"Master, here are my five potions. We were each handed only six potions because the potions are effective only up to a certain point. This is usually the case in many trials. Even the hidden families are not aware of the full details of this trial. Most system trials had this sort of pressure test, and this potion is commonly used in other worlds for such trials."
Magicaa was a very different blood thrall when compared to Viola, the rune priestess. He submitted readily and beca subservient right from the get-go. Damon could tell that the man's injured soul had a huge part to play in this. His ntal fortitude should have also been weak.
It looked like Magicaa hadn't recovered at all from their last encounter. Dying repeatedly after respawning had essentially broken the guy. "You wanted to do this to , but in the end, you are in this state." He smirked and took the potions from the guy. "Stand here. Fight and kill anyone who tries to co behind . Don't half-ass things. Fight properly like your life depends on it."
Damon then continued his jog upwards without wasting any further ti. Quickly, he passed all the lower-level doors and arrived at the mid-level treasure vaults. By now, the pressure was almost completely back up. In fact, it was a lot more than before. He drank his fourth potion bottle, but it was of no use. The speed run using potions was effectively over.
Damon checked his tir, and now it showed that a little over five hours had disappeared. He had less than five hours left. This was fine because he had made good progress in this ti. He was already in the area with the golden doors. He could now stop climbing at any point and open a door.
But was that really the best thing to do? Should he open a door now or keep climbing to reach further up and open one of the doors at the top? "Hmmm…" Damon pondered as he forced his legs to continue climbing up.
It would be better if he had more information to make an educated choice. He paused for a mont, sending his senses outward. Pressure buckled down on him, and the tir flew off the handle a little, but the effort was worth it. He imdiately sensed two people to his right.
The mountain was a lot steeper now, and that ant confrontations were unavoidable. Damon just had to take control of these confrontations to get so extra information. He hurriedly dashed towards the side when he saw two players heaving and panting as they took one step after another.
Damon laughed at their misery. Finally, everyone was on the sa boat!
The two imdiately noticed him and raised their hands, preparing to attack, but they were not fast enough. Damon was in a much better condition than they were and quickly used ntal corruption and blood enslaving to test out a few things.
Two notifications imdiately popped up in front of him.
[Ding! You have successfully created a Blood Thrall]
[Ding! You have successfully created a Blood Thrall]
He did not expect both of them to submit successfully, but it seed that the pressure building up all around them was working to his advantage.
"Hey, open that golden door," Damon ordered the first guy as he continued to climb upwards. The first guy did not put up any fight and obediently followed the command.
The man staggered toward the nearest golden door. Every step looked painful, but he didn't slow down. He reached the door, pressed his trembling palm against it, and the surface rippled like liquid gold.
The door slowly swung inward, spilling blinding golden light across the slope. For a brief second, Damon caught a glimpse of what was inside. It was a wolf-like beast, but the aura emanating from it was terrifying.
Before he could discern anything more, the man was pulled inside, and the door closed, shutting with a thunderous boom that echoed across the mountain. Damon halted mid-step, eyes narrowing. "…Summoned inside," he muttered. "Not a treasure hall. A trial within a trial." He had expected that much. There had to be more to the trial than just climbing under pressure. It seed that the true test would be to defeat the beings inside the door.
Each door should probably have one or more such guardians, and they were most likely guarding a treasure chest or sothing. Damon would have liked to know more about what one experienced inside a door, but his connection with his blood thralls was simply gone once they entered through the door. He couldn't reach them beyond that point.
"Alright. That's enough of waiting. Ti to get inside one of these things." Damon looked at his tir, and there were still about 4 hours left. Sothing told him that he would need a good chunk of ti inside the door as well, so he did not want to wait until the last mont to enter a door.
Deciding to take one more hour to climb, Damon rushed up as fast as he could. On his way, he even managed to cross a couple of players whom he did not recognize, but he did not bother with them. They did not attack him, so he continued climbing up.
Another hour quickly passed by, and Damon finally decided to stop in front of a door. For a second, he expected ten or twenty people to assault him from multiple directions, but nothing like that happened.
Without the potion cheat, everyone was suffering, and no one had any spare energy left to focus on Damon. He took a mont to send his senses outward, and only three more players had reached this high up.
Damon had expected the golden masked bastard to be one of them, but he definitely hadn't made the cut, as Damon couldn't sense the blood tag on him. Well, whoever it was, he was pretty sure he was going to et them soon enough.
Snapping out of his thoughts, he focused his mind and reached out his hand to touch the golden door.
Golden ripples spread out from where his hand made contact, racing across the door like liquid sunlight. The pressure around him spiked sharply, slamming into his body as if the mountain itself was testing his resolve one last ti.
Damon grit his teeth and pushed forward. "Open," he said calmly. The door trembled. For a split second, nothing happened. Then… Boom.
The golden door swung inward violently, and a blinding light swallowed him whole. Damon felt a powerful pull yank at his body, far stronger than the earlier teleportation. His feet left the ground, the mountain vanished, and the crushing pressure disappeared all at once. The light faded.
Damon landed heavily on solid ground. He straightened imdiately, blood aura flaring on instinct, senses stretched to their limits. The environnt around him was nothing like the mountain.
He stood in a vast circular arena. The air was thick with heat and mana, and glowing golden runes were etched into the ground in massive concentric circles. Above him, there was no sky, only a swirling do of molten gold, slowly rotating like a giant eye.
And in the center of the arena… There was a humongous eyeball.
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