All four of the youths were sitting on the floor, barely keeping themselves up. They were still looking at Dalian. Finally, he nodded to indicate they should take their pills. However, he also held his hand up so that they wouldn’t act straight away. For the pills to become fully active, they had to be absorbed for a few moments.

Quickly, Dalian’s feeling in his legs and body began to be restored, and he stopped feeling a shooting pain everytime he slightly moved. Joy threatened to creep up on him, but he stopped it. He needed serenity above everything, and for the creatures to believe he was helpless.

Among the crowd, they began to sing. It was a horrible discordant tune, but it had power with so many contributing. They sang for about three minutes, then four creatures walked over, one for each of them. They held an ornate dagger, with many decorative lines going down the hilt and blade.

When they were within touching distance, all four of them acted. They charged at the creature’s legs, toppling them over. Then they pulled the dagger out of their hands and killed their would-be executor. Now that he had some freedom, Dalian felt the urge to take the orb grow stronger, but he stifled it forcefully.

A horde of creatures was charging at them angrily. Many had weapons, while others simply had their claws brandished.

“Move closer together, cover each other’s backs!” Dalian shouted, so that they could handle the enemies easier.

Dalian’s mind was whirring, he felt invigorated. One creature charged at him, swinging down an axe from overhead. Instinctually, he dodged it, then quickly stabbed the green monster through the throat. Another came, Dalian pulled out his knife and took a step forward to stab one of its eyes out before it could attack him with its claws.

The other creatures hadn’t reacted as quickly and were a couple metres out, so Dalian quickly picked up the axe from the one which was now laying dead on the floor.

Two more jumped at him at once, and he swung the axe in a wide arc across their torsos, gouging out a long slash. Having already killed four, Dalian began to get into a flow state, effortlessly dodging, and killing with the least amount of attacks possible.

However, the others weren’t doing so well, although none of them had suffered any major injuries, they were all covered in grazes and cuts. Their movements were still slightly stilted, clearly the poison hadn’t completely worn off for them.

After they had each killed ten, with Dalian having killed thirty, several loud booms drew their attention to a creature which had just arrived. It towered over the others, being twice their height, and a few inches taller than the humans. It was clad in thick leather armour, which had much better craftsmanship than the rags of the others. In both hands it held enormous battle axes.

The battlefield stilled for a moment, and it let out a roar which caused several to tremble. Then it charged forwards towards Dalian.

“I’ll handle the fatty, but you need to help me with the small ones whilst I’m fighting!” Dalian shouted. The two boys on his left and right nodded.

In just a moment, the large creature got close enough and swung both its axes down brutally. Dalian jumped back to dodge, causing the weapons to hit the floor with a loud clang.

He didn’t waste the opportunity, and immediately moved closer to swing his axe at one of the gaps in the armour by its elbow. His enemy saw what he was doing and tried to dodge, but its balance was already tilted forwards. Dalian sliced its tendon open and caused the arm to go limp.

The creature roared and regained its footing, now only holding one axe. It didn’t attack immediately, now a little more wary. With Dalian waiting for an opportunity, the two were at a stand still.

Soon the monster lost its patience and swung its remaining axe from the side. Dalian dodged, but as he was doing so, the boy on his right lost his footing and bumped into him. Thrown off, Dalian could only stumble backwards, and allow the axe to tear through his torso, cutting him open.

Great gouts of blood spurted out, and Dalian immediately began to feel weak. He looked down and saw the sheer amount of crimson flowing out from his body. Even if all the goblins died that moment, he would still die from blood loss before the minute was up.

He felt hopelessness creeping up, but he shattered it, refusing to be weak in his final moments. The only thing he could think of, something that would extend his life just enough to kill his enemies.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pill bottle. With one hand he twisted the top off. Then, in a single motion, he downed all of them. The large creature’s axe came down on him once more, but he threw himself to the floor to escape it.

