728 Faster
Just as Dyon was about to think through what his next step should be, an unexpected notification sounded in his years that sounded a lot like his grand teacher trying to sound grand an imposing.
‘The first stage of the trial has been complete. Would you like to quit and accept the appropriate rewards, or continue on to the second and final stage?’
To anyone else, these words would have seemed simple and meaningless. In fact, many might choose to quit. However, when Dyon heard these words, his eyes glistened and his focus sharpened.
Firstly, it told him that he was correct. The goal of the trial was to move outward, not inward. If not, then he wouldn’t have completed the first stage.
Secondly, it completely eliminated the need for him to sit and wait to see if the walls would move again just when he was on the cusp of something. It was clear that this second stage had to do with the constant shifting of the walls, as such, it was named stage two. Stage one was a still maze, and stage two was a shifting one. Simple. And not so simple. All at once.
Dyon stood silently, quietly observing the shifting walls and ground. He didn’t move an inch, but the calculations speeding through his mind told a different story.
This was a trial. As such, it had to follow a set of rules that might not necessarily be true in real life.
If this was the maze of a legacy world, the expert who built the world would have no obligation to stick to any rules. Although they’d never find a successor using such cruel methods, some experts were too selfish to pass on their teachings to begin with.
However, since this wasn’t a legacy world, Dyon completely through out the possibility that the movements of walls were random. There had to be a pattern somewhere and it was up to him to find it.
You could imagine a circular maze as structure similar to what you’d see after slicing an onion in half. The only difference was that the layers had dips and turns an onion wouldn’t have, and this was exactly what Dyon was observing right now. This was, of course, in addition to the fact that those layers seemed to be moving independently of each other.
The first thing Dyon observed almost immediately was that the layer beyond him had movement he could separate relative to the layer he stood in.
This immediately let Dyon know that not every wall was moving in the same direction and not every wall was moving at the same speed. It was very clear that the closer Dyon got to the edge, the faster the walls moved, and the closer to the center he approached, the slower the walls moved before they likely stopped all together.
Dyon had unwittingly stepped into the crux of the trial again. The solution was obvious. It didn’t matter where he was now or where the maze’s shifting was bringing him, as long as he used his observational abilities to continue toward the faster moving segments, he would be going in the right direction.
However, that was when Dyon decided to do something that would baffle anyone else. By all rights, the most logical thing to do would be, seemingly, to continue forward as quickly as possible. But, Dyon directly sat down, closing his eyes and resting his mind.
Surprisingly, when Dyon’s grand teacher saw this, another bitter smile spread across his features, ‘You little monster.’
Hours passed by, and then days. Dyon continued to sleep, allowing his body to ride the waves of the moving ground.
He didn’t think of anything. In fact, he went out of his way to empty his mind completely.
Unknowingly, Dyon was reaching a state only the prime levels of experts could hope to touch. Before this, Dyon biggest problem was his inability to make effective use of his soul prowess. As a result of his soul strength, seeing through the attacks of opponents was incredibly easy, when dealing with those at his level, they seemed particularly slow. However, the problem was that even with this being true, his body could not react fast enough to make efficient use of this ability. Essentially, Dyon had an excess amount of power he was incapable of using.
The truth of the matter was that there was no easy way to fix this. Although his soul was now sealed away, and his body had an opportunity to catch up, he would only be treating the symptom and not the root problem.
While having fast computational abilities was important, which warrior wouldn’t want to have even quicker insights? Dyon’s soul was exact that, however it would always be limited. So what was the solution? Ironically… The answer Dyon settled on was making those computational abilities even faster.
If his body couldn’t react, give it more time to react. If his opponents attacks were slow, make them even slower. If his mind was too powerful, make it even more powerful.
Dyon’s abilities were shifting from the ability to read and react, to the ability to predict.
Understanding this, Dyon realized that the only prize of these trials weren’t just the rewards at the end. No. Each one taught you something.
With each passing moment, Dyon mind was evolving.
His foresight, intelligence, and reasoning ability were all amplifying to the levels of a God.
Weeks passed by as Dyon silently meditated. He had long since recovered his stamina, but he was seemingly waiting for something.
The ground beneath his feet shifted faster and faster as the walls of the maze continued to blend. There was no doubt that an element of danger was now very much present.
When Dyon had attempted to fly over the top of the walls, that had obviously not worked. So, what would the next logical step be? Wouldn’t it be to test to see whether the walls could be broken through? After all, if Dyon could simply burst through without memorizing a thing, it would be the easiest method by far.
However, as one might expect, when Dyon attempted to do this, he found the material of the maze walls to be easily of higher quality than his puppets! The sheer amount of wealth needed to construct such a place was something Dyon couldn’t even fathom even with his vast knowledge and intelligence. It was simply an astronomical number.
One had to know that Dyon’s puppets were made of material so sturdy that it was difficult for even a dao formation expert to harm it, and that was without any energy filtering through it at all! When Elder Daiyu shattered his 4th stage celestial puppet, it was because the arrays within it were destroyed by him first, as such, the armor could only protect its own self. And yet, even in that case, it was difficult to break.
But, this maze was completely different. Not only was the material of a higher grade, considering the energy that was constantly feeding into Dyon to stave off his hunger, and the fact the entire maze was moving, one could imagine the amount of energy available to it!
All of this taken into account, it was simply impossible for Dyon to even think of scratching these maze walls.
Initially, one might not see the problem with this, especially since the walls themselves were stationary when this trial began. However, weren’t they moving now?
In order to move forward, Dyon would have no choice but to run through these moving walls as they continuously got faster and faster. Even at the point he stood now, the walls were already moving at nearly 100 km/h. Just what speed would the achieve near the end?
And yet, Dyon sat cross legged, waiting. Not moving a single inch as the walls around him and the ground continuously moved faster.
100 km/h. 150 km/h. 200 km/h…
199.9999… km/h…
Dyon’s eyes snapped opened, his wings unfurling the very instant he felt the speed dip down by even the most minute of measures.
Dyon instantly became a blur. Although his wings were no longer supported by his soul strength, the prowess of his body was enough to reach unreal speeds.
His body twisted in the air, turning at impossible angles, narrowly dodging the constantly moving walls that threatened his life.