You have entered Cosmos Advancement. Please select the difficulty of your Trial. Remember that death and injury in the Trial does carry over to the real world.
Qian Feng found himself in a room with four different gates, each with words above them. The first door, the one to his left, read Simple. Qian Feng assumed that this was the difficulty, related to what the booming voice inside his head said. Following that pattern, the door directly ahead of him read Challenging, the door to his right Impossible, and the door behind him, which was especially unwelcoming, had the word Legacy above it.
The first three were easy to decipher, but what could Legacy mean? There were numerous possibilities: it could be that this was the door to enter before taking the three trials, to inherit the legacy of the pearl; that this was the door that was harder than Impossible, and only through passing it could one gain the benefits of the Ancient Cosmos Pearl; or even that this was the easiest gate, and the Legacy referred to the basic skills and treasures, or whatever Legacy included.
In all those three possibilities, though, Qian Feng benefited in some way. The first, he entered the room he was supposed to, the second, he faced danger and no doubt benefited from it(it was highly unlikely Qian Feng could be bested by any trial based on his cultivation level), and the third, he got to see just how hard the trials were without risking much.
So, naturally, Qian Feng entered the Legacy gate.
Right after the momentary garkness disappeared, the sound of a blade came whistling towards Qian Feng, a silvery glint occupying his vision.
Qian Feng's body reacted on its own, dodging downwards and instinctively sending out a straight punch, knocking the source of the attack backwards and giving Qian Feng a chance to regain his bearings.
He rapidly surveyed his surroundings. The Legacy trial, or at least the first portion of it, was held in a small chamber with walls of a sandstone-like material, almost as if Qian Feng was in one of the pyramids of his previous life.
Spotting no clues as to what he was supposed to do, Qia Feng directed his attention to his assailant, narrowing his eyes in an almost instinctual fear at what he saw.
In the ancient battlefield of the pearl, Qian Feng had seen many things. Spirit beasts, demons, monsters, artifacts - he had battled countless kinds of enemies, winning and losing his share. But never before, not in the various years he spent in that battlefield, encountered a creature as fearsome as the one that stood before him now.
It had the same cultivation level he did, no more, no less, but despite that, the 'invincible' Qian Feng knew he could not win this fight without incurring some serious injuries. And, unfortunately, there was no exit in sight.
Standing in front of him was an amalgamation of various different body parts, stuck together and bonded in the most brutally effective way possible, with no care for anything but combat capability.
It was simply... unnatural. So unnatural that, in fact, as a human, Qian Feng felt the irresistible urge to kill it, to wipe it out of existence, to erase the abomination in front of him.
Then it struck, leaping forward with its 14 arms all swinging wildly, the six eyes in random placing on its body trained on their target.
What Qian Feng had mistaken for a sword earlier was actually one of the claws on three of the beast's arms, sharp and large anough to be severed and used effectively as a greatsword.
Faced with a fourteen-pronged attack, Qian Feng wisely chose to use his strongest technique right off the bat and summoned an array of powerful Force screens, activating his Titan's Fortress.
Panicking and desparate to bolster his defenses as best he could, the Force panels soon glowed with a brown light, augmented by the torrent of Earth Qi Qian Feng shoved into the technique.
Thankfully, the walls held as the abomination crashed into one of them. Too savage to care, or perhaps too primal to know better, the beast was wide open, meaning it was damaged rather badly by the rapid detonation of all the walls near it.
Significantly bloodier, but in no way fazed, the abomination leapt at Qian Feng again, but this time he was prepared, and had more than enough wits about him to construct more than a hastily-prepared defense.
Qian Feng conducted rapid calculations in his head, determining all the possible points of contact and setting up Triggers as fast as he could in all those locations(thankfully, his session in the battlefield of the Ancient Cosmos Pearl had granted him the necessary proficiency with Trigger to construct them near-instantaneously). He hadn't neglected his defenses either, of course, and successfully sumoned up his first layer of defense, Obsidian Embrace, as well as his second, Tortoise Bulwark, granting him defensive prowess that even the sharp claws of the abomination would be hard-pressed to easily pierce.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
The first detonation sent the feral monstrosity stumbling back into the second, which blew it sideways into the third... This continued for eight explosions, the maximum amount Qian Feng could place simultaneously.
At this point, two of the beast's fourteen arms had been chopped off, and 12 wildly slashing limbs remained.
Suddenly, though, an unexpected trick was pulled, and Qian Feng looked in shock at the sizzling surface of a spot on his armor, corroded by the pitch-black bile the beast spit unexpectedly. Thankfully, it was not strong enough to wear through his armor, or that very well could have been the end of the Legacy Trial.
Wielding a summoned guan dao, Qian Feng advanced forward, erecting barriers of Force wherever necessary to avoid the venomous bile the beast continuously forcefully vomited.
