Chapter 446 - Invisible Ancient Fortress

Stepping onto the bridge, the first course of action Virus took was to get a detailed look at the so-called bridge.

In fact, what everyone was calling the Bridge to Heaven was not a bridge, rather, it was only an extremely long root of a certain tree that had grown on the other side beside the Invisible Ancient Fortress.

Other than the living root bridge itself, the entire surrounding of the Invisible Ancient Fortress was covered in a deep chasm. A dark chasm, so deep that one could not perceive the end of!

Virus could not even imagine what would be the fate of someone who lost his balance and fell into the abyss of darkness!

Fortunately, cultivators had an extremely well center of gravity. Thus, previously, since the genius cultivators all had their badges and nothing was going to block their paths, they simply maintained their center of gravity and passed the bridge as fast as lightning!

However, the more there were disturbances on the way, the more one would lose their balance and be unable to maintain their center of gravity and thus the danger of falling into the gorge of darkness!

Subsequently, gradually taking his second, third, and fourth stride, Virus advanced even further on the root toward the other side.

By now, whence he came, at the entrance, the group of barbarians was shouting and cursing at Virus, but no matter how much they cursed, apparently, they did not dare to put a single step onto the root itself!

Since he had not felt a single thing until now, Virus looked back and mocked, “Huh, of course, you bunch of pussies wouldn’t dare follow me here! You barbarians are all useless brawns who can do nothing but talk! Anyway, see you soon.” With that, Virus no longer bothered to be distracted by their enraged reactions and instead focused all his attention on the path ahead.

On the other side, listening to everything Virus had said, the bald barbarian was grinding his teeth so hard that its noise could be heard by the others beside him.

Sqeaky~

As Virus took his tenth step, suddenly, he started to feel slightly dizzy!

‘Ah, so it makes you dizzy, easy peasy!’ 

Afterward, each step Virus took, the worse the sensation of dizziness became. At first, he was totally fine, but the more steps he took ahead, the worse it became!

‘Ah… I’m slowly losing my center of gravity… it looks like I need to activate the hyper processing state.’ As he concluded that, Virus did not hesitate to go into a rather fast speed of processing and thinking. Of course, it was not fast enough to freeze time itself entirely as it was just enough to perceive the ongoing reality and process the dizziness bit by bit so he would not lose his balance.

But even then, as he took more steps forward, the dizziness continued to get worse, forcing Virus to quicken his processing to an even higher level!

At this point, Virus was confident that no human being would be able to even come close to tolerating this level of dizziness and the only reason he could still endure it and not fall off was that his mind was much more advanced than a mere human being.

Anyhow, he took one step after another while his mind proceeded to break down every ‘moment’ into tens of thousands while the movement of every single muscle fiber was accounted for.

With each surge in the feeling of wobbliness, Virus continued to put more of his brain capabilities in order to maintain his steadiness on the root.

And at last, when he took his hundredth footstep, all sensation of wooziness was gone all at once, as if it never existed, to begin with.

Looking at the path ahead, one might assume that Virus had reached the end of the bridge, but unfortunately, Virus noticed that he had only trod one-tenth of the root as he still had a long way before arriving at the heaven on the other side!

‘Is there more to come?’ After a brief deliberation, Virus didn’t delay as he moved forward once again.

Brrr~

Yet, with new advances, Virus soon could feel and perceive his entire body getting so cold and blue that at some point, ice began to cover various parts all over his body!

And the more he progressed forward, the more fierce the chilliness and ice became. Therefore, the pain of coldness began to invade and penetrate Virus’ body with each step.

By the time he was at his one-hundred-ninetieth step, Virus could barely breathe as his lungs felt as if they had been frozen still.

And yet, although Virus was feeling the pain and cold just as much as anyone else in his position would’ve felt, he proceeded with his advancement ahead with no stops whatsoever. 

Despite feeling all the affliction just like any other person would, there was one tiny difference between Virus and the rest that resulted in him achieving an entirely different outcome! That one distinction was the fact that Virus’ level of tolerance was higher to a terrifying extent!

So, gritting his teeth, even if he could not breathe, Virus endured and endured quietly until finally, all sensation of coldness and ice vanished just at the snap of a finger!

PHEEWWW~

Taking a deep breath, Virus paused momentarily, wanting to regain his peak condition and prepare himself for what’s to come next.

In the meantime, to see how much he had progressed, he threw a quick glance to the back.

However, the moment he turned his head around, he could see some barbarians had just stepped onto the entrance of the living root bridge.

On the other side, seeing Virus’ advances, the bald barbarian gritted his teeth as he commanded, “Let’s go! If he can do it, so can we!”

Soon, they were already on their twentieth step as they still successfully maintained their balance.

“Hahaha, see! We can do it t-” Woefully, before he could even finish, two of the barbarian lackeys dropped to the chasm, never to be seen again.

“…”

Seeing that scene, the morale that had been building up within the heart of the barbarians faded away just like a spark that had been killed. Now they only wanted to return to the waiting area.

“We will not go back! Persist through!” Unluckily for the lackeys though, it seemed the bald barbarian’s hatred for Virus was too deep as he did not allow anyone to back off!

Subsequently, the lackeys persisted forward, but by the time they had advanced ten more steps, three more had fallen deep into the chasm. The loss of five lackeys instantly hit the bald barbarian hard as he now felt terrified of what he was going to say to Knightgruella when he came back!

