"I'm telling you, I'm not going to take this shitty pill!"
Ken snapped when he saw the first reward. It was the same eighth-grade Bloodlust Boost Pill he was offered last time, but its price was lowered to 80,000 as if the voice was trying to haggle with him.
"BUT IT'S A GREAT FIND! HOW CAN YOU REFUSE TO TAKE AN EIGHTH-GRADE PILL?"
"Because I don't need it and because it's useless to me. Stop offering it to me."
Ken dismissed the voice's frustration and continued to look at the next prize. He wasn't interested in increasing his bloodlust with artificial ways when he had a convenient way of simply reliving his past kills.
Looking at the next prize, he found an eighth-grade sword, which he also refused to take since it wasn't flexible.
"Why do you keep offering me lousy prizes?" Ken complained out loud to the fuming voice. The latter didn't find the eighth-grade treasures 'lousy'.
The last prize, however, was something that caught Ken's eye. It was a volume from a book about luck, "Mysteries of Luck 2".
He already had the first volume from the Labyrinth of Blood, and he knew each volume had only 10 copies across the secret realm. Ken purchased the second volume for another 80,000 BP and stored it in his storage ring.
'Time to rest.'
Ken hadn't slept for a long time, and he was getting tired from the continuous strain on his body. He drew a fifth-rank formation in the room and went to sleep. As a resting room, there were no restrictions in it, and he could act freely.
Summoning a bed and a pillow from his storage ring, he placed them on the ground and drifted into a deep sleep after removing his mask. To his dismay, he wasn't given a chance to get a full night's sleep, or at least 8 hours of sleep since the sky still wasn't dark enough to be considered as night.
Three hours after he fell asleep, he got a wake-up call as the door from the previous challenge opened, and 3 people limped inside. The formation woke him up as soon as they entered, but to his frustration, the room destroyed the formations automatically to allow them to enter the resting room safely.
They entered, seeing the beautiful sleepy child getting up from bed in his sleeping robes without his white mask on.
"Congratulations on clearing the Challenge of Reflexes, Potential Inheritors. You may now check the prizes."
The voice, seemingly oblivious to their stares, spoke as it normally would when one passes a challenge and gets to the prizes room.
An awkward silence controlled the room as the three were holding their swords. One was the male high Nascent Soul cultivator while the other two were a female and a male intermediate Nascent Soul cultivators. Evidently, the other 8 didn't survive.
"You are the one with the white mask, aren't you?"
The stronger cultivator opened his mouth eventually. Ken was still wearing his sleeping robes, but he already stored back his bed and pillow in his ring.
"I am, what about it?"
"We don't have to fight; we already passed the challenge."
The man said and the other two nodded. The three of them tried to tackle each other during their race in the corridor a few minutes ago, and one of the intermediate cultivators even died because of it, but now that mess was behind them.
Despite being able to use techniques now, they saw Ken's expertise earlier, and they also knew that a child from the Divine Sword Sect slaughtered 10,000 disciples from the Four Seasons Sect. Making a simple connection in their minds, they chose not to mess with the unknown.
----------
A few hours later, Ken got up from his bed. He created a small formation just to be safe and went back to sleep when the other three agreed not to fight with him, and now he finally regained his vigor and energy to advance to the next challenge. As he got up, he noticed that the other two already left the resting room.
'Time to go to the next challenge.'
He soon passed through the door of the resting room, entering the next challenge directly.
"Young Inheritor, your token allows you to skip one trial to reach the destination. You will be moved directly to the third challenge now."
Ken was relocated to a new room, a true dojo. He was in a spacious room with a tall ceiling. There were a few wooden pillars that held the building together, some of them having extra devices on them for training while others had calligraphy and drawings depicting two cultivators fighting.
'Unity of Martial Value'
He read one of the calligraphies on the wall. Before he could immerse in the view any further, the voice spoke again.
"Welcome to the Challenge of Might. You have to fight against other potential inheritors and win, using your weapon mastery only."
Ken soon saw a man materializing in front of him, most likely a result of an illusion formation or something else he still didn't know how to create.
Ken instantly dashed toward the man and attacked. Using his sword's elasticity, he finished the battle in a single strike.
"You've won the first round. The second fight beings in 5 minutes."
Ken kept fighting his opponents one after another, and whenever he killed one, they would dissipate into the air and disappear. The fights turned harder every round, but until the seventh match, he still didn't have to exact much effort to win.
*Cling!*
The sounds of metal hitting metal resounded in the room as Ken exchanged blows with the ninth opponent.
Ken and his opponent locked eyes, ready for the clash. His flexible sword arced through the air with blinding speed, while the man gripped his massive greatsword, poised for a one-hit kill.
Ken darted forward, his blade a blur as he aimed for his opponent's side. With a thunderous exchange, the greatsword intercepted the strike, forcing Ken to twist and somersault away to avoid a counterattack.
They circled each other, each blow evoking a metallic symphony. Ken twisted and weaved, his agile movements narrowly evading the powerful swings of the greatsword and allowing him to strike back. He launched a rapid flurry of strikes, forcing his opponent into a defensive stance.
The greatsword wielder tried to retaliate with a brutal overhead swing, but Ken was too fast for him. When the greatsword was halfway through, the agile child already shifted his position and delivered a kick to the man's calf as his sword escorted the greatsword, preventing it from changing its course.
The opponent used the greatsword to halt his fall, but with his weapon down, he couldn't match Ken's superior speed. Ken executed him with a swift swing of his sword, ending the round.
"You've won the ninth round. The final fight will begin in 5 minutes."
Ken sighed in relief hearing that it was the final round; he hoped he wouldn't have to fight there for too long.
The next battle caught him unprepared. In front of him, stood a young child, holding a flexible sword in his hand.
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