Five hours later
Gurgling blood and lying in a pool of the stuff to boot, Ares had fainted dead. Did he accomplish his goal before conking out? Candy had no clue, she simply moved over and pulled him out of the red puddle while using his Zephyr to clean up the blood stains somewhat. At first she''d been somewhat envious of Ares'' enhancement learning speed but, towards the end, seeing his tortured body and hollow eyes made her rethink that baseless envy. Things in the cultivation world were rarely just straight up easier for one person than another, there was almost always a catch and Ares looked like he was suffering through his ''catch'' quite a bit. Worse still even if Ares had died in here he wouldn''t have been resurrected outside the pagoda because the problem was internal. He would have actually died for real if that had been the case. Candy and Dominus chose not to warn him because he was doing fantastic considering the circumstances and they were confident he could do it... Although it would have been tremendously awkward if he keeled over for good but they''d been keeping a close eye on him. If it came down to the wire one of them would have intervened in some manner and stopped him.
Now the only question that remained was, did he stop because he was knocked unconscious forcefully or because he was resting now that he was done? Until Ares woke up there was no way to tell but that just made the anticipation build all the more while Candy waited! Well, Candy waited, Dominus already knew. He lived inside the guy after all. It''s not like he could communicate with Candy though otherwise he would, not because he himself really cared about this fox in anyway but because he would be interested in her opinion. This fox was clever and had a bright future in magic research ahead of her if she ever applied herself. Dominus had been really impressed with what he saw of her earlier when she was experimenting with destruction magic. Ares would never know just how crazy some of this maniac''s tests really were. Well she was a clone so she felt no pain but it wouldn''t have been pleasant regardless. She was a smart cookie, that was how Dominus felt. He even congratulated Ares inwardly for adding this chick to his harem ''cos, like Enyo and Bellona, she was a good cultivator worth her weight in gold through and through. Real top of the pack material. How Ares kept getting involved with ridiculous women Dominus didn''t know. This idiot was clearly born under a lucky star, especially if his third wife really would be the reality pillar. This guy''s harem would be more absurd than even any God''s group of followers at this rate... Actually, there was a good chance his current wives would all end up being Goddesses of their respective pillars anyway...
As for what Dominus would have wanted Candy''s opinion on, well, the blood-drooling moron had succeeded... No, that was understatement, he''d done exactly what Dominus had started to wonder if he would or not. Ares incorporated all 100% of his pressure into his enhancement. The way it worked was that the percentage a person managed to incorporate on their first try would usually become their upper limit forever... Only something like the aforementioned herb could ever alter that amount and not by much either, maybe 5% at most. The herbs were also a one-and-done deal so you couldn''t double down on them and raise your cap by having multiple... If you could even get your hands on more than one in the first place, anyway. Dominus had no clue what was in store for Ares because he''d just transcended even his own vast knowledge. One thing was for certain though, with his insane bloodline that allowed him to mix annihilation mana and pressure, and his high quality of pressure thanks to his heart storage location, this guy''s pressure enhancement was going to put him in his own calibre of existence. Dominus was completely convinced Ares was unbeatable in an even, fair fight. When Ares'' pressure enhancement was fully realised, and his training with it complete, there wouldn''t be anyone anywhere who could match this kid if they had the same cultivation as him. It was no longer a contest, Ares had won now and forever. Maybe Candy would be able to do some digging into this guy''s body and figure out what was going on because Dominus himself didn''t know. He accumulated knowledge but wasn''t great at exploring the unknown... Unless it was for art creation under the weapons pillar, then he was second to none.
"WHHOZIT WHAZZIT HOWZZIT WHEREZIIT?!" Ares'' upper body flung upwards off Candy''s lap as he yelled in panic. He looked around and took a deep breath before looking down at his body. The last thing he remembered was succeeding before the pressure knocked his lights out. Realising he was done with the hardest part was a relief he couldn''t quite put into words. He still needed to train with this new technique and get his body used to the feeling, all of which would take a while, but he was past the finish line now basically. Training was all that awaited him, no more trials, goals, experiments, or tasks. Everything the pagoda had left to throw at him could be beaten with the knowledge he had, he just needed to put effort and time in... Unfortunately that also meant his time with Candy was coming to an end. He would probably be able to beat her trial in maybe five or six attempts if he were to hazard a guess. He would fail the first time miserably. He would learn how to wield his new power on attempts two through four. And then he would either do it on the fifth attempt, or Candy would pull out one last surprise and get the better of him again; meaning he would have to go for one final round. He was regretful but also glad. The sooner he cleared this all the better. He needed to go back to real life outside the pagoda as he had a myriad of things waiting for him, demanding his attention. Although part of him didn''t want to, he stood up after thanking Candy for looking after him while he was out and asked for her to start the trial. There was still some stuff he wanted to say to Candy but he would complete the trial first as that was more pressing. Plus it would be awkward saying his goodbyes and then not actually going anywhere...
