In another space of the artefact the Elder in the artefact spoke to another person who gave of a powerful aura kneeling.
"Principle my soul was damaged during the sampling, so I'm unable to gather the soul samples of the participants today, but I am fairly sure the damage wasn't caused by a treasure but the transformation of one of them."
"So you mean one of these is hiding there true transformations real grade, what would they gain from doing so Elder Zhang?"
"my suspicion is that the person was send by one of the other academies to infiltrate the students to get rid of other promising youths for their academy."
After a some thought the person which the Elder called principle gave an answer before disappearing.
"Make the 50 that got accepted fight each other together to look for any not fitting skills and Techniques and if this does not work you are going to take new samples on after another when they enter the next time."
As Sophia was still blushed from Max previous response another announcement was made.
[Under the Principles decision there wont be any one on one fights, but just one fight where everybody will fight against everybody! 5 Minutes Recovery phase remaining.]
Hearing this many of the others shouted about this decision knowing that even if they are stronger, the tide of the fight could instantly change to the worse costing there the spot in the ranking they would have achieved if they fought in one on one matches.
Max, Luis and Sophie began planning to team up like many of the others did to.
After the 5 minutes where over they got teleported on a much larger platform than before, only able to move there heads as another countdown began.
As the Artefact began counting down from 30 he looked around trying to locate Luis and Sophie, which where luckily only 1 person away. The bad thing he noticed while looking for them was that seemed that at each of them hat at least 3 people looking at them.
[3, 2, 1, Lets the final battle begin!]
Having directly Transformed he leaped over the person between the three landing next to them and started defending against the first wave of attacks before they attacked on their own, with combined effort they were able to slowly take out their attacker while minimizing their own injuries under their attacks, he ripped one of there heads of with a single controlled bited shredding the neck of a wolf like Transformation.
After taking out 7 of their opponents, the number of remaining people had alreadyreached below 10, he only saw a flash of red moving from person to person leaving only a mist of blood unable to do anything he saw right in front of his eyes, first Sophie and then Luis being turned into a mist of blood when his mind slowed down what happened in front of him letting everything slow down by hundreds of times, he was able to see what the red flash is.
It was Luke in his Asura form, but his body was cracking all over and spewing blood his fist slowly approached his stomach, that upon contact he was feeling his body slowly disintegrating, he saw Luke pop like a balloon before everything went black.
Instantly regained conscience in a small room with a list floating in front of a door together with a robe and token.
Standing up he looked at it in disbelief as he was in first place and not Luke, when the last moments of the fight flashed in his mind, he was sure that his Punch Combo skill must have increased Lukes strengh over his physical limit, which was shown by the blood spurting cracks all over his bulging body and the punch that landed on him must have given him the final push bursting Lukes body.
Just before his body was disintegrated by his punch ending his life just a fragment of a second before his own, causing him to win first place instead of him.
[Final Ranking
1st Place Max Darkwing
2nd Place Luke Brahmadhvaja
3rd Place Luis Delios
4th Place Sophie Delios
5th Place Jens Wild
6th …
7th … ]
And so on he looked through the List before grabbing Token and robe and changed his clothe and placed the old ones into his spatial ring.
Looking on the things engraved on the Token showing his name and status as inner disciple.
Hi bit into his finger just enough to draw a drop of blood, he dripped it on the token binding it to him, because if he didn't do this other people could steal it and transfer his merit points to their own.
Merrit points are granted for completing mission and also a few are paid out monthly and are used to exchange for resources, so that many still try to steal ore pressure newbies to hand them over even with the risk of a harsh punishment if caught because the resources in the academy are just too tempting for those with weaker talent.
Walking through the Door he ended in an open area with many paths, the others where already waiting there two when he and the siblings together with the other of the top ten got taken away by some Elder bringing the over to the inner disciple area of the Academie which is surrounded by sturdy wall together with tons of protection arrays making in only accessible through gates which are guarded by 4 disciples in the peak of the Essence core formation realm, which made sure only people who are allowed to enter this area get access.
The Elder took out his own Token and showed it to the Guard as they approached they quickly moved to the side, allowing them to pass through.
While walking he spoke with the sibling about what they should do later.
After walking some more they entered a area, where many houses stood, each having their own courtyard, but because of arrays placed on it was not possible to see what was inside.
After passing a few they stopped in front one with the door open, the Elder grabbed two of them on the back of their robe and threw them inside while shouting. "You can't change your roommate no matter what. So get along well, otherwise you're out of luck."
