Chapter 46: Trials.

The ground beneath my feet looked just like molten steel just out of the forge, a distinct luminous red color, it didn't reflect light, but it was so hot that it released it by itself.

Around me there was what was probably the weirdest environment that I had seen in my life, an uneven terrain, boulders all around me, in the distance there were different mountains, as if creating a ring with me in the middle, and everything was looked the same hot red color as the ground I was on.

The air around me was so hot that it distorted the way light reached me from far away, as if I was right in front of a forge, only that it was the same for many kilometers all around me.

It was hot, undeniably so, and my mind told me the same, I could physically see how hot it was, I didn't know precisely how hot, but I was more than sure that it was several hundreds of degrees Celsius, maybe even in the thousands from the color of the metal, or stone, or whatever was around me.

But I felt nothing as if it were any normal day in spring, I felt comfortable.

"Am I even human anymore?" I asked mindlessly before shooing those thoughts away, they would serve no purpose in this trial, it was a chance to learn how higher realm stuff worked if my mind could even wrap around such things in the first place.

I released my senses and started creating my zone of runes all around me, research and analysis of everything around me would bring me control that nobody on Earth could even conceive.

For the first time, I pushed my mind and my runes beyond anything that I had ever used them for, hundreds of meters in all directions were mapped in my head, then thousands, then tens of kilometers.

And in that entire range, there was only one thing that looked out of place, a single pool of magma in a desert of scalding rock.

In an instant, I was in front of it, and then, at incredibly slow speeds by my standards, a body of that same magma started coming out of that pool.

Its lack of speed was compensated with an enormous body it seemed, so much power and so much mass coupled with a temperature high enough to melt certain metals created a weapon of death the likes of which I had never heard of before.

I was incredible, such a beautiful being, I wanted nothing more at that moment than to open it up to discover what it was made of, how it moved, how it thought, and if it did think in the first place.

Did it feel pain? Was it the same temperature everywhere? Did it have a brain? Internal compartments? Did it have specialized lava zones? Any equivalents of a heart? Blood? 

So many questions flowed through my mind as a little voice told me to open it up and find out everything that I wanted to and even more that I almost failed to react to the scalding punch that it had thrown at me.

A slow hook, but to my sped-up brain it was nothing more than an ant crawling compared to the speeds that my mind was moving at, so fast that my body couldn't keep up, the very world surrounding me slowed down to a crawl from the insane amount of profound energy that swirled around my brain, enhancing every single train of thought that my mind produced.

I easily evaded the punch of the flaming thing and put a lot of distance between us.

"Jasmine? Are you there?" I asked nobody in particular.

The answer came fast, as she replied directly to my mind, "Yes, I can't help you physically, but you shouldn't have any problem with this kind of challenge."

I didn't care in the least about the challenge when there was such an interesting thing right in front of me, "Do you know what that is?" 

"A high-level True Profound realm fire beast, in this environment it can unleash power similar to the Spirit Profound realm, but your Evil God Flame Seed will make you immune to almost anything that it can throw at you, except the physical attacks." She replied, her voice composed and nonchalant, almost as if the colossal being in front of me that kept throwing fireballs at me was barely more than an inconvenience.

It was, but that didn't mean that I wouldn't have liked a bit of concern from her, this was the first time I was against something this powerful after all.

"Try getting hit by those fireballs instead of evading them." She suggested.

What a stupid suggestion, "Those are fireballs, Jasmine, you don't just tank fireballs." 

"I know stupid, but I'm mostly sure that they won't hurt you, the Flame Seed doesn't only protect you from high temperatures after all." She replied, finally showing some emotion, even if that emotion was irritation rather than concern.

"I'd still rather evade them if you don't mind." 

"I do mind, it's an experiment, don't you like those? Now shut up and get hit in the face by a fireball." 

As I evaded another fireball I looked at the site of impact, where there was now a pretty large crater, "Yeah, I'd rather not." 

"What a chicken, you need to know your limits to break through them! You can't just live in safety forever!" She tried arguing.

I stayed silent for a second, pondering at hyper speed, "You're sure it won't harm me?" 

"Yes." She replied with finality, no doubt in her mind.

"I'll trust you then." So I stopped moving.

The impact came, the fireball fizzled out after hitting my body, and I felt just a pleasant breeze.

"Holy shit." 

"I told you, now get rid of that thing." I could feel the smirk in her voice.

I usually hated when she was right and I was wrong, but this time it came with a pleasant benefit, so I didn't mind that much.

I would still do my best to embarrass her though, like a fart cushion on her chair or something.

"So what do I do?" I asked, taking another fireball.

They felt nice.

"Attack the golden mark on its head, it's the thing's weak spot." 

"Mark?" I looked around, there did seem to be a golden thing on its head, must be it.

I pointed my fingers to the thing's forehead and, "Bam." 

Runes compressed raw profound energy in the form of a small projectile, and with the same setup that I had thrown a beast in the air not too long before, I shot the compressed energy projectile at the weak spot.

