43 Continuing the Trials

Van reappeared inside of the trial. He pulled out a contraption inside of his sack and inserted a little bit of Qi into it. The time appeared inside of his mind, and an expression of shock appeared on his face. A mere hour had passed during the time that he had spent in the Celestial Heavens.

A look of contemplation appeared on his face as he thought of all the possible explanations for the unusual passage of time. He shrugged inwardly and stood up, determined to get the trial over with as fast as possible.

Meanwhile, outside of the Illusory Pagoda, all of the contestants had gathered. About a quarter of the contestants had haggard, but satisfied looks upon their faces. They had barely passed the promotion test and were now qualified for the 3rd Floor with their new Iron ranked status. The contestants waited in anticipation for the Examiner from before to appear. The Announcer stood in front of them, nervous as he stood in front of the many agitated cultivators. His status wasn't anything major and the sect wouldn't care much for his mistreatment.

In this crowd, there were some with rather acknowledgeable identities that would cause the sect to look the other way even in the situation of his death. He tried his best to appease the crowd, but they had had enough.

"Come on! We've been waiting for almost an hour now! Just let us go!"

One of the contestants that had failed her test was annoyed. She had thought that they would only wait for a short time before the ones that had passed were given their glory in front of all. She had yielded to the rules of the sect, but when she realized that it would take much longer, she decided to speak up.

The Announcer looked towards the Examiner that was in the hidden room for help. She sighed and nodded her head. The Announcer breathed in relief and motioned for those who had failed to pass to leave.

Now, they were left with the few that had passed. They stood impatiently as they waited for the Announcer to announce the wrapping up of the trials and the bestowing of the Iron ranked medallions.

"Come on! Practically everyone is done, who cares about one contestant that will barely be able to pass it!"

One of the rich cultivators with a good background spoke up. With someone taking the lead, the others spoke their agreement. The Announcer started to sweat profusely. He seemed to have been taken out of the pan and tossed into the fire (solved one difficult situation only to be put into an even worse one).

He tried to assuage the crowd, but that just seemed to rouse their anger even more. As the cultivators seemed ready to burn the Announcer to ashes with their gazes and soon to be their actions, the Examiner emerged from her domain. Her provocative body once again drew the gazes of many of both genders with only one that was hostile. She drifted down onto the stage and spoke to the crowd.

"Could the honorable patient disciples wait another few minutes for the last contestant? He is on the last hurdle of the test and will pass it any minute now."

With the Examiner herself now speaking up, the crowd withdrew their fury and grudgingly continued to wait.

Van was assaulted by the 5 elements that were contained in his trial. They were embodied in the form of a Cyclone Flood Dragon, a Scarlet Flaming Tiger, a Deathly Black Phoenix, a Heavenly Angel-like Figure, and an Earth Tortoise. Van had circled them and with a little bit of pressure, caused the Angel to fight with the Phoenix and the Scarlet Flaming Tiger to confront the Earth Tortoise. Van himself took on the Cyclone Flood Dragon.

The Cyclone Flood Dragon roared in defiance as Van got another hit on it. It dove forward at Van's ant-like figure, trying to get a bite out of Van. Van dodged to the right and swung his Divine Jade Dragon saber at the Cyclone Flood Dragon. Luckily, with the saber's unusual sharpness and Van's barely acceptable strength, the blade could barely make it past the scales and caused a superficial wound to appear on the side of its body. The Cyclone Flood Dragon roared in pain and circled around to try to get at Van once more.

Van tried to maintain a close distance so that he could avoid the Cyclone Flood Dragon's tornado breath. This cycle of dodge continued on as the other four beasts continued to beat each other up. Eventually, the FLood Dragon got out of range and prepared its tornado breath. Van started to panic inwardly but kept a calm expression. He dashed forward at the Cyclone Flood Dragon in hopes that he would be able to close the distance in time.

To his dismay, the Flood Dragon opened its mouth and a large Cyclone swallowed Van up. Van created a wall of his now Small Perfection Saber Intent (I am going to add a section about the stages for sword intent and those of the like in auxiliary chapters for the ones that want to know the details). The Cyclone hit the wall of Saber intent not too long after. Van gritted his teeth and held his saber. With is unbreakable will, he pushed forward and broke the cyclone. He let out a loud roar of defiance and started to dash at the Flood Dragon once again. He needed to temper himself so he limited his cultivation to what it was registered at in the beginning. Otherwise, he would have passed this test with much ease.

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Van held his saber in front of himself and extended his saber intent into a larger blade of about 10 times larger than he had attempted before he entered the Small Perfection realm. Sweat could be seen clearly forming on his forehead as Van used all of his available mental capacity to hold it. With a shout, he let the saber intent out and directed it towards the neck of the flood dragon. In the time it would take for a spark to fly, the saber intent landed on the Cyclone Flood Dragon and separated the head from the rest of its body. Blood squirted out of the stump and Van fell on one knee, breathing heavily. The other beasts stopped their fighting, staring at the green-robed Van, shocked.