Chapter 229: 2nd stage of the trial Ethan felt the first seal on his power was broken the moment he killed his opponent. Ethan looked at those ant-like creatures who were still struggling to get their power unsealed. He thought, "I could kill them with just a thought, what the heck is this trial?" But before he could finish his thought, a force pulled him inside a portal. He heard a voice, "You have unsealed 1% of your power. Now survive in the wilderness." It was the voice of that spirit. Ethan appeared in a wilderness. "Why did you do this? You didn’t say this when you explained the rule," Ethan asked very calmly. "Relax boy, your power is overwhelming. If I didn’t do this, this trial would have lost its meaning. I’ll compensate you for this. Everyone has to survive for 5 days in the wilderness, but you only need to do that for 2 days and you will be promoted to the 2nd stage with your full power." Ethan didn’t argue. He was just here for some fun anyway. But how did this spirit know that his power was overwhelming? "System?" [Master, you were showing off your power here and there and you didn’t ask me to conceal your power when they were unlocked.] Ethan was speechless. What could he say? But it didn’t matter. Only the spirit knew about this anyway. Ethan was looking around. The wilderness should be pretty dangerous as it was a part of the trial. So he was expecting some monsters to attack him. As expected, when he walked for 7 minutes, a tremendous roar shook the forest and thump, thump, the ground started quaking. Ethan looked at the source of the sound and saw the trees breaking apart as something was coming toward his direction from that location. And that thing should be pretty powerful. He covered the area with his ultimate domain and instantly found the creature. It was a white elephant, but it was 300 meters tall and 250 meters in length. But the power of this elephant was not a joke. A tier 11 lifeform. Damn! Ethan scanned the area before, where all the candidates were present, and most of them were tier 10. I mean what could one expect? A 500-year tier 10 was an absolute genius, no doubt about that. But this was a trial set by a supreme existence of the 3rd dimension. The first creature which attacked him was a tier 11, no wonder it was a trial of survival. But for Ethan, it was just a cute white elephant. Soon the trees in front of him were all cleared and Ethan saw the elephant with his own eyes. The elephant roared when it saw its prey was not afraid and was smiling at it. It was infuriating. Ethan ordered a tier 11 dragon to come out from his shadow to play with it. A huge dragon emerged from his shadow and it turned bigger, at the same size as the elephant. It roared at the elephant. A dragon was a superior species compared to an elephant, but this white elephant seemed different. Normally, a lesser species started shaking as soon as a superior species appeared in front of them, even if they were at the same realm. But this white elephant didn’t show any fear. It meant the bloodline of the white elephant should be comparable to that of dragons. Soon both of them started battling. The trees were getting crushed by their battle residue. Ethan thought, "Not bad." The dragon and the elephant were similar in terms of strength, so no one was getting the upper hand for a while. Ethan was sure the dragon would win as it would not exhaust, but the white elephant would surely lose its fighting power. Both of them were injured but the moment the dragon was injured, it was healed instantly. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺 But then the elephant started glowing and all its wounds were healed. And Ethan could tell, the amount of energy it lost was also recovered. Now the question was how? Then he looked at the elephant at a molecular level and found out that it was actively absorbing energy from the earth and absorbing many times faster than normal. So it could absorb energy and heal itself within a moment? Was this its unique talent or was it the same for other beasts of this realm too? It could be possible as this was a trial. Then Ethan took out a sword and killed the elephant. "Arise," he muttered. The elephant was also included in his shadow army. If any of those candidates faced this elephant, Ethan didn’t know what they might do as the elephant was indestructible in a sense. Soon two days passed! Ethan was standing on a mountain in the forest. He had included 5 more monsters from this realm in his shadow army. The white elephant was really unique, so Ethan extracted its talent from the body. He would give this talent to his follower in the future. The spirit was probably cursing him. He was literally playing around. Then he heard the voice of the spirit again, [Boy, you have taken 5 rare species from the trial ground. For this, you will only get 50% of your power back and enter the 2nd stage. Now wait for others to finish their 1st phase.] This spirit really was against him. Did he steal his wife or something? Ethan was speechless. A portal appeared in front of him and he entered inside it. He appeared in a luxuriously decorated large room. It was probably from a palace. There were foods on the table spreading a very lavish aroma. There were screens where different candidates were being shown. They were now in the wilderness, surviving from the pursuit of those rare monsters. Some even formed teams to survive. Ethan sat at the table, started eating, and was enjoying the show. He marked some of them. A young man was now holding a sword and was battling a tier 11 tiger. This was the young man who knocked at the door of his spaceship. He was a tier 12 being, but his power should be sealed. Did he already kill enough to unseal his power to battle a tier 11? He should be very powerful. There were some other eye-catching candidates too. Ethan was observing their performance and giving them marks to see if they were worthy enough to be chosen by him. 3 more days passed. His attributes were changed in these 5 days. A total of 32 times increment. [Master: Ethan Hunt Physique: 358.4 M Cosmos Spirit: 358.4 M Cosmos Talent: Infinite comprehension] Though 50% of that power was still sealed. A tier 15 had 3 billion Cosmos power which was 600 times higher than a tier 14. Ethan was getting closer to the power level of a Chaos Ruler. Soon many portals appeared in the room and those who survived started coming out from them. 1500 people survived among 20000 candidates. They were exhausted. Only 100 among them were able to kill 100 people and got their full power back. The rest of them only unlocked portions of their power. They looked at Ethan weirdly as only he was not looking exhausted among them. But they didn’t give him much attention and started eating. The spirit appeared in the room, this time with a mini version. [Congratulations everyone for passing the 1st stage. Now I am going to tell you about the 2nd stage. In this stage, you will be sent into a realm and will be provided with your own kingdom. You will have to conquer the other kingdoms within 1 year. Only the top 10 will be selected among you who had conquered more kingdoms. Rest for a day and then you will be sent there.] It vanished after saying its piece and didn’t give them any chance to ask questions. The next day, everyone was teleported to their designated kingdom. Ethan scanned the area to understand what this kingdom was about. There were people and they were all normal people, not a single martial artist. He was sitting on the throne. There were ministers in front of him. So this was a normal kingdom setting, where he would have to protect his own people and conquer the others. "Your majesty, are you alright?" asked the white-clothed elder in front of him. Ethan asked, "Where were we?" The man sighed. The king was getting absent-minded every now and then. But what could he say? The previous king died suddenly and the crown prince became the king in a haste. That was not the issue. The issue was demons attacked their border and were creating tremendous pressure on him. The king was very young and how could he handle such pressure with so little experience? So he replied patiently, "We were discussing about the battle at the border, your majesty. What should we do? We need to stop those demons as soon as possible."