The white tiger growled, clearly not liking Dyon’s words one bit.
According to its duties, its original body had split its soul 19 total ways. One was within his main body, while the remaining 18 guarded the various entrances to the tiers. However, this seemingly simple task had become nothing more than a nightmare.
Even when boosting its attack power to account for the “group” Dyon was in, it still wasn’t enough. Dyon would end up using it like a punching bag to hone his skills and even berate the white tiger when it wasn’t good enough. For the esteemed position it held, how could the white tiger tolerate this?
“You’d better go all out this time,” Dyon said casually, “Because I don’t plan on giving you a ninth chance. After this, I’ll go directly to the 18th tier.”
Dyon swung the spear from his shoulder, brandishing it as a fierce light shone in his eyes.
He had learned a few things since he began this climb. The 18 tiers weren’t actually a fixed exam. The flexibility of the battle prowess of the stair guardians made it clear that the challenge was adjusted depending on the person.
The number of people climbing the stairs at one time was only a single factor. It also seemed that the guardian decided the difficulty of the exam as well.
Dyon had evaluated the guardian’s prowess as being at the God level, but short of the True God level. Technically, True God wasn’t a rank to its own, but rather a subset of Gods that stood above the rest due to their overwhelming results on the trials. Still, Dyon knew there was a distinction.
The reason this was important was because the ‘God’ difficulty was the highest the guardian was allowed to present to Dyon as there was no ‘True God’ difficulty. Meaning, the White Tiger gave Dyon the God difficulty because he sensed that it was the difficulty Dyon earned.
If Dyon was correct, if he continued to climb the stairs and passed all 18 levels, there would be the corresponding ‘God’ reward. However, he had no intention of doing so, mostly because he was quite aware that he wasn’t strong enough. After all, as his master had said, this test was only meant to be passed by peak celestials. In his current state, it took Dyon’s everything to defeat a normal mid level celestial, let alone a first-grade mid celestial.
Unfortunately, now that he had reached the 8th tier, that was exactly the prowess the white tiger now held. After all, no god level character would be below a first-grade level.
Still, Dyon fighting spirit reached an all time high.
**
Two days later, Dyon awoke from meditation at the top of the stairs leading to the 9th tier.
Just below, the white tiger glared at him, but was unable to follow. Clearly it still had some regrets.
Of course, Dyon wasn’t in position to defeat a first-grade middle celestial. The power gap was far too large. At best he would defeat a 2nd stage first grade celestial, depending on their meridians filled. As for middle celestials, they’d have to be low order third grade celestials like the Grand Templar Sect’s Kings for Dyon to be confident against them.
That said, that was only in terms of sheer combat prowess. Aside from combat prowess, Dyon had something else that his opponents usually couldn’t match: his intelligence.
Where his battle prowess failed, his mind made up for it. Not to mention his overwhelming senses.
Still, it took him more than a day and a half to make it past the white tiger, and even then, it couldn’t count as a true victory.
Dyon shrugged, winking at the white tiger trembling in anger before disappearing.
The moment Dyon appeared on the 18th tier, he felt as though a goddess had breathed life into his lungs.
Despite being the smallest tier by area, the 18th definitely had its own characteristics going for it. Not only was the life energy the densest here, but the reverberating effects due to this truth had astounding consequences that made it look more like heaven than a mystical world.
“Huh?…” Just as Dyon was taking in his surrounding, he felt the emotions of his master fluctuate so violently that a small ripple was set off in his Mind’s Eye. “Master?”
Dyon blinked in confusion. But, before he could react, two white blurs sped toward him at a speed that made him absolutely certain that he was no match for him.
In an instant, two bright eyed and white-haired beauties looked up at him curiously, walking around his body as though they were observing a piece of art at a museum instead of a human being.
Dyon raised an eyebrow. Out of respect, he hadn’t unleashed his divine sense, but that didn’t mean that his senses weren’t still sharp. He had felt them approaching, but he still didn’t know who these two girls were. He only remembered that they were the two followers that always tailed Head Arie. Of course, he only knew this because the Master Symbol allowed him to see and hear everything in the Mystical World.
“Hello.” Dyon smiled, ignoring their weird behavior. “I’m Dyon.”
Dyon’s voice was like a violent shock to the two beauties. They immediately scurried away.
However, Dyon didn’t really pay attention to where they went because even with his senses, he hadn’t realized that one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life had appeared just three meters in front of him.
Head Arie giggled lightly at Dyon’s reaction. “Aren’t you going to greet your grandmother?”