45 A Minor Surprise

"The third floor gave them yet another level of their ability, Flaming Projection, where they could strike from a distance with bursts of flame. This Yun spent quite some time on this floor, fighting these empowered foes, before deciding to move on. After 21 days on the third floor, this Yun entered the fourth floor to see what difference there was. That was an extremely enjoyable experience.

"Let me tell you some details first, Cai'er. The fourth floor was quite unique, it was a huge number of very small islands with a vertical cavern in the center of each one. Each of these islands was connected to at least one other nearby island, and the holes in the middle of them were small Volvaka hives. Hives! Every island had its own independent population of Volvaka Fire Eaters!

"At first the concept of this floor terrified this Yun, but after discovering that the Volvaka did not exit every island every night there was a chance to take advantage of them. At each morning the Volvaka would retreat to their caves, and at such a time this Yun would find a place to rest for the day. Come night the battle would resume, and this Yun traversed a great many of these small islands. Finally, on the twelfth night a mistake was made.

"This Yun traveled down towards a dead-end island that only had one bridge attached to it, and that night fought a full hive from the neighboring island by occupying the bridge to limit their advances. After a relaxed battle the hive on the island behind this Yun awoke as well and drove me to escape!

"Yun'er, what about the ability they gained when you entered this floor? You said previously they gain a new skill every level, what was the fourth floor's skill?"

"Ah! This Yun forgot to tell you that on the fourth floor they gained access to what is called the Ignition Spirit! This is the final level of the Smoking Gauntlets ability and allows them to have four spirits that can do everything that they already did. Each spirit creates a smokescreen, transfers heat on contact, and can create bursts of flame, but they also have intelligence. Two of the spirits typically stay next to the gauntlets to provide their power to the strikes, but the other two can wander around a little bit to attack from other angles with the flames! These caused a great deal of trouble, but thankfully the spirits can be destroyed and thus have to be recreated at some effort by the Fire Eater.

"Finally, going back to the tale, this Yun was trapped and defeated! As my mind faded from the wound this Yun suddenly woke up in the ground floor of the Array Tower that we had entered so long ago. Exiting the tower the Elders merely gestured for those who exit to gather together so that they can announce all results together. At the end of it all, with a fairly respectable score, this Yun was the eighth best warrior in the tower. Half a day after this Yun exited the tower the final fighter also exited.

"After this phase the Elders told us that we had experienced death, and thus we must take care not to let it impact our martial hearts. They lined us up and took all of us to the final site by barge again, which was a large space at the southern tip of the Volcanic Ridge mountain range where it meets the river. Here there were many arenas, but only one main arena. Around the main arena were many smaller arenas, each smaller arena was only fifty meters across, while the main arena was no less than five hundred meters across.

"For the next twenty five days we participated in a round robin points system, battling four times a day, so that we all battled each other one time. At the end of this system there were fifty remaining competitors, and a one week tournament to determine the final victor. The Final tournament lasted nine days from it's start, but there was a day break in that time to allow the two finalists to rest as well. Through many tough battles this Yun learned that only having one weapon when you have an advantage such as a spatial storage artifact is foolish, and made good use of the spears retrieved from the Volvaka Hunters in the first phase.

"Finally this Yun met her match in the indomitable Xing Zhenya. He was handsome, but not world shocking. What was most shocking about him was his aura, this man was a sword cultivator and knew the Space Laws! Facing him in the semifinal round, this Yun lost after a heated match and had to face my previous opponent again in the loser's bracket. The battle between this Yun and Fang Niu, that vicious girl, was difficult, and came down to adaptability and raw power in the end. During the tournament this Yun advanced her cultivation of the Solar Thunder Sutra that Elder Lei gave her, achieving a few new abilities that helped win third place, but one of those abilities was exploited by Fang Niu to defeat me in our second battle.

"Finally, Fang Niu was given the beating she deserved when she attempted to face Xing Zhenya in the final round. He demolished her in battle and took the first place position."

Zhu Cai sat attentively through this long explanation of the past six months from Yun, quite impressed at how much she had grown, and also quite happy with how much help her equipment had been. "Yun'er, can you give me the spear that I made you last time? I'd like to take a look at it, I had some ideas for ways to improve it and would like to see about them."

"You can, Cai'er, but this Yun warns you not to make any drastic changes."

Saying this, Yun took out the spear and passed it over to Zhu Cai, whose face froze solid the moment she laid hands on it.

"Yun...er..... What.... What happened to it...?"

Yun was confused by the look on Zhu Cai's face. She sounded like something horrible had happened to her weapon that she wasn't aware of!

"What do you mean, Cai'er? There's nothing wrong with it!"

"Yun'er. . . . I can no longer work on this weapon."

"Why not, Cai'er? You created it after all."

"Yun'er, have you not sensed the changes in your spear? Though I suppose it would be more appropriate to call it a something else. . ."