Chapter 19: The Dungeon Experience
The training dungeon was situated on the northwest corner of the Academy near the forest. It was an underground enclosure that was powered by thousands of demon cores and required the Chi of a Mind Level cultivator to be controlled. Uzman entered the dungeon feeling apprehensive as he did not know what to expect. During the review meeting, Master Jalid had informed the selected students that the dungeon would start easy and then increase in difficulty as a person continued to overcome more challenges.
The dungeon was able to host all students at the same time since it was situated in extra-dimensional space. A student would enter the dungeon after every two hours which was the estimated time for completing a set of five challenges. After every five challenges, a student would have 2 optional hours to cultivate in a high-energy environment. Between bouts, a person could only cultivate for five minutes to replace their Chi.
Uzman passed through the blue shimmering light and found himself in a forest environment. His first challenge was a rank 1 goblin that was adorned in a loincloth and holding a stone spear. Uzman stepped forward to meet its charge and punched it in the head using an earth-empowered fist. Its head exploded like a melon and it fell down dead. ‘Oops, that was easy,’ Uzman thought.
Another shimmering light appeared in front of Uzman indicating the opening of another challenge. He entered the shimmering light without hesitating as he also expected to meet other Rank 1 beasts. This time he found himself in a small dark room. Turning around, he realized that there was no door or any other way of leaving the room. On one of the walls, there was a square panel in which there were four panes in different colors.
There was a green, blue, brown, and orange pane. Between the four panes was an empty slot. Suddenly the room started rapidly filling with water. Uzman realized that the challenge was a puzzle that needed to be solved before the water rose too high to drown him. Seeing nothing else of note, Uzman went closer to the four panes and studied them closely. The panes formed a sort of jigsaw puzzle that could be solved by shifting the panes around using the empty space. He tried different combinations and started panicking as the water had already reached his waist. He needed to solve the puzzle quickly else he would drown.
Uzman evened his breathing and emptied his mind. This approach had saved his life more times than he cared to count. He looked at the panel and realized that the colors resembled the affinities he saw whenever he used his energy sense. This would indicate that green was air, blue for water, brown for earth, and orange represented fire.
'Aha! so the puzzle is an ordering of elements. But where to start? Did water come before earth or earth before water?' He puzzled. Now the water was up to his shoulders and continued to rise. A sense of impending doom was making his heart race making it hard to concentrate on the task at hand. As the water reached his neck, he had an epiphany. The cycle would have to start with earth or water. He quickly maneuvered water to the lower pane on the left, placed air above it, fire to the top right pane, and earth below fire. In essence, he put water in opposition to fire, and earth in opposition to water. As he slid the last pane into position, there was a large click and the entire panel changed into a shimmering door. ‘Whew, that was close!’
Uzman passed the shimmering door to find himself in a forest clearing facing 2 gremlins. The two creatures stood around 4 feet in height and were at rank 1. Uzman retrieved his glaive, not that he needed it, but he did not want to waste more time than was necessary. He enforced himself with fire and lunged at the two gremlins. Before they could react, he had pierced deeply into the chest of one of the gremlins killing it instantly. The other gremlin jumped back in surprise and let out a bloodcurdling shriek. Unfazed, Uzman pulled his glaive from the dead gremlin and faced the remaining one. The gremlin lunged at Uzman swinging its sharp claws at his throat. He sidestepped easily and swung the glaive overhand splitting its skull. The fight did not even leave him winded. The next two challenges failed to challenge Uzman due to his superior speed and strength over the Rank 1 beasts.
Uzman passed the shimmering door into a beautiful gorge in a forest environment. This was the high-energy cultivation area. To his senses, it was slightly more potent that his Rank 2 campsite. He sat down and started cultivating. His Chi moved more quickly in his core and filled up after a few minutes. He tried to condense it further and failed. Instead of continuing his cultivation, he opted to go ahead with the trial since the first challenges had not used up much of his Chi.
