Overcoming The Beast

After thinking it through Leon was sure that they should rest and be better off for the next few rounds. As he was about to signal them to rest, Eos summoned a beast.

She summoned her Skyfire Witch. This was her primal beast which had hatched earlier. The Skyfire Witch had a physique similar to a human. She had a head of blue Sky fire with a Black witch hat. Her body wore a Black witch cape. In The Fire for a head she had two while eyes. She swam next to Eos waiting for an order.

Eos seem to say something through soul vibrations. The witch nodded. She used a quick spell and set Eos on fire. The Fire was blue and didn't seem to be effected by the water. Eos relaxed and continued her hold. The witch was unsummoned.

"She's using the sky fire to absorb the water energy from the surrounding and give it to herself to recover. It's smart. She still hasn't learned the essence of the sky element sadly. The sky element has the water element in it. If she knew how to use it properly this situation would be way to solve." Leon solved. He criticised but he couldn't fix, it was for her to slowly learn the specialness of the sky element.

Pace had the Purple Cloud fish use an ability. It allowed him to recover as well. He saw that both Eos and Leon were fine. He nodded totals them if anyone wanted to rest. This was there last chance. The two shook there heads saying they would be able to hold out to till the end. Pace understood and had the Purple Cloud Fish speed up.

Leon honestly didn't feel anything through out the whole dive. He had gone through much worst. Other then diving in magma he had also recently dived in the ocean for the Great Library. The cave for it was much deeper then where they were right now. He was getting bored.

Many of the fifty left the pack. This was the air cave, it was hard to not go for it. If they needed air later or got too tired they would fail lose the whole competition by fainting and having the investigators of the test save them. Unlike the people above them they had entered dangerous waters. The current was stronger and the pressure was high. They would easily die if they weren't cautious.

Ten remained. The lead was still held by the boy who made the earth steps. He was holding on to his Blue swift dolphin. Three of the others were Leon's group holding the Purple Cloud Fish. There was another group of two girls who held onto a sea horse like beast. The rest were lone cultivators who each held onto various water beasts.

They were finally in the last kilometer. The hole was much larger now. It looked all encompassing and had a small cave in it. There was light coming out of it.

"That should be where we need to go." Leon thought.

Seeing the light, everyone sped up. They found new motivation in the now dark abyss.

Leon felt something was wrong. He closed his eyes and sensed. His soul power was the strongest among the group. Although his cultivation wasn't the highest, with the Nine Thrones Soul Technique his soul power was the peak you could achieve in strength.

He sensed a pressure building up. He then saw small bubbles of steam pass by. Leon took out a throwing knife and had it barely touch Pace's skin. Pace was alerted. He turned back and saw Leon waving at him. Telling him to get to the sides and out from above the hole.

Pace trusted Leon and quickly commanded the Purple Cloud Fish to change directions. The sudden change in direction of the three was noticed by the others. They thought that Sin one had run out of air and moved on.

The person in first had a bright smile on his face. He sped up even more. He was a hundred meters away from the light.

Leon saw that he had alerted Pace to late. Even though Pace listened to him he didn't make the fish go as fast as it could. Leon reached out one had to Eos. Who was still covered in the blue fire. She didn't know what was happening but grabbed his hand. After she held tightly Leon used the eruption rune to launch forward. He caused his ice affinity to move decrease resistance.

Leon grabbed Pace who was in form of him and kept using the eruption rune to move out of the way. He was much faster then the tired fish. The vibrations of the eruptions spread. The other seven turned to look. They saw Leon burying to the other side. They had left the fish back.

The Purple Cloud Fish watched Leon steal Pace and didn't know what or do.

The person in first watched this happily. He shook his head at the display. "Even if you distract me you can't make me los-" He looked down and felt something rising. Before he knew it he was bring pushed up.

The others were surprised to. They were quickly caught in the incredible speed of the underwater geyser. The water pushed them up with ferocious strength. There were bubbles of steam and pure force. Other who were much higher up were caught in it as well. Everyone caught in it was pushed close to the top.

Somewhere, around a kilometer above Leon was the Person who had been in first place. He had grabbed the wall of the gorge and was stuck to it to not get pushed further up. The others weren't as lucky.

