Arthur's wait didn't exceed five minutes before the voice came again:
"The two sides did poorly in the test. The dragonair managed to suppress and defeat the ancient monster left by us here, which makes him higher in the final evaluation. Still this isn't enough to be a victor."
The words of this mysterious being started Arthur and made him frown. "All these are not enough?" he muttered.
"A second and final round is going to start now. The duration is also one week. This time make sure to completely kill your enemy, or else the dragonair will be the final winner."
Arthur felt some bias towards the monsters here from that being, yet he couldn't refute this arrangement. After all he needed more time here to complete his training.
"One week is good, but does this mean I'll be under constant pressure from those monsters?" he thought before the sound came again:
"You have five minute to prepare. Good luck."
Arthur sighed as he glanced all around. "Are there more monsters inside my garden?" he asked.
"Ding! There are much more than those appeared here yet," the system answered, "Ding! Do you want me to summon more?"
"Summon every single monster here," Arthur nodded, "this isn't about upgrading the monsters, we need to crush those enemies to secure the win."
"Ding! You're already winning, you should defend."
"Defense is for weaklings," the golden dragon said, "Offense is the proper action now."
"Just summon monsters, and keep absorbing more into my garden."
"Ding! As you wish."
Arthur then sat on the hill while adding, "I'll start training now. Prepare the strongest monsters to stand as my dharma protectors."
"Ding! Will do that, don't worry."
Arthur then closed his eyes and started regulating his breathing. His aim now was to rise in bases until he completely reached the pinnacle of the core formation stage.
He wasn't deluded by desire, as he knew how hard it was to break through this base to the nascent soul base.
His three cores were advancing like his past life, each core was attaching itself with more meridians, creating a giant network around it, while it kept strengthening itself and condensing into smaller and purer form.
Despite this was the general theory, having three highly ranked cores like these together put more pressure on him. The process of upgrading each core seemed to take longer, as each core had to synchronize itself with the other two.
"I have to advance the three at the same time," he finally reached that conclusion after half a day. During this time, he managed to breakthrough three more bases, approaching the tenth base.
Yet he knew this was far from over. According to his observation so far, he had over thirty bases ahead to breakthrough if he kept doing things cautiously like this; upgrading one core at a time.
"I need to be bold," he encouraged himself and the next thing he did wasn't to separate the three cores from each other and deal with each as a single entity.
Instead he started to deal with the three combined as one big core. This change in his approach started to make his meridians unsettled, yet he didn't hesitate in pushing forward, strengthening the mega core of his and hoping his meridians would suffice.
"The energy absorbed can satisfy the needs of this core, but my meridians are weak," after an hour of experimenting, he managed to break through three more bases. Yet he wasn't that happy.
Rapid ascension in bases didn't come without any cost. His meridians were now severely stressed and if he pushed any further, they might tear apart.
"I need to take care of the meridians first," this was the only solution he had. "To do that, I need to circulate my energy for a long time, focusing on strengthening them as much as I can."
He sighed, as this process would take more time for him.
"Ding! The garden advises you to start combining the two energies together," the system said, "Ding! This will help in solving your current problem according to its words."
Arthur was surprised at first before he realized how logic this was. "If I need to circulate my energy to strengthen the meridians then doing this while forming this higher energy form seems much better."
He stood up and the next moment he started to circulate his dragonair's energy. "I hope the backlash won't be strong," he prayed while he watched the two energies competing against each other the next instant.
Yet at some point, the two energies were finally moving along nicely. The small ball pearl of energy inside his old dantian started to grow, slow yet it was growing.
Then the backlash occurred, even his body ached and he had a long trail of blood from the corner of his mouth. "Damn! Still have to suffer this damage," he cursed as he examined his body, assessing the damage.
"Many organs were hit, but… good," he nodded in content when he noticed his meridians got some benefits from this short clash with his dragonair's energy.
He took out a healing pill before he started to repeat the process again. Each time his body would be left in agony and suffering multiple injuries, yet he wasn't that sad anymore.
After a couple of hours he sat again, closed his eyes, and regulated his breaths. "Time to raise more bases," he muttered before he started to hit the next base.
His meridians sustained his rise in five more bases, then he had to stop. He kept repeating this process for the rest of the day, and when the next day started, he had reached base twenty already.
The pearl inside his old dnatian grew slightly, but not enough for his needs. "Sigh, this is taking much longer than expected," he was frustrated as this was the farthest he could reach with his current weak levels of spiritual energy.
"How long do I still have?" Arthur asked.
"Ding! It says you have until the end of the trial," the system suddenly said.
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