The timer appeared and hung over Ares as he watched Candy summon her blobs. Ares took roughly two seconds to start enhancing himself after which he felt like his body was floating through outer space. Moving had become so easy that there was no longer any tactile sensation in his muscles, He may as well have been using a remote control to affect his body while he watched from afar. It was reminiscent of when he let Dominus take control. He wasn''t sure how much of a difference this state made yet and he could tell that, although he was using a decent amount of his pressure, 100% was still out of his reach until he trained some more. He could use it, just not yet. Also, all of the pressure he was using was being wasted quite a bit. This meant not only was he not operating at full capacity but the amount he was using was also being diminished because he was leaking it... He could feel these issues fixing themselves with every second he spent in this state but it would take time and couldn''t be sped up at all no way no how. 100% efficiency was absolutely not accomplishable today, that was something he just had to accept and move on from. He hadn''t been planning on completing the pagoda today regardless and he was aware it would take more than a few days so it all lined up. It was highly likely he wouldn''t even be participating in the next round of the international because he would be stuck here. That was fine though as his team was more than capable of making it to even the finals without him if they needed to, Ares was certain. Between Enyo''s recent powerup and Aejaz'' hidden card it was very possible... Although Aejaz'' trick actually required Ares to be there... Or Mako, technically, as he could be used as a substitute. Well, neither of them were strictly necessary but they made his art infinitely better so it was a pseudo-must. Still, the original point being that they could win the next fight without Ares without a hitch. Whether or not they would have to fight one or two a man down remained to be seen and was dependent on how long Ares took.
Ares went through all these thoughts in his head and still had time to parse them before the blobs came within an inch of him. Despite being distracted his brain was operating so much faster that it was like time had slowed down for him. Right off the bat, even if Ares just enhanced his brain and nothing else, slow opponents and slow attacks were now completely ineffective against him. Ares slovenly raised his right hand and smacked a blob off to the side with minimal effort.
BANG
The smack created a blast of air and the blob completely vanished. Ares wasn''t sure if he''d smacked it out of existence or if it went flying into the distance at the speed of light. Either way that thing was completely GONE, never to be seen again. Candy was momentarily stopped in her tracks by the sight of her blob being bitch-slapped into another dimension and fell behind in her administering of the trial. She didn''t pause or restart it though and opted to just skip ahead to where she was supposed to be. The first fifty seconds of this trial really no longer mattered to Ares; it was like flinging ants at him and expecting them to leave a lasting impact, clearly pointless. It was a stark difference to when he first started and was getting too dizzy to even stand straight. Candy had watched Ares evolve his toolset in real time and was deeply impressed by Ares as a specimen. She was looking forward to experimenting on him back in reality one day, he was just so fascinating a creature... And a revenant no less... All the experiments she could run on him that would be lethal to other races...
Ares felt a disturbance in the force but ignored it for now as he was busy conducting his own experiments. Namely, at the start of the next wave of blobs, Ares simply didn''t defend. He let everything Candy threw at him strike him dead centre and yet he didn''t even flinch. Actually, the only damage taken was by the blobs that split apart the second they touched him. Ares didn''t even manage to control half of his max pressure yet, nor had he mixed it with annihilation, and he was already this fearsome... It made him wonder how ridiculous his adept transformation was going to be... Strength of a mutant werewolf with dragon blood, adept trait, pressure enhancement, and destruction mana fuelling him... A single punch might actually be enough to obliterate a mountain at this rate... And he had yet to even find treasures that increased his strength. Ares might have unintentionally, indirectly, become the physically strongest cultivator out there in his own way. Actually this meant that he really needed to consider tempering his body in the future too. It wasn''t high on his list of priorities, as his magic would always be topping that particular list, but it was on there now, that was for sure.
Once again Ares had gotten lost in his own head while the blobs threw themselves at his body. It looked like he was a steel wall being hosed down as the blobs splattered everywhere while dealing zero damage. Even when the talismans came into play Ares could just flick them away or ignore them. The explosions did tickle him though, he gave them credit for making him feel something at least. Really, he was just waiting for the last ten seconds. The only reason he didn''t ask Candy to skip the first fifty was for pressure enhancement practice otherwise waiting around for basically no reason was a waste of time. The clock in the sky ticked down to ten seconds and Candy flourished her two weapons before Blinking around the room without pause. Everywhere she went she left behind give or take fifty blobs that would then home in on Ares from various angles. The talismans were back too but, like the blobs, they were all just distractions. Candy and her guns were what Ares really needed to keep an eye out for here. Her shots might actually hurt him a little but, more than that, getting hit by them would fail him and that was the main issue. Unlike the last time he made it here, however, he could see all of this and had a moment to himself to think while plotting his course of action.