Pace saw his Purple Cloud Fish be pushed up. It was now so far behind that it would take forever for it to reach him.

He would unsummon it later. Now they needed to finish the race.

Leon grabbed the two and used the eruption rune to blast towards the light cave. He amplified the eruption using ice energy. With thorough control He made it to the cave first.

Leon erupted in. They fell out of a was of water onto the ground. The water was held back by a runic formation.

A lady walked up and greeted them.

"Well done for coming in first! Now go stamp your clan badges on that plaque over there and continue down this cave for the best round."

Leon, Eos and Pace were washed up and sitting against the cave walls breathing heavily. They nodded to what the woman said and continued to rest.

The woman went back and waited for more people to come.

Leon was waiting for Pace and Eos to recover. He got up and waited for them. The two told him between there breaths to go on.

"Leon. you should. go." Pace said pausing almost every other word.

Eos supported "Its fine. we just. need a. few seconds."

Leon got up and stamped his clan badge on the plaque. His name appeared on the bored and disappeared. He then went back and waited for Pace and Eos.

It took them around Half minute for them to recover. They got up and stamped their badges.

"Thanks for waiting."

"It's fine. Let's go the person behind was quite close. We will soon lose are lead."

They then ran into the cave. The cave was short it opened up into a large cave. This done shaped room had many crystal balls on the floor. The walls were red and the air was dense in fire energy.

"There seems to be magma under the ground." Pace said.

"That lady didn't tell us what the test was. What are we suppose to do? Should we go ask her?" Eos asked.

"No need. Look up." Leon said.

They all saw something written on the ceiling. It was the rules for the test.

"Touch the Crystal ball and fill it with energy. When it is completely fill you may take it and leave." Pace read.

Leon quickly saw through the few lines. "Let's finding this quickly before more people come. The rules don't say any thing about stealing the Crystal balls from others. I can see around nine hundred of them. It'll get hectic as more people come and the Crystal balls lessen."

Eos clicked her, "That man said there was no time limit. Clearly you need to be in the first nine hundred to pass."

"Well you would pass the first round just not the second." Leon jokingly answered. They watched grabbed an orb and started filling it with energy.

Leon did have an art to absorb energy with. He wasn't practicing any fire arts at the moment. He had already memorized the beginning of the Vermillion Burning Heart. He started running it. The orb filled in a moment. Leon wasn't surprised. The only reason it took so long was because that was as fast as the orb could fill. Even if he did without using the art it would probably take as long.

He saw that Pace and Eos would need a few more minutes to finish it so he decided to cultivate.

Leon sat down and cultivated the Vermilion Burning heart. As he did he felt the energy from the Vampiric Blood Art. He hadn't formed A rune, he also remembered the Blood Orbs art which also never formed the final rune for.

Leon continued to cultivate the Fire art. It was fine cultivating two arts at once. Even of they were of different elements. However when it got to four and five it became a problem. Then it started depending on the person's physique and mental strength. If there body couldn't handle they could die.

Time passed and Some one else entered the room. It was the guy with the Blue swift Dolphin.

Pace also got up. He summoned his soul book and unsummoned the Purple Cloud Fish which had gotten close enough. Pace then went back to filling the orb.

The boy saw Leon and the others holding the orb but he didn't know what they were doing with. He looked confused for a bit and looked around to see anything. He saw the lines above up and understood. He also continued to fill the orb.

Soon more and more people entered. The next few people were the ones who had entered the last air cave. They had dodged the geyser and so were able to make it. They all grabbed an orb and didn't know what to do. Some saw the rules and silently started filling the orb. One of them went to ask the lady for the rules.

She said. "I've already told you all that I needed to tell you."

Pace and Eos finally finished. Leon got up with them. They walked towards the other door in the dome.

They opened the door and entered a dark cave a voice could be heard.

"Use the orbs as light to travel through the labyrinth. Be wise with how you use them. Saving for later may be a better choice..." The voice then disappeared into the darkness.

Pace, Leon and Eos stared at each other. They could still see each other.

Pace said, "We should take the advise and keep the orbs for later."

The other two agreed.

"I'll provide the light. We also need to make sure we stay close. Don't get separated in the labyrinth."

