13 Chapter 13 : Master Shen X Trial (3)
"Let's F*cking start!"
"Using En or any form of Nen will result in failure."
"I never planned to rely on Nen," Ash said with a confident smile in the maze room. He had just begun his Nen training. Even if he used Absolute Order to perform En, the radius would be small and the time it would last would be short due to his low aura quantity. Therefore, it's no use in this trial. On the other hand, he would use something more concealed and time-saving. After all, he only had five minutes. Without a doubt, he would use his BUG ability, Absolute Order.
"Good. Then let's begin," Master Shen warned in the monitoring room and started the countdown. At the same time, the bell inside the maze room rang.
"DING!"
From the center of the maze room, the soundwaves of the bell spread in all directions. Whenever they hit the walls or any surface in the room, they bounced and got reflected in other directions randomly.
With a blindfold on his eyes, Ash heard the echo of the bell. He felt the sound coming from all directions, as if he was in an ocean of sounds. Even if he weren't blindfolded, determining the real source of the bell sound and crossing the maze at the same time would be challenging. With the blindfold, the difficulty increased.
"Could a normal person even pass this trial? The receptionist said that currently, there are only three core disciples. Could it be that they passed this test or even just one of them?" Ash started wondering whether someone managed to pass this vibrational maze room trial. Without Absolute Order, he could only rely on luck. But with the time limit, it's nearly impossible to find the way relying on luck only under five minutes unless he used a huge amount of energy that might even affect his lifespan to increase his luck to an exaggerated level.
"Since this trial's goal is to test my ability to perceive vibrations, then I must find how it's going to test my perception."
Ash didn't use his Absolute Order yet. He wanted to figure out the mechanism of the trial first and thus decide which efficient and more suitable order he would issue with Absolute Order.
"DING!"
Twenty seconds passed since the first bell rang. The bell is programmed to ring every twenty seconds, so it will ring three times in a minute. This means in five minutes, it will ring fifteen times.
As the second sound wave resounded through the room, the already chaotic sound waves in the room became even harder for Ash to distinguish their source.
Standing in his place, Ash put his right hand below his chin as his mind raced to figure out how this trial would test his vibration perception ability.
"Vibrations, sound waves," Ash tried to recall the knowledge he learned in high school about these two concepts.
"If I remember correctly, vibrations create disturbances in a medium, transmitting energy in the form of waves. As for sound waves, they are produced by the vibration of an object, such as a vibrating string, a drum membrane, or vocal cords."
"So, vibrations are the source of sound! When an object vibrates, it creates compressions and rarefactions in the surrounding medium, producing sound waves."
"In other words, if I want to find the location of the bell, I must distinguish the sound waves emitted by the bell from the sound waves reflected by the walls."
Ash's eyes behind the blindfold lit up as he felt himself closer to revealing the method of cracking this trial.
"So, how to distinguish the sound waves? What characteristics does the sound have that can allow me to distinguish the sound waves of the bell from the ones reflected by other surfaces?" Ash tried hard to squeeze out the knowledge inside his mind. After a while, he recalled an important piece of information.
"Frequencies!" he snapped his fingers excitedly as he realized the answer.
"Frequencies are the number of times per second a sound wave repeats itself. So, if I can discern the frequencies emitted by the bell from the frequencies reflected by the maze room surfaces, I will be able to find the bell!"
With this realization and goal in mind, Ash quickly thought of what Order to issue using absolute force to find the correct path.
"Absolute Order! Enhance my sense of hearing and filter out all the frequencies except the ones emitted by the bell!"
Following Ash's decree, his physical energy and at least half of his aura immediately got consumed to execute this order.
Ash could make some orders, like ordering his body to move to the place of the bell, or something like show him the location of the bell, etc. For the first case, the energy he needs to consume will be higher, and Ash was afraid that if his aura got weakened, Master Shen in the monitoring room would notice it and think he used some nen abilities. After all, the aura in this world can be recorded by cameras and even seen through TVs. Although he doesn't know the principle, out of cautiousness, he doesn't want to issue a strong order.
Moreover, Ash wants to develop a habit of using detailed and less energy-consuming orders. The last thing he wants to fall into in a battle is issuing a strong order that may consume his whole energy.
Returning to Ash, after the order was launched, Ash felt the world around him shift, and suddenly, the chaotic sounds became even sharper in his ear. Ash wanted to cover his ears, but if he did so, he would weaken his sensitivity to the frequencies. Moreover, the Absolute Order is executing his command following the words order. Now his hearing is getting enhanced, he had to wait for it to filter all other sounds except the one emitted by the bell.
Ash clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, enduring the loud noise captured by his enhanced hearing.
