Chapter 34

Not long after Rui cast the technique and returned the room to its previous state, a voice was heard once more.

﴾Participant has perfectly cleared the first test.﴿

﴾You will be given 10 Minutes of rest time before the second test begins.﴿

Rui listened carefully, making sure he didn't miss anything.

Since he was able to complete the first test perfectly, he had expected something like a reward, but to his dismay, the voice only announced a rest time for the second test.

Having nothing else to do, he extended his arms to touch the walls of the room.

The walls were cold, having a texture similar to concrete with a smooth finish.

Putting strength on his arms, runic energy rushed like a torrent and tried to destroy the wall, however, nothing happened and the wall remained undamaged.

Rui proceeded to do the same thing to every part of the room, but nothing different happened.

Realizing that he couldn't get anything out of the material itself, even with his skills, he asked Rai to analyze it.

Sadly, Rai was unable to find what it was, since he only relied on Rui's computing power and his strength wasn't great enough at the moment.

Having nothing else to do, Rui sat down cross-legged and played with Sunny.

Sunny had been excited for quite a while, since he wanted to move around and Rui had mostly spent his time in isolated cultivation, making him extremely bored.

Finally, the ten minutes passed and another announcement was heard.

﴾The second Test will now begin.﴿

﴾Please advance through the tunnel and reach the end.﴿

Before Rui could ask what tunnel, the room expanded on one end, elongating like someone had just pinched and stretched a piece of dough.

Rui was amazed at how bizarre the whole situation was, but he didn't complain and simply made his way into the so called 'tunnel'.

The walls maintained their rigidness even while they were stretched to that extent, as if this was just an illusion to begin with.

Rui walked comfortably in the tunnel, having more than enough space to jump around and stretch his limbs.

After what seemed like an hour of walking, Rui frowned, since nothing happened so far.

He had constantly looked behind him, Sunny maintaining vigilance at all moments.

He felt a sense of impending doom when he looked in front and behind him, as the tunnel seemed to stretch endlessly.

Emotions such as fear, anxiety and doubt started sprouting in his heart, weighing down on him.

This situation was far too uncomfortable, but all he could do is keep pushing forward.

Finally, after two more hours of walking, something different happened, as he felt a strange sense of pressure wanting to pin down his body.

Frowning, he continued on walking forward, as the pressure slowly continued increasing the further in he walked.

Rui felt exhausted, as his body had long become numb due to the pressure.

Hungry and thirsty after walking for god knows how long, he pulled out some food and water from his inventory, wanting to take a slight rest.

Pulling out the food, it suddenly collapsed on the floor due to the immense pressure, becoming mush in mere seconds.

Rui looked on dumbfounded at the absurdity of the situation.

Having no other choice, he once again pulled out some food from his inventory, this time coating it in his Runic energy.

The pressure had more or less subsided from the food, but it still had a somewhat droopy appearance.

Not caring about it, Rui stuffed his mouth, doing the same thing with his water gourd.

Sunny had long become exhausted by the pressure, since his cultivation was lower than Rui's, but he was still able to barely hold on for now.

Finishing his meal, Rui got up and continued walking, this time increasing his pace substantially, using his skills.

After what seemed like an eternity, light seemed to be shining in front of him, signaling the end of the tunnel.

Seeing the light, Rui rushed forward, exhaustedly reaching the end.

﴾Participant has perfectly cleared the second test.﴿

Rui's eyesight blurred for a few seconds, taking a while to adjust to the strong light.

His vision soon returned and he looked around him.

"…"

He instantly became speechless at the scene.

'You can't be fucking serious.'

He had returned to the small room from before, after all of that trouble he had gone through…

Cursing at the situation he was in, he laid on the floor, completely putting his mind into recovering his strength.

﴾You will be given 120 Minutes of rest time before the third test begins.﴿

Once again, the voice announced a rest period, but this time it was much longer.

Since he was already resting to begin with, Rui didn't care about the announcement and continued recuperating.