Uzman breezed through three more challenges where he faced 3, 5, and 7 Rank 1 goblins respectively. The beasts were uncoordinated and slow. He was beginning to despair about the value of the dungeon to his training. It seemed as if the training had been designed for Rank 1 students.
Passing into the 9th challenge, Uzman found himself in a village enclosure full of gremlins. They were close to 15 gremlins armed with different weapons. There were bows, spears, swords, and pikes. Before Uzman could formulate a plan, he was spotted. Instead of the gremlins attacking in a frenzy, Uzman was surprised to see them organized in a semblance of an army. Five gremlins bearing pikes advanced abreast providing cover for another 4 gremlins that started shooting arrows hidden behind the ones holding pikes. The remaining gremlins congregated around the largest gremlin he had seen so far. The gremlin stood at least 7 feet in height and held a big spiked mace. Uzman smiled: At last, a worthy challenge.
Uzman ran towards the advancing pike gremlins closing the distance quickly to invalidate the efforts of the archers. He dodged a thrust, caught the pike, and threw the gremlin bodily into its colleagues. The rank of pike gremlins became disorganized as their colleague cannoned into them. Uzman took the opportunity to decimate the rank of pike gremlins. He whirled between them thrusting, punching and kicking. Within seconds only one gremlin was standing. Uzman used it as cover against the archers who had created enough distance to start posing a threat. Fleetingly, Uzman realized that the large gremlin and its bodyguards had not moved, but were observing the proceedings dispassionately. He guessed that they may be the leaders or nobility if the gremlins had a hierarchy. Uzman switched to vapor and moved too quickly for the archers to focus on him. He flitted from one archer to the other killing them in a matter of seconds.
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The big gremlin and its bodyguards moved towards Uzman with the confidence of a being used to getting its way. Using energy sense, Uzman assessed the remaining gremlins and determined that only the big guy was in the tempering stage. This meant that it was important to quickly neutralize the five guards that were lower ranked before committing to engage the big gremlin. Uzman decided to use a sword for this engagement as it would allow him to attack quickly.
As the gremlins neared Uzman, he channeled air to engage the guards loping off the head of the one in the lead and pivoting to split the skull of the one behind it. With a roar of rage, the big gremlin launched itself at Uzman swinging the mace in a bid to pound him into a pulp. Uzman narrowly evaded the attack by jumping backward to gain space and reassess. The remaining gremlins flanked him two on the left, one on the right, and the big leader at the front. They formed a semi-circle around him; trying to herd him into the wall at the back to reduce his mobility. Uzman feinted to his left and pivoted quickly hitting the gremlin on his right with a snap kick that caved its chest. It fell down writhing in pain. However, the move gave the big gremlin time to close the distance, and its wild swing connected painfully with his ribs and threw him back towards the wall of the enclosure. Uzman rolled away from the follow-up swing that would have caved in his head had the mace connected.
Gritting his teeth in pain, Uzman rose shakily to his legs. He discarded the sword and retrieved his glaive. He would need the added space as the pain in his ribs was affecting his mobility.
The big gremlin continued its wild attacks swinging the mace powerfully. Stumbled backward circling away from the wall while stopping himself from being surrounded. Uzman realized that he needed to act quickly or he would lose as he was tiring rapidly and losing blood. He waited for the gremlin to swing the mace and dived below the swing and thrust upwards piercing its throat. Once the big gremlin fell he made short work of the two minions winning the challenge.
Instead of passing on to the next challenge, Uzman first took a healing pill and then sat down to cultivate and refill his Chi. After the allotted five minutes he moved to the tenth challenge even though he was not completely healed. However, he had recovered his Chi and the pain had lessened.
