Chapter 110: Virtually impossible

How dare they try to impersonate Khaldun, Sly’s anger and frustration only grew stronger with each passing second.

It wasn’t his imagination the batches of endless colorful flowers seemed to come alive and were swaying when there was no wind.

With every step he took, Sly could feel that he was either stepping on the roots or crushing the flowers beneath his heels.

Were the flowers trying to entangle around his feet, the density of the flowers were so thick bodies could be hidden beneath the soil.

Just as Khaldun’s smile began to grow even more evil clown-like and creepier, it made Sly’s blood boil.

Heated spirit energy began to radiate outwardly from Sly’s casting an almost angelic, halo-like glow around his body.

It was Sly’s eyes that radiated intense heat and looked frightening.

The mutant sprites that were manipulating Khaldun’s image immediately grew frightened.

"Die," muttered Sly Foxx, as his lips pursed.

Sly called upon his mental tendrils to purify Khaldun’s body and in an instant Khaldun’s imitation was completely drained of its spiritual energy until it dissolved into dust and nothing remained.

Mimosa watched this scene unfold with utter fasciation, human bonding and feelings were a bit too complicated for a simple spiritual deity like himself.

More Khaldun copies began unearthing themselves from the soil in a zombie like fashion and started attacking Sly.

Sly started manipulating his spiritual energy into balls or spiritual vine energy whips and attacking the replicas of Khaldun.

He didn’t get very far in the flower field before another Khaldun approached him.

Each looking more life-like and realistic than its predecessor but approaching Sly openly with more aggression and hostility.

Every time the fake bodies didn’t immediately disintegrate, they lay on the ground injured and bleeding a green colored blood with a pitiful expression trying to play on Sly’s sympathies.

Now they had even started talking in a voice sounding like Khaldun’s pleading, "Sly... Sly, please don’t hurt me anymore."

Even though he knew they were all fake, he still felt a bit guilty everytime he destroyed one and it messed with his mind significantly.

In the next thirty minutes he lost count of the numerous Khaldun Wolfe in the Garden of Illusions that played on his conscience.

Sly felt like he had been turned into a heartless killing machine that no longer waited for them to even open their mouths before he burnt the fakes to a crisp right on the spot.

For the life of him, Sly Foxx couldn’t understand why all the illusions he encountered were only of Khaldun Wolfe; what about the members of his maternal family he loved them all equally.

When had Khaldun Wolfe become a weak spot in his heart?

"Sly, help me!"

It sounded like Mimosa calling his name, when did the guardian deity wake up?

Sly started running towards the sound of Mimosa screaming his name in a panic.

The side of the flower field in which he heard Mimosa’s voice seemed sparser.

Unlike the direction that Sly was coming from, the garden even had a few flowers the same height as Sly but the majority tended to reach his waist.

Pushing aside the towering flowers, Sly destroyed a few more Khaldun’s along the way.

It felt like he was being hunted, pushing aside the flowers he ran head long into Mimosa.

Knocking a bunch of prized s-tier flowers that Mimosa had clutched like precious commodities against his chest while he ran for his life, out of the spirit deity hands.

Mimosa looked like he was about to cry as the s-tier flowers scattered all over the ground.

Sly Foxx looked around to see what had been chasing Mimosa but saw nothing in the distance. Silence fell between them as a relieved Mimosa gathered his prized possessions while squatting on the ground, happily stuffing a few into his mouth while storing the rest away.

This was supposed to be a test, a simulation of an alpha sentinel’s chaotic mind but why did it seem real and lifelike.

Mimosa was actually bleeding and in pain, just what had he encountered to make the normally confident spirit deity fear for its life.

Calming down, Mimosa occasionally tossed a few more s-tier petals in his mouth, his little cheeks were puffy from being stuffed and some of the liquid nectar was still visible like dew drops on his lips.

"Mimosa, this is my mental guide test... what are you doing here?"

