Rise of The Demon General

Chapter 529: Chapter 529. Inheritance Aether

Amon and the others stood before a giant golden gate. All around them was a vast expanse of whiteness.

”Damn it! Why couldn’t you complete the trial faster? Why couldn’t you do it one minute earlier?!” Wu Di exclaimed. He expressed his frustration by punching the ground with his good arm. He was still in the Saintly Ape form. He didn’t deactivate the art because his right arm was still mending itself.

Xin Wuming turned to Wu Di with clear annoyance on his face. He shot back, ”Fuck you! Do you think I didn’t give it my all? I moved as fast as I could. The bloody thing was heavy, and it got heavier the closer I got to the exit point.”

”You haven’t given it your all! Otherwise, Tutor An Guan would still be alive!” Wu Di shouted.

”You...”

Xin Wuming was about to retort, but Huang San signaled him not to. He sent a silent message to Xin Wuming, ”He is just venting his frustration for An Guan’s demise. Let him do it.”

Huang San himself was downhearted. An Guan was his long-time follower who was not only loyal but also capable. Losing him was a huge blow for him.

Amon didn’t concern himself with their quarrel. He approached and observed the golden gate. It was so tall he was only one-sixth its height. The most peculiar thing about the gate was that it appeared to stand in the middle of nothing. Amon could walk to the other side of the gate without passing through it since there was no wall.

”Perhaps it is a portal?” Huang San asked. He also approached the gate. He thought it was better to focus on their current situation rather than lament their loss.

”What’s the point of sending us to a different dimension only to send us again to another dimension?” Amon asked.

Huang San shrugged. ”The way I see it, we have been sent to one different dimension after another since we entered this trial world.”

”This is different. We have reached the end of the road. We have solved the real secret of this pocket world,” Amon said.

”This gate says different,” Huang San said. ”So, should we try opening it? Can there be a trap involved?”

Amon thought for a while before calling, ”Wuming! Come here!”

”Do you need me, brother?” Xin Wuming asked after arriving.

”Try opening the gate,” Amon answered.

Huang San made a weird expression when he heard that, but Xin Wuming didn’t show any hesitation. He replied, ”Yes, brother.”

Huang San looked between Amon and Xin Wuming with a complicated expression.

Xin Wuming placed his hand on the gate and tried pushing. It didn’t budge. However, not long after Xin Wuming touched the gate, a voice was heard.

”Congratulations on solving the grand puzzle, team D! You can now access the master vault and receive the grand prize.”

An apparition appeared before the gate. This apparition has the appearance of a young man wearing traditional clothes.

”Who are you?” Xin Wuming asked.

”I am the overseer of this place. I am the one congratulating the candidates who train inside this place before presenting them with prizes.”

”Ah! I’ve read about him,” Huang San remarked. ”In the old record, every time our clan members completed a trial stage, a ghost showed up and gave them treasures. After we cleaned all the treasures, we never saw the ghost again.”

”A ghost? How rude,” the apparition uttered. ”I am an imprinted consciousness left behind by the maker of this pocket world. It is my job to acknowledge and commend the trainees of the Fa Clan for a job well done.”

”So, our assumption is correct. This place was indeed used by the ancients to train young cultivators,” Amon said.

”The ancient clan is called the Fa Clan, eh?” Huang San said. His clan had held the trial artifact for a long time, but they never learned the name of the ancient clan.

”Anyway, without further ado, let me present you the grand prize,” the apparition said.

The sound of friction was heard when the gate started moving. Wu Di and Yang Li also approached. Wu Di had reverted to his human form. His right arm was back to normal, but he still felt pain when he moved it.

”What could the grand prize be? Can it be immense wealth of aer stones?” Huang San muttered.

”Maybe we get powerful weapons,” Xin Wuming speculated.

”I prefer powerful arts,” Yang Li said. ”Arts can’t be stolen.”

”You can’t use arts immediately. You need to learn them. The arts might not even be compatible with you. Weapons, on the other hand, can be utilized immediately,” Xin Wuming argued.

