章 23: Phoenix Spirit's Surprise.

" Greetings, human. Welcome to the trial grounds. You are the first challenger without the phoenix bloodline in these past thousand years."

A dignified voice resounded within his mind; from the timbre of the voice, it was clearly a female voice.

Before Ikuya could say anything, the dignified voice resounded again.

" You're the most interesting human I've ever seen. There has never been someone other than the elemental god that had dared to treat the Phoenix flames as something like food."

" Hrmm.... So what should I call you? Divine Spirit? Divine Phoenix Spirit? Or Spirit of the Phoenix?" Ikuya asked.

" I am an immortal soul left here by the phoenix, yet I am also an existence independent of the phoenix. I preserve this trial ground and receive all challengers. So, Spirit of the Phoenix, is the most fitting title for me."

" I never asked. Just admitting a title would've been enough, don't you think?" Ikuya said.

" .... " The gigantic golden eyes narrowed a little. It is uncertain whether the spirit of the Phoenix is surprised or angry.

" So, can you start the trial already? Because I'm in a hurry." Ikuya said.

" Yes. The trial has three stages in total, respectively: First stage: Purgatory Flame Demon; second stage: Arrows of the Phoenix; third stage: Corruption of the Heart's Flame. If you wish to forfeit during the trial, you may shout out at anytime and I'll immediately let you leave the trial grounds. You may die if you forcibly endure the trial…. I wish you success."

Just as the Spirit of the Phoenix's voice faded, the pair of golden eyes slowly disappeared inside the world of pitch black darkness.

Ikuya felt a spatial power wrapping around him again and the next second, the world around him had transformed into what can literally be called a Red Purgatory.

Ikuya closed his eyes, relaxed his body and sealed all of his Ki within his body. Ikuya wanted to pass the trail with only his Profound Strength, not his Mental Energy and Ki.

Suddenly, a gigantic body covered in flames landed in front of Ikuya with a booming sound.

This was a flame giant whose entire body was on fire. It was a whole thirty-three meters tall, had a body that was burning entirely in red-hot flames, and had two ferocious eyes on either side of its head. Atop its head, there were also two horns of fire that were ten metres long and a golden mark that seemed to shine from the middle of these horns.

' So this must be the Purgatory Demon.' Ikuya didn't step back, but simply observed the Purgatory Demon.

Ikuya can sense that this Purgatory Demon had the same cultivation as him, peak True Profound Realm.

*Roar!!*

The Purgatory Demon roared at Ikuya as it fired numerous balls of fire at Ikuya, who managed to evade them with ease.

Ikuya kept on evading as the Purgatory Demon kept on spitting out fire balls.

After five minutes, Ikuya had enough of this slow-poke of a giant. The only things it did was either spit out fire or stomp Ikuya.

" What a waste of time." Ikuya muttered as he concentrated profound energy on his soles in an instant as he right after appeared right above the Purgatory Flame Demon's head.

Instantly, he channelled all of his profound energy on his right fist.

" Go to hell!" Ikuya punched the Purgatory Flame Demon on the golden flame mark on its forehead as the giant let out a miserable scream. Its gigantic frame slowly fell forward and crashed onto the floor with an explosively loud sound.

The flames on its body extinguished quickly, until all that was left were a few small embers that revealed its large black body. Soon after, even its body began to disintegrate and everything dissipated as if made of vapour.

Ikuya looked at the Purgatory Demon which was disintegrating with clear disappointment as he muttered, " What a disappointment. I expected more from it. To think it only amounted to this much even after I suppressed my strength to it's level."

" Seriously, what a waste of time."

And at this time, the scenery before him suddenly distorted. In the midst of the distortion, it spun in a blur, and when everything had finally stabilized, the red land, volcanoes and pools of lava…. All of it disappeared. What replaced it was an expanse of nothingness, a wilderness so flat that there wasn't any uneven land to be seen.

" Second stage of the trial: Arrows of the Phoenix."

At this time, a sudden extremely loud and clear cry of a phoenix came from the sky. Following this, the originally dark sky abruptly became a blazing red, as if it was burned red from heavenly fire.

Ikuya raised his head and saw many red dots in the sky. The moment he looked at them, the phoenix cry resounded again and the smear of red dots aimed at his location and suddenly started to swiftly fall like meteors. In front of his eyes, these dots drew increasingly closer and became increasingly larger.

It was a body covered in scarlet fire, a small-sized phoenix about six-foot long. The speed of its descent was extremely fast, as if it was a swift and sharp arrow in flight.

Ikuya immediately moved out of the way as the blazing phoenix crashed into the ground and instantly exploded, causing Ikuya to stagger backwards.

Ikuya stood his ground as he channelled his profound energy around him like a spherical barrier.

Immediately after, seven blazing phoenix silhouettes descended from the sky with great force as they all crashed into the barrier around Ikuya.

Ikuya reinforced the barrier over and over again almost instantly after the cracks are formed due to the bombardment of the blazing Phoenix silhouettes. There was no change in his expression or his aura.

The Spirit of the Phoenix was really shocked by Ikuya's performance.

' His speed of channelling profound energy is probably unrivalled even among Divine Masters. Just what kind of meridians does the boy have? And his control of profound energy is simply fantastic. Not to mention the purity and how dense his profound energy is. Just who is this boy?' The Spirit of the Phoenix wondered.

It had scanned Ikuya's body and found out that both his meridians and profound veins are something even the original Primordial Divine Beast, Immortal Phoenix had no knowledge about.

Being an Alpha, Ikuya's talent cannot be compared to, by anyone. Unless they're beings with more genetic limiters removed than Ikuya. The same is with his physical traits as well. Being a Saiyan, Ikuya's body was already thousands of times more stronger than a Human. But now, Ikuya is an Alpha Saiyan and is countless times better than an ordinary Saiyan.

The Spirit of the Phoenix was simply unable to know anything about Ikuya other than his cultivation base.

But it had a feeling that, Ikuya was not even using half of his strength.