Chapter 211 - Round 1 & 2

The more Cale cultivated the flames, the harder they became to absorb. After just two hours, the amount he was gaining was negligible, so he stopped and moved on to the next trial. If someone like him, with the highest refining and absorption power, had hit a limit, then that was all this place had to offer.

He came out and landed back on the same cliff at the entry, looking around for anything else that might help his cultivation. That was how all towers worked. It depended entirely on how you perceived each level and what you did within it. It didn’t matter how many levels you cleared. What mattered was what you gained from them.

He sighed. "There’s nothing useful around here."

Roan smiled at him. "He’s an interesting guy. To think someone would dare jump into a sea of lava without thinking twice, hahaha."

Feeling that crazy gaze settle on him, Cale felt a shiver run down his spine.

’I need to get to the next level quickly!’

He glanced back at Roan and saw the man grinning widely for no reason at all.

"What’s wrong with this guy? Why is he acting like this..."

The real trial of this level was one of the early ones, so it wasn’t too hard to clear. The task was to evade the flame spirit beasts lurking in the magma river and make it across a long obstacle course. In one look, it was just tens of rocks lined up in a straight line for a few kilometers, with some distance between each pair.

It wasn’t much of a challenge for someone with Cale’s physique. One strange thing stood out, though. He couldn’t fly here. Neither his refining body’s wings nor his Astral Sovereign body’s wings would appear, let alone help him stay aloft.

’There are too many restrictions placed on this place.’

Cale and Roan cleared the course at around the same time, entering the next level.

Cale looked around. "Huh, the temperature dropped quite a lot..." Then his gaze fell on the scene ahead, and he grinned. "Oh, this is... hehe."

The second trial ground was a vast field of floating stone platforms, though by the look of it, they were really just the remains of a long, broken bridge. Blinding flashes of lightning lit up the surroundings, striking the platforms with terrifying unpredictability. Hundreds of bolts came down from the turbulent sky, crashing onto the cultivators scattered across the field.

An invisible gravitational pressure weighed on every body there, turning each movement into an exhausting struggle. Some cultivators could barely take a step. Others knelt beneath the crushing force, desperately trying to keep their balance. The air crackled with electricity, and yellow and black arcs danced across the shattered platforms.

’Phew... thank god I train with my soul bodies regularly under tens of times normal gravity.’

The more interesting part was the lightning itself. This was a lightning field, exactly what was needed to form a true lightning cauldron. Rather than being hurt by it, Cale could absorb the lightning directly, strengthening his body cultivation technique along with the circles of his Astral Sovereign body.

"Let’s go."

Roan watched him from behind, curious to see how Cale would clear this level, since Roan himself had no idea how to do it.

Cale took a single step forward, and black lightning immediately crackled around his feet. A bolt dropped from above and struck him with enough force to make the surrounding platform tremble. Yet he remained completely unharmed.

"Ahhhhh!~ This is it! Hahaha!" He grinned like a madman.

The lightning coiled around his body like countless serpents before slowly being drawn into him and vanishing without leaving so much as a scorch mark. The terrifying energy that had brought other cultivators to their knees looked like nothing more than a meal to him.

For a moment, the surrounding cultivators could only stare in disbelief.

"H-hey, did anyone see that!"

"He must have brought some kind of artifact, right?"

"But isn’t this tower designed so that artifacts can’t help you?"

"Wait, isn’t that guy the... that white-haired dem—" Someone clamped a hand over the speaker’s mouth. They were low-level cultivators, and who knew what Cale might do to them on a whim. He was the supposed demon, after all.

Some froze mid-step. Others turned toward him with wide eyes, struggling to comprehend what they had just witnessed. In a trial where every lightning bolt threatened death, Cale had casually absorbed one as though it were nothing.

He glanced at the system screen floating in front of him and watched the numbers climb.

