
The walls were damaged, but only to the extent of being repairable, as if left on purpose like that.
The only troubling part was who'd be good enough at different fields to make the defense work, as there was no information about the enemy.
No one truly knew anything about what they had to defend against. It could be humanoids, demon beasts, natural disasters, or any other cause.
With the lack of information as well as the participants being divided into their own groups, it was obviously the same as giving oneself away, but no one leader would come out that easily.
The small-sized powers allied with each other, and the medium-sized ones. The problem was the large-sized powers, as they didn't ally at all.
Those powers had enough disciples to defeat any alliance easily, but they were wary of other large-sized powers uniting to attack them from behind.
Surprisingly, things didn't go that badly because nothing attacked the fort for the first six months, and not many conflicts had occurred.
The powers divided areas where they would reside inside the fort as well as where they would scout and locate resources.
The only area undecided was where to defend, as it was decided that everyone would have to help in the defense due to the lack of information, but they'd stay with their own powers.
It was obvious that repairing and fortifying the walls took priority, as all the forgers and formation masters worked on it while others gathered the materials.
The materials evidently had to be substituted, as finding known materials would be just too easy for the test, so they had to find suitable materials.
The worst part was not knowing the total quantity of the materials as well as the varying quality of them being found in different places.
There was unmistakably no such thing as unity except for giving the required materials for the work on the walls, as they had to defend the fort for an unknown time.
The first attack occurred exactly seven months and twenty days from the start of the test when they lost more than a thousand cultivators who were taken by surprise.
The attackers were of all types, from humanoids to demon beasts to underground to airborne, which made defending quite a taxing job.
The losses slowed down, but the end result was more than two thousand deaths, including those who died exploring the nearby regions.
The only fact keeping them from attacking each other was that they didn't know the strength of the attackers, and now it would be unclear if the next attack would be stronger or equal in strength.
There were the smart ones who gave priority to their survival and didn't fight to protect the fort at all, ignoring everything except their enemies.
Then, there were the ones who didn't fight at all simply because they were injured, out scouting, or working too far away from the lower corner to be able to reach it before the attackers were repelled.
It was not like they defeated the enemies, but the enemies had retreated, which was the reason no infighting occurred, as they would probably increase the next wave's numbers.
With the next wave coming at an unknown time, they had to be better prepared for it, as they had already suffered once due to the suddenness.
It was not like there was nothing to detect the enemies, but the enemies weren't detected at all, making the detectors useless against them.
The second wave arrived six months after the first one from the lower side with the entrance, but this time the death count was only in the hundreds.
The fact that both waves arrived from the front reinforced their beliefs that they would only come from there, making the number of cultivators increase on that side.
Well, their beliefs weren't broken, as the third wave also assumed the same attack formation against them, and their preparedness decreased the death toll to just a few hundred.
Unfortunately, all their beliefs were destroyed as the fourth wave arrived from all four directions, causing a huge death toll before being forced to retreat.
The uncertainty caused them to spread their troops, and the fifth wave attacked from the four directions surrounding the fortress.
Being prepared this time for any circumstances made it pretty easy for them to be able to defend against the enemies, as they were forced to retreat with very few casualties.
What no one noticed was that the wave numbers had been increasing, and the ones who retreated never appeared until now.
The fact made it easy for all of them to trust the past information for any future waves, as their prediction of it arriving every six months was finally broken.
The sixth wave arrived four months after the previous one, taking them by surprise as it had more than doubled the number of any wave until now.
Most obviously felt that this would be the last wave, resorting to all the tricks saved until now as all kinds of defensive formations and traps that had been hidden were activated.
The sixth wave had also attacked from four sides, as the enemies had not only increased in quantity but also strength, fighting to death.
Unlike the previous waves, where they would at least hesitate at death, it was gone. There was no retreat as they went berserk, burning their life forces.
"Defend"
"Defend"
"Defend"
Such chants echoed as the injured cultivators, as well as those who hadn't fought until now, joined the fray to fight alongside their powers.
None of them wanted to fail the test or be blamed for it, as they would most likely get punishments worse than death.
Not that it changed much, but this was the most deadly battle for the ones defending the fort till now, as most of them had already fought with their full strength, revealing their cards.
There were ones like Raon who had been fighting conservatively as it was unknown what would happen after the wave, and they had only displayed a few of their cards, not all.
The battle only lasted 6 hours, but it would be the most horrifying one for them as they had to fight while betting their lives on it.
The old man reappeared as he gave a healing pill to all the survivors, making it obvious that the test was over.
"Congratulations on passing the test. You have a little over nine days to take whatever resources you like as a reward, but killing each other for it is prohibited."
The old man said that as he vanished, leaving the disciples feeling conflicted about the reward, as more than five thousand had died or deserted, making only 4.578 pass this test.
The disciples didn't feel conflicted for long, though, as only the 4.578 were under the rules, while the ones who had deserted could be killed and looted, but they couldn't kill the one who passed the test.
The deserters that were still alive after the test was over were sent to their masters, leaving their fate to them, while the ones who passed were sent to another different pocket dimension.
This pocket dimension was many times smaller than the ones they had been sent to until now and was restricting them just like the start of any test, but the disciples saw a sight that shocked them to the core.