Through this, Qian Feng also did not forget about self-improvement, improving and furthering his last-mintue idea to enhance his Titan's Fortress with Earth Qi. The two different affinities began to integrate more smoothly and efficiently, less Qi required for the same level of defense and less effort for each augmented wall.
This continued until the abomination was all but cornered against the sandstone-like wall, Qian Feng disturbingly hulking physique overshadowing the significantly subdued beast(the boy was not even four, after all. No matter how proficient he was with his cultivation, he looked like he was an insanely bulky 12 year old, not a near-four year-old).
As was well-known, corner an animal enough and even a mouse will fight back. And that was a mouse, not the feral monstrosity Qian Feng was facing.
The disadvantage of Qian Feng's proximity to his adversary was the fact that there was significantly less time to react to its attacks, meaning that even Qian Feng's formidable consciousness was unable to register the fact that it was in danger before the ten limbs of the monstrosity were but inches away from crushing their target.
Thankfully, hi battle-honed instincts were far faster than his mind, allowing him to conjure two barriers of Earth Qi(the only reason Qian Feng used shields of Force Qi was that the Titan's Fortress required it for the flexibility of the technique; in other circumstances, the Earth affinity had far more formidable defensive capabilites) to block the attacks and simultaneously thrusting forwards with the guan dao, piercing through the area where the monstrosity's heart should be.
Emphasis on should.
Not even slowed by the blade of the guan dao poking out through the opposite side of the guan dao, the creature moved forward, snapping at Qian Feng's face.
Although he had learned from his mistake in the Duelist Nomad examination, and further honed his abiltiy not to relax until the fight was over, Qian Feng was still caught off guard enough for large gashes to be torn into his face. After all, who would expect that the snout of the monstrosity, that previously looked to be comprised of just flat and small teeth, would suddenly sprout fangs larger than Qian Feng's hand, piercing through its face and slashing Qian Feng's own.
The tail of the beast suddenly revealed its existence, jabbing into the small of Qian Feng's back through his armor and thrusting a burning hot liquid into his body, causing his muscles to lock up and him to fall to the ground, paralyzed and shocked, pupils contracted in terror. Never, not even against that unfathomably strong examinee in the Duelist Nomad examination, had Qian Feng faced death so closely before.
Even in the battlefield, he knew nothing was real. But in this Legacy trial, nothing barred him from a true, permanent death.
A primal fear, faster than even the spear-like limb thrusting towards his face, raced through Qian Feng's veins. His affected muscles seized up even as his heart beat, but his mind was unaffected by the paralytic poison.
And that was enough. It had to be.
There was no time for the Qi to flow through Qian Feng's system, exiting through the relevant meridian. No time for it to go from the spirit realm, to the body, to the outside. No time.
No time.
No time.
All of a sudden, a shattering sound rang out, soon followed by a wild scream of agony, as the spear-like limb broke into countless pieces against the spontaneously-conjured screen of Force Qi.
His body reacted to the opening(honestly, it appeared as if his instincts were a far superior fighter than his mind) before he did, straining to break free of the effects of the poison and sending a powerful kick right into the abomination's stomach, forcing it to crash upwards into the ceiling, doubly damaged by the rigid material it was forcefully slammed against.
By the time it fell to the ground, Qian Feng was on the other side of the room, Life Qi swiftly circulating throughout his veins, forcing the poison out and healing his injuries wherever it touched.
Still stunned, the abomination suffered blow after blow from the now-present Qian Feng, who had quickly recovered and was in fighting condition.
It was shocking, though, just how hardy the beast was, since it was still in the fight. In fact, Qian Feng's powerful attacks, reinforced by Aurora Blades, didn't seem to faze it at all as it got back up with trembling limbs, on the brink of death.
Or that's what it looked like.
Cracks actually emerged on the sandstone wall Qian Feng was slammed into. His earthy armor flickered, its previous solid aura disappearing.
Qian Feng's organs shuddered and he coughed blood up, pain making its way throughout his entire body. Even with his Life affinity, Qian Feng was barely holding on.
Powerful life force seemed not to affect his injuries at all. Why?
With that hit came an energy beyond Qi, one just as powerful, and many times more malevolent and sinister. It was just the energy you'd expect an abomination like the one Qian Feng faced to have.
Luckily, Qian Feng sucessfully emerged from the battle of attrition he didn't even know he was having, since that last attack seemed to drain the monster's very life as it collapsed to the ground, shrunken and dead. Qian Feng had won, but in the very way he had predicted - with severe injuries.
It was all he could do to sit down in a lotus position and bring energy out from his Life spirit realm, focusing all of his mental resources into healing his near-mortal injuries. After, though, Qian Feng had a lot to think about.
He was so engrossed into his task, however, that he didn't even notice a portal open up on the wall in front of him.