"What a talent…", the mountain thought as it gazed through the virtual world to watch Fell"s spirit receive the mysterious technique.The trial by fire was developed as a means to train individuals, there existed dozens of training ground, and most of them were cleared by the majority of the player base in . But the Endless Battlefield was a different kind of trial by fire; it was the hardest of them all and could only be entered when one was in the middle of their placement matches. That meant that one not only had to win his first three matches, but he also needed to ask the mountain about a training ground to further develop before continuing his fights.
Just those facts alone made it rare for someone to enter the Endless Battlefield. As for someone who survived through the waves upon waves of enemies, fighting the trial by fire"s boss who would vastly outrange the avatar in its base statistics, with mysterious techniques that ended most of the players who fought it in one blow. These facts made the acquisition of the mysterious technique an even greater deal than winning the five matches.
Although the reward given to one who fought through his five first matches couldn"t be underestimated. The achievement for that wasn"t to be belittled as it meant that the game itself would take notice of you. The company behind Battle League was inclined to helping the cultivation era develop, and nurturing talented geniuses was the way it used to do so: by turning fighting and cultivation techniques into a game, and by making it turn into one of the leading games in the universe. It had the priority when it came to nurturing unknown geniuses.
As for the ones who were already part of major clans or families, although they wouldn"t ban them from playing the game, they wouldn"t help to nurture their path through immortality either.
The universe was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of major clans, and with them came organizations and sects that live in seclusion in certain planets. Hidden from the eyes of the majority, and avoided mundane contact with the society. The only way to meet them was in the case if one was fated with them.
The mountain focused on its parts that existed inside of Fell"s peak and watched him as he quietly accepted the trial by fire"s reward. It didn"t need to inform it"s higher up as they were always monitoring the game. And after many years of taking care of the young geniuses, the mountain enjoyed watching them progress as much as they did themselves.
Back in New Casablanca, where Fell"s real body was still laying on the metallic cerebral link that was in his room. Several days had pa.s.sed since he had entered the trial by fire, and Tahlya had come through the emerald door of his room several times. At first, she wanted to insult him and curse him for having made her do such a shameful thing. But as she saw him constantly use the cerebral link, she started using his room as a place where she came to relax.
Like today, she would quietly sit on the couch and would gain a few minutes of rest from her work in the battle center. As someone who was part of the company, she was aware of many things that were well known by the player base. But even with that, she didn"t understand how the youth that laid in front of her could spend that much time in a virtual reality world.
"Doesn"t he need to eat?" she thought as she knew that he hadn"t left that place for days. Even among the top ranker of the city, most of them would take a few breaks in a day, be it to fill their stomach with a meal or even cleanse their body from the fatigue of constantly playing. But the youth in front of her was similar to a machine, and he had been inside Battle League for days without taking a single second of break. "Maybe it"s because he is a cultivator…", she thought as she always tends to forget it.
She had met many cultivators throughout her life, and most of them had to be greeted as guests in the battle center. Their personalities were distant and aloof and made it clear that there was a major difference between them and the rest of the mortal realm. However, the youth in front of her wasn"t the same, and his easy-going personality made it impossible for her mind to link him with the other cultivator. Even when she was angry about his actions, and hated how he acted. She still couldn"t help but think about him in a positive light when she thought about him.
And as days pa.s.sed, and as her frustration deepened, she couldn"t help but feel her heart be bloated from strange feelings. Feelings that she had forgotten and that she had crushed with her own will. The reason why she didn"t do the same with Fell was due to his status as a cultivator; she knew that his stay in the city wouldn"t be eternal, and when he would finish his matter here, he would leave the city.
She couldn"t help but sigh as she imagined how a cultivator"s life could be, traveling through places where mortals would die in second and in places so far she couldn"t even imagine how they looked like. A few minutes pa.s.sed as she fantasized about it before coming back to reality. The emotions that danced in her mind disappeared in a split second, replaced by a cold, indifferent look before she got up from the couch. She quietly stepped toward the door and left to continue her work as her shift didn"t end yet.
"What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" she couldn"t help but say with gritted teeth before she shut the door behind her. Her figure disappeared through one of the many corridors in the battle center.