Feeling sowhat excited about the twelfth floor of the tower after realizing the task was related to tribulations and likely also the first floor with demon beasts or other creatures in the Soul Ascension Realm, Xuan Hao found himself curiously observing his surroundings. Finding the place to rather barren outside of nine mountains located in a wide circular formation around him.
Of course, though he could easily pick up on these nine mountains from afar, it mainly had to do with his cultivation realm far surpassing the realm required for the floor, as soone in the Soul Ascension Realm would find it difficult to spot the mountains in the distance. Not that they were entirely helpless, as there were a few markings on the ground pointing towards the different mountains. Making sure that it would be rather simple for soone to find the mountain by following the markings on the ground.
As for how far away these mountains were from the spiral staircase one ascended to the twelfth floor through… If he had to say, it was around the distance between the Star Shattering Sect at the Shattered Star Peaks and the Iron Sky Kingdom, a distance that would take so ti to travel even for soone in the Soul Ascension Realm.
Even for soone like himself, it would take a few minutes to travel such a large distance without the assistance of a movent technique or the Dao of Space.
However, the thing that amazed Xuan Hao the most about this new floor of the tower wasn't the massive increase in size the floor had experienced. Instead, it was the creatures that road the twelfth floor of the tower.
Originally, he believed that it would be demon beasts or sothing like the intelligent beings on the sixth floor, but instead, the creatures- if one could even call them that, were nothing more than giant blobs bouncing around. Reminding him of the classic fantasy monster, the sli. Only this ti around, this seemingly harmless monster had the strength comparable to soone at the First Tribulation of the Soul Ascension Realm.
Far from harmless, the little fantasy sli had turned into the last boss, as any mortal that ended up facing off against it would undoubtedly be in for a bad ti…
But it wasn't just the unique appearance of this… Creature… That had taken him by surprise, but also the fact that he could clearly sense an extrely pure spirit stone of sorts inside the bouncing slis.
Whoosh~
Casually moving his hand forward in a grabbing motion towards the nearest bouncing sli, Xuan Hao directly utilized the Dao of Space to pull it towards him. Catching the creature completely by surprise, as it found itself unable to put up even the slightest bit of resistance the second it was caught. Only able to wobble nervously as Xuan Hao stared at it intently- or more specifically the core at the center of its body.
"What is this… Not a spirit stone, but not a golden core either nor is it a unique dantian…" Staring at the unique thing he originally thought to be so kind of spirit stone from his first glance, Xuan Hao could not help becoming increasingly confused as he began inspecting the core inside the sli creature.
The longer he stared at it, the more confused he beca, as he truly couldn't understand what that thing was-
Ptsh~
Boooing~!
And following a very depressed boing, Xuan Hao ended the little fellow that wasn't exactly so little. Using one of his hands to dig out the strange core before trying to inspect it in more depth.
Crack~ Bang!
However, the second his divine sense touched the strange core this ti around, it shattered without warning before turning into countless motes of greenish purple light similar in color to the sli he had killed to obtain the core.
Unexpected as this sudden turn of events was considering how he had been able to inspect the core just fine earlier, it didn't hinder his progress in finding out more about this strange core, as his divine sense locked onto the countless motes of light as they slowly began to fade.
And in the process, he barely sensed a connection between these motes of light and one of the markings on the ground encircling the spiral staircase that led back down into the eleventh floor of the tower where he had originally erged from.
Looking closer, part of the marking connected to those motes of light had begun to light up, with around one tenth of the marking being lit. aning that to entirely light up the marking, one would have to kill ten of those sli creatures, a task that would be challenging for anyone in the Soul Ascension realm, as he had clearly sensed earlier when killing the sli creature that outside of the core at the center of their body, they had no real weakness to speak of.
Not just that, but in the instant before he had killed the sli creature, he had also sensed that it had the ability to freely move around the core. Making it an even tougher opponent to deal with, as the sli itself wasn't exactly easy to get through if one couldn't brute force things like he had done… And if the rest of the markings on the ground also needed to be lit up, that would an one would have to kill ninety of these strange sli creatures that ranged between the First Tribulation and the Second Tribulation of the Soul Ascension Realm from what he could sense through his divine sense.
No matter how he looked at it, this was an extrely challenging task for anyone in the Soul Ascension, as killing that many Soul Ascension Realm slis would undoubtedly take a long ti and be a difficult endeavor.
But… With the realization that the nine tribulations might refer to kill slis and lightning up the markings on the ground around the spiral staircase, he couldn't help growing curious about the nine mountains in the distance. After all, they shouldn't just have been placed there for no reason.
No matter what, Xuan Hao decided to pay one of these mountains a visit before going on to hunt down the slis needed to advance to the next floor of the tower. Choosing the mountain that the partly lit up marking was pointing towards-
Whoosh~
Taking one step forward while using the Drifting Cloud Steps, as he soon enough found himself standing at the base of the mountain. Crossing the massive distance in a few steps, a clear show of just how far his Dao of Space had advanced, as he didn't need a long-distance teleportation technique for such a distance any longer.
Back to the mountain in question, Xuan Hao found it… Empty…
Like the barren landscape with nothing more than a few shrubs, rocks and slis, there was nothing on the mountain outside a few specks of green here and there. Even the slis that could be found throughout the barren landscape was nowhere in sight, as the only sign of life were a few small plants.
Nothing out of the ordinary, though that might also just be because the true secret was hidden on the top of the mountain-
Swish-!
And…
Nothing again, there was nothing on top of the mountain outside of snow. No hidden secrets. Nothing at all. The marking had just seemingly pointed him towards the mountain for no reason- or maybe the true purpose only showed itself after the marking lit up? aning he might have to not just kill a whole lot of sli creatures but also face what he could only imagine to be the tribulation from the task after killing all the slis.
So, what was the purpose of killing the slis? A way to weed out the weak?
Thinking about it, it did make so sense when thinking about how most of the tasks from the ascension realm tower seed to involve killing.
Although, it did make him even more curious about what the tribulation he would potential encounter involved, as it shouldn't be sothing too difficult considering just how many slis he had to kill before even getting to one of the nine tribulations he had to go through before he could ascend to the thirteenth floor.
Who knew, it might not even be a challenge but could even be sothing positive that benefited him instead of sothing that hurt him.
Like a special reward for getting to his current floor.
The more he thought about this, the more he felt like it made sense to him. Now all that was left to do was test out this train of thought and see how accurate it was. All he could do was say sorry to the slis he would have to kill ahead of ti, as these strange creatures really did seem rather innocent and almost naive when observed from afar. Making it rather strange to just kill them.
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