56 The Castle Part 2 (2/2)

Two doors had appeared, one behind him, and the other in front of him.

Daniel closed his eyes once more, then started to emanate a faint veil of spiritual essence from his body. After a moment of focus, this colorless spiritual essence took the shape of hundreds of small bolts of lightning that roamed the surface of his body.

”Amazing..” Was the only word that Daniel managed to mutter.

A profound mastery of sword and a deep comprehension of lightning essence. Daniel's gains were already more than any other participant could have hoped.

After a deep breath, Daniel thought ”Alright, let's see what's further down..” he then entered the second room.

This second room, was just as simple as the first one. But instead of a floating pyramid of rotating spheres, there was a set of small tables.

Each table was identical, but they all had different characteristics, which associated them with the various basic elements. There was a table whose surfaces danced of a light red shine, one who seemed to be made of plain steel, and another which appeared to be made of dirt.

Above these tables, were small cages with bars spaced just enough to grant a peek inbetween, and above each of these cages, a plain looking orb floated steadily.

From between the cage bars, Daniel could see small boxes inside.

It didn't require a genius for someone to understand the point of this test. First, comprehension of an essence, then, to test one's abilities.

Daniel approached the table form which soft flickering white light emanated. He then put his hand on the orb, and started to push spiritual essence into it. Lastly, he turned the spiritual essence into lightning essence.

A small ball of lightning formed within the orb, expanding slowly as time went by.

There were no reactions to the orb at first, but then, the more Daniel increased the density of the lightning essence, the more unstable the orb became.

In a minute, a crack appeared on its surface, and during the following five minutes, the crack expanded in length and width, until finally, the orb shattered into pieces.

The moment the orb exploded, the small cage which surrounded the small box, started to slowly dissipate.

Daniel reached for the small box, and opened it immediately. Inside, was an bead-sized transparent opal. This opal shined of flickering white lights, which followed the motion of hundreds of tiny lightning bolts.

A lightning essence treasure.

Daniel was familiar with what an elemental treasure was, as inside one of the books given to him by the old alchemist, he had found one that explained the use of essence treasures. The book also explained how they could be used to enchant weapons, armors, or create essence spheres.

This lightning essence treasure could be used to enchant weapons, giving them a paralyzing effect. It could also be used to make a lightning sphere of fairly high quality.

Suddenly, something strange caught Daniel's attention. The essence treasure he had obtained, was exactly at the same level as the highest state of comprehension he could muster of lightning essence.

He then looked around, and found that the rest of the tables, were still there.

Filled with excitement, he approached the tables whose correspondent essence he had at least a big of comprehension, he then repeated the process, and started to collect the other essence treasures.

-----

A full hour had passed, and in Daniel's hand, were seven items.

Three of these items were of a much higher quality than the rest. The lightning opal from before, a coral which radiated with water essence and a feather whose barbs kept waving in the air.

The remaining four treasures, were a small ruby with faint fire flickering in it, an orange stone that emanated faint earth essence, a piece of dark brown bark, and finally, an arrowhead made out of pure steel.

Daniel put these items in his spatial ring, and left the room from the door that had appeared the moment he had obtained the lightning treasure.

After a few minutes of walking, Daniel found himself in another stone room. Inside this stone room, there was nothing but a cushion on the ground, and a small table with a hand carved on the surface.

Daniel looked around for a bit, but unable to find anything in the surroundings, he decided to sit on the cushion. He then placed his hand on the hand shaped carving.

Nothing happened.

”Mhh.. These are tests for spiritual cultivators.. It must have something to do with spiritual essence.” Thought Daniel before driving his spiritual essence out of his hand.

Suddenly, the small table disappeared, and in its place, a box similar to the previous ones he had seen, had appeared.

Daniel quickly opened the box, but what he saw inside, wasn't an essence treasure.. It was a monster core.

What was more surprising to Daniel, was that this wasn't a random high level monster core. Instead, it was a peak rank 4 monster core, which corresponded to his exact stage of spiritual cultivation.

He was sure that, in he consumed this core right here and now, he would be able to advance to the fifth rank. The reason why Daniel hadn't advanced to the fifth rank, wasn't because he lacked the beast cores, after all his teachers had given him half a hundred of rank 4 beast cores alone. The reason was because he simply hadn't found the chance yet.

Once taken the beast core from the box, nothing happened. No door had appeared, and no changes were made to the room.

Slightly perplexed, Daniel started to think about the purpose of this test.

Luckily, he was an intelligent person.. So in less than a minute, a smile of realization appeared on his face as he and muttered ”It's talent in cultivating the spirit..”