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Bang Bang
Candy started off simple and rapid fired two shots, one aimed for Ares'' brain and the other his stomach. Ares bent down and uppercut the bullet with less height, sending it flying up and into the one above. Ares had felt a lot of resistance there despite the force behind his attack being considerable so he realised playing around with the bullets wasn''t going be feasible. He would have to deflect them properly going forward... Provided he was actually able to keep up, anyway. The two shots Candy fired were a warm up and the next wave wouldn''t be so simple. She fired another two shots and disappeared. Ares heard another set of two fired behind him but, before he could even turn and check, Candy had fired another set of bullets from somewhere else. She was Blinking around, firing in pairs, and there was nothing Ares could do about it at his current speed. He deflected the first two and barely managed to turn in time to deflect one more but the other bullet in the pair had to be dodged. Dodging left him wide open though and he was struck in both his legs, ending his run. Considering how much stronger than him Candy was at the moment he''d done pretty good. His prediction about how many tries this would take was looking accurate so he stood up and readied himself again immediately. The bullet holes in his legs would barely even slow him down and, thanks to the enhancement, made basically no difference whatsoever.
Ares continued retaking the trial, doing marginally better each time but doing better nonetheless. The last stretch was designed to necessitate experience and multiple attempts so ''marginal'' improvements were actually considerable in the grand scheme of things. On his second attempt he managed to block all of Candy''s paired shots by spinning around on the spot and deflecting every bullet perfectly. He was felled on that attempt by the next wave in which Candy just started shooting freely with no breaks. No more pairs meant Ares had to occasionally use his other body parts to deflect and that took him by surprise. Deflecting more than two attacks at the same time was something he''d done before though so his third attempt cleared that wave comfortably. This run, however, was ended when Candy Blinked in front of his face and struck him with the butt of her gun. He''d gotten so used to ranged attacks he hadn''t expected her to physically assault him without mana or bullets! She''d whacked him real good and he almost coughed up some bile as a result. He managed to hold it in though because he refused to throw up in front of Candy in such a pathetic way... He then restarted and commenced his fourth run and, this time, was prepared for Candy''s CQC. He deflected her blunt strike with his chest by pushing it out and taking the fight to her, deciding when and with body part he wanted to block. If he''d screwed it up his chest probably would have caved in but that was part of what made his defence completely unpredictable. It was risky but, in a real fight, would have given him some time to counterattack his opponent. What Ares didn''t expect was for Candy to chuck her guns at him and run him down with her claws, swiping some of the skin on his arm clean off and ending this attempt in failure. He was grateful when she gave it a lick after. Apparently part of her bloodline gave her saliva slight healing prowess and this was simply how she chose to use it. She could have just spit on him but that wasn''t very feminine and so she refused to do it that way. Ares didn''t mention she could have just kissed it because he had no complaints with the current situation at all. Presumably neither did Candy because she also kept quiet on the matter while her tail wagged happily. Anyhow, Ares'' fourth run ended but now he was in the homestretch. At around the time Candy scratched him there were two seconds left on the clock. She maybe had it in her to launch one more sneak attack but that was all she would be able to do. What that attack would be was anyone''s guess really but Ares aimed to find out with his next attempt.
The trial proceeded normally as Ares and Candy danced their usual dance. She lobbed countless balls of death at him and he slapped them away each and every time. She blew up talismans in his face but he walked right through them like the God of explosions he was. She pulled out her trusty arms and shot him with them but he was able to pluck each bullet out of the air with room to spare. She jumped into his personal space and struck at him in various ways before chucking her weapon and swiping at him. This time Ares concentrated on the direction her claws were headed and adjusted his deflect appropriately, sending her claws bouncing off him with two seconds left on the clock. She lunged at him one final time, even though her arms were still being flung back by the earlier deflect, but Ares didn''t let his guard down. She was baring her fangs and she clearly wanted to turn him into a snack with her sharp teeth. Ares couldn''t understand why this was the final attack she chose to launch though... It was a bit too simple for his liking. Yes the bite was somewhat tricky, requiring two different deflects, one for the upper row of teeth and one for the lower, but he could see that little conundrum coming from a mile away and had already anticipated it before hand. If that was all Candy had in store for him then this trial was done and dusted!
