Chapter 224 Mystical Dungeon, Nexus
After ten minutes, Arkhen stood up and entered the portal before he arrived on a small light brown grassy ground with a unique portal in front of him and some people sitting on couches at the side.
"Arkhen. Go get the first rank," Lady Rong said with a smile.
The city lord Yanshi and the other three people glanced at Arkhen with slight curiosity as well.
In front of them were some floating mystical screens, and after looking at Arkhen for a brief moment, they looked back at the screens.
Arkhen nodded at Lady Rong before he entered the unique portal, which had uneven blue crackly patterns.
"So he is the one?" City Lord Yanshi questioned.
"Mhmm," Lady Rong nodded.
"Lady Rong, do you believe he can take the 1st rank?" asked the bald middle-aged man.
"No doubt. Unless he makes some mistakes. Anyway, let's see how he does inside," Lady Rong said as she also activated some power, and some mystical screens appeared in front of her like others.
…
Arkhen appeared on top of a giant tree after he entered the portal. This dungeon was very unique. He could see small colorful water bodies floating in the air along dark clouds that produced colorful flashes of lightning.
Below him, he saw the presence of many monsters on this giant tree that was over five thousand meters tall. It was as big as a big mountain.
"This dungeon… it's so mystical," Arkhen muttered as he looked around this world. Far away, he saw the biggest thing in this dungeon; A thick pillar of light connected to a floating island in the sky.
'What's that place?'
[It's the nexus of this dungeon. You will find a lot more monsters there].
There were also a lot of flying monsters in the sky on the way, but Arkhen killed all of them with his slaughter blades-fire type without much effort.
Outside, Lady Rong and others were watching him because they had sent many Vision Birds inside the dungeon and had one follow each participant.
Vision Birds were a product of advanced jewel crafting. The birds were made from semi-metal material with a set of instructions inscribed on two gemstones created by the jewelists. Those gemstones were put in the eyesockets of the birds.
Those gemstones had the effect of passing the vision feed from the bird's eyes to connected micro-crystal screens, just like the ones in front of Lady Rong and others.
A minute soon passed, and the 2nd rank participant arrived. He looked around a bit and heard a plain, "go inside" from the bald middle-aged man.
The 2nd rank participant nodded and entered inside while wondering why they were so glued to the screens.
"This Arkhen, it seems that he has multiple powerful superpowers…" the middle-aged woman commented as she watched Arkhen constantly using his force fields and slaughter blades.
"Yeah. That force field and those highly offensive dark red blades. They are superpowers. If he accepted someone's blessings, we have to warn him because those two superpowers don't seem like powers that people of Gravel realm or even 1st realm awaken," the bald middle-aged man said.
"No need. I've already checked that," Lady Rong said with a faint smile. "Those superpowers completely belong to him. I am also surprised about him having such high-ranking superpowers, but that's true."
"I am kind of envious… That superpower of dark red blades is very powerful, and he can even enhance those blades by giving them fire attribute due to his fire affinity."
"Indeed. If he had more affinities, it could make him more powerful. But so far, he had only shown the Fire affinity."
One by one participants arrived here and entered the portal leading to the corrupted dungeon.
The number of screens increased, and after all the participants entered inside, City Lord Yanshi waved her hand and activated fifty micro-crystal screens, showing one participant in each screen in a large area in front of them.
Everyone looked at the big set up of screens and observed the participants. If someone attacked another participant, they could activate the Escape Rune and send them back to the town. Disqualified!
"But what kind of power is that? He is letting some of the projectile attacks hit him, and they are disappearing into his body."
"Could it be a skill?"
"It can't be a superpower because everyone can only have two superpowers total before ascending to the 2nd realm and having a stronger soul."
"Just think of it as some sort of passive skill," Lady Rong said with a smile. She knew it was Arkhen's physique but didn't bother telling those three about it.
City Lord Yanshi already knew that and was curiously wondering what kind of physique it was.
…
After thirty minutes, Arkhen finally arrived at the top of the island in the sky and…
"Alright!" Arkhen grinned as he saw a group of fifty dark flame bulls gathered under a big tree.
