Chapter 608: One's power

I don't know what I expected to see upon entry to the room. Maybe some kind of great artefacts that would elevate the worthiness of this entire city in my eyes? Maybe some grand art that was bound to show me how little I knew about the true power of the immortals?

In the end, the testing room that I entered with Eve turned out to be nothing to be awed at. Its walls were made out of bare bricks, while the floor consisted of some kind of material that was pretty harsh to touch. But what mattered right now, was that no matter what was the intent of the builders and architects behind this place, it failed to achieve any positive impression on me.

As far as I could tell, this place had absolutely nothing interesting in it, consisting of the bare walls and a single target dummy erected on a pole in the middle of the room. Obviously, there was absolutely nothing that I could say against this place. As a testing room, it perfectly fitted its purpose, but given how this place was apparently the perfect centre of the world for those who reached its apex, this lacklustre and simplistic design left a lot to be asked for.

"Do you want me to go first?"

Smiling at Eve, I had a great time observing the changes on her face. I could say with a huge dose of certainty that this love of mine only now realised that realistically speaking, it would be her first chance to gauge the realm of her strength. While the several encounters we suffered allowed her to see her own strength in action, she had absolutely no way to estimate how far she was with this strength of her on the general scale.

"Nah, I will be okay."

Smiling in response to my inquiry, Eve threw her hair to the back before confidently approaching the dummy. There was no hesitation in her voice, moves or face. Yet, she didn't even stop while she approached the target.

Just before she would pass by it, her body tensed up. WIthout my visions ready, I could only guess what happened, but thanks to the connection we shared I could generally be on the spot with my feelings there.

Condensing all of her energy in her core, Eve lightly smacked the doll. At our current level, physical prowess was simply pointless. The power that we could govern in terms of either positive or negative world's energy outclassed by far anything that one would be capable to do with his body alone. The difference in scale was so big, that Eve apparently noticed it already, deciding not to shed her sweat over the attack.

Releasing the grasp over her power as the spin of her palm touched the doll, just the vibration of the world's fabric was enough to smash the target apart!

Eve's hand didn't meet with any resistance. As soon as her energy was released, everything that stood in the path of her fingers simply vanished from the existence, shattered to pieces too small for a human eye to notice.

Just this slap alone was enough to destroy the only target in the room. If that was the case, then how I was supposed to participate in the test? How we were supposed to participate in the part where we were supposed to use our dual cultivation to reach the peak of our power?

Soon enough, those question answered themselves by themselves.

As soon as Eve took two more steps that carried her slim body outside of the target's ring, a strange light condensed around the destroyed doll, quickly forming it back into its original shape. Noticing Eve's accomplished smile, I couldn't stop myself from smiling like an idiot. For some reason, while the entire dual cultivation thing didn't really apply to the two of us, I couldn't claim that the perspective of randomly seducing my love in the damned testing room of this place didn't seem appealing.

"Now it's your turn."

Turning back to face me properly, Eve basically jumped towards me in joy instead of walking normally. It seemed that my idea from earlier was correct. Even though we have yet to receive any results, just the perspective of learning her place in the world was far more than enough to improve my beloved's mood.

"Okay, okay… But you should better be ready for what's about to come next!"

Responding to Eve's mischief with one of my own, I poked her in the back before approaching the regenerated target dummy. But instead of replicating Eve's feat of smashing it to bits while passing, I actually stood still before my objective. Freezing for a moment, I realised that I was in quite a quandary in the current moment.

Eve, even with how much I helped, was still both direct and indirect child of this world. Her cultivation was always far close to how people with normal systems cultivated and how all the locals did so as well. That's why, when testing, she didn't really need to pay any mind to anything, as she was simply doing what she did ever since she entered the path of cultivation.

But my situation was entirely different. With the path of the growth of my strength varying greatly even from the most random paths of the other system users, I always preferred to look for the deeper truth of the world instead of practising juts like everyone else.

That's why, when it came for me to present my results…

I couldn't even be sure if this kind of test would acknowledge me as a proper immortal!

But that wasn't the most important point. Whether immortal or not, I had the strength to defend myself from anyone that would come my way. While it would be lovely to still get some time to grow and refine my abilities, I wasn't about to shy away from the realisation that I basically reached the apex of this world.

That's why, when I stood against this dummy target, I had two decisions to make.

First, how much of my strength am I willing to reveal?

While it wouldn't be a problem to be acknowledged as not-immortal, it would surely be far more efficient to be known as one. Yet, what was the limit of strength that I was supposed to use without sabotaging my efforts to appear as immortal?

As for the other decision, it was actually dependant off the results from the first one.

How much I was willing to invest myself in this world?

With the moment of reaching the absolute pinnacle of the strength that one could obtain in this world, I also neared the point where I would understand the underlying truth of its operations. Everything that happened to me has put me on this path of independence. After watching entire worlds being born only to end up swallowed by their local star in its explosion to the giant star, I wasn't willing to simply accept the will of the so-called gods and follow the path they set for everyone. But if not this, then what I was supposed to do next?

The answer to those questions appeared as suddenly, as it was unexpected. In just a single moment, I understood. There wasn't any deeper meaning in that. At this random point, I just saw the path of my future so clearly, that I couldn't help but get scared by it. But as quickly as this single moment passed, everything about the future disappeared from my life.

Everything but this one choice that remained hanging in my hands.

Gently lowering my hands, I rested the palm of my right hand on the dummy. Instead of smashing, smacking or even prickling the target… I just allowed the darkness of the outer world to surface through my palm.

Just by recalling the feeling of being swallowed by the endless void, I somehow regained the connection to the universe I made on accident whilst there. And just like that, by exposing the doll to the drifting forces of entropy and magic, clashing and annihilating each other, in just a fraction of a second, there was absolutely nothing even for the light to regenerate.

"CUT!"

My internal scream seemed to find its way through my mouth to the outside world. With this slight murmur that escaped my lips, I decisively cut the connection with the outside universe, fearing not only for this entire place collapsing but also for someone too strong for me to handle or even the gods themselves to notice that I possessed a power that no human should ever be privy to!"