Trial of the Soul

Zhou Long: *Phew* Fourteenth floor, I hope I'm close to finishing.

After so much walking, climbing that imposing tower, where each floor, which could be easily crossed in two or three minutes, becomes a hell where at least half an hour is spent to reach the other side, Zhou Long finally reached the fourteenth floor. As always, he quickly stretches to relax his muscles again, to endure this floor, and when he finishes, he goes out of the staircase, not standing, not even on all fours, but completely on the ground, crawling like soldiers in the trenches, with the aim of spreading the pressure throughout his body, not completely destroying any of his muscles.

After about twenty minutes, Zhou Long was almost reaching the other side, a record, considering that he would usually still be only halfway through the floor. However, due to the constant pressure placed on his body, something bad starts happening, specifically in his shins, as if something extremely painful is about to occur, and Zhou Long already knows very well what is about to happen.

"Shit!"

Clenching his teeth and bracing for the pain, what Zhou Long least wanted to happen occurs: both of his shins are crushed by the constant pressure. The bone fractures and shatters into several small pieces, his muscles are torn and crushed along with the bones. The scene is as if an extremely heavy elephant had put all its weight on Zhou Long's shins, not just breaking them, but completely crushing them until mixing all the muscles, bones, veins, and other parts of his shin into one point.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

With that pain serving as a source of adrenaline, Zhou Long manages to force his arms and body even harder to reach the other staircase as quickly as possible, finally crossing the floor and escaping from all that pressure. However, as expected, both of his shins remain destroyed, leaving him no choice but to crawl up the stairs. To his relief and at the same time fear, a door is seen on the fifteenth step where the other flight of stairs should be, with the words "Spirit Door," giving him the certainty that he has reached the final floor. However, since this is the end, the pressure will surely increase enormously, and the worst could happen while he is halfway there. Taking a deep breath and calming his mind, Zhou Long starts crawling towards the other side of the room.

Zhou Long: Here I go.

The moment he puts his body out, the pressure begins, a tremendous pressure that makes it seem like any slight carelessness from Zhou Long would completely crush his body with ease. Any muscle he relaxes from one second to another would surely be completely torn apart. Zhou Long's breathing becomes labored from the beginning, with the pressure putting a heavy burden on his body to the point of reaching his internal organs, including his lungs, forcing him to exert even more effort just to do something as simple as breathing.

Ten minutes pass, and Zhou Long is still between the beginning and the middle of the room. And at that moment, the inevitable happens, and the pressure starts destroying his body, starting with both of his knees. Another ten minutes pass, and Zhou Long is about to reach the middle of the room. The next targets of the pressure emerge: both of his thighs are completely destroyed and torn apart. Fifteen minutes pass, and Zhou Long is finally between the middle and the end of the room, and as expected, his left arm is completely destroyed. Five minutes later, his right arm is completely destroyed, leaving him no choice but to move forward using only his chin.

"Almost there..."

With his chin already completely injured, leaving a trail of blood on the floor, Zhou Long begins to feel the pressure increasing more and more in his spine, realizing that it was about to be destroyed, and he had nothing he could do. However, on the other hand, he was very close to reaching the door, just a few more minutes and he could reach it. After three minutes pass, Zhou Long's spine can no longer bear it, and his muscles start to give way. It was now or never, and then...

"I did it!"

Just as he was about to be killed, the door opens, and Zhou Long manages to pass through it. As soon as he puts only his head on the other side of the door, his entire body is teleported at once to the next stage, saving him from imminent death. His body is completely healed, and with a sigh of relief, he wipes the sweat from his forehead, touching every part of his body to see if everything has been completely healed. To his happiness, everything is perfectly fine.

[Congratulations, User! You have successfully passed all the levels of the body stage. Now, I present to you your final test.]

At that moment, from the white and empty space where Zhou Long was, he is suddenly taken to another place. This place is a small, squalid room, similar to an abandoned cell or some kind of dungeon, with broken wooden furniture scattered throughout the room. Near Zhou Long, a small table full of torture tools is displayed. He is not in the position of someone who would use them, but rather as someone who would be used, because in front of him, while he remains tied up and unable to move a single muscle, he sees a mysterious person, completely hooded, with a veil of darkness completely hiding their face, exposing only their wrinkled and pale hands, meticulously picking up each of the tools and briefly analyzing them one by one.

"What the hell am I supposed to do in this situation?"

Zhou Long: System! Explain to me what is happening right away!

[Just endure, User!]

"What the hell..."

The hooded man finally decides which tool to use first, and grabbing a set of large needles, he begins his work. The needles are forcefully inserted into each of Zhou Long's nails, and as if that weren't enough, slowly, he takes the thickest needle and starts poking it into Zhou Long's eyes. A terrifying pain surges, and screaming as loudly as he can, he feels that the pain is somehow amplified. Realizing that no blood is coming out of his wounds, Zhou Long instantly realizes that what is being harmed is not his physical body, but something much worse, his own spirit.

Seconds seemed to turn into hours, and minutes turned into days. More than ten minutes had passed, and the torture did not stop for a moment. It ranged from more physical and traditional methods like poisons, punctures, cuts, crushes, suffocation, burns, drownings, and others, to more magical tortures, such as using abilities to cause effects in his mind, making him relive his worst nightmares over and over again, witnessing situations where he dies repeatedly in the most gruesome ways possible, and even witnessing extremely sickening situations, like seeing his mother being raped by multiple men without being able to do anything. This torture was gradually destroying not only his spirit but corroding him completely. Time no longer seemed to be passing, so slow that Zhou Long felt it wasn't moving at all, it reached a point where how much time had passed no longer mattered, and he focused all his efforts not on enduring the pain, but simply on dealing with it and staying awake, without fainting or anything of the sort, just enduring that seemingly endless torture.

The only things that could be heard in that room were Zhou Long's heavy breathing during the rare seconds without torture, and his incessant screams. At one point, his throat was so sore, and his voice so much weaker than normal, it seemed like he would vomit blood at any moment from how injured his throat was.

"I have to... endure... I have to... endure."

These were the only words that went through his head, trying not to give in to the pain, and just waiting for it to all end. He tried to comfort himself by thinking it was just a dream and, like a test, he didn't need to worry about harming his real body. Thoughts of giving up crossed his mind from time to time, but that would not only hurt his pride but also mean the end of his dream to rise above everyone and make the most of his new chance at life. Everything seemed to be increasingly meaningless until, finally...

"...Hmm... This man... Has stopped?"

[Congratulations, User! You were able to successfully endure the thirty minutes of torture and complete the soul stage.]

"I...s it... over?"

It had finally ended, and although still deeply shaken, a smile appeared on Zhou Long's face for a few seconds. It represented not only the relief and satisfaction of finally being free from that torture, which, even though it lasted only thirty minutes, felt like an eternity, but also represented his joy in proving to himself that he could endure all that pain, proving once and for all that he was strong.

Closing his eyes as if all his energy had vanished, Zhou Long falls asleep, and upon waking up, he realizes he is no longer in that strange dream world but in the real world, in his bed. His body is drenched in sweat, probably due to the stress he experienced during the tests, but that hardly matters. What truly matters is the answer to his question, "Was all of that real, or just a dream?" Soon, everything will be clarified when the Demon System appears before him.

[Demon System awakened.]

[Analyzing performance in the tests...]

[Analyzing skills and talents learned in life...]

[Hello, Zhou Long! Here are your rewards...]