Two weeks later

Thousands of meters below the sands of a medium desert on the second layer of clouds, almost reaching the other side of the cloud, is a huge cave system, expanding through thousands of corridors.

And inside this system is located a sect. The Immortal Kiliu Sect.

A sect that once shocked the second layer of clouds with its mighty leader. But now, thousands of years later, they can't even be found roaming the second layer anymore.

Some think they might have been killed off by some of Kiliu’s enemies, or have descended to the third layer.

What no one know is that the threshold to be able to live in the third layer is so high that even the once top sect can barely send one disciple each a hundred years, for only a truly genious can live through the excruciating pain of the body changing due to how different the world is down there.

This sect is mainly composed of descendants of the first leader, kiliu. So they are all of one race, Dwarves.

Their small bodies, with the tallest being one and a half meters tall, hold a strength that even three humans can't compete with. Their species is so naturally inclined to earth, that even the ones that don't focus on cultivation still have parts of their bodies assimilating stones as they grow old.

With almost all peak core formation stages having more than half of their bodies being of stone or metal. Transforming their aptitude into that of a half elemental.

It is common for their powerful leaders and young masters to have two or three different types of metals or minerals showing on their face, hands and hair. A sign that they have understood and mastered that type of energy in specific.

The truly genious members of their sect even often have five or six different types of minerals, showing a control of these beginner Dao.

The difference between their natural inclination and the Earth God Body Technique is that they just become one with stones of metals, while the Earth God Body clans control over the earth ki.

Today, in the main cave of the sect is a group of hundreds of juniors, waiting in line as an elder is speaking the laws of the tournament.

“...we are a family, so while inside the pocket dimension refrain from crippling, and anyone who is found killing shall be expelled from the sect! Now go inside and do your best. Let's find out who amongst you is the best candidate.”

As the elder finishes, a portal appears above the lines of dwarves, and sucks them all up, sending them inside a pocket dimension that is as big as a continent.

The objective of this tournament is to find the next disciple that should be strong enough to withstand the shift through layers.

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Every once a decade they hold such a tournament, never letting the candle of hope for discovering a way to migrate completely to the third layer.

The tournament has three challenges, one to test the participants willpower, one to test the cultivation adaptation, and the last is one to test his battle powers.

At first, as all participants are teleported inside the pocket dimension, they find themselves on top of a huge stair, with a dense fog covering the surroundings, making them only able to see five meters around.

The thousands of disciples start descending the stairs, and with each step a pressure starts to pile up on their bodies, as if a mountain was pressing them down.

After one day the first disciple passes out from the pressure. And after him more and more are disqualified.

After one week the first person finishes the stairs, his clothes are drenched, his body tired and his expression not that different to that of a prisoner that spent days being tortured. But his eyes still have a sharp light in them.

After three days everyone either got disqualified or finished descending the stairs, so the next stage began.

Only five hundred disciples managed to finish.

Every single disciple is trapped inside a formation at the bottom of the stair, and this formation has the ability to create turbulent waves of ki of various kinds and powers. This array aims to copy the way the ki naturally is in the third layer, but in a weaker version.

This turbulence in the ki acts like attacks at the cultivation of anyone, if one is not strong enough to withstand this, they will die in seconds.

This test requires that the disciples withstand one week of this continuous attack.

As the hours, then days start to pass, disciple after disciple are disqualified. After the week has ended, only fifty disciples are left.

The last test starts one day after, to make sure that all the disciples are well rested.

At the start of the last day, all disciples find a humanoid golem in front of them, this golem has a cultivation one whole level above the disciples they are facing.

It's an impossible fight to win, so the requirement is to actually survive ten minutes of constant harassment from the golem.

As the disciples start fighting, one after another is disqualified.

With ten seconds remaining only one disciple is left still fighting for his life against the golem.

As the timer goes down, all elders and disciples watch as the last challenger does his best to evade and parry all attacks.

Kiuko is the name of the last remaining disciple, he is turning twenty years old today, but already has a big and well developed body, for his race. His cultivation at the peak of ki gathering made the golem he is facing have the strength of someone at the peak of core formation, so every attack has the power to change landscapes and kill him if hit. But he has a powerful movement technique that helps him to avoid any attacks the golem has launched so far.

As the last attack of the golem is about to finally hit the tired body of the dwarf, the time runs out, and Kiuko is teleported out.

“YEEEE!!!!”

All the disciples explode in happiness as Kiuko is given the medal of winner.

Some hours later Kiuko is in front of all the elders of the sect.

“You are the fourth disciple to ever finish the trial, our hope lies on your back now. In one month you shall start your descent, you need to grow strong enough to create a place for us down there, or to at least send some cultivation materials from time to time.” Says one of the elders.

“For now go to the earth ki vein, as you are close to breaking through, maybe you can do it before the one month is due.” The elder finishes.

~Ragurr~

As a black goo of impurities is expelled from my body, I feel my skeleton grow not only in strength but in size as well.

But different from one week ago, when i completed the Bone Refining from the first step of Earth God Body Technique, now i just completed tuning all my muscles to earth ki.

The sudden surge of power is running through my cells, strengthening every part of my body.

When I finished tuning my bones, my body grew to fifteen meters tall, and now it grew again, to sixteen meters tall and nineteen meters long.

Barely even stopping to feel the difference in my body, i swiftly change from one mantra to another, immediately starting fusing earth ki into the cells of my skin and scales.

The last part to create the foundation for the Earth God Body Technique is to make every organ tuned to earth ki, but the complexity for each organ is immense.

Each organ has its own mantra, and difficulty.

So I decided to start with the easiest and immediately more meaningful one, the skin.

Given the fact that I have scales, tuning my skin to earth ki shall give me a huge power boost. Making the scales stronger and tougher.

In my first week here, thanks to the incredible amount of liquefied earth forming the pond, I managed to completely fill my dantian to the brink of core formation stage, and could focus entirely on cultivating the Earth God Body Technique.

In the same week i finished tuning my bones, as the second week just finished, and the third is starting, i start sucking the liquefied ki that has reduced by one tenth.

I am now waist deep into the muddy waters of liquefied earth ki, walking in the direction of the earth vein.

With each step the richness of ki grows exponentially, making me take days to get used to the pressure, and take another step.