”Let’s hope it is something that can turn back time or resurrect a dead person,” Wu Di said.

Everyone rolled their eyes. If the ancients possessed that kind of miracle, they wouldn’t have perished, and their treasure wouldn’t have fallen into the Huang Clan’s possession.

They heard the apparition chuckling in response to the assumptions. ”You are all wrong,” it said. ”The grand prize is more useful than your guesses... Well, except for the one that turns back time and resurrects the dead.”

The gate was half open by then.

”Behold! The accumulated inheritance aether of our Fa Clan, reserved only for our best and brightest descendants!”

A torrent of bright light gushed out of the open gate. This bright light washed over the five and filled the entire place. As soon as the light touched them, they lost control of their bodies. They couldn’t move their limbs. They also lost all sense of weight. They were like dolls floating in a sea of light.

Amon was at first alarmed, but he didn’t sense any danger or malice from this light. On the contrary, the light felt very comfortable. It felt warm and soothing. The only thing unwelcome was that whatever was going on was robbing him of his motoric functions.

As he focused on the sensation, he felt it. The light was seeping into his body. They flowed unhindered into his energy space and directly into his energy core. The sense of ecstasy following this process was incredible.

”Feels good, doesn’t it?” The apparition asked. Even though the bright light was all around them, the apparition was still visible.

”I can see the confusion in your faces. Maybe the teachers who sent you into this trial didn’t explain much. In that case, allow me to do it,” the apparition said. ”As I said, this is our accumulated inheritance aether. It is our energy storage collected through centuries of process using our Fa Clan’s secret method. This inheritance aether is meant to help our best students drastically increase their cultivation in an instant. Don’t worry about your cultivation choke points. This processed energy can help you break through those choke points as well.”

Hearing that, Amon regretted not knowing this information beforehand. If he did, he would have eliminated his other four comrades. It was too late now. He couldn’t move his body, no matter how hard he tried. He had to accept sharing this grand prize with the others.

”I did mention in an instant, but it actually still takes some time, depending on the number of trainees accepting this inheritance aether,” the apparition added. ”Considering there are five of you, it shouldn’t take more than two days for the process. Just sit back and enjoy.”

*

While Huang San’s team was slowly absorbing the inheritance aether, Zhong Yuan found another chance to send a signal to Huang Zhan’s team. After the initial surprise, everyone in the courtyard returned to their routine when no further notification was issued by the artifact.

Only Zhong Yuan was aware that Huang San’s team was inside a dimension completely inaccessible to others. Huang Zhan tasked him to guide them onto a stage with another team. If Huang San’s team stayed inside that dimension, the task would be impossible to complete.

He didn’t know how to solve this problem, so he focused on guiding Huang Zhan’s team to the remaining team available. He had just sent the signal.

*

Hua Yang was jumping from one metal platform to another. He was in a world without any ground in sight. The only place they could land was on the countless metal platforms floating all over this world. They didn’t need those platforms, though, because every member on the team was at least at the Mystic Stage. They could fly. Still, running and jumping using movement arts on the platforms remained faster than pure flying for Mystic Stage cultivators.

Hua Yang stopped when he noticed a figure in the distance. The mental link he had with his team didn’t inform him that a team member was in that direction.

This alarmed him. He quickly sent a mental message to Princess Huang Er, ”Your Highness, I think we are not the only team in this stage.”

Huang Er’s reply came soon, ”Do you confirm? I have lost contact with two members of our team. They haven’t replied to my call. If what you said is true, then they may have been ambushed.”

”I need to get close before I–What the fuck...!!”

Hua Yang was startled because the figure in the distance suddenly approached with incredible speed. He could see the figure more clearly now. It was a giant humanoid bull.

Before he could react further, the giant man-bull had arrived before him. Its fist slammed into his chest, and his torso exploded. Pieces of his body fell into the bottomless abyss below.

Princess Huang Er continued to try contacting him again, but he could no longer reply.