[Chaos-Origin Five Elements Cauldron

-Flame Cauldron: 07%

-Lightning Cauldron: 17%

-Earth Cauldron: 00%

-Wind Cauldron: 00%

-Metal Cauldron: 00%]

He sighed. ’It’s too slow. Thankfully, there are a lot of levels ahead.’

As he moved forward, lightning struck him again and again, but he strolled through it like he was taking a leisurely lap around a garden.

A short distance away, a young cultivator stood trembling beneath the turbulent sky, his face pale with terror. After getting hit by two consecutive bolts, another bolt was already gathering overhead. Before the boy could react, the blinding streak came plunging down toward him.

But just as the lightning was about to strike, a figure shot through the air.

Cale moved swiftly, placing himself between the boy and the incoming bolt. The lightning crashed into him and enveloped his body.

"Hahah! This is way better than fighting the heavenly will!"

He didn’t even flinch.

’Oh, this is a big one.’

The raging electricity coursed through him before being absorbed completely, feeding his body and strengthening his physique. A faint smile tugged at his lips.

"Leave all your lightning to me. Just go away quickly."

To the frightened boy and the cultivators around him, Cale’s actions looked insane, he nodded and ran away. But these actions also looked like the man was shielding them while they were in danger.

’Just like a prince in shining armor.’

And, as might be expected, the women fell for it immediately.

"What a noble person."

"To think he would endure our tribulations too!"

"He’s so handsome, too."

As Cale stepped out of the radiance, his appearance drew the attention of numerous female cultivators.

His long silvery hair flowed behind him, a few loose strands framing his face. His delicate yet striking features, paired with his calm expression and faint smile, gave him an almost ethereal charm. He wore a fitted blue robe(of the astral sovereign body) embroidered with intricate silver patterns, and he carried himself with effortless elegance. He looked less like a fearsome cultivator and more like a handsome young master who had stepped forward to rescue a damsel in distress.

To the women watching, he was practically the perfect hero: powerful, handsome, and gallant enough to shield strangers while enduring the tribulation himself.

Roan walked up from behind, swatting away each bolt that fell near him just like shooing a fly. A divine artifact glove on his hand made that easy for him. But many people here knew Roan’s reputation, so he didn’t attract the same admiration Cale did. Which he didn’t care much of, since right now his interest was fixed on another person.

Seeing Roan’s wide, unsettling grin, Cale sighed again. ’Why is he grinning like a madman? This is making me scared now. With my super handsome face, there’s no doubt this guy wants my tiny, vulnerable self.’

When the absorbed energy reached 17%, it stopped being absorbed, just like the way it had on the previous level.

So Cale quickly moved on to the next one.

When he looked back, the others were nowhere to be seen. Focusing his senses, he noticed two grand arrays set up above and below, one on the ceiling and other on the floor of the bridge, each around fifty to sixty meters across, covering the entire width of the bridge.

"Hmm, arrays above and below... what are they for?"

Then his gaze fell to the floor, and the pieces clicked. There was a line etched every few inches across the surface. He had a guess.

"So I have to cross this bridge while... maybe the arrays fire something? Something around those lines, huh..."

The lines likely acted as sensors to estimate where the person was.

On the surface, it looked like a simple speed test. Anyone who crossed the spots covered by the arrays quickly would go unharmed. But who knew what kind of weapons and attacks those arrays might unleash?

’I need to be careful... or maybe not.’

These arrays were complex, but if the goal was simply to delay attacks, reduce the number of weapons fired, or lower the damage dealt, that could all be done. It might take a little longer than it did for the others, but Cale could clear this trial easily and without a scratch.

"And I get to copy these arrays for myself, hehe."

He couldn’t fly, so the first step was to disable the array below and sever the link between the two formations. That way, shutting down the lower array wouldn’t activate the upper one right away, and disabling the upper one wouldn’t cause any backlash. Some arrays triggered their functions the moment someone tried to tamper with them, and he wasn’t about to make that mistake.

Cale looked down at the array beneath him. "Interesting indeed."