Runic energy worked in miraculous ways, speeding up the body's regeneration by a drastic amount with each cycle of it through the body.

For a second rank runic master, even if his teeth were to fall off, they could recover and regrow in about a week. The vitality of cultivators was truly frightening.

Of course, to do such a thing, one had to continuously circulate the runic energy in their bodies, replenishing and revitalizing the cells, making sure that they had enough energy to function in that overdrive state.

Since Rui's body had undergone ten refinements, he was able to input a much greater amount of runic energy into his cells, making his recovery speed much greater, assisted by the fact that he could hold ten times the runic energy of his stage.

After thirty minutes of continuous cultivation, he was finally back up to his peak condition.

The pressure he had felt inside that tunnel had somehow strengthened his will and physical body even further, making the situation advantageous to the current him.

Unlike others who had at most refined their bodies seven times, he needed much greater pressure to advance his body further, making the path of a body cultivator much harder than that of a runic master.

Body cultivators were people that had either given up on cultivating their runic energy or had a unique physique that enhanced their strength.

They were much more powerful than others of the same stage, but they lacked enough runic energy, determination and talent to advance further in the path of cultivation, essentially falling behind others.

Their strong bodies were able to use a different type of energy however, since the runic energy was infused into their bones and muscles. People called that runic energy Aura, but there were different types of aura.

If one trained their bodies to the extreme, they would obtain body Aura, while if one trained their sword to the peak they would obtain sword aura and so on and so forth.

After gaining aura, one could go on to advance even further, gaining the heart, soul and 'One' energies.

Each subsequent stage became much harder to reach with each advancement, taking years for even a small amount of progress.

Rui was close to manifesting sword aura after training in the sword for a few years, this made him quite talented in the aspect of swords, but he was nowhere near a prodigy.

Guang Jian on the other hand, from the first training session with runic energy, was able to grasp a small amount of sword aura, reaching true sword aura not even a month later.

Jian was halfway to the Heart stage at this point, making him an unparalleled genius in the path of the sword.

Of course, his physique, rune and bloodline assisted him in that path, making his results far more understandable.

Rui patiently waited for the third test to begin after fully recovering, going through and scanning his body for any improvements.

The improvements were minor, but he was still happy for at least getting something after going through that hell.

Since he didn't know how much time had passed while he stayed inside the tunnel, he asked Rai.

"Rai, how much time has passed since the second trial begun."

The system's concept of time wasn't skewed due to perception, unlike humans. It could clearly tell how much time had passed at any given moment, even calculating altered time in between space-time effected areas. (basically it is able to distinguish the time variables between the realm and the outside world.)

╓ You have spent exactly seven days and thirty five minutes inside the tunnel. As for the time that has passed in the outside world, it is five minutes. ╖

Rui opened his eyes in amazement.

He didn't really expect the fact that he had spent that long inside the tunnel. It made the fact that he was so extremely hungry and thirsty more understandable though…

Rune masters of the second stage didn't need to eat, at most drinking water once a week was enough for them. Of course most of them still ate, either for the pleasure of eating, or just to maintain their previous state of life.

Rui had completely replaced his diet with fasting pills when cultivating, so he had forgotten the feeling of hunger for the most part. Runic energy had become the main source of sustenance for him and other cultivators.

He still enjoyed food however, especially when it came from foods made with runic beast's meat. He somehow found it extremely appealing and felt the energy contained in the meat somehow made him stronger.

﴾The Third Test will now begin.﴿

﴾Please understand, comprehend and leave your strength in the 'wall'﴿

After an hour and half of waiting, the voice was once again heard, this time announcing the beginning of the third test.

Just like before, the room warped to adjust itself to the test's needs.

The room expanded, warping, changing colors and shapes. After just an instant, Rui found himself inside a cave.

Unlike the previous tunnel, consisting of the same material as the room, the cave was made out of different types of rocks, its ceiling reaching at least ten meters.

