Chapter 1110: Fight the Puppet

Five months later, Alex had finished his gruesome training. To speed up the process, he created a Simulation Room Array inside the test building as he went back and forth between reality and this array to practice. The latter allowed him to continuously supply his Spiritual Energy while the former let him test whether what he practiced was right or not. 

Meanwhile, the puppet didn't move a single time during his training, waiting for him to challenge the puppet.

Alex also didn't want to bother it either, so he continued his practice while ignoring this puppet. 

Finally, after a long five months of training, Alex was currently standing in front of the puppet, raising his fighting stance. The puppet also did the same and prepared for Alex's attack. "The test will start when you attack me once."

Alex contemplated for a moment to check whether he was prepared enough or not. After getting his resolve, Alex leaped toward the puppet while waving his hand from the side. 

A torrential wave of Space Energy enveloped his hand as it flew toward the puppet.

Boom. 

An explosion occurred as the dust kicked up, hiding the puppet. It should be able to blow away the puppet if he hit him, but it seemed to have no effect against that puppet. 

When the smoke dispersed, he could see that the puppet erected a barrier with the Space Element. It was a pink translucent barrier that was only visible for a Space Element user. 

After this attack, the puppet finally made its move by punching Alex's face. 

Since Alex had mastered all the four techniques, he solidified the Space Energy in front of him to create the same barrier as the one the puppet used earlier, albeit it had no effect. 

The puppet's fist turned out to be covered with concentrated Space Energy, bending the Space Shield he created earlier and punched him. That punch managed to blow him away, despite not touching him like how the puppet showed it for the first time. 

Alex was blown away and rolled a few times on the ground before he used his hand to stop the momentum and rise from the floor. 

The puppet didn't allow him to have time to recover, so it leaped forward and created a dragon above his head, flying faster than him and hitting Alex. 

But Alex resisted that attack by creating a giant translucent palm. It grasped the dragon's neck and snapped it until the dragon disappeared. He then returned the same attack to him. 

Alex's dragon flew toward the puppet from the front instead of above and tried to swallow the puppet. As if it was out of spite, the puppet used the same giant palm to grab the dragon. 

Suddenly, Alex made another move that seemed to be a special thing that he had never done before. No, he never thought of it until he learned it on the third test. 

He realized that when two people with the same cultivation level fight, the possibility of one of them winning were low unless someone used a trick or two to overturn the situation. Hence, the third test opened the door of another possibility for Alex. 

Another palm appeared as it tried to stop that palm from the puppet. However, the latter managed to react and created another hand to stop Alex, resulting in two hands clashing each other while the other hand grasped the dragon's neck. 

It was at this moment, Alex showed his growth in the third test as another dragon emerged from the dragon body, flying toward the puppet. 

The latter had no choice other than to create another barrier to stop the smaller dragon's advance but to no avail. The dragon was too powerful and shattered the barrier with its sharp teeth, resulting in the puppet releasing the first dragon to slap the smaller one. 

It turned out that Alex just faked a fake. The real attack was the first dragon all along. And without any defense, the dragon tried to swallow the puppet before it abandoned the palm and created a series of barriers to block the dragon's advance. 

Alex secretly sneaked up on it and waited until the dragon destroyed the barriers before he emerged from the shadow and ripped the puppet's arm. 

"Huft." Alex took a deep breath and muttered, "One arm. I'm thankful for the third test since I can understand the flow of battle better. It seems I really need to rely on tricks this time since obviously, the puppet is stronger than me in terms of controlling the element."

After getting enough time to think, Alex turned around as the puppet decided to attack him again. 

"…" Alex looked left and right to see whether he could take advantage of something but ended up fighting the puppet in hand to hand combat. 

The fight became a brawl in an instant as Alex gradually got the upper hand due to his insane amount of fighting experience. Unfortunately, he didn't want to rely too much on this since the main purpose of this test was Space Element. Even though their hands were covered in Space Element, Alex thought it wasn't enough. 

He summoned a dragon again, heading straight to the puppet.

The same as the previous move, the puppet used the giant palm to grasp the dragon.

Alex took that chance to slip past the barrier and threw a punch to which the puppet dodged it.

Suddenly, the puppet's hand was flying to the air as if it were cut by something. 

Alex smiled and raised his hand. It turned out that Alex solidified the Space Element into a scythe and extended his fist to the side, allowing him to cut the puppet's hand. 

This was Alex's second trick. Obviously, the puppet wasn't that easy to deal with, so he prepared a few more tricks in advance on how to destroy the puppet. 

"!!!" When he was about to move, he was shocked when he saw the puppet solidified the space element and turned it into the same hands that Alex destroyed. It put those hands and raised its fighting stance again. 

