43 Another One

Leon didn't immediately go further into the mausoleum, instead he sat down and inhaled the poison. He thought that if there was so much poison in the air, then it meant that there would be more in quantity and quality when he further advanced into the mausoleum.

Aside from the poison, there was also death energy which was constantly corroding his body, but the titan regeneration was powerful, so it didn't matter that much to Leon. Instead, it was corroding the weak cells of his body. The new cells, which was regenerated was more powerful than their predecessors. From outside, Leon was constantly shedding his skin, not just skin his pores were also expelling viscous matter. These were not impurities, these were parts of dead organs and flesh, which didn't have any power to resist the death energy thus died.

Leon might be a titan, but it didn't mean that his body was perfect. There was some parts of his body that were weak and some parts strong. Supposedly, he would shed his mortality in his death calamity, but the death energy here was doing this beforehand. But of course, he couldn't strengthen all of his body, but some parts of him would strengthen and made his death calamity easier.

The poison pearl was absorbing the poison and becoming more powerful as the time passed. Leon didn't afraid of poisons because of the poison pearl which was in his mana pool, of course, if he were to inhale a high quality poison, he would be dead even before the poison pearl detoxified him. If guesses were correct, then it meant he could further improve his poison pearl as he went deeper into the mausoleum. Even Leon didn't find any treasure at the end of the trial, just his gains in his flesh and the poison pearl was enough.

When he got used to the poison and the death energy around him, Leon stood up and advanced further. As he went further, the pressure of the death mana and the poison intensified. Aside the pressure of them, he also noticed that there was a qualitative change in poison. He wasn't hurried as he advanced, when he came to the point where his pores started to expel viscous matter, he sat down again, and waited it to stop.

It was a monotonous circle, when he got used to the poison and the death energy, he would stand up and he would advance, then he would get to the point where his body expelled the dead cells, so he would sat down and wait for to get used to the death energy and poison.

Leon didn't know if there would be only poison and death energy in the trial, he thought maybe there would be monsters ahead, but he didn't come across any monsters at the moment. Even if he did come across, they would be venomous or undead type monsters. The undeads that he thought of, would be different from the liches, but even so he wasn't that sure about that. The liches were intelligent species, so they wouldn't lower themselves to become a sharpener, but this was a trial created by domain stage maguses, so Leon wasn't so sure.

Leon didn't know how far he advance or how much time passed while he was in the mausoleum. His poison pearl absorbing the poison and the death mana corroding his body, then making his body more powerful and more immune to the death energy. He advanced until he came to stop in front of a door, the death energy and the poison were stronger before the door. Leon immediately sat down and absorbed them.

The death energy and poison were strongest in the front of the gate. It took longer than before for Leon to adapt. When Leon adapted the surroundings, he stood up and touched the doors. As soon as he touched, massive amount of death energy and poison entered his body. He immediately pulled his hands back and sat down. The poison and death energy were wrecking havoc inside of his body, Leon was in pain, but he didn't utter any sound.

When the death energy killed all weakness and the poison pearl absorbed the poison, Leon, who was sitting near the door, touched the door again, and he continued to touch until he couldn't endure. He repeated this until he didn't need to pull his hands back. He was still feeling pain, but he still didn't open the door. Leon wanted to do it perfectly, so until he didn't feel any pain he wouldn't open the door.

When Leon didn't feel pain anymore, he pushed the door. With a screeching noise the door opened to the sides and Leon was greeted with oppressive death energy and poison. Leon was cautious and looked around, and he noticed a skeleton was sitting on the throne, which was situated in front of him. Leon didn't noticed it when he first entered, when the poison mist cleared a bit he could see it.

The skeleton didn't look like it was undead like liches that Leon saw in the academy. It was just a corpse, Leon didn't know the reason for it to be here, but he didn't immediately entered the room. Leon first sat down and inhaled poison and death energy. When he got used to them, he cautiously entered the room and looked around.

The room was empty aside from the skeleton and the throne. There was a black carpet, which was starting from the entrance and ending in front of the throne. The throne was on a ground which was a bit higher from the rest of the room. After he absorbed all the poison and the death energy inside of the room, Leon went over the throne slowly. There wasn't any trap, Leon got in front of the throne without any problem. Leon investigated the skeleton, right at the side of the hip of the skeleton, Leon found a thumb size gray pearl. Leon knew it was a poison pearl.

["It might be the poison pearl of the skeleton before he died, but after its owner died, it started to leak its poison."] thought Leon it was the only conclusion that he could come up with. Leon had a poison pearl for himself, but he could make his poison pearl absorb it, so he took it in his hands and operated his poison pearl. Slowly the poison pearl in his mana pool started to absorb it, it took a long time to finish. When he finished the poison pearl on his hands lost all its poison, but it wasn't destroyed. Leon put it in his inventory.

Leon looked around a bit more, he found the source of the poison, but he didn't find the source of the death energy. He sat down near the throne and tried to sense where the death energy coming from. Most of the death energy was absorbed by him, so it was difficult for him to sense, but after two hours he finally found it. It was coming under the throne, Leon looked at the skeleton and thought a bit. Leon already died one time, so he was sensitive how to handle a corpse. He took the skeleton in his spatial bag with the intention to bury it after he got out.

When he took the skeleton, he pushed the throne to side, the throne was heavy, but it wasn't a problem for him to push a bit. When Leon fully pushed it, a bloody stench came from the beneath. Before it was only death energy, but now it was filled with killing intent and blood along with the death energy. He looked under him and saw that there was stairs. It was dark, Leon could only see four or five stairs, the rest was shrouded with darkness. Leon didn't hesitate and descended.