Chapter 44: Ascension Trance [3]
For a few hours, Eliana only sat on the cold ground. She hadn't been moving an inch from her initial position, still hugging her knees and resting her head on them.
She should have felt cramps already if it was in reality.
But, the fact Meta Domain was a place akin to a mental realm meant any physical exhaustion Eliana was supposed to suffer did not exist. However, it only applied in this starting room.
When Eliana left this chamber and moved to a location on the other side behind the door, only then were the rules and physical laws applied.
If she was cut, she would bleed.
If she was stabbed, she would feel pain.
And if she died, the domain would crumble, and her soul would perish unless her trusted Ascendant supervisor, Niveus, interrupted her Trance State before her entire being was corrupted, turning her into a monster.
Different types of monsters existed.
Like how an Ascendant's strength was gauged by their classes, the monsters were the same; the weakest was 10th Class, while the strongest was 1st Class.
The Global Alliance, though, begged to differ. They liked inventing terms for everything that would sound cool if given a proper name.
The difference between the Ascendant and the monsters tiering system was that the former was more accurate since the Beacon ranked them, while the latter was inconsistent due to changes if new variables emerged.
Back to Eliana, if she failed the Ascension Trance, she would be a monster of the same rank as when she was an Ascendant, 8th Class, with a slight chance to be a 7th Class monster depending on the condition.
For the record, only creatures from the Monolith were applied to this tiering system created by the Global Alliance. But people would sometimes refer to it when determining a monster's strength in the real world, such as Ittey.
Eliana's thought about them was that the Global Alliance was doing something useless.
Why would they bother giving monsters a tier but did not have the guts to advance to the next level as an Ascendant?
The average, or precisely most Ascendant across the world, was in the 6th Class, an obviously low level considering Beacon had been in this world for three centuries.
Because of that, the world's powers were stagnated.
Eliana did not have a dream of becoming the driving force of those complacent fools. What she wanted was to catch up to Niveus.
She had a feeling that Niveus—someone of a similar age as her—was far stronger even than the people of the Empire or the Global Alliance.
As far as she knew, the world's strongest individuals, the Elf King, and the Human Emperor, were at the peak of the 5th Class and already gained enlightenment.
But, they decided not to advance to the 4th Class due to fear.
The fear that they would fail and turn into monsters which caused a catastrophic event, like in the past, when the first Ascendant to take the sixth Ascension Trance failed.
Eliana sighed softly.
"How long has it been since I've thought of him?"
Eliana did not know how much time had passed. But she was aware it had been more than three hours.
Getting up to her feet, Eliana clasped her hands. Her eyes filled with determination as she walked toward the grand door.
Her eyes were shut and her breath was calm when she stretched her hands, feeling the door's texture. It felt like it was made from metal and stone.
The door was pushed open even though Eliana did not put any effort into opening it.
The instant she snapped her eyes open, the world around her had changed. It was the dark chamber no more.
Instead, Eliana found herself standing on an unstable terrain.
Around her, the world was burning. The ground beneath cracked, revealing veins of lava. One mistake and she would die instantly.
However, she was not worried about swimming in lava.
Having a [Fire Immunity] and [Phoenix's Blessing] made her immune to flame. Instead of dying from burning, the flame would have healed her.
In short, this place was no more than a playground for Eliana.
Except, the problem was not the environment, but the challenge she would face at the peak of the volcano ahead.
If she had not heard wrong, there was a pattern in Ascension Trance that was easy to figure out unless one had a brain capacity lower than toddlers.
The odd numbers trials were straightforward. What the Ascendant needed to do was to win against the opponent that had been waiting for their arrival in a certain place.
Meanwhile, in the even numbers trials, the Ascendant would have to clear a specific objective that was not explained—to be precise, one was required to live in a replicated world and achieve the transparent goal.
The only way they could pass this type of Ascension Trance was to be vigilant and attentive to the events happening around them, and understanding them.
In Eliana's second Trance, she was assuming the role of a mage's disciple and noticed the goal of her trial was to help her teacher get revenge on a kingdom that had exiled him. Unfortunately, she didn't achieve a particular achievement for Feat Point.
Obtaining Feat Points from an Ascension Trance was the hardest part for all Ascendants, especially in the odd numbers trials except for the first one.
The first Trance's Feat Point achievement was hard to miss even for the dumbest person.
"..."
While Eliana was trekking to reach the volcano's peak, she was falling several times and getting showered by the hot lava. But it did not stop her.
Her gaze was unwavering all the time. She didn't flinch when the lava devoured her. She kept walking inside the pool of red hot liquid.
Stopping for a moment, Eliana looked back at the position where she had arrived for the first time. The cracking ground was now a sea of lava. It seemed to keep rising high in a slow and subtle motion.
Other people would have trembled infinitely in this situation, knowing the tall volcano would eventually be devoured by the rising lava.
But it was not the case for Eliana.
Still, even if that was not a problem for her, she had a limited time to complete the Ascension Trance.
No matter who the Ascendant was, no matter how high one's Class was, if they could not complete the Ascension Trance within a time limit, they would fail.
Making sure it would not happen to her, Eliana resumed to reach the peak.
When she finally arrived at the peak, someone—something was already waiting for her.
"That is..."
Two red, crimson orbs were glaring at her sharply that Eliana, who was immune to burn and fire, felt as if her entire body was burned.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone