Chapter 55 - Facing the Continent Trial (1/2)
”Creating an opponent for the continent trial.”
As it said these words, a faint smoke began to materialize to take on the appearance of a human body. From its outer appearance, you could see that it was a male human body but with undefined features.
It was hard to take it seriously, looking at that undefined body, but the pressure it was giving off was far from cheerful. Its barely accentuated eyes exuded incredible combative intent as if it had a mortal enemy in front of it.
”Taking into account the talent level of the participant, the difficulty of the continent trial was raised. The participant is no longer required to win. But the passage of the trial will be decided by the Artifact Spirit's evaluation, in charge of managing the formations on the islands. Attempted communication with the Artifact Spirit performed.”
All of a sudden, the metallic voice spat out other words that left Hei astonished. But before he could ask questions about it, a male voice with a hoarse tone resonated in the room.
”It has been a long time since someone decided to face the continent's trial on Rainbow Island. But that there are two people, in the same place, who possess a high-level talent according to the standards of the Continent... it is quite surprising.” the male voice uttered in a surprised tone.
”Who are you? What is happening? What does it mean that the difficulty of the trial has been raised?” Hei asked as he frowned.
Even if together with his mother, they had assumed he and Lian would have to face the continent trial directly, they didn't imagine that such a situation would happen. Before starting the fight, he wanted to understand all the details and the reasons for such a change.
When he replied in this way, two smoke-like eyes materialized over the opponent generated for Hei by the trial combat formation.
”Greetings, young boy. I am the Artifact Spirit in charge of managing all the formations on the islands. Ah, but I guess you don't know what an Artifact Spirit is. The Artifact Spirits are nothing but the consciousness that are born within an object. There are various ways of creation, but it isn't the time to talk about it. Anyway, I was given the management of all the formations provided by the Sun Empire to the islands. Normally, I would remain at rest, letting the automatic formation function do its work. Still, in particular cases, I can move into one of the pieces of consciousness inside the trial formations. Although this is the first time, I am actually called because there is a worthy candidate.”
'The man,' in spite of his hoarse tone, was friendly and lively, perhaps because it was the first time he was talking to someone after a long time.
'Artifact Spirit? Consciousness inside an object?'
As he pondered this, Hei asked.
”Then, are you a kind of elemental essence?”
Right, didn't the elemental essences also stones that had developed a certain degree of consciousness along with absorbing part of a specific element?
The Artifact Spirit laughed, and without delay, he answered the question that had been asked.
”We are similar, but we aren't the same. The elemental essences are 'creatures' born naturally without the aid of being human or demons. We Artifact Spirits are instead artificially created, and we do not possess our original power. The Artifact Spirits are basically divided into two, Weapon Artifact Spirits and Formation Artifact Spirit. I am a Formation Artifact Spirit, and as you can guess from the term, I am in charge of managing a specific formation. Further details can be discovered once you reach the Continent.”
Then he paused as the 'pair of eyes' of the Artifact Spirit looked down at Hei's opponent.
”Normally the continent trial consists in defeating the adversary designated by the formation. But since the talent level of both you and the girl with you is high, even by the standards of the continent, you have been given another opponent. You will only have to fight as much as you can, and based on your performance, you will be assigned not only the right to enter the Continent but also to join one of the war academies. The prestige of the war academies in which you can register will depend on your performance.”
”War academies? What's this?”
”Ah yes, I forgot that the sects' system is still in force on the islands. Nowadays, on the continent, sects no longer exist or at least do not constitute the main power. There are some sects, but they have little power and are concentrated in smaller cities. Instead, this system has been replaced with war academies that are nothing more than places where to train martial artists based on their performances, canceling the concept of belonging to a specific sect but promoting the idea of belonging to the human race.
It was a necessary measure to have enough war potential to fight the demons. The system of sects almost caused the collapse of human society on the continent, so it was necessary to reach this solution. However, you can find out more about the continent's history in the future. Now that I have explained everything to you, if you don't have any other questions, you should start.”
Seeing that the Artifact Spirit would not answer further questions and had answered those concerning the changes in the continent trial, Hei nodded his head and positioned himself with his spear, ready to start fighting.
In a similar room, Lian was also preparing for her fight while taking a big mouthful of air. She didn't care so much about the continent's history, and if Hei had no other questions, she wouldn't make them in turn.
Seeing the two that were ready, the Artifact Spirit gave the signal to their opponents to start moving.
Seeing it moving, Hei immediately filled the distance with his enemy and tried with an initial lunge with the tip of his spear. Since it was the first blow to break the ice, he didn't use so much power and didn't lengthen forward too much.
By learning the basic spear techniques, he had acquired the knowledge about how to dose his strength and adjust the thrust forward based on the positions his hands took on the spear shaft. He had also learned that with good reflexes and understanding of the combat flow, he could use the flat end of the spear to parry incoming attacks, and then quickly rotate the spear to direct the sharp head and vice versa. In this way, he would have more variability in his attacks, thus being able to surprise his opponent more often since he wasn't giving a monotonous attack pattern.
The enemy parried the lunge using the weapon that suddenly materialized in its hands - it was a large two-handed battle-ax whose head had two ends with blades.
With a lateral movement, it tried to move Hei's spear to the side so as to leave him exposed. However, since Hei hadn't leaned too far forward, he managed to avoid the ax blow by moving backward.
'A two-pitted battle-ax. Because it is using two hands due to the weapon's size, the enemy's speed of movement is limited, as is that of the weapon. But one blow is capable of doing enormous damage.'
Analyzing his opponent, Hei then prepared his combat plan. He decided to try first with lunges from afar as before. Only, he would do them in quick succession, one after the other.
If the formation accurately reproduced the features of a real enemy, then it also had to simulate the fatigue generated by agitating such a large weapon. He would continue like this for a while, and if he hadn't seen changes in the opposing rhythm, he would move on to something else.