"Seriously?" Alex muttered. The Space Element the puppet had was a little bit stronger, so Alex wasn't confident in destroying that hand unless he hit the puppet's body instead.

The puppet charged at him before Alex thought of something, but this was the trick. Alex summoned a sword and a spear made of Space Element and swung them at the same time.

"Sorry, but I don't have a choice." Alex sighed and decided to break that rule. He knew that it wasn't satisfying, but his main ability relied on this, so as long as he didn't Sword Intent and the likes, he should be fine. 

The puppet grabbed both weapons simultaneously.

Alex smirked as he played another trick. He let go of the sword and clenched his fist as another torrential wave of Space Element formed above the puppet. 

It hit the puppet's head and pinned him on the ground.

Feeling it wasn't enough, Alex stomped the puppet's head and created a crater. 

As if it felt disrespect from Alex, it grabbed Alex's foot and threw him to the wall. 

Bang. 

Alex hurriedly came out of the wall and raised his fighting stance. The puppet went crazy as it suddenly stomped the ground, turning the whole floor into a crater.

"Oi, oi. Is this really a puppet?" Alex's curiosity grew. He wondered what kind of fight he would have against a puppet master. He also never met a necromancer, making him think whether they could create an army by themselves. 

If they could, he might ask them to join and create an additional army to fight against that beast, but it was for later. 

He needed to destroy this puppet first before he had the time to worry about another thing. 

The puppet leaped toward Alex and punched him. Alex blocked the punch with his sword before counterattacking with his spear. The puppet stopped it too and planned to summon a dragon above its head. 

Alex went one step ahead and kicked the puppet's foot. This shouldn't be enough to destroy it, but it turned out that Alex's created a blade on his foot, slicing through the puppet's barrier and cutting its foot. 

Losing its balance, the puppet tripped to the side, giving a big opportunity to exploit.

Alex sent another kick without hesitation to knock it to the ground before he used the same strength as the puppet to stomp his head, resulting in him destroying that puppet. 

"Huft." Alex let out a sigh of relief. "To think fighting is this taxing. Although it's nice to see that trick can play a big part in a fight, it's really taxing mentally since I need to come up with something new every time. Maybe I can do it once in a while to turn around the situation, but that's it.

"Nonetheless, I'm glad to face all the tests here." Alex smiled and saw the door was opened. 

AI suddenly entered the building and handed Alex the key. "This is the fourth key. You just need one more to open the greatest vault in the world." 

"…" Alex didn't know why the Dungeon God was so confident, but considering this was a vault inside a black hole, he could somehow understand the arrogance. "It's indeed a one of a kind vault."

"Anyway, I have used less than one year to pass the two stages. It's significant, but I have prepared enough for it since the mind test is my specialty while controlling the Space Element has been taught in the second test. This one is just a slightly advanced one.

"Adding the six months I've spent refining the Void Flower, I think I still have one and half years in this place before the competition starts." Alex thought for a moment and decided. "I'm going to leave first." 

He was scared that something happened to Eulja, so he wanted to check it by calling Lin Xingzhi. 

Alex used the key he just got and left the black hole.

"Xingzhi."

[Yes? You're done?]

"Yep. I have finished four tests. I'm going to the last one, so I want to check the condition first, considering we are in a bad situation." 

[Don't worry. Eulja is still safe for the time being. Although they have been suppressing us, we can hold on and continue with our original plan. In fact, I'm planning to use the competition to trigger them.]

"Hmm. That's a good time. We can tell our allies too, so they are prepared to move at that time."

[Exactly.]

"Alright. How about the investigation?"

[Still no lead.]

"I see." Alex contemplated for a moment. "At least, we have confirmed the existence of the snake which has gone extinct, the bear, and the bat. There is a rumor about the phoenix from the God Beasts, but we don't know where they are."

[Yes. I'm working on what we can find first, so our main priority is the bear and the bat.]

"Sure. I don't want to bite more than I can chew, so we should focus on one rather than wasting our time with five." Alex nodded with a serious expression. "That's right. How about the competition?"

[There are already tens of thousands of participants. Korzan is trying to see how they can chip down this number to a thousand before fighting one on one.]

"Ah, you can handle that yourself."

[Though he doesn't understand why you want them to limit their strength to match their opponent.]

"Pfft. Really? He doesn't understand? How about you?"

[Somehow. It's related to talent.]

"Nah, I'm just searching for someone like me." Alex shrugged.

[Now I understand.]

"Right." Alex laughed. "Tell him the reason and he will understand why I'm doing this."

[Yep, will do. Are you going back now?]

"Yes. I shouldn't waste more time since I can go back faster the sooner I start."

[Good luck. I will be waiting for you.]

"Alright." Alex then turned around and leaped toward the black hole. "See you later."