While Eluard was recuperating in preparation for his operation in the Alderian Terrestrial Sanctuary, the students back at the academy slowly entered the mysterious Tower of Ascension situated north of the academy's grounds.
Jinmu spared another glance at the towering mass of a building before approaching the tightly shut metallic door filled with magical symbols all over. Emi, Lucan, and Olivia stared at his stalwart figure. They decided that Jinmu should enter the Tower first. (f)reewebnovel
When he was 5 meters away, dark fog mixed with white light diffused within the Tower to the outside world, slowly enveloping Jinmu until he lost his senses and let his body be dragged to the void.
A system prompt rang in his mind.
[ Warning: You have entered the Tower of Ascension. Here is the challenge issued by the Tower of Ascension:
In the ruins of knowledge lies the fate of your origins. Explore it out, na?ve young man. Your destiny awaits. ]
[ Note: The Tower of Ascension has no corresponding 'exact' floors. The challenger will experience varying challenges depending on their current situation. Consider each challenge as a 'floor' to your ascension to greatness. ]
[ Note: The use of system resources is heavily limited. The creature analysis function is temporarily disabled while inside the Tower of Ascension. ]
[ Note: Passage of time in the Tower of Ascension is always slowed down. The ratio is at a constant 7:1, where each week spent inside the Tower of Ascension is equivalent to one day in the Heavenly Magic Academy. ]
[ Note: When multiple people challenge the Tower of Ascension regardless of their timely inclusion, some challengers might be put in the same challenge with varying tasks issued by the Tower itself. ]
[ Note: The duration of a challenge will remain unknown to the challenger. Several factors will affect your progress, and some might cause you to fail immediately albeit not purposefully at the start of the challenge. Regardless of failure or success, the challenger will be prohibited from entering the Tower of Ascension for an unknown amount of time. In case of any failure, the previously failed challenge will have a chance to be reinstated to the challenger but with more dire odds. ]
After reading the description, he felt the weight of his body return to him. The prompt was long gone. Jinmu opened his eyes and saw a lifeless land. The ground was purplish brown riddled with pulsating magma which flowed freely below.
He suddenly heard a hoarse yet wicked voice shout in delight, "I can smell the flesh of something delicious!"
A small imp jumped and landed on a cliff not far away from Jinmu. Its eyes were blazingly golden, spitting out fire endlessly. His small yet sturdy red wings with sharp edges flapped slightly in excitement. He wasn't holding any cold weapon, but Jinmu could feel the suppression from the demonic creature.
"You are weak! A being with a damaged magic root! This will be easy…"
The imp smirked and raised his small left index finger, quickly conjuring dozens of crimson balls above his small head with small protruding horns. He extended his hands and pointed them at Jinmu, sending the crimson balls to attack him quickly.
Jinmu's eyes stared widely as he could feel the strong repulsion force coming from those harmless-looking crimson balls. They passed through him effortlessly, blasting huge holes in his abdomen and chest. The imp grinned but was later shocked to find out that no blood spurted out of the human's body.
Jinmu's 'corpse' turned into water and became a puddle on the ground. The imp felt mana fluctuate underneath him and wanted to jump out, but he was too late. The magic runes lit up and water violently gushed out underground, blasting the imp high into the sky.
'Impossible! When was this magic trap set up?!'
Before he could think of a solution, sharp wind blades whistled in the air and hacked at him from all directions. His body was immediately riddled with countless blade wounds. Despite his grievous injuries, the imp remained confident, 'Fool, you cannot kill me unless you have divinity!'
Amid his rejoicing, he suddenly found himself being pushed off towards the magma river on the edge. He tried to flap away using his wings, but the winds were too chaotic for him to fly through. Furious, he let out the crimson balls again and tried to cancel out the effects of Jinmu's wind magic traps.
Some of the wind blades were cancelled out but he did not find the effect he was looking for. The wind blades felt endless, disorienting his senses to a degree. The ground and the air felt the same to him and his eyes almost rolled to his back. The crimson balls he sent out were soon drowned in wind blades and lost connection to him.
Helpless, the imp could only curse at that human to hell as his voice trailed off to nothingness. His small body fell into the magma river and melted at a rate faster than one's eye could blink. Such a disturbance did not manage to thwart the impending flow of magma at all.
