Chapter 51: Illusion

Twenty two hours have passed since Aurus started traversing the extremely long corridor that was originally a green jade hall.

In the midst of his journey to the end of the corridor, he decided to grind all of the skills he could possibly grind while making sure that he was using [Gale Hover] and [Tempest Burst] at the exact time they were off cooldown.

"[Spirit Spear: Bargaining]!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

In an instant, a few Spirit Spears were shot in front of Aurus' field of vision as he could finally see the end of the corridor, which was a wall of green jade.

"Oh god. Finally! The end! I'm glad this spell is off cooldown. [Gale Hover]!"

Consuming 100 points of his SP bar, Aurus gradually hovered off the ground and zoomed towards the end as the sides of his field of vision were cluttered with multiple notification screens.

Of course, since he was using [Gale Hover] and [Tempest Burst] once they were cooldown, then it wouldn't be weird for Aurus to use his skills at the instant they were off cooldown too, right?

Nonetheless, with the amount of notification screens on the sides of his field of vision, Aurus was bound to have his strength go up even though he was still in the same grade.

Whoosh!

Landing on the ground and touching the green jade wall, Aurus couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as he emanated a cheery aura. He was finally done with this monotonous trial.

Not long after touching the wall, the disembodied voice that usually announced important things to Aurus, resounded throughout the long corridor.

"The second trial, Speed, has been completed."

"Time taken to complete the trial: 21 hours 45 minutes. Score grade: A."

"With an above average score on this trial, the inheritor shall now receive a special reward from the inheritance."

"Reward is being rolled by the inheritance, please wait..."

"Reward has been rolled. The active skill [Flash] has been obtained."

Ding!

After the consecutive statements from the disembodied voice, it was followed up by the notification sound from Aurus' system, opening up a screen in front of his field of vision.

'[Flash] has been obtained.'

Surprisingly, the details of this skill were shown beside the notification screen, making Aurus looked at the skill screen with surprise. "Wait... isn't this...? Isn't this the other evolution for my movement skill?"

How could Aurus possibly forget. The [Flash] skill, one of the two choices of skill evolution for the C-grade [Roll] skill. It exchanged the constant rate of movement for a long distance being traversed in a short time, but with a long cooldown.

"This is definitely a good reward. If I can't fight against the enemy I'm up against with, then i can just use [Flash] to escape!" Aurus thought up of the possibilities of [Flash] in his fights. But as he was in the midst of his thinking extravaganza, a notification sound resounded once more, prompting Aurus to snap back to reality.

Ding!

'The skill [Flash] is not compatible with the user's current form.'

'The skill [Flash] has been changed to the skill [Spirit Flash].'

'The skill [Spirit Flash] has great compatibility with the skills [Tempestuous Spiritas Glide] and [High Wind Affinity].'

'The skill [Spirit Flash] has been transformed [Spirit Gale Flash] thanks to the help of the compatibility of the skills.'

"..." Aurus was speechless. In an instant, the simple [Flash] skill was turned into a skill that had an extremely cool sounding name. And you know what they say, skills with cool names have great effects.

"What...?" Aurus instantly snapped himself back to reality through force and looked at the happenings before [Flash] transformed into the latter.

"So first, it adjusted the skill to fit my current form, which is understandable. Then, it had great compatibility with my first movement skill and my elemental affinity skill..."

"Is it because they all tackle the element of Wind or something?" Aurus thought that this hypothesis was plausible, but he had no evidence to consider if it was true or not.

"Ah whatever. I'll just accept the gift for what it is," Aurus said to himself.

After the inheritance gave Aurus a special reward, the long corridor, which Auris traversed within 22 hours, shortened at an extremely fast pace until it became a place that Aurus was extremely familiar with.

Pong.

With a sound that did not fit the current situation, the extremely long corridor returned to its hall shape in the first trial, making Aurus gasp in awe at the powers of the one who made the inheritance.

Of course, inheritances don't just pop up out of nowhere. These inheritances were made by beings that had accomplished a lot of things in life and wanted to pass it on to the next generation.

Not long after returning back to normal, the disembodied voice resounded throughout the hall once more, shocking Aurus at the speed of the next trial.

"The third trial, the Illusion trial, shall begin in the next 30 seconds."

"This trial needs the inheritor to escape five illusion worlds, with each consecutive illusion world increasing in difficulty."

"Suggesting the inheritor to think that everything in their surroundings is fake, no matter what."

With the announcement and the warning given by the disembodied voice lasting 20 out of the 30 seconds of rest given to Aurus, Aurus was basically left with 10 seconds of reveling in shock.

"What..." Aurus was being slapped with shocking things one after the other, rendering him speechless most of the time. He couldn't even do what he want to do.

Accepting fate, Aurus just sighed and waited for the third trial to start. "If I have enough time to rest before the last trial, then I'll surely evolve the skills I can evolve."

"For now, I better focus on escaping the worlds."

Whoosh!

As if the 10 seconds of rest Aurus had left was equivalent to 1 second in reality, Aurus disappeared within the green jade hall as if he wasn't there in the first place. Not long after, the disembodied voice resounded throughout the hall, announcing the start of the third trial.

"The third trial, Illusion, has now begun."

"The first illusion world, Void, has been casted."

...

In another green jade hall.

While Aurus was currently tackling his third trial, Herellia, on the other hand, was still on her second trial. As to what this trial was, it was akin to the first trial that Aurus cleared, the Endurance trial.

But since the difficulty of Herellia's trial was S grade, even though the difficulty of this trial was reduced thanks to Herellia getting a score grade of S on the first trial, it was still harder compared to Aurus' Endurance trial.

Now you may ask, why?

This is because...Herellia is inside another world.

Whoosh!

Within this world created by the inheritance, an extremely vast and empty plain served as the stage of Herellia's second trial. On the plains was Herellia that was quite injured when compared to the time she was last seen with Aurus.

Her body was filled with holes of various sizes here and there, the red engravings on her body were flickering every so often, rather than staying luminescent, and since she was a branch of the Blood Belhazard class, that meant that the water within her xylem was somewhat viscous and crimson red in color. Since she was riddled with holes, this viscous fluid poured out of the holes, making for an eerie-looking branch.

"Damn...I fell for their trap. To think that their bombardment of multiple splinters would actually work." Nonetheless, Herellia was a branch at heart, how could she feel any pain? Trudging on through the plains, she muttered, "This Endurance trial is definitely harder than the first one, even though the voice said its difficulty was lowered."

As she was hovering through the plains, the disembodied voice from the hall still lingered in her mind, reminding her of the trial she was currently taking.

"The second trial, the Endurance trial, shall begin in a few minutes."

"The trial shall put the inheritor inside a world created by the inheritance, wherein multiple enemies of various grades and abilities shall incessantly hunt down and leave you no time to relax."

"The goal for completing this trial is to survive 5 days within this world. As for the ratio of time within the world and reality, 1 day within the conjured world is equal to 1 hour in reality. I wish the inheritor the best of luck."

Sighing as she noticed a few dozen branches and sapling coming at her, she activated her red engravings as she muttered, "It has only been 2 days since I've started this trial."

"If only I had a healing skill with me, that would be nice."

"For now, I have to rely on my innate recovery and endure as much as possible."

"[Blood Art: Dilation]!"