The predators growled at the man’s command, their muscles bulging through their thick hides, and their feral eyes locking onto Adam’s figure.
Yet, he returned their glare without fear. Although his bones would hold on and wounds would heal, he had no chance in a melee fight against tier-seven magical beasts. Even worse, he could die if they ripped his neck off.
But since everyone had felt his energy by now, he shrugged as his heart poured an inexhaustible ocean of mana into his circuits.
The beasts froze in their movements, their posture lowering and their eyes narrowing as if aware that Adam was no mere prey but a predator equal to them.
Their nostrils widened, bypassing the overwhelming stench of blood to take in the kid’s scent before their limbs trembled, and they took an uncontrollable step back. Why did human, beast, and a horrible smell meld in him?
Meanwhile, Adam’s hair fluttered upwards and his eyes glowed like stars as his even voice echoed like a dead sentence. "Nothing personal. Just taking your master’s test."
The man’s eyes widened behind him as he felt the elements roar with the mana, including the rarest, like vibration, sun, and even one he had no idea about.
"The purity should equate to the golden core realm only," he blurted out. "So what’s with the quantity? Who are you?!"
Only the noise of Adam’s wildly flapping robes answered his question. A horrified heat followed, scalding the air and making breathing as torturous as suffocating as milky, white solar flames condensed into a miniaturised sun in Adam’s palm. Yet, its center made him pale in horror.
Gazing at the incandescent atomic core and the gravity compressing it, Adam smiled. It was one of the first techniques he had created, and now it was perfect.
’Almost a little too perfect.’ An inner chuckle rocked his mind as vibrations deformed the ball and the surrounding space, forcing the atoms closer.
Without wasting a second, his mana propelled the unstable sun toward the shocked beasts.
However, they lunged to the sides, landing on their nimble paws. With a growl, they snuffed their initial shock as they spread and charged the insolent human, their razor-sharp teeth glinting.
As the man shook his head behind, knowing his beasts would tear Adam, Adam tilted his head toward him and smirked.
"Tier seven beasts are too fast. Even my spatial blades can’t reach them. But do you know what can?" The ball cast dancing shadows on his face as the atoms in its unstable core fused. "Utter devastation."
He rocketed out of the room, gripping the man’s arm as a layered barrier encased them. Then, he sealed the room with a sturdier one, leapt against the corridor’s opposite wall, and covered the man.
A deafening explosion rocked the room, waves of scalding winds crashing against the sturdy walls. Millions of degrees evaporated the air and blackened the ground as the beasts roared in agony. Their fur burned like torches, yet they stumbled to the door amidst the inferno, showcasing their resilience and desire to devour Adam.
However, before the echoes of the first blast could even begin to fade, the sphere’s core shuddered and began another fusion using Adam’s mana as fuel.
A second explosion tore through the room, followed almost instantly by a third. The beasts’ skins melted, and the heat clawed into their muscles, cooking the organs. They tried to rely on their speed, but there was no escape from a strike that engulfed the entire room.
With a last growl, they collapsed on the glowing ground, dead.
Out of fuel, the sphere collapsed and drifted with the ash swirling in the room as the man pushed Adam back.
Before he could flare up, Adam raised his palm and spoke.
"I don’t know if you could endure the explosions and I can’t let you die because of me. So, I didn’t take any risks." His face turned somber. "Your beasts are dead. Stop the guardian before he thinks I tried to escape."
The man’s insults caught in his throat as six blades glinted through the doorway. They ripped through the barrier as if it were mere paper and dashed toward them, ready to behead Adam.
"Wait!" He moved before Adam and raised his palm, his commanding voice echoing. "Return inside!"
The guardian lowered his arms and spun on his heel as the man turned and narrowed his eyes. "I’ll consider you failed if a single one is alive. You’re warned."
Adam watched him return to the room, a drop of icy sweat rolling down his brow.
’I knew those guardians were tough, but... There wasn’t even a scratch on its frame and the barrier didn’t slow it down at all.’ He gasped in horror and admiration for whoever designed them.
But he also understood he couldn’t mess with the rules too much. What if the next test manager refused to stop it? ’I’ll die...’
With a click of his tongue, he returned to the room, blew the ashes, and cooled the room with his wind and ice affinities.
Once the air became breathable again, he pointed at the carcasses. "See? They don’t emit life force anymore."
The man crouched over his beasts, his eyes narrowed. That wasn’t the glorious fight they had aspired to. Instead, it felt more like a cunning execution.
Still, Adam’s victory was undeniable, even if he broke the rule by leaving the room. In fact, he had calmed down and stopped the guardian because he admired how Adam had cared for his safety, even though they were strangers.
The thought made him chuckle. Would he, the void palace’s eighteenth prince, die in a mere explosion? After all, he was much stronger than those scrap golems they called guardians.
He turned toward Adam and produced a parchment. "You pass, but barely." He tucked his fingers around his chin. "I can’t penalise you because of your fighting style and strange energy, right?"
Adam took the parchment and rolled his eyes as he saw the curious spark in the man’s eyes. Knowing every projection would ask, he summarised what he did lazily.
"I use mana. It allows me to create magic. This one copied the phenomenon happening in the sun’s core but in a miniaturised version."
"Don’t you use Qi?" The man sized him up before he shook his head. "You have an outrageous quantity for your level, but the purity... Why do you remain in the Qi gathering realm?"
Adam shrugged and turned to leave. "I don’t want to use trash. I’m onto something to get a sun-grade cultivation technique, though."
However, his steps froze and his eyes widened when the man answered with an amused tone.
"Oh, those? We should have a few dozen in the library." He smirked as the wind blew his blue robes. "We each used one to cultivate. But my father... He has one of a higher grade."
He turned in disbelief, his heart drumming in his ears. Why would he need to become Tianlong’s disciple if he could get so many sun-grade techniques? No! There was one of a rank he had never heard before—neither in this realm nor in the magic world.
Yet, his words didn’t leave his mouth as he observed the empty room. The man had faded right after dropping a bomb.