บท 794: Chapter 794. Crossing the Third Floor.
"Wow, this place is really nice."
Kali looked around in awe. When they exited the trial tower, they walked to a platform around 4000 meters in the air.
Looking around, it was clear that this place was at least 15,000 meters tall. Moreover, there was enough height to see cloud formations, and because the place was a mountainous forest landscape, there was an actual weather cycle with rivers, mountains, clouds, and lakes.
While the other two floors were an entire biome, it was clear that some grand formation was keeping it from collapsing. After all, a desert inside a mountain would not be feasible otherwise.
Focusing on the current landscape before them, the girls felt that this was as much of a chance as it was a dangerous situation.
Lush Forests were a good place for ambushes, while tracking became similarly harder and easier. If the person erasing the tracks were an expert, it would be difficult to find something in the forest where many things are hard to discern.
On the contrary, leaving visible trails in an otherwise natural forest was easy to track if the person following was the expert.
With that in mind, our girls scanned the immediate area before jumping off the platform. After a few seconds, Yasenia was surprised to find only two groups.
When she arrived, there were at least 200 of them on the second floor. 'Is the Obstacle Course extremely complicated, or did people get lost searching for treasures on lower floors?'
The dragoness was curious but didn't mull over it for a long time. "Honey, you have the advantage in this biome. Use your abilities to the maximum and be the guide. I'll relent leadership for this floor to you."
Kali nodded and stepped forward, her three fox tails swishing gently. "First, let's check if we can spot the place to climb toward the fourth floor from here. Cecile, can you fly and take a look around? Don't go too far. If there are clouds, there should be flying threats."
Cecile nodded. "Understood."
She extended her large silver wings and flew up.
Kali continued. "Andrea, your skills are very likely to cause large forest fires. Let's move carefully. However, if we were to fight, don't hold back. On the contrary, use that to your advantage. While I don't like much when nature is damaged, our priority is our safety."
Andrea nodded. "Understood."
Kali looked at Yasenia and commented. "Love, try using your star and moon attributes during our stay here. While using the forest to our advantage, I can expand my forces quicker if we damage the forest as little as possible. If Andrea and you begin releasing Sun-related skills, you'll be cutting one of my hands, haha."
The dragoness chuckled. "Alright. We'll follow your plan."
Kai turned toward Valeria. "While you won't personally participate, I want you to control the 100 Elite Dryad squad to be our spotters. I can re-summon them with relative ease, so sacrificing them will increase our detecting range and ability to respond to threats. Moreover, your auras can increase perception of plant creatures by a lot, making them even more apt for this kind of task."
Valeria smiled gently. "Very well, I'll do so."
Finally, Kali looked at Eira. "While it is true that you won't interfere, we are in a forest environment. I'm sure you know even more than I do, but be careful with the lack of visibility and similar. A misstep will cause you not to be able to interfere in time."
Eria bowed respectfully, one of her hands resting on the top of the pommel. "Understood."
After Kali explained it, Cecile swooped down from the sky and landed elegantly, using her incredible agility and strong wings. "Kali, while I couldn't spot the place we should go. I saw a few other groups other than the two down below. Before I could register the races or even genders, though. They felt my gaze and managed to hide from me. This tells us that they have a certain level of strength."
Kali nodded and crossed her arms, her tails swishing as she thought. "Which direction are those two groups? Were they close?"
Cecile shook her head. "One of them is in the northwest direction, another in the east-west."
Kali looked over the two places and nodded. "Valeria, send the dryads."
Valeria acquiesced, and her aura bloomed like an opening lotus. One hundred green seeds spread from Kali, and Valeria's overpowering aura enveloped them with the gentleness of a mother cradling her children.
Those seeds grew and expanded in less than a second, creating an extraordinary army of 100 Dryads.
The army had 30 armored dryads, 30 melee, 15 archers, and 25 casters. Their dress and skills had evolved much more than the first time Kali summoned them, making them look majestic.
With a wave of her hand, Valeria spread a green aura that surrounded all of them, and our girls felt their brains playing tricks on them.
While the 100 powerful-looking plant women were perfectly still before them, they couldn't register them with their spiritual sense. Even their eyes were strangely sifting away from them as if they were nothing but air.
Yasenia asked, awed. "What did you do, Valeria?"
Valeria smirked. "I used an aura concealing enhancement."
Andrea blinked, feeling her gaze wandering. "It's really strong."
Without any more delay, the one hundred dryads shot from the platform 4000 meters into the air. Their bodies became blurry, mixing with the surroundings.
Valeria's eyes began glowing, connecting with the plant creatures and sharing their vision.
The girls didn't bother her reconnaissance and waited patiently.
After waiting for a few hours, the dryads returned. Valeria commented. "My report is not much different from Cecile's. Only I've managed to decipher the races. One of the hidden groups is Harpies, and the others are from an unknown sect."
