For months the ruins echoed with nothing but roars, screams, and the clash of bone against flesh.
Leon fought.
He fought until his hands were nothing but bloodied claws gripping broken weapons. He fought until his breath came ragged and every bone in his body begged to shatter. Yet still, he fought.
Each kill poured fragments of spirit energy into him. Each strike honed his body further, tempering muscle, bone, and spirit alike. What had begun as desperate survival had become something more — a forge.
His spirit energy swelled, his veins carrying it like molten steel. His body hardened, his scars became badges of endurance. His movements grew sharper, faster, instinctive — no longer those of a boy lashing wildly, but of a predator trained by slaughter.
And something darker stirred within him.
The ceaseless killing awakened instincts he had never known. A sharpened edge of battle awareness. A hunger that thrummed in his blood. His eyes, once clouded by fear, now gleamed with killing intent so sharp it cut the air itself. His aura carried bloodlust heavy enough to shake weaker beasts before the fight even began.
For five long months it continued — slaughter, endurance, survival. Until at last, the final beast fell, its massive frame crashing lifeless to the shattered ground.
Leon stood amidst a mountain of corpses, his chest heaving, his clothes soaked through with black and red gore. His arms trembled from exhaustion, yet his grip on his weapons never faltered. His obsidian eyes burned with a sharp, unyielding light.
And then —
The sky itself rumbled.
Clouds swirled violently overhead, lightning cracking through the darkness. The ruins trembled as though bowing to a force beyond heaven and earth.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Azhar's laughter thundered down, rolling across the heavens like the roar of a god. The sound shook the very marrow of Leon's bones.
"Well done, boy!" Azhar's voice resounded, vast and commanding, filling the world. "You endured! You slaughtered! You tempered body, mind, and spirit until even death bowed before you!"
Leon staggered, his chest heaving, blood dripping from his lips. But as the words fell, something surged in his chest — pride, fierce and raw.
Azhar's tone grew heavier, a decree carved into the sky itself.
"You have proven yourself worthy of this path! No longer are you the useless brat who squandered his life. You have endured a trial meant to shatter thousands, and yet you stand!"
The ruins trembled again, cracks splitting the ground beneath Leon's feet. The corpses around him dissolved into smoke, their spirit essence rising into the sky as though saluting the victor.
Leon raised his head, his body trembling, his obsidian eyes fixed on the heavens.
"I… survived…" he whispered, his voice hoarse but steady.
Azhar's laughter rolled once more, filled with grim delight.
"Yes, boy. You did not just survive… you conquered. And now…" his tone dropped, colder, sharper, "your true journey begins."
The heavens split with a faint shimmer. From above, a small white orb descended slowly, glowing with a brilliance that cut through the endless ruins. It pulsed softly, like the heartbeat of the stars themselves, before lowering until it hovered just before Leon's battered, blood-stained face.
Before he could even raise a hand, the orb darted forward.
SHHHHH!
It sank straight into his forehead.
Leon froze. His eyes widened as a surge of searing light flooded his mind.
"Gh—AAAHHHHH!"
His body arched, veins straining, his hands clawing at his skull as torrents of information poured into him like a tidal wave. Patterns, runes, and movements flashed behind his eyes in rapid succession, each one striking his consciousness with unbearable weight. His mind roared with pain as though it might split in two.
"Calm down, boy," Azhar's voice rumbled, thunderous yet steady, a commanding anchor in the storm. "Breathe. Concentrate. Do not resist it. This is no ordinary scrap of knowledge — this is a celestial gift."
Leon gritted his teeth, forcing himself to steady his breath as the storm of information settled into clearer shapes. His trembling body eased little by little.
"Yes," Azhar continued, his tone low and reverent. "You now hold a Celestial-grade cultivation method and movement technique. Both of the highest quality, far beyond anything this wretched realm can offer. With these, your growth will not crawl… it will soar. Each step you take will leave mortals and ordinary cultivators choking in your dust."
Leon's eyes flickered with shock. Celestial grade?
Azhar's voice deepened, sharp as iron.
"You must understand their value. Techniques in this world are classified by quality, just as weapons and treasures are. At the bottom lies Earth grade—common, crude, and widely found in the hands of mortal cultivators. Above them stands Heaven grade, rare and respected, yet still within reach of sects and clans."
