William teleported to the 176th floor, greeted by Gu Dianlong once again. This time, his aura was a bit stronger than before, clearly artificially boosted by the golden orb.
If William had to guess, the man was probably in the early stages of the Golden Core Realm, which would mean he'd have even less time to respond before the Space Element teleported Gu Dianlong behind him.
Thankfully, he already knew how to respond to this person. It was difficult, but William managed to remain still for four hours, long enough to recover a good portion of his Mana and let his Forcefield recover fully.
He used his first move to gather Mana of the Earth Element around his body, but Gu Dianlong used a different move this time. William felt his body slowed by the Time Element, the Earth Element Mana still in motion as Gu Dianlong teleported behind him without a sound.
The sword sliced through William's back once again, shattering the Forcefield and cutting through his once again unprotected skin. This time, the sword's blade managed to slice through William's entire body, only stopped by his skin on the other side.
While William had the Hard Skin Talent for his skin and the Strength Talent for his muscles, his bones, and organs were not the same. They had received no bonuses from the Potential System, meaning William was basically a normal person once one cut through the Forcefield and his skin.
The Strength Talent wasn't a defense-oriented Talent, so it only provided defense at the level of the Foundation Establishment Realm even though it was S-Ranked. It wasn't even worth comparing.
William's body folded over like a piece of paper, his face smashing directly into a...sensitive spot as his Regeneration Talent activated.
He teleported to the 176th floor , but he couldn't see his opponent without raising his head. William could only guess that it was Brackley, meaning he would have to move immediately, lest he wanted to be cut to pieces again.
Unfortunately, the Regeneration Talent couldn't seem to heal William's body while it was folded over . The Blood Element kept him from dying of blood loss, while William was forced to manually reconnect his body by dropping to his knees, then falling flat to the floor.
He did his best to call Mana of the Earth Element and reinforce his damaged body, but Brackley started moving the moment William dropped to the floor. William only felt dozens of successive strikes to his back from the battleaxe as he did his best to survive.
William screamed out in pain as his internal organs were mashed into a paste multiple times over while his Regeneration Talent worked as hard as possible. It seemed Brackley was trying to damage an already weak point to finish William off.
With the Sound Element amplifying his hearing a bit, William heard a grunt from Brackley as his own back was damaged by the Reflection Talent, but his body was quite strong, and he could take the hit.
William raised his arm and used it to cover his back from behind.
His hand was cut off by the next strike from the battleaxe, but that was exactly what William wanted. His face that was pressed to the ground did its best to turn upwards, just in time to see Brackley's hand fall from its wrist while the weapon fell to the ground.
Brackley released another grunt, but he still managed to endure. The man took a few steps back to assess the situation, but he noticed William was healing incredibly quickly, so he rushed back in and released a punch to William's head with great force, hoping to knock the man out before he could recover.
William expected this. He finally managed to call some Earth Element Mana to cover his head, defending from the first attack just in time. William continued reinforcing the earth around him, turning it into Iron and increasing the coverage of the Spell as he cocooned himself.
The punches continued, but William just spent more Mana to keep his new Iron Shell Spell from breaking. Brackley gave up after a few minutes, instead using the Fire Element, which William didn't know he had before.
The man heated up the outside of the Iron Shell, cooking William inside like he was chicken nuggets in an oven. Brackley clearly didn't know that William had the Fire Element, and he couldn't see what was happening inside, or he wouldn't have even bothered with something .
William endured the heat just fine, which was strong but couldn't be compared to the flame breath from the Forest Dragon on the earlier floors. His body mended itself, making William thankful that he had an S-Rank Regeneration Talent despite the side effect that caused William to age another four years. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel•fire.net
There were no obvious changes to William's body, since four years was but a few months to someone that had a lifespan of 240 years. Despite this, William was somewhat worried. If he kept getting older because of the Regeneration Talent, William would need to increase his lifespan again.
Not only this, but the Time Element seemed to age him quite a bit every time it was upgraded.
He took a few minutes to recover his mind from the trauma he just had to go through, surprised that he hadn't passed out.
William opened the Iron Shell, immediately greeted by a punch from Brackley, but he stopped it with his own fist. William's Strength Talent was S-Rank, and he had a B-Rank Fists Talent. There was no way that Brackley could compare to him.
William's expression was angry as he spent the next ten minutes beating the ever-living shit out of Brackley.
In another Continent far away from Azures and much colder, a burly man with long silver hair and a mean face suddenly felt a soul-tearing pain in his chest. His eyes immediately turned in a certain direction, towards the location of the Gravitas Ruins.
Whoever the fuck just killed my Spirit Incarnation is going to die a horrible death. Brackley thought as he stood up from a silver throne.
Next to the throne, two beautiful women wearing beautiful clothes of red and green became worried.
"Master, is everything alright?" they asked the angry man.
"It's nothing. I'm going out for a bit." Brackley responded as he stormed out of a double door made completely out of ice.
A Challenger has entered the 180th floor...
A Challenger has entered the 185th floor...
A Challenger has entered the 190th floor...
A Challenger has entered the 195th floor...
As William climbed the tower almost as quickly as before, the Cultivators below became increasingly riled up. The leaders amongst the younger generation gathered their groups together and began issuing orders.
"Everyone, take your positions! He should be out of the trial in two hours or less!"
Those who had been sitting idle for the past week or so immediately became excited. This was the moment where all their hard work paid off!
They realized that if a reward was given out for completing each floor of the trial tower, that meant William had at least two hundred treasures for them to claim.
Given that there were over two thousand Cultivators participating, among around two hundred Sects, that meant each Sect had a chance to get a share of the pie!
Not everything was as orderly as it seemed on the surface, however. Some Cultivators with more malicious intentions had other ideas. They didn't want just one treasure, they wanted all of it!