Lightning Dash!
The information flooding his mind gathered together and formed a peerless movement skill—Lightning Dash.
This skill has a total of nine stages. Each stage can double the speed of a warrior.
Lightning Dash is an innate skill of Storm Lion, one of the Ancient Beasts. This skill doesn't have a grade. Even so, if compared, just the first stage of Lightning Dash can be ranked than the Heavenly Grade.
It's important to note that the ranks of skills, cultivation techniques, and other treasures are divided into Ordinary Grade, Profound Grade, Spirit Grade, Mystic Grade, and Heavenly Grade. The highest known rank is the Heavenly Grade. However, just the first stage of Lightning Dash was already beyond the Heavenly Grade.
What about the second stage and the stages beyond that?
What level of skill could they possibly be?
Eryx had been thrilled to obtain the three treasures, which together amassed a total of 95,000 Points of High-Level Energy. But now, all that excitement faded. He realized that this amount of energy might not even be enough to cultivate the first stage of Lightning Dash to its pinnacle.
Still, he shrugged.
In the end, it didn't matter.
He will eventually cultivate the skill entirely, no matter how long it takes.
"So, the Storm Lion is one of the Ancient Beasts. It has another name, and people know the Storm Lion with that name. Its other name is the Golden Lion."
Lightning Dash is an innate skill of Storm Lion, and it contains a few key pieces of information about this majestic Ancient Beast.
Just from this skill, Eryx could tell that the Storm Lion must be a terrifying beast, far beyond anything he could imagine with his current level of understanding of the world.
The scene he witnessed earlier was terrifying. Just the aura he felt there was enough to crush him thousands of times in a mere second.
However, that aura didn't affect him perhaps due to the fact that he was not physically present there. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
What Eryx couldn't understand was why a terrifying beast like that had stayed in the Hundred Beasts' Cave. If all Ancient Beasts were that terrifying, then why was the cave's limit set so low? Why could only warriors of the Golden Core Realm and below enter, rather than cultivators of higher realms? And why did this place exist with so many traces of Storm Beasts left behind?
From the way everything was laid out, it was clear this place was deliberately created. The treasures were deliberately left behind.
But...by whom?
Who had the strength to kill such a terrifying beast and leave behind these priceless treasures?
Why was this place even created in the first place?
Then there was the mud statue. Eryx now understood that it wasn't just a random statue. The statue in itself was a test. The statue had been left to measure a warrior's strength. If someone could defeat it, they would be rewarded with one of Storm Lion's innate skills. If they failed, the statue would show no mercy, killing them without hesitation.
Who created that statue?
Who imprisoned a strand of Storm Lion's Will in that statue?
All of these questions left him utterly confused. So many questions yet not a single answer.
Eryx shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and focused. Before entering this place, he had 11,040 Energy Points. Then, he extracted 500 points from the first wooden door and 600 points from the second wooden door. Along with the 10,000 Energy Points he had extracted from the lion's statue; Eryx now had a total of 22,140 Points of High-Level Energy.
After scanning the room once more and finding nothing else of value, Eryx left and began walking down the corridor toward the spacious hall at its end.
In the next few minutes, Eryx stepped into the spacious hall. It was also at this moment he suddenly felt the air grow colder.
The hall was large and empty, with high ceilings and stone walls. Dim light was flickering from the flame torches hanging on the walls. These flames seemed to be burning endlessly for a very long.
He noticed three stone pillars forming a triangle at the center of the hall, leaving an open space in the middle. Surprisingly, a lion's statue was standing in that open space formed by three pillars. The statue looked very similar to the one he had seen earlier in the second stone chamber. However, this one was made of solid stone, not mud. Another difference was that this stone statue didn't give Eryx the same feeling of being alive as the mud one had.
Eryx stared at the statue and was lost in thought. He was trying to figure out why there was another lion statue here and what it might mean. While he was deep in thought, he didn't notice that he had stepped into a circle on the floor. The circle was about a meter in diameter and had been drawn with faint lines that were easy to miss.
The moment Eryx stepped into the circle, everything changed. A strong gust of cold air rushed up from the floor all of a sudden, hitting him hard and making him shiver. It felt like the cold was cutting through his bones, and his entire body shook from the chill.
The circle under his feet lit up with a bright light, and Eryx felt a strange sensation wash over him. It was as if an invisible force was scanning him, checking every part of his body. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it. The force seemed to come from the circle below, traveling up through his legs and then all the way to his head.
This process continued three times in succession in the shortest few seconds.
Eryx stood still, unsure of what was happening. As the unknown force continued to scan him, Eryx's heart pounded, and he couldn't help but wonder what it was trying to do.
Suddenly, a mechanical voice echoed in the air, but this voice didn't belong to the system. It seemed to be coming from the lion's statue.
[Participant detected!]
[Successful completion of the first trial.]
Eryx froze upon listening to this voice. This voice was mechanical and much like his own system, but there was still a vast difference.
He was astonished, for he never expected to hear a mechanical voice here. After all, this is a world of cultivation.
But then again, this world has long since been invaded by countless foreign worlds. It is very natural for some of those worlds to be technological worlds.
However, this place is unlikely to have any relation with those worlds. After all, legend speaks of this place to be here since ancient times.
[Detected that the participant is a First Layer Core Formation Realm warrior.]
[The trial is meant for Ninth Layer Golden Core Realm warriors.]
[Passing the trial at First Layer Core Formation Realm is a significant achievement.]
[Evaluating achievement!]
[Achievement rating: S+.]
Eryx blinked in shock. His mind was trying to process what he was hearing. He just could not guess how this thing, whatever it was, knew he passed the trial.
Moreover, the trial was meant for Ninth Layer Golden Core Realm warriors, but he, a First Layer Core Formation Realm warrior, had successfully passed it.
Sure, he cheated.
But... Who could prove it?
It was pure luck that he had a system capable of extracting energy from anything. He passed the trial by draining the energy from the mud lion's statue, which was definitely cheating, but there was no one here to prove it.
Regardless, passing the trial had earned him an exceptional reward.
He just did not expect his cheating to remain undetected, and his performance was even evaluated with an S+ rating.
Such high rating was obviously meant for exceptional geniuses. He may not be one today, but he was sure that he will be one day. In fact, he will surpass the scope of what is called a genius.
The mechanical voice continued to echo.
[Detected that the participant possesses Elemental Spirit Body!]
[Error... Error...]
[Traces of Divinity detected.]
Eryx's heart skipped a beat.
Divinity?
Whatever scanned him actually discovered traces of divinity inside his body. It has to be known that a trace of divinity was what helped him form a supreme grade core with 12 patterns.
After the core was formed, that trace of divinity fused with his core.
How could there still be traces of divinity left? Or could it be that the trace of divine fused with his core was detected?
Eryx could not understand.
Since he could not understand, he focused on listening to the mechanical voice.
[Detected that the participant has lost his original Divine Body and Bloodline.]
[Searching the database!]
[Searching based on the traces of divinity!]
[Matching traces of divinity...]
[Original Physique and Bloodline detected.]