CHOMP
"OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" Ares wailed as he ran in circles holding his freshly chewed arm. The bite marks were deep and blood was trickling out of him while Candy licked her lips and slurped up her saliva. She also caught a bit of his blood on her tongue and swallowed it too with a dainty smile on her face as if biting him was completely normal. As for how this happened exactly... Ares was scammed and hoodwinked! Before the bite connected, Candy used her spatial magic to Blink away his deflects! She used spatial magic to teleport his pressure off him and reduce his defences to nothing! Well his enhancement had still been there, thankfully, so that reduced the damage by a decent amount. But still! What a cheap trick... Still, this was a good reminder that his pressure could be interacted with if he was using it as a physical technique. His enhancement and the normal weight pressure were fine and couldn''t be touched by anything other than another person''s pressure pressure, but physical pressure was an entirely different ball game. Teleporting it was clearly possible and that meant the final lesson of floor four was to be aware that pressure was not the end all be all. It was wise to keep your eyes out for anything that could impede or outright deny your physical pressure such as underhanded methods like this. In a real fight, a dirty trick like that would turn the tables at a key moment so pressure wielders had to be aware at all times of sly hijinks. As for countering it, Ares could summon another two vortexes to deflect with after the first two were Blinked away, create a layer of disintegration to snuff out Candy''s magic, break the spatial magic with nothingness, or, funnily enough, deflect the Blink too! Either way the solution was simple and easy to execute so that could only mean one thing... He looked at Candy and could see a few tears starting to form in her eyes... Completing this trial would be difficult for an entirely unexpected reason but, alas, he had to do it. He said nothing to her now because comforting her was something that could happen after... Right now he needed to do this.
Candy was slow to start the trial up again but did her duty properly when the time came. All the blobs, talismans, and gun shots in the world couldn''t stop Ares any longer though and he very quickly made it to the end. She lunged at him with her teeth but Ares deflected the last second Blink, denying her attack. He did let her rugby tackle him to the floor though as the trial was already over and this was seemingly a personal request of hers as she put her teeth away and hugged him on the way down. It''s not like her feeble attempt at biting him would net her any results anyway so she gave up and just cuddled him instead. If she couldn''t stop him leaving she would enjoy her last few moments with him here instead... Although she really didn''t want to let go while Ares was pampering her. His warm hand caressing her head, ears, and tails meant a lot to her. Knowing she was going to temporarily lose it all for years to come... It wasn''t easy. At the very least, Ares seemed content to let her wallow in his arms for a while.
The two sat there in the blank, white room for nearly an hour. They said nothing because they knew the next time they spoke it would be the last for now. Even a throwaway comment would probably lead to the goodbye so silence was the preferable way of embracing each other. Nothing needed to be said anymore anyway. All of their playful back and forth today had done most of the talking for them. Candy leant against Ares'' chest and he stroked her fluffy tails and ears that were incredibly soft to the touch. Still, this couldn''t last forever and Ares really did have to leave. Not just because of the banquet, although that was certainly a concern, but because he would have to complete this pagoda at some point. He couldn''t stay or keep Candy here, it just wasn''t feasible. With a heavy heart, Ares started to shift around as he prepared himself to move on.
The last floor was waiting for him and he had a date with destiny, so to speak. This pagoda had been brought here for him, and he gotten way more out of it than he could have ever anticipated, but the benefits he could draw from this place were starting to come to an end. He would strive to beat the last floor, claim his reward, and set everyone free... If they so chose to be set free anyway. It was technically optional but there were no floor overseers here currently that would choose to hang around and onto their positions after all the time they spent here. Golgo hadn''t been here that long, and Candy wasn''t exactly a long standing member either, but they had things to take care of anyway. It wasn''t even worth mention Caribou Coronos and Larsh, they were practically begging to be released. As for the guy on the final floor, if he was beaten he wouldn''t have a say in the matter. An Ares clone would automatically be placed there in his stead. Ares would leave behind a part of his consciousness on the top floor and, after that, the Transmit people would search around for people to replace the other overseers on the other floors before letting the pagoda out into the wide world again. Ares didn''t know any of this just yet but, when he did finally learn about it, he would be particularly happy to know his clone would be out there, doing him proud, kicking some serious ass! The guy on the top floor currently had legendary status thanks to the pagoda and now Ares would be in the same boat. His name would ring far and wide due to the ass whoopings he would be mercilessly dealing out! Also, if anyone from a higher domain challenged his clone it would automatically be buffed up to match them! It might make some of the people going after Candy rethink their approach if they tried to test his prowess in the pagoda. If they couldn''t beat his magic-less clone, what chance would they have against the real thing with full access to the destruction pillar when he reached their cultivation?! His presence at the top of the pagoda would be a fantastic deterrence. Still, that was then and now was now. In order for all that to come to fruition, Ares had to let go of Candy. Still, on the bright side, he did have some treats to give her!... Not treats as in, like, the kind of stuff you would give a pet... She was a fox, yes, but not like an animal kinda fox! A human fox!... Anyway, it was time for souvenirs!