"Are you alright? That storm freaked me out, and I thought you would die. Why do you smell like burning Dragon Scales?" Luna asked the moment that they arrived back at the arena.
"Just a minor case of Tribulation Lightning. Nothing to worry about. It's all over, and I'm fully recovered. I hope it didn't interfere with the Sect too much." Cain consoled Luna, pulling her into his lap to pat her head and hug her.
"Interfere with the Sect? Not at all. Why would a thousand Deities in the sky and a massive Tribulation Lightning storm possibly interfere with the day-to-day activities of the mortal Disciples?" Penny asked, words dripping with sarcasm.
"Hey, I'm a demigod now, shouldn't there be some sort of reverence?" Cain asked.
"Did you know that most demigods in the legends were the results of beast-type divine beings mating with human women and producing half-god offspring?" Penny replied with a smirk.
"Well, you know how it is. Human women are popular everywhere they go. Just as popular as the ever-lewd elves." Cain shrugged, secretly happy that their attitude didn't change.
"Since when are Elves lewd? I thought that they were peaceful forest-loving kin to the fae folk?" Elder Mariel asked, confused.
"You haven't met many Elves, have you? Trust me. They're lewd in a way that most humans find hard to grasp. Especially the Forest Elves, that bunch of orgy-loving nudists." Cain chuckled.
"Not listening. They're gentle and sweet, innocent souls." The Elder told him, sticking her tongue out him.
The Disciples in the area seemed scandalized by this conversation, both because of the subject matter and because a pair of Divine Realm Cultivators were teasing each other like children in public.
"When were we going to start those trials for the initiates anyhow? I have this really good idea, and I don't want to forget it." Cain asked.
"Is it even possible for you to forget? When I ascended, my memory became flawless." Mariel asked.
"I don't know, but there are so many thoughts all at once, I am not sure I'll be able to find it again if I lose it. Think of it like having ten thousand visions of the present at the same time. There is so much information that I am having issues remembering what all of the other trains of thought were working on." Cain explained.
"Oh, that makes sense. Like the clarity, it takes a while to get used to. But we can start the trials right now if you want. The initiates are supposed to be ready to be called at any moment, and now that the storm is over, they should all be awake and about. It's not like anything within a hundred kilometers slept through that." She laughed.
Cain stopped for a moment and used his class ability as an Avatar of Nature to reconstruct the mountain top that had been destroyed by his tribulation back to its original temple design, keeping as much of the Divine Energy embedded in the stones as he could, turning it into a top-notch cultivation spot for Immortal Realm Cultivators looking for a breakthrough.
The Elders called the initiates to the courtyard while he was working, making a milling mass of nervous children in the training area, none of whom knew what was going on but who were all panicked by the Tribulation.
Cain flew over, reveling in the fact that as a Demigod, he no longer needed a sword or wings to do it. It would be much less suspicious to see him flying at this level of cultivation than when he used a spell to do it before.
It was kind of slow, though. His dragon form was way faster than this.
Cain landed atop the steps by the training area and addressed the crowd while surrounded by the Elders of the Crushing Mountain Sect.
"Welcome, everyone. I am Sect Master Cain of the Forbidden Treasures Sect. I have been invited to run your trial today thanks to a particular skill of mine. Each of you will be given an individual trial. You might pass, you might fail, and you might die, but if you do well enough, you will get a Divine Blessing or even a rare artifact as a reward.
I will begin the trials now. Best of luck to you all."
The Elders all looked at Cain in shock, thinking he needed some preparation time, but Cain opened a separate [Pocket Dimension] for each of them and then began the [Trial of the Gods] Human Gods edition.
The initiates disappeared into his spells, and the trials began, leaving Cain the only one who could see what was going on for a moment until he opened up the entrance to the Pocket Dimensions a little so that the others could see the events inside like watching a hundred small television screens at once.
Each test was very different but somewhat suited to the initiates' skills and talents, intended to push them to their very limits and see if they had the perseverance and attitude that would help them shine.
The better they were, the more they would gain from the experience, so it was actually a waste to use it on untested initiates, but the entertainment value as students who had only begun the very beginning stages of refining their bodies were faced with various life-threatening challenges was enough to make up for it.
They only had to wait for ten minutes before the first initiate was ejected after failing the test. He had been presented with a tunnel full of spiders and fled, crying out into the open areas, refusing to continue. That was enough for the trial to fail him and toss him back out to the very real judgment of the Elders who had been watching.
Anyone at the Divine Realm could watch all the screens at once, and even Luna, who was still in Cain's arms, could keep track of a half dozen at once, constantly scanning for people doing interesting things.
"Oh, I think we're close to another failure." One of the gods chuckled as a boy was seen curled up in the arms of a friendly innkeeper, forgetting his quest to obtain power in favor of a life of comfort. It was hard for Luna to follow, as the trials ran at a hundred times normal speed, but soon after, the boy was ejected with a confused look before sighing and dropping his head in shame.
The trials blocked his memory of the outside world, so he didn't know he was in a trial, only that he had an opportunity to gain great power and change the path of his destiny, and he had given it up.
Perhaps not a moral failing in any way, but not the sort of attitude that led to a powerful cultivator. He would have to be judged on talent and whether it was worthwhile to keep him on track and moving forward.
One by one, there were failures until four hours into the test, the first success appeared with a huge smile on their face and rune-inscribed armor on under their Sect Robes.
"Very impressive initiate. I see you were blessed with a great defensive treasure." The Elder from the Crushing Mountain Sect, who was in charge of the applications, greeted him with a smile.
"That was possibly the most intense experience of my life. I thought I was going to die every second for the last two days. But I got it, the treasure to change my destiny." The boy replied, then collapsed onto the ground, exhausted.
Just after him, a young girl appeared, checking her body for injuries, then sighed and smiled. She had been on a mission to find justice for an artifact destroyed by evil cultivators and now held the small round object in her hand.
The real object was created by a puppet inside the Pocket Dimension with Rune Crafting, but it would gather power for her at ten times the ambient density, greatly speeding her growth rate and enhancing every opportunity she got in the future.
Only about one in fifty actually passed the trials, but many of the initiates did quite well before failing on their quest, often through poor decision-making rather than a lack of determination or skill.
The last one out appeared empty-handed, but she was smiling in a way that suggested she had a huge secret. She had succeeded, and the Trial had granted her the Skill Book for [Crushing Blow], which had activated the [Wandering Cultivator System] as the System called itself, when Cain did something to activate it in this world.
She was now a human Berserker, which startled Cain, who didn't expect her to have picked such a brutal class instead of warrior or another balanced option since all basic classes other than mages could use the skill book. Even Clerics could use [Crushing Blow].
"I see you did very well, and your future is looking bright, so I will teach you one more skill as an extra reward," Cain told her and used [Modify] to grant her [Mana Transformation] so that she could absorb mana containing resources to grow herself.
"Indeed, you were most outstanding, despite taking the longest to complete the first round of your trial. In recognition, I will grant you the first training resource you will receive as a potential Disciple of the Crushing Mountain." The Elder announced, having seen that she had learned [Crushing Blow], a very suitable skill for a Crushing Mountain disciple.
He passed her a Spirit Rank Monster Core, a minor trinket at his level, but an incredible treasure that would keep most of the new Disciples ahead of their peers for the entire first year as they worked to absorb it.
She focused on it for a split second after seeing the System Notification that it could be absorbed to gain power, then promptly passed out as the flood of notifications hit her.
Cain caught her on the way down and placed the Disciple gently on the ground to recover. "Oops, I guess I should have warned her about the side effects of rapidly absorbing resources like that."
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