Chapter Sixty Five, The Lord of All Beast Kind.
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Wukong's first test was passed with a breeze. All he had to do was defeat a bear in combat...
More simple than he could have imagined, but, he did not complain.
His second test was to defend a small family from a pack of rampaging dire wolves.
It was a step up from the bear, but to him, they were still on the same level of ease.
The first eleven tests were rather easy... Save a family from a flood, beat down a large beast and deliver the corpse to a starving village. It was nothing Wukong had any trouble with.
If anything, the hardest part was patiently waiting for Lumoof's call in between each test. It ranged from weeks to months every time, and when he heard the voice of Lumoof in his ears, he could only listen, no matter the situation he was in.
This was put to the test during what Lumoof called the next phase.
In the next eleven tests, some of them happened to tie into one another.
Right after he had completed test thirteen, where he was tasked with supplying a village of one thousand with enough food to last half a decade... Wukong was immediately told to venture to another village, nearly across the continent.
He had four days to save a pregnant woman across the world. If he was not there in time, the woman would die during birth.
He would need to figure out a way to prevent the death of her and her baby, and more importantly, figure out a way to get there in the first place...
Those were likely the hardest tests of the second phase...
The third phase was far stranger, from test twenty three, to thirty three, most were no longer reliant on physical strength.
He was tested on his governance, having to build a small group of followers, and use them to fend a village from a beast tide.
He was forced to cultivate plants, to feed villages.
He had to build a settlement from the ground up, one that would hopefully act as his residence upon kinghood.
He harvested materials, created his own, brought people under his banner.
The final test in the third phase was to get his posse of a couple hundred to come together. To come together to create an instrument... They searched far and wide for materials that Wukong requested, bringing them back to him.
With the found materials, Wukong was tasked with the creation of an object.
An, instrument of sorts.
He crafted, and molded, patiently constructing what he was given the blueprint to, while his people watched.
In the end came out a... horn? A large object with a small hole on one end, and another larger one on the opposite side.
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Wukong was given the specific instruction to not blow into it, for it would come in handy soon.
So, in front of his people, after having used all of their firepower, he was forced to lie.
Well, lie in some way.
"I have made this instrument for a reason... I will call it the Sacred Horn... There will be a day where I use this, and on that day, I hope you are all still standing here with me."
That was a quote that was marked down in history.
That was another test.
Test number thirty was to find a scribe to record his tale, since these tests were only the start of things...
The final phase reverted back to the original at points.
Test thirty four was another test Wukong's physical prowess.
He was to take himself and his most powerful men to another settlement, and defend them from, as Lumoof put it...
The largest beast tide in history...
The largest group of wild monsters, migrating around, ever.
That was only the first test in the final phase, and there was some struggle.
Even though Wukong's power put him leagues above normal creatures, he was not allowed to let a single villager die.
Even of his own men, he was limited to one casualty, though of course, he didn't plan for any deaths.
It was a strenuous battle, but in the end, Wukong was able to drive the beasts away after he ruthlessly slaughtered their leader, a fledgling Sacred Beast.
From there, the battles only got harder...
With each test, he was forced to protect more and more settlements. It got to the point where protecting four settlements was still a part of the same test.
Rather quickly, Wukong had grown drastically in followers.
Not to mention the fact that he was passively recruiting people out of his volition, but now that you included the tests he was being given?
By the forty third test, Wukong had almost one million people rooting for him.
He didn't understand how, but it only made sense. Going around rescuing people left and right easily spread his name throughout the lands.
By word of mouth, countless people came to hear about the ambitious ape, saving villages, and aiming to unite the lands.
He fended off the most powerful of beasts, and performed the most amazing of miracles.
Sprouting almost a decades worth of crop just after a touch of his hands?
This monkey was becoming a name throughout the entire species.
But his final test is what would solidify his name in history, for a fact.
To the brink of death, the monkey, Sun Wukong...
He battled a true demon.
In the long one hundred and seventy thousand years that the beastkin have walked the earth, some fables have come to be.
Specifically, the stories of the devils. Dark, and disgusting fallen Sacred Beasts that roamed beneath the surface. This bedtime story is what prevented the beastkin from digging deep, as even though it was treated as nothing but a fable, there were still many that believed it held a truth in it.
And, on a fabled day, that marked the start of things not just for the beastkin...
Sun Wukong the Monkey King, stood atop the mountainous corpse of a demon. Of a creature larger than a mountain. It was a beast of red, a furless hound almost. It's face was split into three, with countless jagged teeth, and long tongue limply laying out of it.
Wukong was bloodied up, breathing heavily.
In his hand was a long stick, a white pole made of an unknown material. In his other was a horn, a horn he was barely hanging on to.
With all the energy he could muster up, the man spoke.
"With all of beast kind as my witness. On this day I ask for permission from those we call Sacred." He started, a strange energy escaping his mouth.
At this time, it was not his power at work, but the power of others. His voice was carried across, entering the ears of all living beast kin.
Slowly, his lips opened, the horn being brought up to his mouth.
He blew...
BLARE!~
As those present watched with awe, rows upon rows of titanous creatures materialized out of mid air.
They all stood tall, some on fours, some bipedal. Horrifyingly, some of them were even hanging in the air, beating their wings against the sky.
One beast took the lead, kneeling before the corpse, and more specifically the ape that sat atop of it.
"I am asking the Sacred Gods of Beast... May I take the beast kind under my wing, to usher in an age of unprecedented glory?"
"May I become the king?"
The world seemed to fall silent, as every intelligent beast waited with a bated breath.
"Sun Wukong..." The all too familiar Sacred Beast smoke.
Of course it was the fabled Benevolent Beast, Lumoof.
"We Sacred Ones take you as the Monkey King, Lord of all beast kind."
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