"Strange…"
Jinmu's aloof voice sounded out, appearing right at the cliff near where the imp fell to his demise.
"My body feels different, as if I am lighter than my usual weight.", he glanced at his rather rough hands which were once soft and supple. Something felt different about him after the start of the challenge, especially on where he was at right now.
"This place… I know it is supposed to be surreal, but I get the feeling that all of this is happening somewhere out there in time.", he glanced at the starkly bright Morning Star above the sky. However, he could only feel its brightness, not the comfortable warmth it usually brought when one basked under its holistic grace. He didn't know if it was because he was in another dimension, or because the place itself was lifeless for anyone to consider anything to be comfortable.
"Is this Aludia itself? I thought I was going to be transferred to a different world…", he was slightly disappointed about it but didn't linger on for too long.
He opened his system panel again and re-read the challenge issued by the tower, 'The fate of my origins, huh?'
Jinmu's heart throbbed in both excitement and worry. His foster parents never knew anything about how he had come to be in this world. The only thing they remembered was that he was found on a small woven basket miraculously floating on top of a raging flood during a storm. If not for the presence of a protective spell covering him from danger, the basket would've capsized and the small baby drowned in distress.
'The ruins of knowledge… Don't tell me it's somewhere in the Ruinated Region. That place is a burial of most ancient civilizations.', Jinmu recalled some information he had gathered back when he was still in the Morning Star City, 'But why there? That place is far from where the village is, as what I have remembered…'
'No, there are countless rivers and streams in the Ruinated Region. It is also a land elevated higher than where the village is. There must be at least one river that leads from that place to where I was found.'
Jinmu shook his head and stopped contemplating the matter, 'What's the hurry? It's not like I don't have enough time to know all of this once I get there. The system specifically said that several factors will exist to either hinder or help me in my challenge. I guess being far away from my destination could be considered as one.'
He surveyed his surroundings and the Morning Star above. He waited for two hours to see which direction was north. Going south was a death trap, he was sure of it.
'The Morning Star comes over from the west to the east. As far as I have observed, the north is in that direction.'
The north was in the opposite direction of where the imp fell earlier. He followed his intuition and went from one place to another.
Although there were hostile creatures around, Jinmu didn't want too much trouble just for the sake of investigating where he was. These creatures would be uncooperative, so he sneakily maneuvered around them and remained hidden from their sight.
It took him a few hours to arrive in a peculiar part of the region, "This is…"
Further away was a huge crevice whose depth remained unknown to him. However, the purplish-brown land stopped right at the edge of the other half of the crevice where he was. On the other end was the normal brown soil though cracked and dry. There were countless bones of various species laying peacefully on that cracked patch of earth, chilling the back of Jinmu despite him already being desensitized to such a magnificent sight.
Some were small, while some looked like an entire mountain range. There were 'arching pillars' resembling the ribs and other bone structures of a once behemoth of a creature. No living creature dared to cross over it. Even the birds above followed the crevice on the sides and painstakingly avoided the dreading area itself.
"The Burial Warzone… Arkiles's Tomb should be nearby… Was the place I just came from the outskirts of Vahalla's Dominion?", Jinmu couldn't believe that he was put somewhere extremely dangerous at the start of the challenge. He glanced behind him again and felt confused. Why did the Tower put him so far away from the Ruinated Region?
"The Ruinated Region should be to the east or northeast. The crevice that separates the Burial Warzone and the outskirts of Vahalla's dominion extends from southwest to a northeastern angle, then to the east. If I follow this path, I should arrive at the Southern Seas region of the Morning Star Empire, and from there is a straight journey to the east, right where the Ruinated Region is located. Still..."
The distance was too far and might take him months to even arrive at the Southern Seas region by himself.
"Hopefully, I am on the eastern edge of this border. If not, very near it. I don't want to walk that far with the limited time I have."
This dimension's timeline was in place, and he didn't want to gamble on failing the challenge just because he took too much time wandering around.
"If things go to the worst, I might have to tame some horse or a large bird."
He took off and headed into the east, full of anticipation of this so-called challenge from the Tower of Ascension.
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