“Okay, I understand why you did it, but this fellow would have been a wonderful blood slave,” Thalion said to the Sanguis Impera, not too sad that the assassin was dead. In the next stage, he would have to join a ship crew on the sea, where a blood slave likely wouldn’t be welco anyway.
Black blood was slowly dripping from his mouth as the poison continued to ravage his body. He had never felt this bad from a single poison before—and the thing was still going. Over the next hour, Thalion swallowed a lot of different antidotes he had picked up by killing others or looting the massive warehouse. He had no idea what most of them actually did, but as long as they helped even a little, it would be fine.
There was no way he would die from it, but the fact that his human form—with all its vitality and the Sanguis Impera—had been pushed this far by a single infusion of poison was insane. Hopefully, not more enemies had such potent poison in their arsenal.
While healing, Thalion replayed the fight in his mind, thinking about what he could have done better. In fact, it had been quite a weird fight—fast, brutal, and intense. If he had ssed up even a single move, he wouldn’t be alive right now.
What bothered Thalion the most was that his domain hadn’t really helped him in the fight. Yes, the vines had made it easy for the Sanguis Impera to kill the assassin, but the main reason he had conjured the domain was to deal constant damage. The assassin, however, hadn’t cared in the slightest. If he encountered more assassins like that, he might really be in trouble if his domains didn’t work as intended. He also had no real way of blocking those strikes.
Pulling out the golden fruit had been the saving idea. Good thing it had been so precious to the assassin. That the assassin had been so angry at the kingdom and spilled everything about its plans was just perfect. Now Thalion didn’t need to go on another mission.
He would have liked to visit the capital and go on another shopping trip, but that was too risky. Just to be sure they wouldn’t be able to track him, he took out the map and token he had been given and threw them over the edge.
The island would have been perfect to wait out the trial and do so cultivation, but if Ryan returned, they might start searching for him. Depending on how accurate their tracking was, that search would bring them to this island sooner or later.
Thalion already had the required points for this stage. Now he only needed to find a safe place to wait for the next one. He had a lot on his mind. His human form could go deep into fire body-tempering, while Eagly could do the sa with cold. He also had the perfect crystals for each elent. The Sanguis Impera could join in as well, though the poor plant was probably still heartbroken after Thalion had put the fruit of the golden lotus back into his spatial amulet.
He needed the six million leaderboard points to advance to the next stage. Just to be on the safe side, Thalion would keep the fruit until the trial was over. Who knew what the rewards of the final stage would be—and how valuable they might be. At this point, Thalion wouldn’t even be surprised if the grand treasure of the last stage was worth more than thirty million leaderboard points.
Speaking of leaderboard points—the others were catching up. The First Daughter had already earned two million additional points. The Second Daughter had gained the sa amount, putting her in third place right behind her sister. Thalion guessed they were probably doing missions together, which was worrying.
It was currently the end of the first day, and they still had plenty of ti to catch up. Besides the six million points from this stage, Thalion wouldn’t gain any more here—at least, that was the plan. The others in the top ten had only earned one million points so far, aning they had completed one major mission or two of the five-hundred-thousand-point missions. They still had a lot of ti to close the gap.
It wasn’t an imdiate danger that Thalion would lose first place, but it was very clear where things were heading. After this, there were two more stages, and both would reward even more leaderboard points—while the competition would beco far more dangerous.
Frankly, Thalion had been very lucky. In this stage, the king had issued a no-kill order, and Thalion had been paired with a Chosen. Even if Ryan was a typical arrogant brat, he was powerful. Without him, Thalion would have never gotten close enough to the lotus.
In the next stages, he likely wouldn’t have such luxuries. If Thalion rembered correctly, he would need to join a ship crew and sail out to find the grand treasure of the stage—so buried elixir—while fighting off everyone else who wanted it. The problem was simple: whoever got that treasure would almost certainly take first place.
If Thalion got it, it would give him a massive advantage going into the final stage, where everything would be decided. The first thing he planned to test was whether he could use the Tidecaller Serpent and simply swim wherever he wanted—without relying on a ship at all.
The blood slave had already shared a few rules. One was that flying over the ocean was basically impossible, while another stated that you could only hold your breath for a minute underwater.
Technically, he should be fine as the Tidecaller Serpent, since he didn’t need to hold his breath at all. The advantage of being able to move freely through the water—where most others weren’t even able to enter—was almost too good to be true. Thankfully, there was still ti until the next stage, and he could do a good amount of cultivation until then.
Upgrading his essence blood, strengthening his soul, and body-tempering were high on the list. Thalion hoped it would make a difference. His strength as an F-grade was kind of ridiculous when you took into account that he had just defeated a few-hundred-year-old assassin who was almost double his level. Only two more stages after this one, and he would be there.
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After healing up, Thalion took to the sky as Eagly, moving away from the kingdom and toward a few islands marked as abandoned and uninteresting due to the lack of good natural treasures. For Thalion, this seed like the perfect place. He also needed trees to form a blockade, just in case soone ca close to the island. There was no need to risk anything.
The first two islands had tall trees, but Thalion wasn’t happy with how few leaves they had. The third island, however, was the jackpot. There were no trees, but there were caves—which was even better for Thalion. The tunnels weren’t empty, though. So kind of snails lived there, or more accurately, they lived there until Thalion arrived.
After a short adventure with the Crimson Eidolon, all the tunnels and wide caves were cleared, and Thalion made his way down to the cave farthest from the entrance. It was quite large, with a ceiling over ten ters high and a total length of more than twenty ters. All in all, it was a pretty nice place.
After cleaning the sli off the ground with the crippled Eclipsari by turning it all into darkness, he took out the large fire crystal and began working together with the Sanguis Impera, which was happy to continue the session. When it ca to getting stronger, the plant was an even more extre outlier than Thalion. He really should start taking pointers, Thalion thought, amused.
Now, with the knowledge from cold tempering as Eagly, he had a rough guideline for what to do with heat—and it worked perfectly. The Sanguis Impera was also doing much better now after he explained how it worked. Thalion wasn’t sure if it fully understood him, since a few vines still turned quite dark during the process.
The ti in the cave was great, and he made amazing progress. After a whole day of fire tempering and so improvent to his blood, Thalion switched to working on his soul. The crystal the Tidecaller Serpent had swallowed was already so far digested and integrated that it wasn’t twisting his soul anymore.
During ditation, the days passed quickly. The next ti he checked the leaderboard, three days had already passed—halfway through the stage. That the First Daughter was already at ten million leaderboard points was not good at all. The others in the top ten were close behind, and the only one who wasn’t progressing was Thalion.
He had fulfilled the requirents for the next stage and wouldn’t risk his life needlessly right now. At this point, Thalion was simply too weak to do sothing on his own, and since he had also left the kingdom, he had no idea where any treasures even were.
Still, a bit of peace and cultivation was exactly what he needed after all the fighting and risks. The only issue with body-tempering was that you needed good materials or the perfect environnt—otherwise, progress would be hella slow.
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