Rui stared in awe at the countless stalactites above him, as countless blue lights could be seen shining on its surface.

Countless gems and unique stones seemed to be just in arms length, but Rui didn't even put his eyes on them and glanced ahead.

In front of him, a giant wall consisting of giant monoliths was standing, with countless craters covering it.

Rui knew fully well that the gems and precious resources that could be found in these rooms were fake, just an illusory image, however, when he stared at the wall in front of him, he couldn't help but gulp silently.

The aura coming from it was otherworldly, even the strongest runic masters he had seen came nowhere near the aura the wall was emitting.

Each crater that covered its surface gave out a different type of energy, as if thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of cultivators had caused those immeasurable craters on it surface.

Coming closer, the oppressive feeling didn't dissipate, but he was still able to approach, as if the aura itself wasn't targeting and let him get near on purpose.

Placing his hand in one of the smaller craters, he couldn't help but gasp at the energy rushing through his body.

It was as if a torrent of fire had rushed through every fiber of his being, threatening to burn him to a crisp.

Shock and awe flashed into his eyes as he fervently pulled back his hand, taking a few steps back in the process, staring in fear at the giant wall.

Seeing him getting hurt, Sunny rushed over and shot a fireball at the wall, seemingly protecting its master.

However, to Sunny's dismay, as soon as the fireball touched the wall, it faded into nothingness, as if the attack was nothing to the wall in front of them.

Rui pulled Sunny back, consoling him and informing him that he was fine.

The energy was already gone the very instant he let go of his hand, leaving no side-effects to his body whatsoever.

"Rai, what is the matter with this wall?"

He instantly asked Rai, since he knew that the system had a much vaster amount of knowledge than him.

╓ Analysis of the phenomenon is not yet complete… However, I have come to the conclusion that the craters in this wall were all done by the people of at least the fourth rank of rune masters, but since this place is sealed with an age restriction, it makes the probability of people the Host's age group causing them improbable. ╖

Rui became silent, contemplating on the information he could deduce so far.

'Since the Test required for me to increase my understanding and leave a mark of my own on the wall, I probably have to stay in this place for a prolonged period of time to able to do that...'

Heaving a deep sigh, he sat on the floor cross-legged in front of the crater his had just touched.

Stretching his arm, he pointed his long and slender finger and lightly touched it.

This time, the energy rushing through him was milder, giving him room to withstand and comprehend the force.

However, after contemplating on the force for what seemed like forever, he felt an innate rejection, making him frown.

'I don't understand why, but I can clearly feel that this force isn't compatible with me and that I will gain nothing even if I sit here to contemplate it for decades.'

Rui was a rune master of the second stage that was close to reaching the peak of his stage. He possessed the heaven rune spiritual root, a unique type of Archaic grade spiritual root that made his adaptation to runic energy much greater, but giving him a weird alignment with the elements.

His extreme rune physique further extenuated this quality of his, absorbing all energies regardless of element and later on purifying them into pure runic energy.

This made Rui essentially attribute-less when it came to his attacks, but that would be impossible, since everyone had an attribute that they were more aligned with.

Some had multiple elemental attributes, but that didn't mean that they were more powerful. The most important part was the grade of alignment of the attribute.

There wasn't a specific grading system, but people could clearly tell there was a difference between rune masters and their elemental affinity.

Rui had never ran into such an issue before, since he had mostly focused on increasing his strength and the techniques, cultivation methods and martial arts he used were didn't really have a unique attribute.

Since Rui didn't know of this fact, not knowing what sort of attribute he was better suited for, he couldn't help but frown when he couldn't comprehend the fire element crater in front of him.

In the end, Rui touched seven more craters, three of them giving him the feeling of fire, one lightning, one wind and two of the earth. He had finally understood the situation he was in.

'This is an elemental affinity test.'

He instantly came into that conclusion.

Elemental affinity was hard to measure to begin with, some even trained in the wrong element for all of their lives, only knowing their true worth towards the end of their lives, or by sheer luck.