As soon as he arrived on the island, he saw them, and they sensed him as they started rushing toward him.
'They are early third-grade Dark Flame Bulls! Fifty of them,' Arkhen thought as he quickly created a hundred layers of force fields in front of him to slow down the bulls before raising both of his hands toward the sky. 'I'll kill all of them at once since they are close to each other while rushing towards me.'
'Melferious Shrine Tree: Jiragen! Overlord Shrine!'
'Infernal Star-Fall!'
As he executed the Infernal Star-Fall, Arkhen also infused all of the chaos force he had gathered in his body on the way here to boost the power of his skill even more!
The bulls took exactly five seconds to appear just ten meters away from Arkhen after breaking all the force fields, and that was also when the burning star in the air dropped!
*BOOOM!!*
A loud explosion occurred all fifty-something Dark Flame Bulls turned into ash! The ground in front of Arkhen was filled with nothing but ashes and corrupted cores that those bulls left behind after dying.
[1667 reality motes gained]
After collecting those corrupted cores, Arkhen went deeper into the island and soon encountered more monsters.
'Let's go!' Arkhen was fired up because in front of him were super fast mantis monsters! They would push his physical body to the limit, and he wanted just that because he was confident that he wouldn't break the suppression seal!
After all, he had acquired absolute mastery over his bodily prowess!
The mantis spread around him and eyed him like he was their prey.
Suddenly, one of the mantises waved its sharp claws and released a wind blade toward Arkhen.
Arkhen didn't bother dodging since he wanted some chaos force.
*Swoosh...*
A mantis from behind dashed towards Arkhen at super fast speed, but Arkhen calmly dodged it before waving his hand and piercing the mantis with his Sarangan Dragon Blade!
*Chrrrrrr...*
The stabbed mantis cried in pain, and that was the signal! All fourteen mantis started attacking at once!
Some released long-ranged projectile attacks while some pounced towards Arkhen!
Arkhen's eyes moved superfast as he observed all directions quickly and made a quick judgment.
He moved half a meter to a side, created a force field on a diagonal side, and released Wave Severam from his Dragon Blade at the other side.
He did all that before any attack hit him. However, when those attacks and attackers finally arrived, a strange situation occurred.
Two projectile wind cross blades passed by Arkhen and hit two incoming mantises.
The other two crescent wind blades slipped off the diagonal force field and hit the other two mantises.
Four mantises died, and four projectile attacks were nulled. Next, three mantises that still pounced at him directly ate his boosted Wave Severam and died.
The remaining three whirling wind blasts that arrived at Arkhen's left side hit him, but he let them hit him to produce chaos force since he spent the chaos force he gained before into Wave Severam.
In just two seconds, the first wave of their attacks resulted in seven mantises dying. The other seven mantises who attacked using projectile skills were nulled, and Arkhen was unharmed.
The remaining mantises were also startled at the result, but their red eyes glowed even more as they attacked Arkhen again.
But well, all of them died soon, leaving behind corrupted cores and giving Arkhen reality motes.
'I feel good.'
[This is the result of gaining Absolute Mastery over your body. Usually, your thoughts and body are not synchronized. People can think fast, but their bodies don't move as fast as they think. But now, your body will move at the same time you produce the thought regarding your body movement].
'Yes. Moreover, I got some ideas as well after gaining this control of bodily prowess. I will try them later since I can't do that while being suppressed by the seal.'
[What idea?]
'Hehe, if I can succeed in that idea, which makes use of both my Physique passives and the absolute control I have over my body, then I will be able to unleash very destructive physical attacks! Anyway, you will know that when try. First, let's focus on killing monsters and collecting cores.'
[I am curious, but I shall wait, my lord. For now, let's move deeper. The center of that island should also have some unique resources.]
...
An hour later...
"He is moving deeper. There's no danger there, right?"
"The only danger is Nexus Holder. We'll warn him if he nears there," Lady Rong said.
"The kids are cleaning the monsters fast and wearing the dungeon nexus quickly, hahaha. Especially that Arkhen. I guess we should be able to take the nexus core of this dungeon after a few hours," said the bald middle-aged man.
"Yep," City Lord Yanshi nodded.