The world folded around Adrian as he stepped through the archway.
The metallic gleam of the safe zone vanished, replaced by an open, endless expanse.
Cracked black stone stretched across the horizon, and shattered fragments of land floated in the distance, suspended by unseen energy currents.
Then, a golden hologram flickered to life before his eyes.
› Kill Quota: 100,000 Essence Beasts
› Condition: Complete within a single continuous run.
Adrian frowned. "In a single run?"
He didn't know what it meant exactly, but he could guess. If he returned to the safe zone, the counter would reset.
"Fine." His voice carried across the empty expanse. "Let's see what the first level really is."
He moved forward.
The landscape around him looked long ravaged by battles. Massive cracks sliced across the terrain, and scorched fragments still steamed faintly.
The ground bore the scars of countless fights, craters overlapping craters, some still glowing with residual essence.
Far ahead, red shapes flickered like candles in the haze.
A pack of Essence Beasts.
They resembled wolves, but their bodies were entirely made of fire essence. Their limbs were fluid and translucent, their eyes empty sockets of molten light.
The largest one snarled, a ripple of heat distorting its form.
Then, it lunged.
Adrian moved without thought, a short blink as he sidestepped the attack.
The beast struck only his afterimage, its claws raking through empty space.
The beast's power was fierce but equal to perhaps a peak SSS-rank. Dangerous to most, but not to him.
"Strong… but not enough."
He blinked, appearing behind them in a ripple of space. His palm sliced through the air, a spatial cut tearing through space itself.
The front beasts split cleanly in half, their essence scattering into drifting embers.
Moments later, the rest charged and died just as quickly.
A golden screen flickered before him again.
› Kill Count: 6 / 100,000
Adrian stared at the numbers, then let the projection fade.
It was too easy.
A single Absolute Source Order and everything within this plane would vanish. Even fighting normally with his advanced galactic space or fire concepts would make the trial trivial.
But… that would not train him.
He clenched his fist, "If I use the Source, it'll be over in minutes. But I won't grow."
The beasts were powerful, but each one was roughly an SSS-rank equivalent. They were nothing before his advanced galactic concept or source.
He remembered what Gary said, the structure existed to train.
This was a place designed to sharpen one's skills.
"Let's see what happens when I fight this without any advanced galactic concept or source."
He restrained his power, reducing his essence output, limiting himself to the basic Galactic Fire Concept and only SSS-rank techniques.
The kind of power a peak SSS-rank might wield.
...
Minutes later, he found another cluster of essence beasts. This time, both fire and ice.
The first fire beast lunged toward him, molten jaws snapping.
Adrian didn't blink this time. Instead, he moved, kicking off the cracked ground and using a burst of fire to propel himself sideways.
His body twisted mid-air, flames trailing from his feet.
He countered with a Fireball, a blast from his palm that detonated midair, scattering molten sparks across the beasts below.
Two collapsed, their forms breaking apart. But the others kept coming.
Another beast charged, but this one was ice. Frost spread where it stepped, dimming his flames.
The temperature plummeted around it.
Adrian thrust both hands forward. "Fire Wall!"
A barrier of flame roared up, ten feet high and crackling with heat.
But the ice beast plunged straight through, freezing it solid. The two forces clashed, sending shards and embers spinning around him.
Adrian's eyes narrowed, analyzing every movement.
His fire bent, scattered, and struggled against the opposing element.
He used different SSS-rank skills he learned from Drakenholt library. Fire Cyclone, a spinning vortex that consumed three beasts at once.
Then Flare Sweep, a horizontal arc of flame that carved through the ice pack's flank.
Each attack chained into the next, forcing him to think, to adapt, to shift heat and movement together.
An ice beast lunged from his blind spot. He twisted, barely dodging, and felt frost bite into his shoulder.
Blood dripped down his arm, freezing before it hit the ground.
"Damn." He grit his teeth, channeling fire through the wound to thaw it.
For hours, the fight became a rhythm. Burn, dodge, freeze, shatter, move again.
He was bleeding, slightly burned, his robes charred at the edges.
But his control was sharpening. Each movement more precise than the last, each flame hotter and more focused.
...
Weeks passed like that.
Adrian's kill count rose, hundreds, then thousands.
Each encounter taught him something new. Conserving mana by chaining attacks, redirecting the momentum of flame rather than clashing head-on, countering ice with compressed heat instead of brute force.
His body moved through the broken landscape without pause, his robes tattered and scorched.
He had no rest, not even enough time to refill his mana. His mana drained steadily.
The beasts came in waves. Some fire, some ice, some twisted amalgamations of both.
He dodged, struck, burned, froze.
When he finally found a quiet ridge to recover, he sat cross-legged, absorbing the ambient mana.
The mana here was thick, almost suffocating.
Within ten minutes, he felt his reserves refill completely.
But before he could even rise, the ground cracked beneath him.
A tide of essence signatures flooded his senses.
Thousands.
Beasts poured from the fissures, fire and ice alike, a wave of living elements howling toward him.
Adrian's eyes snapped open.
He rose, teeth gritted.
"So… the real test begins now."
He launched himself into the air, fire bursting from his palms as he met the storm head-on.
He fought like a dancer in a burning storm.
Dodged through fire waves. Countered frost spears with searing arcs.
He timed every movement, every breath, every flicker of mana.
A fire beast lunged. He twisted, drove his palm through its chest, and detonated it from within.
An ice beast struck from behind. He spun, kicked off its frozen skull, and hurled a compressed fireball into the cluster below.
The explosion scattered a dozen beasts into embers and frost.
But even his focus had limits, his Mana dwindled, and his attacks slowed.
Dozens of beasts lunged from all sides.
He burned, froze, struck, dodged, until finally, a claw raked across his back, and another slammed him into the ground.
Pain exploded through his ribs, and then a blinding light engulfed him.
He reappeared in the safe zone, chest heaving.
Blood dripped from his torn robes, pooling on the metallic floor.
The hologram appeared again.
› Kill Count: 0 / 100,000
Adrian stared at it.
"…It resets. So that's what you meant by 'single continuous run.'"
The golden sphere appeared beside him once again,
› This trial is not merely about strength. It is about endurance, resourcefulness, and mastery. Only those who can adapt may pass.
Adrian stared at it in silence.
He sat cross-legged, closing his eyes as his body began to draw in the dense mana that flooded the air.
His wounds sealed slowly, flesh knitting back together.
"Endurance… resourcefulness… mastery."
He looked at his hands, blistered and faintly burnt.
"This is the battle I needed."
He closed his eyes and smiled faintly.
"No Source, No shortcuts, Just me."
When his mana finally filled again, he rose.
The golden archway shimmered ahead, awaiting him.
Adrian straightened his back, rolled his shoulders, and stepped through once more.
Back into the first level, where a hundred thousand storms of essence waited to test the man who would one day surpass even the stars.