For that reason, sects gave new disciples attribute-less cultivation methods and slowly tested all of the elemental affinities they could.

Rui had gone through a similar situation in the academy, but at the time he didn't really consider it important.

Now, staring at the giant wall in front of him, he realized that elements were important, giving a unique yet extremely powerful spin to ones energy and attacks.

If one could comprehend all of the craters of their element in this wall, they would advance by leaps and bounds in their elemental knowledge and possibly even create a new cultivation method or martial art based on his understanding.

It was a great opportunity, but not for Rui.

Out of all the elements that he was tested in the academy, he had no affinity to any of them.

Fire, wind, earth, water and lightning were the five basic elements and Rui had no affinity with them.

The same was for other elements as well, such as, darkness, light, Metal and poison.

Rui was an anomaly just from that fact alone, he even had even stumped his family when they learned of that fact, restricting all sorts of martial arts and techniques that they wished to pass on to him.

Sighing deeply at this realization, Rui decided he had nothing to lose and decided to try out all of the craters one by one, with hope that he could find his elemental attribute.

Time slowly ticked on, as Rui relentlessly placed his finger on each of the craters, slowly gauging and narrowing them down.

Every few attempts he would stop and recuperate his mental strength, since it was depleting massively with each examination.

Sometimes he would sleep to recover and return to peak condition.

Like this, he continued relentlessly scanning all of the craters.

His figure had become emaciated, since even though he was recovering energy and recuperating every time, the mental strain made him lethargic and his eyes were bloodshot, a constant unnerving headache was ever-present.

Even though he had seen no results so far, even after thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands of attempts, he still continued searching.

He had come into contact with two new elements, sound and wood, but, just like the others, he had no affinity towards them.

The elements of the world weren't infinite, and sometimes the world itself made attributes on its own. Sound, wood, death and life were the four mythic attributes rarely seen in humans.

Rui continued in his search, finding the life and death attributes, but of course he had no connection to them.

Six months passed since Rui began checking all of the craters and he was slowly approaching the end.

He had began with lower craters, hoping to find his attribute in a lower layer, slowly making his way up, layer by layer.

He was now near the top, reaching the end of the craters, but he still hadn't found an attribute that matched him.

Demon, Holy, Supreme, War, Sky, Madness, Chaos, Void and wisdom were the new attributes he had found after his long search, and all of them were extremely peculiar.

They were not normal attributes, but rather, attributes that were inborn and unique to the individual.

Although Rui had seemingly wasted his time trying to find his attribute, his mental state had become extremely strong, making his sea of consciousness a stage higher than that of his cultivation level thanks to the constant tempering.

Having long lost hope in this cause, Rui haphazardly placed his hand in one of the bigger craters in his vicinity.

It was a crater that couldn't be said to be massive, but it wasn't small either. The significant difference between it and other craters was how deep it went.

While others were barely an palms length in, this one was about the length of an arm deep, making it much harder for Rui to reach inside.

Finally touching it, Rui experienced something unimaginable.

He was covered by darkness, but it wasn't due to the darkness, death, or void elements, but rather, emptiness.

The void element was the existence of nothingness, making one able to erase everything in his path into nothing.

The emptiness Rui was currently feeling wasn't similar to that of nothingness.

He felt a substantial burden on his mind and body, as if he was being squished and cramped inside a small room.

Fear started slowly creeping up on Rui's heart, as he felt extremely uncomfortable with the situation.

The darkness surrounding him started crumbling in that very instant, as if he was breaking space itself and he returned to normal.

Before he could recover his thoughts though, another crack in space appeared and sent him back to the darkness.

Not wanting to be plunged into that hell again, Rui pulled his hand back from the crater in a hurry.

Frowning, he looked at the crater, before noticing the connection he felt with it.

'You got to be fucking kidding me.'

He swore inside his head, realizing that this was probably the element he had an affinity with.