He could hear the faint current of electricity around him, the distant shouts of trainers on lower floors, and even the subtle breathing of Master Shen in the monitoring room! Ash was shocked by his new enhanced ears. This was just the lowest level of enhancement using a low amount of energy, he couldn't wonder what level it would reach if he invested the amount of Nen equal to that of Netero, the ants king guards, or the ant king himself. Would he be able to reach a level of hearing the voice of everything similar to the one in One Piece? or Hearing the voice of someone thousands of miles away. This is simply the perfect spying and eavesdropping ability, this is just the tip of the assberg, the possibilities are endless!
Absolute Order started executing his second order and fine-tuned his enhanced hearing, filtering out the extraneous noise. It was as if a veil had been lifted. Each sound had its unique signature, from the ring of the bell to the echoes bouncing off the walls, the steady hum of electrical currents. Each had its own unique frequencies.
The bell, suspended in the center of the maze, remained Ash's target. Its frequencies, distinct and deliberate, echoed through the space. With Absolute Order as his guide, Ash isolated those specific vibrations, filtering out all other distractions. The ambient noises melted away, leaving only the pure resonance of the bell in his ears.
"DING!"
The bell rang. This is the sixth time, and two minutes had passed since the beginning of the trial.
As the bell rang, its sound waves reverberated. Closing his eyes beneath the blindfold, Ash stood still. The bell's frequencies became a guiding thread, a compass leading him through the labyrinth. He could sense the subtle variations, the echoes and reflections, mapping out the maze in his mind with unparalleled clarity.
With his heightened sense of hearing, he traced the path the bell's sound waves traveled through the maze to reach him, and he used the map he constructed in his imagination to follow it.
With each step, Ash moved confidently, navigating the maze guided by the sound of the bell, leading him unerringly towards the heart of the labyrinth—towards the bell.
Master Shen, stationed in the monitoring room, peered intently at the screens displaying the labyrinthine maze. His eyes, sharp and discerning, focused on the motionless Ash.
"Now, boy, let me see what you will do. Even I, the creator of this maze, took me five minutes to find the bell, and nobody had even passed it since I founded this gym. Do you think learning my most proud techniques will be easy? In your dreams! Ha ha ha!" Master Shen grinned mischievously at the motionless Ash. In fact, Master Shen never intended to pass his attainments and knowledge in the concept of vibrations to others, or, to be precise, to those he deemed unqualified.
He wants to pass it on only to those he believes will take the understanding of vibrations and its usage to a new level. He doesn't want someone who only wants to use it in fighting to dust it, that's too much disrespect to his sixty years of effort. He prefers someone with talent and scientific thinking to inherit his mantle and develop the applications of vibrations to a whole new dimension.
"Huh?!"
Master Shen's gloating smile froze, he opened his eyes wide at the scene being displayed on the screen. After a mere two minutes, Ash began to move. Master Shen rubbed his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing. He witnessed Ash navigating the complex pathways with almost uncanny accuracy.
"Impossible! Did he cheat?" Master Shen couldn't believe how Ash was progressing through the maze at such a rapid pace. He didn't hesitate to perform Gyo, the aura gathered around his eyes, he scanned the screens meticulously. However, to his bewilderment, there were no visible signs of En or Nen usage.
"He is still maintaining his Ten, there is no sign of weakening in its intensity. He didn't perform any Nen ability. Could it be..." Ruling out that Ash cheated, Master Shen thought of a possibility.
"He has a superhuman sense of hearing!" Thinking of this possibility, Master Shen got excited. He thought of this because he himself had a strong sense of hearing, so strong that it could be classified within the superhuman category.
that's why he could perceive vibrations better than other peoples, that's why his attainment in vibrations had reached this high level.
he had searched for others with similar talents but he couldn't find anyone, the world is soo vast, and those with natal superhuman traits are minority, it's like searching for a needle in a desert.
the reason why he wants to find someone with this talent is naturally to train him as his heir, impart all of his knowledge to them, to spread his fame and vibrations technique across the world and leave a mark in history after his death.
Master Shen looked at the figure of Ash on the screen as he stepped into the center of the maze and thought in his mind, "The perfect heir I have been searching for all these years will appear in front of me like this. This is really... ridiculous! Netero, you won't believe this. Ha ha ha ha!" Master Shen started laughing wildly, like a crazy old man.
...
"DING!"
Ash stood below the ringing bell. He stopped his temporary superhuman hearing and took off the blindfold.
'Absolute Order, this superpower is so strong, yet it was given to me by the system. So, what level is the system or its maker at to be able to include such an overpowered ability as a reward?'
Each time Ash uses Absolute Order, he couldn't help but marvel at its power and wonder even more at the power of the system and its maker, if it exists in the first place. Who knows, maybe the Harem King system is not made by anyone.
Ash returned to his senses and walked out of the maze. He saw Master Shen standing at the door, looking at him with a burning gaze.
'What's going on with this old man? Why is he looking at me as if he saw...' Ash took a few steps back cautiously, thinking of a certain terrifying possibility.
...
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