Uzman found himself in an arena facing a rank 2 hobgoblin. The beast stood taller than him at 7 feet and was holding a spiked mace. Remembering the previous challenge, Uzman decided to use a glaive for the longer reach to match the massive beast. The beast attacked immediately swinging the mace savagely aiming for Uzmans chest. He jumped back creating space while considering his opponent. The beast had long arms that compensated for the glaive’s reach. Additionally, it had a thick scaled skin which would make weak swipes ineffective. Uzman chose the earth forms for the power needed to deal damage. The beast swung the mace with such power that Uzman could feel the displacement of air in its wake. He tried to parry a blow and had his glaive almost ripped out of his hands. He danced away each time but the hobgoblin persisted with the assault; the mace coming closer and closer. He realized that the current strategy was not sustainable as augmenting himself with earth made him stronger but could still not match the power of the hobgoblin.
Switching strategies Uzman opted for speed and precision changing his Chi from earth to fire. His speed increase enabled him to weave easily under the swings of the mace. The next time the Hobgoblin swung the big mace, Uzman ducked under the arc of the swing and thrust his glaive under its armpit. The glaive easily penetrated the soft tissue but got stuck when Uzman tried to pull the glaive out. The hobgoblin screamed out in pain and rage. It instinctively struck out with a kick that connected solidly with Uzman. He could hear the crunch of his ribs as they broke. As Uzman fell, the Hobgoblin hobbled over, ignoring the glaive sticking out of its body. It switched the mace to its left hand and swung savagely aiming to pound his chest into a pulp.
Uzman was lying on the floor helplessly as the mace sped toward his broken chest. Suddenly, time seemed to slow as Uzman willed his Chi to the surface hoping to reduce the impact. He saw every detail of the mace in the clarity of the slowing time from the sharp spikes to the iron tip. He projected earth to harden his body. Instead of the mace pulverizing his chest it connected with an earthen barrier that gelled just outside his body stopping the spikes from touching his body. However, the momentum of the blow still transferred to his body breaking a few more ribs. With a cry of pain, Uzman struck out with both legs hitting the shins of the beast. Both legs connected solidly sending the hobgoblin falling on its face. As it fell the glaives haft was anchored on the floor forcing the tip further into its body through the heart killing it instantly.
Uzman lay on the floor for a few minutes trying to catch his breath. He recalled that master Jalid had informed the selected students that they could not die as they would be transported out before a death blow could be struck. He had, however, come close to death. Chuckling ruefully, he wondered how the dead could complain if the masters managing the trial failed to stop their death in time. He crawled through the shimmering portal into the high-energy cultivation area situated after the 10th trial.
Uzman retrieved a healing pill and popped it into his mouth. He converted his unaspected Chi to wood and channeled it through his meridians to aid in the healing process. He then settled down to cultivate and meditate on the two last fights where he had been pushed to the edge.
The energy in the room was higher than any he had ever cultivated. As he pulled the energy into his core using the rainbow cultivation technique, it crashed through his meridians in waves rapidly settling as a tar-like substance. Uzman reflected on the last two fights while maintaining his cultivation rhythm. Master Uzman had instilled in him the importance of being able to split his focus and continue cultivating when performing other tasks. As he thought about his last fight, he realized that he had achieved a breakthrough that had probably saved his life or helped him win his 10th trial. He recalled how he had managed to create an earthen shield just as the spiked mace had connected with his body. The shield had stopped a potentially fatal blow, creating an opportunity for his win. He explored the way the Chi had flowed from his body guided by his will and congealed into a shield based on his visualization. Having imprinted the movement process of the Chi in his mind he turned to fully focus on his cultivation.
Uzman looked into his core and observed that the Chi had managed to heal his wounds. He concentrated on the movement of the Chi spiraling inside his Dantian. His insights into the formation of the shield had shown him how to force the motes of golden blue energy to congeal into a shield. The process required clear visualization and will. He recognized that he needed the crystals to be defined in a way that they could form a greater whole to make it possible to form his core. Suddenly he was brought abruptly from his meditation by a force that pushed him through the shimmering door into the 11th challenge. His 2 hours had ended.