As he got up, he counted; one, two, three.

The pills began to work, and he felt boundless energy flowing into him. This was one of the effects that he had learnt from the others when he gave them their pills. If you took multiple, then endless energy would enter your body, enough to replace the need for blood and other important functions, but the sheer amount of qi would destroy your body soon afterwards. But for those fleeting minutes, you would be invincible.

The strength he felt was unlike anything he had ever felt before. He tightened his grip with an icy determination. He was going to die, but he would take down his enemies with him.

He pulled back his arm and swung with all his might at the large creature.

Whoosh!

The sound of air being cut apart echoed through the cave over the sound of fighting. The monster tried to bring his axes up to block, but compared to Dalian, he was far too slow.

The axe met slight resistance at the leather armour, but chopped through anyway. In just a moment, it passed all the way through the neck.

Its head fell to the floor, the creature's knees following quickly, before it toppled frontwards to the ground.

Dalian felt a dash of pleasure from getting revenge, but a sea of creatures was still within his field of view. He took a deep breath, then began slaughtering.

The green figures fell at an astonishing rate. Dalian sliced through multiple with each swing. The sheer force of his attacks tore his muscles apart, but he was carried onwards by the infinite amount of qi entering his body.

He had long since forgotten about the formation of him and his fellow test takers. Not that it mattered, in a minute, Dalian had cleared out a hundred of them.

His team looked at him with shock in their eyes. What they were seeing didn’t look like a mortal who had somehow muddled his way into an immortal test. No. He looked like a god of war, attacking without reason or care. The only concern of his was that he wasn’t killing enough. They struggled to reconcile this scene with the boy who had begged to be a slave.

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Seeing such intensity, they were invigorated and began using more of their power; holding less back in fear that it would come in handy later.

The strongest fighters had gone to attack immediately, which meant that what he was fighting now were the dregs of the enemy force.

His killing was steady, and in five minutes the last enemy had its top half chopped off.

Dalian looked around for more foes, but he couldn’t find any. He suddenly dropped to his knees. The damage to his body was far too severe. Truthfully he had felt the pain long ago, but had kept going through force of will.

His team ran over. They grabbed onto him to steady him and prevent him from falling.

“Are you okay?” One of them asked.

Dalian opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out, so he just shook his head.

“How did you suddenly get so much stronger?” The boy asked.

Dalian reached into his pocket and pulled out the empty bottle of pills; chucking it on the floor.

His team’s eyes widened in shock.

“You took so many qi gathering pills?”

“A mortal body can’t handle that influx of strength, he’s going to die once they wear off.”

“Unless we can bring him to the sect.”

“They won’t waste their resources on a mortal.”

“He’s doomed.”

Dalian wasn’t shocked, he had already known this would be the end result but he was satisfied with it. As a mortal it was an impossibility that he would ever be able to cultivate. He was happy to go out in a bright burst of light.

Just as he accepted his death, the bodies of his team separated slightly and through them, he saw something.

Atop its altar, the orb was glowing white. Suddenly, the urging he felt earlier came back ten times stronger. It was like an enormous magnet was pulling him over. As soon as he saw it, he was no longer content with his death.

He got up unsteadily. When his team saw, they quickly rushed to lift him onto his feet.

“If you get up now, you’re only going to speed up your death.”

Dalian didn’t hear him. All his focus was on the orb. With great pain, he began walking over. His team tried to support for a bit, but they let go once they realised he could walk by himself.

They were all curious about what could make someone soon to die get up and endure such pain.

Step by step, Dalian made his way closer to the orb, until he was finally in front of it. At this distance, the urging was a hundred times stronger.

So, he lifted up his arm and reached out and touched the orb.

Immediately the orb lit up massively, its white hue lighting up the entire cave. As he touched it, Dalian felt immense relief, and a cool tranquillity. The orb began to melt into a liquid and seeped into his skin.

He felt it make its way through his body to his navel region, before it found a spot for itself and reconstituted itself at the size of a pearl. The glow had now transferred to his skin.

The others were surprised. “That orb must be a treasure.”

“Maybe it can help him.”

The pearl began to absorb all the qi that was being pulled into his body by the pills. Dalian had a pang of worry, as that was what was keeping him alive. If the pearl couldn’t finish what it was doing before he died, it didn’t matter.

His fear was answered as the pearl began to emit waves of healing energy. At a speed visible to the eye, Dalian’s flesh was knit up. In just a few seconds, all his wounds were gone, not even leaving any scars.

The healing energy stopped, but the pearl continued to absorb the qi.

“Are you okay?” Asked one of the boys.

Now, Dalian was healed, he could respond. “I’m fine, the pearl is inside my body doing something. I don’t know how long it will take. You should all leave and complete the test, I will catch up.”

Perhaps Dalian could have lied, but he felt a strange sense of trust that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He had entrusted his back to these people in battle, and they had done so to him. That was enough for him.

“But-“ he replied, but was cut off by another.

“Brother, are you sure you’ll be alright. You saved my life, I’m willing to give my chance of entering the sect up if it means you’re protected.” Clearly, he felt the same way as Dalian.

Dalian nodded. “Go. I will be fine. You’ve seen just as I have that I’ve been healed. I’m not so weak that I’ll die on my own.”

The three nodded, they had seen better than anyone what Dalian was capable of. Even if they were there to protect him, it was unknown who would be protecting who if something really did happen.

“Then we’ll go on ahead. You must catch up with us brother, or we won’t forgive you.”

“I’ll make it, I promise,” replied Dalian.

“Goodbye.” The boy said and turned around.

The two others didn’t leave straight away and also said their goodbyes, before following the boy.

Dalian sat down in a meditation position as he realised it would take some time for the pearl to finish. A couple minutes after they had left, Dalian realised that he had forgotten to get their names. He was aggrieved for a moment, before deciding that he would get them when they next saw each other.

He prayed that the pearl would finish quickly, he didn’t know how much time he had until the deadline.

Over the next few hours, the pearl continued to absorb qi, until finally the pills wore off and there was nothing left to absorb. After a few seconds of no qi, the pearl began to let out a stream of energy that gathered around itself.

Then, it started spinning, weaving the energy into a ball around itself. The thread of energy spun around the ball thousands of times before it finally came to a stop.

Once it was halted, the pearl began to release enormous waves of energy into the ball. As it did so, the threads began to merge into one, compacting in the process.

The pearl released energy for an hour. When it stopped, the layers of threads had transformed into a thin film which coated the pearl, but Dalian could tell that it contained endless amounts of energy within.

He wondered if anything else would happen, but nothing did for a while. Just as he was confused about what was happening, several pieces of information appeared in his mind which shocked him to the bone.

The pearl was called the Immortal Creation Orb, and it was a treasure from the immortal world. How it ended up in such a dirty cave, Dalian had no idea.

However what really astonished him was that it had the ability to create spiritual roots. As long as you provided enough materials it could create them.

Finally, he discovered that the process that the orb had been going through for the past few hours had been to create what it called a high-grade, mortal rank life spirit root.

In other words, this meant that Dalian now possessed the ability to cultivate.

Dalian couldn’t believe it, but the presence of the orb in his body was undeniable. It was slightly strange. Whilst he was sure it was within his body, it wasn’t something physical. It seemed to exist in the space whilst not being physically there.

Whilst it wasn’t as much as the pills had given him, he could feel qi entering his body through his pores. It was a very faint flow, but compared to his entire life of nothing, it was there.

Although he was still in disbelief, he remembered that he was on a time limit for the test and quickly got up.

He stretched his body out and relished the feeling of an uninjured body. One that felt perhaps even better than it had before.

Then, without wasting anymore time, he set off running out the cave.