98 A word from Inos (1/2)
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”Conquer the Palace?”
Raven repeated, making sure he heard what he said properly. He then saw Inos nod and smile at him.
”Exactly.” He turned around to face the Palace and pointed the ground using his scepter. ”Like I said earlier, everything within the territory of the Palace will impose a certain test upon you, and only by completing them would you be able to gain the title of a True Heir.”
”Remember the supression you felt earlier?” Inos asked, to which Raven nodded as that left a deep impression on his heart. ”That's omnipresent in there. In some parts of the Palace, that supression would be stronger.”
Hearing this coming from him, made Raven smile helplessly. It was a fortunate thing that the level of foundation he built for himself was good enough, or else it would've been impossible for him to endure it. Although the supression he will fell would be stronger, it's not hopeless for him and instead he could use that supression to forge a stronger body.
”Now, I want to inform you about a few things.” Inos looked at Raven sternly as he said this.
”First of all, no need to rush. It's impossible for you to completely conquer this Palace this day, or even a year for that matter. You have experienced many things and I'm confident that you know why that is the case here.”
Raven nodded here, of course he understood. To put things in a simpler terms, this place is like a huge smelting trial, probably the best one at that. The difficulty of clearing this trial is high which also means that the rewards he could harvest would be greater that what he could imagine. What Inos is implying here, is that there are no time limit for his attempt so it's better to take things in a slow and thorough manner.
Seeing him understand his meaning, Inos then continued. ”Second, time here flows differently outside. For now, it's eight hours outside to one day inside, know that you will be expelled inside this space once time passed. Use this to your advantage.”
Now that piece of news is amazing for Raven. Eight hours to one day is already good enough for him to do many things inside while still fulfilling his duties in the real world.
”Third, is that you will die.” Raven was stunned but Inos still wasn't done. ”Not only once, twice but many, many times. There's just no helping it.”
”I know what you're thinking but that's not it.” Inos shook his head and continued, ”If you die inside the space of the Palace, your body will be reformed here at this very place. There are no limits on how many resurrections you have, nor any penalty to your actual cultivation. But! Once you die, you basically start at square one. All of the trials that you've cleared before dying will reset, all of the enemies you defeated will be similarly resurrected, all of the progress you have will be gone and so on.”
Inos paused for a bit to let his words sink in Raven's head. After a bout of silence, he then continued by saying: ”That being said, there's also ways for you to retain progress. But those options will only be available once you hit a certain threshold, and might be different from what I have experienced. So the only way to find out, is by actually going out there and seeing it for yourself.”
Raven etched his words as best as he could to his brain in order to not forget it, granted that his memory is good enough, it's still possible for him to completely overlook something, so it's better for him to do this.
After a while of remunerating at his words, Raven looked up to Inos and asked: ”Anything else I have to be aware of Partner?”
Inos smiled and shook his head. ”I've said everything that I could. I'll be gone once you start and appear once some important events happened, my freedom is restricted in a sense like that. Anyway, goodluck!”
After saying this, the outline of Inos' body disappeared in his sight, leaving him in his lonesome. Raven took several deep breaths and then steeled his nerves. It was useless for him to tarry any longer so he stepped forward and once again inside the territory of the golden palace.