Seeing the golem wasn’t making any other movements, Grey spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Damn! This thing is stronger than expected”, he complained.
From the battle he just had with the golem, he was confident it was stronger than someone at the Third stage of the Origin Plane.
Even though he knew his chances against someone in the Third stage of the Origin Plane wasn’t high, there was no way he would’ve been beaten this badly.
“I’ll recover first then think of what to do”
With this thought, he quickly sat crossed leg. But just as he sat down, he stood up again.
‘What if it suddenly decides to leave that spot and attack me while I’m trying to recover? I’ll move further’.
Although he was injured, his healing ability is quite higher than others. And he still had some healing tonic left with him.
After moving a considerable distance he felt was safe enough, he sat cross-legged and immediately used the tonic, before entering into a semi-conscious state to heal himself properly.
While Grey was bleeding, the egg was absorbing his blood silently, and it even went on to secretly absorb his blood essence, but since Grey was already very weak, he didn’t notice it.
Two hours thirty minutes later…
“Whew”
A white gas came out of Grey’s mouth as he breathed out heavily.
“Just a little more and I’ll break through to the Origin Plane”, he said excitedly.
The battles he had fought today had squeezed out his potential which in turn increased his cultivation. Although it was by a little, if he had decided to cultivate for an entire day or two, then he would definitely break through to the Origin Plane.
But the fight still isn’t over, he still had to defeat that last golem, or else he wouldn’t be able to get to the peak.
“Charging at it is completely stupid since all I’ll get is being pummeled once again. It doesn’t seem like something that has exhausted its energy, so its strength will most likely be the same”
“But what if it isn’t? If its strength drops then I’ll have a chance of defeating it. Well, there’s only one way to find out”
One minute later…
“No. Its strength is basically still the same”
Grey gently massaged his shoulder which was slightly hit by the golem during the exchange.
When he just started the battle, he noticed there wasn’t any difference in its strength, so he quickly escaped. He had been beaten once, he didn’t want to get beaten to that stage once again.
This time he didn’t retreat far and just stood at a distance where the golem was still visible to him. The golem had once again stood in its spot.
After a while.
“That’s it!”, Grey exclaimed excitedly.
“Hehehe, I’ll see how it will survive this. Thankfully, as long as I don’t get twenty meters close to it, it doesn’t attack”
He had studied the distance he gets to before the golem attacks, and noticed it was only after he gets within twenty meters of it does it attack. Once he was out of that range, it wouldn’t attack but just stare at him.
When he first noticed this, the thought of going around crossed his mind, and he executed it. It was just that, after walking fifty meters from where that golem was located, he found another one standing there. And behind him was a group in the First stage of the Origin Plane.
The first golem followed him till he got to a particular spot, then it stopped.
From this, he was able to deduce that the golems were all placed in a particular territory away from each other, and they only attack once someone drifts into their territory.
He didn’t bother to fight it out with those golems and just retreated back to where he came from.
Now he was struck with a great idea, elemental fusion.
After the first time he tried it back at the Lunar Academy, he had only tried it once during his time here. But he didn’t allow the orb to form fully since he noticed he still wasn’t able to control it.
Now, he’s about to try it once more. His cultivation is stronger, the grade of some of his elements has seen an increase, and he also got a new element.
He was quite expectant towards the outcome of the explosion, would the strength be stronger than what he expected, or would it be lower. He couldn’t wait to find out.
Staring at the motionless golem, he walked to the edge of the twenty meters mark. He slowly stretched out his right hand, and his lips curved upwards to reveal a smirk.
“This thing is in for the surprise of its life. Wait! Is it even alive? Who cares, I’m going to blow it up anyway”, he shrugged.
The golem looked at him with its listless eyes, it didn’t care what the human was doing, but if it tried to get within twenty meters of it, then it would attack without mercy.
Grey’s expression turned into one of seriousness as he slowly started sensing the elemental particles in the air with his spiritual sense.
Now, unlike the previous time, he had to guide four different elements to make the orb, so the process will require more concentration from him, and also more effort.
But he didn’t forget to take a peek at the golem once in a while to confirm if it was still in the same spot.
Soon, he started slowly guiding the elements towards himself, lights made of brownish, silver, greenish and blueish color could be seen slowly concealing at the top of his outstretched hand. Slowly, an orb started taking shape. It was made of four different colors intertwining perfectly in it.
As time went on, the orb started to grow bigger. First, it was the size of a table tennis ball, then it slowly grew to the size of a fist.
This was the largest he could grow the orb to without it exploding in his hand immediately. The orb currently had a mixture of four different colors, and it looked beautiful.
The golem looked at the orb taking shape in Grey’s hand and a hint of danger flashed across its previously listless eyes. It could tell the thing the human was creating had the capability of killing him.
Compared to the other golems, the ones which are situated at the peak of the volcano have a sliver of consciousness, so its senses were telling it to escape as far as he could, but its order was telling it to stay put.
Its order was to stop anyone who tried to reach the peak through its territory. It didn’t care what happened in the other territories, but it was supposed to stop whoever or whatever came its way.
The orb soon started trembling, this was a sign of Grey losing control.
Looking at the orb, he couldn’t complain because at least he was able to keep it stable for almost five seconds. Besides, he didn’t create it with the purpose of controlling it anyway.
“Here’s a gift for your hard work”, Grey said before throwing the orb at the golem.
The orb was already close to exploding and any other contact would make it explode faster.
The second the orb left his hand, he immediately dashed as fast as he could in the other direction. He didn’t want to experience the strength of the orb in any way.
The golem seeing the orb coming its way instinctively wanted to run, but because it couldn’t defy its orders, it stood still and swung its mace at the orb coming its way.
BOOM!
The fleeing Grey already expected the explosion. When he snuck a view over his shoulder, his pupils dilated, the explosion was catching up at a faster pace.
Had the golem not swung its mace at it, it wouldn’t have exploded this early and might have given Grey an added precious one or two seconds.
At the sense of danger, his speed increased to a new level. And he dashed towards the foot of the volcano as fast as he could. Since he was descending, his speed was also given a major boost.
He managed to escape from the blast range by a hair’s breadth.
Ten minutes later…
“Wow! This place is really sturdy”, Grey exclaimed at the sight of where the blast took place.
After the blast died down, he came back to the site of the explosion. The golem was nowhere to be seen, obviously. But what amazed him was that the ground of the volcano didn’t even have a single scratch on it.
Grey estimated the strength of the explosion was at least at the power of someone in the Fifth stage of the Origin Plane.
No one would believe someone in the Arcane Plane was able to dish out such a strong attack.
After getting to the peak of the volcano, he saw an entrance that led inside the volcano. At the side of the entrance was a message written on a fiery red stone slab.
“Fated one, if you’re reading this then it means you have passed the first stage of the trial…”
Grey read the words carefully before he walked into the entrance.
According to the words, an expert kept his greatest treasure inside the depths of this volcano. The golems he fought were all adjusted according to his stage, so if someone with a higher stage came here, the strength of the golem would also see an increase. The stage of the last golem was created to be three stages ahead of the person entering the trial.
And unsurprisingly, he would also battle a creature inside the volcano. It was an Elemental Warrior, and it will be a stage ahead of the last golem he fought.
“At least I was given a heads-up”
With this, he disappeared into the volcano.