"I think we should alternate, Leon you can go first when you get tired Pace and I can take over." Eos said.

"Sure."

Leon lit his hand on fire and walked forward. It took a few steps and the way parted into multiple options. Three new paths opened.

"Which way do you want it go?" Leon waved the flame brighter to have a better look.

Pace and Eos didn't really know.

Pace shook his head and said, "I can't sense where any of the paths lead. Let's just randomly pick."

Leon nodded. He used his soul sense through all the paths. He knew that at the end of each path was a runic formation that blocked soul sense.

"Let's go this way." Eos said.

No one objected and they all went through the path. The path was straight forward. Leon felt the runic formation getting closer. Soon they passed it. All three of them felt heavier. And the flame in Leon's hand extinguished.

Pace said, "Our cultivation has been sealed so that's why we need the orbs for light."

Pace tried to take the orb out from his spatial ring but couldn't because of his sealed cultivation.

"No, our cultivation is sealed, we don't have light. We can't see either! How are we supposed to make it through?!"

Leon watched the dark silhouette panicking in amus.e.m.e.nt, "We can still go back and take them out. I guess that is why they didn't seal the entrance."

Pace felt a little embarrassed he quickly walked back and took the orb out. The orb glowed with light. Leon and Eos did the same.

They then walked forward.

"We need to make through this quickly. Other then sealing our cultivation they also blocked all energy. We can't provide the orb with energy beyond this point, we have to reach the exit before it runs out of energy." Leon said. He was cool through the whole thing. He was also effected by the seal. His cultivation wasn't high enough to block it.

Before entering he sensed multiple formations. There was a darkness formation, energy block formation, cultivation sealing formation and even a rune sealing formation.

This was really going to be a test on luck, speed and calmness under pressure.

Leon and the others walked together. The orbs couldn't be turned off or on, they couldn't save one for later use or anything.

Pace continued to talk. One to comfort himself and to comfort Leon and Eos as well. It was also to make sure they didn't get separated.

"This test looks like a long one."

"Pace is right. The first test was a race, the second test was completely unfair to all other cultivators other then fire cultivators and this test is just based on luck. What are they even teating?" Eos complained.

Leon was sure he would have thought the same when younger.

"The second test probably had the Fire energy to help the Fire cultivators who would be left behind in the first test. As for this labyrinth we haven't gone through it enough to tell." Leon added his opinion to keep the conversation going.

"That makes sense. Still why do we need to go through all these tests for joining the national team anyway?"

"The three continental competition is no ordinary tournament styled battle competition. Other then battles there are many other forms of competing. Last competition I remember their was one section of the competition that had the whole team fight a beast five levels above there highest team member."

Leon nodded, "I heard about that too. It was one of the more difficult fights. I remember another sector was a test on accuracy. Cultivators had to ride there flying beast and chase after hundreds of small flying insect beast. They had to hit the insects, the winner was the team with the most insects hit."

Eos was surprised had hadn't cared about the three continental competition, she only started to care when the clan head told her to participate a few months ago.

"Wow, so are they different each competition?"

Pace nodded, "They have always been different until now. Though they might be similar in some ways but overall there different."

Leon who was in front stopped and held Pace and Eos back.

They both were busy talking so they so they were surprised. They looked forward and saw a hole in the ground.

"Can we walk around it?" Pace asked.

Leon held the Crystal ball higher. There was no space on the holes side to walk, it was just the caves walk. They could see the other side of the hole.

"Do you think you two could make the jump?" Leon asked.

"With cultivation easily, but now no." Pace said.

Eos seconded his statement.

Leon knew he could make it. With his strengthened body he could jump quite far. He couldn't use the eruption rune because of the rune sealing formation. He could create a path of ice because those ice manipulation runes were formed from the Dragon Blood. The formation was to weak to seal those runes.

"Well let's go down then." Leon said.

He then held the orb and climbed down the hole. Pace and Eos followed.

The three when talking had taken many turns and gone through many branching paths. They however stoped thinking about it as they didn't know which one to go through. Do they just followed the path they saw first.

They had also decided that weren't going to run. Rather then good it would do more bad. If there were any traps they would be unable to react without cultivation. It was better to be careful and walk.