Yasenia asked. "What are the emblem's characteristics?"
Valeria explained that it looked like a sword slashing clouds. The dragoness closed her eyes and tried to shift through her knowledge of sects to find a match for that emblem.
The powerful mind of the dragon quickly bisected and analyzed, swiftly finding an answer no longer than after one breath. "[Cloud Sword Sect]. Their main headquarters are in the northern part of the Continent. They have dealings with all kinds of people and specialize in [Cloud Sword Steps]."
Andrea blinked. "So… Enemies or allies?"
Yasenia laughed. "Neither. Neutral. Unless they had some dealings with other people, they shouldn't bother us."
Kali asked. "What about the harpies?"
Yasenia titled her head. "While I want to believe in them, do you remember the harpies in the secret realm?"
Kali tilted her head. "Didn't Tengliu clean up the faction?"
Yasenia nodded. "Yes. But even if we join with them, not much will change."
With a plan in mind, the dragoness chose not to approach and go their way. After they left, the group of harpies watched them from a distance.
One of them asked the blue-feathered harpy. "Why did they not come to us? They should've realized that we were here, right?"
The blue-feathered harpy tilted her head. "I don't know. Well, it doesn't matter. Lady Tengliu asked us to see if they could at least make it to the third floor. If so, we were to leave them to decide."
The other four harpies nodded and then moved toward the direction Yasenia and the others went. Not because of anything else but because the place to climb to the fourth floor was in that direction.
Similar to the second floor, there weren't any hiccups.
They met with someone in the middle, but both groups ignored each other. Not everyone was bloodthirsty and ready to battle at the minimum provocation.
Andrea guessed. "Besides the first and second floor, it looks like the Assassin Sect doesn't have that much of an influence."
Yasenia agreed. "It should be like that. After all, while they can influence quite a few sects and powers, it shouldn't be possible to do so with those who can cross that obstacle course. It looked easy, but if you brainlessly tackled it without investigating first, there were a few checkpoints that were easy to miss. Doing it in five minutes felt impossible without our previous round."
Kali commented. "Let's go five kilometers to the right here. I can feel a few energy fluctuations far ahead."
"Yes!"
The girls answered loudly, and their group moved as one.
Andrea looked over where the fluctuations occurred and saw a massive explosion. The violent collision had even created a mushroom cloud.
Andrea whistled. "That looks powerful. Yasenia, can we receive something like that?"
Yasenia muttered. "Difficult. Mid-Level Epoch Cores have extremely high attack power. The group we fought was mediocre at best. Compared to the top 100, they were nothing."
Andrea nodded. "No wonder you want to avoid confrontations here."
The dragoness chuckled. "Darling, we can fight after we qualify for the tournament. So, let's speed up. [Empyrean Cosmos Dragon Transformation]."
Energy rushed at Yasenia as her body grew in size.
Her steps became heavy, her body surpassing small hills as it reached 200 meters in height.
Her colossal size as a dragon made her body quickly surpass some of the trees, and when she jumped, like a fish jumping out of the water, the enormous dragon took flight with her dears on her back.
With her size, carrying the 100 dryads was a piece of cake. So, everyone rode the Celestial Dragon while looking out for dangers.
Meanwhile, Yasenia's meridians spread energy all around her body as she used [Pegasus Gallop] and some other movement skills to soar through the sky.
Yasenia crossed the cloud layer to be even safer and hid between the ceiling and the clouds.
Cecile commented. "Go full speed ahead, Yasenia. We are almost there."
Yasenia playfully roared, and her large wings flapped. The massive creature flew across the sky like a blue shadow, leaving starlight behind her.
It took a total of 15 hours to reach that place. Then, the dragoness swopped down from above and landed with a thunderous sound.
Andrea commented. "The fact that the floor can bear your weight is impressive, love."
The giant dragon that probably weighed half a mountain looked down and pouted. "Are you calling me fat?"
Andrea's lips twitched. 'Love, you are a titanic being almost 1000 meters long, counting the tail.'
However, she didn't say that. "of course not. My precious little dragoness is as beautiful as ever."
The hill-sized dragon's tail began to wag as she smiled.
The sight was quite… extraordinary.
After playing around for a bit, they entered the third testing area. There was nobody waiting at the entrance, so nobody bothered them.
The girls saw a massive boulder after being transported toward the test area.
Yasenia titled her head. "What's that?"
Cecile answered with a deadpan. "A rock."
Yasenia burst into laughter. "I know that. I just wanted to ask."
Cecile blinked and nodded. "Oh."
They extended their spiritual sense, but that boulder was the only thing in the large room. It was around 20 meters tall and extremely solid.
Kali titled her head. "So, what do we do now?"
The girls looked at each other, a bit lost.
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