As the two thrown passed through the door, it lighted up and their names appeared engraved over it, the elder already continued on his path when this got repeated another three times leaving only himself and Sophie. After the Last pear before them was thrown the elder already grabbed them and walked over to the next house and threw first him inside, he hit the ground with his back seeing Sophie being hurled inside on direct course on him, he tried to catch her, but he wasn't fast enough that she still ended landing on his chest. He lifted his chest up leading to Sophie wo tried to get of him embarrassed from the situation she swung her head up hitting his nose with the back of her head.
Naturally, she started apologizing again and again until he told her he was fine as the pain from his nose had subsided.
Once over they started looking separately around in this house, which was split in 3 rooms one in the middle with a table and seats and the door out in the Yard, while left and right where rooms each containing a bed a closet and a Essence gathering array connected to the earth vain below the sect.
The earth vain is a condensed form of pure essence which continuously absorbs more out of the surrounding making it stronger, while the academies can use it, by letting Elder and students absorb it to faster increase their Cultivation than just by absorbing The essence in the surrounding.
After meeting back at the entrance they went outside to go back to the House Luis was thrown into, but as they gone past the house Luke was Thrown into he came outside and walked over to them asking them where they were going and if he could join them. "Hey Max, I don't want to be intrusive, but depending on what you're up to, maybe could come with you?
"Sure I have nothing against it, we are planning to take some missions to earn some Merrit points for resources before having a big cultivation session before repeating this again. One more helping hand, will be surely of great help in the missions."
As they started walking again now together with Luke, Sophie introduced herself to him quickly and nothing more as it uncomfortable for her, as they approached Luis who was already waiting outside for them, Luke went to the front and also introduced himself to him as they followed the signs leading towards the mission hall and passing through the gate again.
Once there they were there they were shocked from the sheer size of it and the constant flow of people going in and out.
Inside they gather in front a board with every where mission papers where sticking to, each of them grabbed one of it that where the easiest accessible and got back together showing each other their chosen mission, which where almost identical in there contend all about hunting 1th Layer Essence gathering beast ore above, one with 4, 7 and one with 10, only sophies mission was about obtaining 5 spirit lotuses with a reward totaling in 4720 merit points of reward for the missions all togheter.
Spirit lotuses are spirit herbs used by alchemist to concoct pills, they only grow in places with concentrated Essence like the mountains around a Earth vain and are light blue in color almost withe.
After registering the Mission on the desk at the front they quickly went to the closest exit point of the academy into the mountains surrounding it.
Keeping there eyes open looking for Beasts and the Lotuses they slowly went deeper into the forest on the mountain before they discovered there first lotus together with a beast in the 1th layer, which they could take care of without even needing to transform by attacking together at the same time.
Almost an hour later they got lucky and they run into a herd of around 60 Forest deer's which have a quick recovery, but almost no combat strengh they still transformed for more assurance for there sheer amount and to take down as many as possible, allowing them because of their low combat power and detection ability's.
Carefully sneaking up close to them and attacked, when Luke made the kill, which changed his aura in an instant letting him give of a bloodthirsty aura which continuously rose as he killed more, until he made a break out to the 2nd Layer, which startled Luis and Sophie almost causing them to get hit as they lost focus because of it.
Getting their minds back together to keep fighting , each slowly killing there way deeper into the herd when only a few remained and where fleeing they just let them go.
Once the remaining where out of sight they started gathering the Cores from the corpses.
They gathered 36 Beast cores in the 6th and 8th Layer Body Tempering realm, fourteen 9th Layer Body tempering cores, five 1th Layer Essence gathering realm cores and two 2nd Layer ones.
Planning to distribute them later he gathered the ones below the 9th realm that the others had dumped on the ground as they can't be exchanged without them noticing and behind them, they soon found another Lotus, while they cleared some alone beasts along the way it started turning dark they searched a place, which provides sufficient cover for the night.
After finally finding a place they put up a campfire they chose by playing rock paper scissor who stays awake to keep guard while the others sleep.
Already in the first round he lost by using paper as the others had chosen scissor, he had no other choice.
After being sure the three where asleep he moved to a boulder next to there camp place and started cultivating which worked pretty well thank to the greater abundance and purity of Essence here allowing his absorption through the black spark to become more efficient letting the essence pour into him at a very quick pace, which he found still to slow for him so he quickly took some beast cores and swallowed them which was still the fastest way to absorb them even thought he could now absorb them through his palm, which was just much slower than swallowing them.
His cultivation increased began increasing faster he made an break through around midnight having cultivated for a few hour he continued to cultivate only stopping to get rid of one beast in the 6th Layer Body Tempering so fast and silent that the others didn't even wake up before he continued until he run out of beast cores after doing another break out and the first beams of sunlight started to show on the horizon between the trees.