Crack.

Not strong enough, huh?

I pointed my fingers again, "Bam." 

Double the size, double the speed, four times the energy necessary, but still at a very manageable level, this time the effect was far more than a simple crack.

"I'm so cool…" I muttered, lost in my delusions of coolness when on Earth I would have just been called cringe for saying "Bam" out loud.

But this was not Earth and the people of this world shouted their moves, like those kids at the tournament, so I wasn't weird!

I ignored the laugh from Jasmine as the world around me distorted into a plain of nothingness, the red-hot terrain gone in a second.

"Second stage of the trial: Arrows of the Phoenix."

Was I in an illusion or was this all real? If it was an illusion, was an illusion so indistinguishable from reality any different from actual reality?

I couldn't even begin to understand how it worked, I needed better scanning runes, but detecting changes in the fabric of spacetime was pretty much far beyond anything that I could accomplish.

For now.

Just as before I inundated my mind with profound energy, my priority was once again creating my runic field.

Kilometers around me completely scanned in my mind, I analyzed as a phoenix of fire was created from seemingly nowhere, the process observed in great detail, but it was too fast to understand much from it.

Recording rune added to the list of things to create, with relatively high priority.

But as I saw how it was created, I knew that it was made of fire, profound fire far denser than the fireballs from before, but the temperature wasn't that much higher.

So I let it hit my body as it shot toward me with the intent to kill me.

Thank fuck I had that flame seed or I would have to be way more careful and creative with my runes to not die.

The risk was calculated, but the impact this time was real, somehow this fire held real mass, unlike the fireballs from before, it felt like receiving a punch to the stomach.

Not a very strong punch, but still enough to make me grimace a bit.

Then the firebird reformed from the fire of the last one, so I got hit again, and again and again.

It wasn't fun, but it didn't hurt too much either so I let it go.

Then one bird became two, then four, then eight, sixteen, and then I couldn't be bothered to keep count after seeing the pattern, after another few waves we most probably reached five hundred and twelve.

When I received another five hundred and twelve very uncomfortable hugs from the firebirds the world turned dark again, and those same golden eyes greeted me once again.

I could confidently say that I had a thing for incredibly big and powerful living beings.

The dragon was incredible, the magma demon was fantastic, but these eyes were the most beautiful and inconceivable thing that I had ever seen in my life.

They were part of a living being, part of a body, and they went against everything that I thought was possible.

It was a humbling experience just being in front of them.

I was now a monster by my old human standards, a being of inconceivable power and authority over my surroundings, but this being in front of me could snuff me out with a breath.

No matter how big I was, or how powerful I got, there was someone or something out there bigger and more powerful than I was.

And I found it so incredibly beautiful.

"I had never seen anyone going through the first two trials so easily, even if it was thanks to the primordial Evil God's power in your body, I congratulate you." The feminine voice said.

Of course, she knew, how could she not when she was so powerful and big and cool and…

I stopped that train of thought that I could awaken to some very weird stuff, I was not ready for a new relationship, especially not with a fragment of the soul of an ancient God.

"Thank you, I'm not a warrior nor a fighter, but receiving compliments is always nice." 

"The Evil God does not align with any of the elements, he's their nemesis; but no one can compare with him in terms of familiarity and capability in wielding the elements. If you manage to completely inherit the Evil God's powers, then not only fire, even water, wind, thunder, earth, domain, dimension, spirit… they would all be subdued by you and would never be able to bring you harm." She said.

That sounds great and all, but I had no idea what half of the things she talked about even were, but holy fuck now I wanted to get all of those seed thingies, if I had the chance to be invulnerable in this violent world then I might be able to go on to do my thing care-freely.

Even if there was no way that it would be easy, the Flame Seed was guarded by a dragon, no way the others were any less protected.

That's a thought for future me, present me replied to the hot God Lady, "What now? Weren't there three challenges?"

I would love to cut it short, but I wasn't that lucky, "Although by cheating with your special constitution, passing is passing, the final trial is a trial of the Heart, Corruption of the Heart's Flame, It does not involve fighting or fire, so your advantages are nullified. If you are firm enough towards the pursuit of power, then even if you possess weak profound power, there is a chance you can easily pass. On the other hand, if you do not possess enough determination, then passing your life in the mundane world can also be an option. After all, power is not everything in life."

Mundane world? I didn't care about power, but if it was about determination, there was no way that I would accept to live in an illusion, in a lie. 

I had already lost everything and was now rebuilding everything, Jasmine, Zhu, and Xue were my anchor, my crutch, my only attachment to this world, to life, I lived for them now and I had to come back to take care of them, if it's just an illusion then, "I'm ready, Miss Phoenix." 

"As you wish, Heir of the Evil God, I wish you success." 

Then the world turned dark once more.

Hellooo. i'm back, get ready for more, gimme stones and comment to make me feel if you're still waiting for it, love you all!