The images in Leon's mind shifted — scrolls, diagrams, and phantom figures moving with fluid grace, their speed splitting mountains and leaving echoes in the sky.
"Beyond that comes Moon grade. Only a handful of cultivators in the lower realms have ever touched such knowledge. Possessing one is enough to turn a clan into a kingdom."
The voice grew heavier, more commanding.
"Then there is Divine grade. These belong only to the higher realms, where the so-called gods dwell. Even sects of power wage endless wars for a single fragment of one."
Leon's breath quickened as visions of battles greater than anything he had imagined flickered across his consciousness — divine cultivators cleaving armies apart with a single step, mountains turning to dust beneath their strikes.
"But rarer still is the Ancient grade. Even in the upper realms, such techniques are priceless. They are relics of a bygone age, forged when gods walked the earth. Most who hold them guard them with their lives, for entire empires rise and fall around their secrets."
And then the voice grew hushed, almost reverent.
"And at the peak of all lies the Celestial grade. Techniques forged not by mortals, nor even by gods, but by powers that have transcended both. To hold even one is to hold a key to supremacy. They are so rare, even in the highest heavens, that their very mention drives sects mad with envy. Few cultivators in history have ever mastered them."
The weight of the words pressed into Leon's chest like a mountain. His trembling hands clenched tighter around his bloodied weapons.
"And now, little one… you hold not one, but two."
Leon's eyes widened, his breath ragged, his mind still throbbing with the searing knowledge that burned itself into his soul.
Movement techniques that would let his body flow like shadows across the battlefield. A cultivation method that would refine his spirit energy into something sharper, darker, and infinitely stronger.
He could feel them — like dormant flames etched into the core of his being, waiting to be ignited.
Azhar's voice echoed, final and absolute:
"With these, the path before you is no longer that of a boy crawling through the dirt. You are stepping onto the path of gods. Do not squander it."
Leon's chest rose and fell as he clenched his fists. The ache of exhaustion still weighed on him, but beneath it now burned something else.
Hope. Power. The beginning of a future that stretched far beyond the ruins around him.
Leon sat cross-legged, his body motionless, his mind anchored deep within his spirit core. Days bled into nights, nights into weeks, and before long, a full month had passed.
He had not moved once.
His aura pulsed faintly at first, flickering like a dying ember… but with each passing breath, it grew sharper, heavier, stronger. His veins thrummed with spirit energy, his bones resonated like tempered steel, and his core rumbled as if holding back a storm.
And then—
BOOM!
A surge tore through his body. His spirit core shattered a barrier, releasing power that flooded every limb.
Fourth Stage of the Spirit Warrior Realm.
But it did not stop there.
BOOOOM!
Another explosion followed, louder, more violent, shaking the ruins around him. His core surged again, forcing his body into another transformation. His flesh screamed, his veins burned, but his soul roared louder than the pain.
Fifth Stage of the Spirit Warrior Realm.
Leon's eyes snapped open, obsidian orbs blazing with black flame. His aura poured outward like a storm unleashed, cracks spreading through the ground beneath his lotus seat.
But more than raw power filled him.
Enlightenment.
The knowledge poured into his soul by the celestial orb no longer drifted aimlessly — it clicked into place, its patterns weaving through his mind like constellations aligning in the night sky. His body shifted unconsciously, moving through the first stances of the cultivation technique, his feet pressing the earth in rhythm with his breath, his aura flowing with sharp precision.
The first stage of both the cultivation technique and the movement art had awakened within him.
His body pulsed with newfound strength, his steps felt lighter, sharper, more precise. Each flicker of energy through his veins carried balance and control he had never known before.
Above, Azhar's laughter rumbled faintly, neither mocking nor warm, but commanding.
"Good… very good. You have climbed to the Fifth Stage of the Warrior Realm, and you have set foot into the beginnings of your techniques. What you hold now may seem vast to you, boy…" His tone deepened, thundering across the frozen world. "…but know this — compared to what lies ahead, it is nothing. A grain of sand before the mountain. A droplet before the sea."
Leon clenched his fists, his heart pounding at the weight of those words. If this was only the beginning, what heights awaited beyond?
But before he could speak, before he could marvel at the storm raging inside him—
The world trembled.
The ruins blurred.
And then everything went dark.
Azhar's voice reverberated in the void, sharp and final:
"Now… let us begin the next trial."
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