___________________________________________________________
Name: Max Darkwing
Realm: 3th Layer Dragon might Gathering
Progress: 18%
TD might: 310 (+210)
Transformation: Primordial Chaos Divine True Dragon(Phase: youngling)
Attributes: Chaos
Foundation: 317%
Physical strength: 70.000 pounds (+40.000)
Length: 70 Meters (+20)
Hight: 30 Meters (+10)
Devoured skills: Fake (SS), Size adjustment (S+)(Passive), Stealth (D)
Skills: Eyes of the True Dragon(???), Roar of the True Dragons(???), Chaos Dragons Breath(???)
System note: ??? of user consumed the rest of bloody spider lily medical effects to nurture itself.
??? awakening progress is 7/100.000.000.000
_____________________________________________________________
Feeling his strength rising he felt something taking most of the Essence he was absorbing for itself causing his cultivation not to advance as fast as he expected under his current condition, but that his physical strengh had risen by a huge margin didn't hid from his eyes.
After some thought he was sure whatever the thing at the bottom is an is awakening must be what is absorbing so much essence slowing down the speed of his cultivation but at the same time allowing his physical strengh to rise tremendous as it rose from 3 to 7 as his strengh rose from 30.000 to 70.000 making it whatever it is very beneficial to him even if it might slow down his cultivation so he was still very happy.
If anybody else had heard his thought of his progress being slow they would all spit blood.
He stood up and went back to the others before they woke up.
Not much Later they woke up one after another and when the last of the had woken up they went searching again but today they didn't had as much Luck and didn't even find a single Spirit Lotus on their way, but at least they were able to find all kinds of beasts and gathered over 50 9th Layer cores and 12 the Layer Essence gathering ones and 3 2nd Layer and even 1 of the fourth Layer and again he was able to secretly pocked those below the 9th Layer this time it where a total of 73 cores so for this night he directly said that he would stay guard after convincing them that he was still fit enough to keep guard for another night he needed to work the hardest on Sophie as she was worried he would overwork himself without enough sleep, so he lied to that his transformation caused him to not need much sleep which is not the full truth she accepted it and went to sleep.
This time he attempted not to rise his cultivation as much and instead infused most Essence into the thing which greedily accepted it slowly increased, when he suddenly started vomiting blood when from his eyes and ears even more started to flow out, he passed out for a moment.
After coming back to his senses he continued to cultivate before he wanted to infuse more into it he quickly stopped himself from doing so as he noticed that it wasn't taking any essence on his own, he quickly deduced that the sudden harm to him must have come from the thing pushing his physical strengh above what he could endure, it also seems to consume with each point of increase its needs far more Essence than before.
___________________________________________________________
Name: Max Darkwing
Realm: 3th Layer Dragon might Gathering
Progress: 22%
TD might: 320 (+10)
Transformation: Primordial Chaos Divine True Dragon(Phase: youngling)
Attributes: Chaos
Foundation: 325%
Physical strength: 110.000 pounds (+40.000)
Length: 100 Meters (+30)
Hight: 40 Meters (+10)
Devoured skills: Fake (SS), Size adjustment (S+)(Passive), Stealth (D)
Skills: Eyes of the True Dragon(???), Roar of the True Dragons(???), Chaos Dragons Breath(???)
System note: ??? of user consumed the rest of bloody spider lily medical effects to nurture itself.
??? awakening progress is 11/100.000.000.000
_____________________________________________________________
Still cultivating he soon noticed that his cultivation had stopped increasing no matter how much essence he was absorbing, he was worried that he might have reached a bottleneck in his cultivation, meaning that there is a high chance that he going to need a high chance of him not being able to increase his cultivation for a long time, but at least he was able to raise his strengh thanks to the thing far above his realm before it happened, so his shock about it wasn't as great as of someone else in the same situation.
Until morning he just kept cultivating until they woke up and they just began searched again and finally found a spot with 4 Lotuses, they planned to get some core on the way back to the Academie.
As the passed through the forest they noticed someone slowly approaching in the distance
Felling a sense of restlessness becouse of the guy approaching, he used his Eyes of the True Dragon on him.
_____________________________________________________________
Name: Devin Hull
Realm: 9th Layer Essence gathering realm
Essence: 740
Transformation: Earth ostrich
Attributes: Earth
Hight: 20 Meters
Wingspan: 50Meters
Potential: B-
Talent: B+
Cultivation Techniques: Stone Absorption (D)
Skills: Stone claws (C-), Wings of stone (D-),Thorns of Steel (B)
__________________________________________________________________
Seeing the Name he remembered the weird guy he fought in the first round and what the guy said, he started circulating his True Dragon might to be prepared for the worst as the bad feeling got stronger.