“Return! Return! We’re going back! We’ll just watch the bastard give up the trial of Bridge to Heaven and wait for him at the entrance! There is simply no way could succeed!” Roaring that command, the bald barbarian rushed everyone back.

‘I’ll fucking turn that motherfucker into a mincemeat when he’s back!’

Meanwhile, watching everything that had occurred in amusement, Virus couldn’t help but chuckle. “Hahaha, those idiots.”

No longer paying them any heed afterward, Virus took another step toward the incoming test!

Fwish!

This time, slowly but surely, tongues of flames began to cover all over Virus’s body, burning his entire body just like a barbecue!

“Argh…” At first, Virus was surprised to see his whole physique on fire. Even though some might assume the trial to be an illusion or fake, Virus knew that was not the case.

Each trial was as real as it could get!

When his body was covered in ice, his internal organs, skin, flesh, etc. all were truly damaged as he went through a near-death experience. The only good aspect was that when the trials ended, a strange type of energy would enter his body from the root which would magically heal all the damage!

All one had to do was to persist and live through the trials, when one reached the ending point, it will be as if the damage was never there, despite that not being the case.

This time, however, the trial was even more horrifying since the sensation of your whole skin and flesh burning while the smell of your meat spread everywhere was something else!

On top of everything, Virus could not make any abrupt movements or struggle around trying to put the fire off. All he could do was maintain his balance and move forward in a tranquil state!

As he came close to the finishing line, Virus’ skin was no more as the flame intensified to an unimaginable degree!

Virus was certain that if it was anyone else in his place, someone that had not achieved the True Sixth Level of Corporeal Tempering, that person would be long dead!

The only reason why Virus could live to this point was that in addition to gathering his internal energy all around his pathways and body, his Ethereal Metamorphosis state was also aiding him in enduring and being harder to burn to death!

While gritting his teeth, Virus took one more step forward when abruptly, all the flames were put out as the odd energy invaded from his legs to throughout his body, quickly healing all the burned flesh and skin to its original state.

“Phew…” releasing a sigh of relief, even Virus had to be thankful that the agony was at last over!

Moving forward, there were many other trials such as the trial of swords where swords were darted into his body from all directions which he resisted somewhat by activating the dark scales of his ring, or the trial of pain where a curse of pain and affliction was put on his physique!

At this point, Virus could guarantee that unless it was an ancient and old monster that had lived through ages going through every kind of agony, affliction, and trials in life, or someone like him, it would be absolutely impossible to cross this unimaginable bridge!

Nonetheless, as he stepped to the last part of the root, all the trials were over! 

In the meantime, at the entrance of the Bridge to Heaven, the eyeballs of nearly everyone was about to pop out of their skulls!

“H-he really succeeded!” The bald barbarian uttered in absolute disbelief.

Now, not only had Virus caught the attention of the barbarians but even the other groups were looking at Virus’ figure at the far distance in amazement!

The cloaked people, the monstrous beasts, the barbarians, and academicians, it didn’t matter who, all of them were gaping at the sight in front of them as they believed some kind of implausible record had just been achieved by someone!

Someone totally unknown at that!

“Yes!” Exclaiming in happiness, Virus was just about to get off the damned root when abruptly, that strange energy once again traveled from the root to his legs as it quickly rushed to his seventh and eighth single pathways as it began to fuse the separated pair of pathways into a single unity at a startling pace!

20%… 56%… 89%

This time, as if it was the most natural occurrence in the world, the root energy was swiftly healing his fourth pair of broken pathways, mending and connecting them together in the most natural way they were supposed to be! 

In the previous tests, all the energy was concentrated on healing the damage all over his body, but this time, since the final trial was more of a mental one than a physical one, the root seemed to focus it all on his cultivation as it was helping him progress to the next level!

100%!

As the synthesis and the healing process was over, Virus broke through to the next level while Origin also unlocked his sixteenth single pathway!

The Fifth Level of Liberation, achieved!

‘Wow, that makes me think, does this mean from the second trial onwards since the odd energy appeared, in case my body had not been damaged, would I have been able to breakthrough by an entire level every time I succeeded one of the trials?’ Inadvertently, this notion flickered through Virus’ mind as he looked back at the various parts of the root. “I would be at least at the ninth level of Liberation if that had happened, damn.”

‘But, how strong do your body and mind need to be in order to avoid all harm in the trials?’ This thought sent an unconscious shiver down Virus’ spine.

Following that, the root once again transmitted an even more peculiar type of energy right into Virus’ body. Alas, it wasn’t meant to assist him breakthrough this time as it merely trod through his body before finally pausing when it reached the back of his left palm!

Next, the energy began to transform and engrave itself to the back of Virus’ palm in the form of a tattoo as it turned itself into the mark or tattoo of a tree!

“HAHAHA!” Out of nowhere, extremely jovial, Virus started laughing like a maniac while gazing at the mark on his hand. Not only had he succeeded in passing the trial of the Bridge to Heaven which had been considered an impossible feat prior to today, but he had also even broken through to the fifth level of Liberation in a single go!

“Now, shall we enter this treasure trove?” Gazing upon the humongous castle before him, Virus declared, looking forward to the journey ahead of him!