It’s amazing how advanced the interstellar galaxy was that they could now make simulations so real that they could touch and smell the flowers, not only that but the taste of the nectar was also realistic.

Slow to speak after stuffing his face, Mimosa could hide the guilt in his eyes from Sly at being caught redhanded in the Garden of Illusions, like a thief stealing a cookie from the cookie jar with breadcrumbs all over his face, Mimosa was guilty as charged.

Mimosa knew that he should have asked Sly permission to leave his spiritual landscape especially at a critical time when he was undergoing a test being invigilated by others.

But other than those mutant creatures Mimosa didn’t sense the spiritual energy of any other beings in the vicinity, it felt like they were practically on their own and cut off from Paradise Military Academy.

None of the guardians from the school that he had come across so far could mask their energy for so long and go undetected, it was virtually impossible.

The spirit energy pod had practically transported Sly to such a dangerous place probably without the school’s consent since they were unaware that Sly was not at the B-tier guide level.

The only way for them to leave the Garden of Illusions was to destroy the source of its power which was probably that gross thing that chased Mimosa earlier, only then would Sly’s body be ejected from the spiritual pod and he would also pass the exam.

The spirit guardian didn’t want Sly to panic so he wisely kept that information to himself.

"I’m sorry Sly, I wouldn’t normally leave your spirit landscape, you know how apprehensive I normally am about making my presence visible to outsiders but I couldn’t resist the lure of these s-tier plants, these aren’t simulations, these are the real deal, alot of these plants have gone extinct its like we have been transported to some pocket dimension for your exam based on the s-tier strength of your mental and spiritual energy, this is my hypothesis."

Normally something of this magnitude like Mimosa’s calculated guess would be a stretch of the imagination but with all the crazy things that happened to Sly recently this hypothesis didn’t seem so surreal.

"What has been chasing you and where is it now?"

Mimosa shrugged, "..."

Sly’s guess was as good as his, Mimosa wailed, "it was a giant monster, a hybrid of flowers and earthworm, it was disgusting and it wanted to eat me, like I did its s-tier spiritual plants and—."

Before Mimosa could add dramatics and exaggerate further Sly cut him off, "so where is it now? Perhaps it sensed my s-tier strength and ran away?"

Mimosa looked at Sly like he was crazy.

Now the area where they resided started to get sparse from being devoured by Mimosa and the spirit deity, even though he was actually filled was still greedily stretching out his hands towards more flowers.

Meanwhile...

Instructor Emma grabbed Cassian and Jack as they stepped out of the examination room, "how did you do?"

"We both passed," said Jack cheerily.

"What about Sly?" inquired Instructor Emma.

"I thought he was out already?" asked Cassian.

"No way!" exclaimed Jack Winchester.

"What?" inquired both Instructor Emma and Cassian at the same time.

"Well... when I was leaving the exam room I heard the invigilators saying that there was only one student still stuck in the spirit pod. Could it be Sly?"

Worried Cassian said, "Sly is better than all of us, so why would he be stuck in the spirit pod, why now of all times?"

Instructor Emma listened with astonishment, of all her students Sly was the best; he should have been the first out of the spirit pod in her estimation.

If he hadn’t left the spirit pod yet it meant he couldn’t escape the test, it meant that he was probably sent to a deadly zone that he was unequipped to manage much less survive.

If he wasn’t out yet it meant that something must have gone wrong, she felt it from the bottom of her soul and her intuition was rarely ever wrong, she needed to alert the Commandant and the others to pry Sly out of the spirit bod before the damage was too great!

Before his friends could react, Instructor Emma was running towards the Commandant’s office; he was the only one with the spiritual power and authority, who could bypass this exam and save Sly’s life.

This was the fastest she ever ran in her life, she didn’t even stop when the adjutant saw her all flustered and tried to get Instructor Emma to stop and state what was causing her to panic.

She just flew past him in her distress and barged into the Commandant’s office unannounced, the Commandant also happened to have another bigshot in his office; and they both turned to look at the harried Instructor Emma with surprise all over their faces.