Poison God's Heritage

"I finally understand," I said.

Law nodded, he seemed to have figured out the purpose of this trial.

This wasn't a simple race to who gets the object first. But also a test of survival against very strong opponents and a disadvantageous environment.

The Blue Sun's trial was by far the most difficult. It also encompasses every aspect of every other one of the Sun's trials.

The race part portrays the ability to hunt and be hunted under pressure. And the intellectual part is to understand the hidden secrets of the Thunder Domain and utilize the tattoo to survive the Thunder.

Cultivators not only have to survive against impossible environmental dangers, such as this constant lightning that could easily obliterate any cultivator under the Origin Shattering Realm. They also need to understand the purpose of the tattoo.

The first stage is to protect you from the first region's lightning, and if you kill another cultivator you can upgrade your tattoo to enter the second stage area. And so on.

"What are we going to do now?" Law asked.

"I'll upgrade the lightning-repelling wheel above the ship to the second stage," I said.

"Why? Wasn't it working just fine?" Law asked.

"Although it is working fine, I don't know if it will survive the further we go inside, there is no harm in upgrading it, especially since we have a diagram to follow up on," I said as I pointed at the hand with two circles.

"Oh, look at that," Law said as he pointed at the inner circle. "The inner circle is different."

I took a closer look and realized what he meant.

The outer circle was made from the pale Soul Steel, the inner one had a bit of Purple coloration on it and a mix of the Pale Soul Steel.

With the formation in hand, quite literally, I gave orders to the puppet to carve and shape the purple Soulsteel. This way I can create the second layer of the tattoo.

After a few hours, the puppets were done. No cultivators came our way though, so we were pretty much fine for the time being.

With the second set of the formation finished I placed it on the inner part of the lightning repelling wheel and began adjusting it to perfectly fit the diagram of the Blue Sun.

Once I was done, we drove the ship further ahead.

The journey was not without dangers. The skies had many beasts roaming about. Mainly a flock of lightning hawks.

The hawks were massive to say the least. With blue feathers covering their bodies and a long golden horn on their head.

Lightning completely ignored their presence. And never struck at them as they roamed freely, and when they noticed our ship they approached us.

The flock itself had about half a dozen hawks in it that were charging forward. There was no malice in their approach, and they only flew around the moving ship. Taking note of the metallic flying object without harming us or threatening to destroy the ship.

On the ground however, several other beasts were moving about, one of them was actually an elephant-sized hedgehog, with lightning sparking all over its spikes. It was sitting comfortably and eating some fruit from a nearby tree.

"The animals here are rather calm and collected. It's strange, I don't see a single demonic beast here," Law said.

"Lightning is a form of divine law. It destroys evil and demons alike. Finding no demonic creatures in a land where lightning constantly strikes is normal," I said.

"I see," Law replied as he kept watching the hawks following us.

One of them actually moved about and landed on the front of the ship. Seemingly interested in the metallic substance the ship was made off, it poked around for a bit but didn't have any intentions on destroying or harming the ship.

"Should I shoo it away?" Law asked.

"No, leave it, as long as it's not harming the ship we're fine, also it's acting as a protective measure," I replied.

"How so?"

"The lightning isn't striking at any of the hawks although they're flying all over the place. They must have adapted in a way to avoid it," I said.

In the distance, I saw a couple of cultivators flying ahead.

One of the cultivators struck down a flying hawk, and immediately the flock following us went into a frenzied rampage. They screeched loud enough that you could confuse their screams with thunder itself and instantly flashed forward with the power of lightning.

They arrived at the cultivator's position in a heartbeat and began diving on him.

The cultivator annoyed with the 'measly' birds tried to swat one of them aside using their sword. But the closest hawk lifted its head up, and the golden horn on its head changed color to pure silver.

A lightning bolt immediately fell down against the hawk's horn, and the beast swung its head down as if flicking the very bolt that it was struck with at the cultivator.

The motion was fast, seamless, and natural to a scary degree.

The bolt which should have avoided the cultivator with two circles didn't seem to have the rule applied to it.

As the bolt was somehow modified, it instantly went through the cultivator, boring a massive hole in his chest.

The other cultivator seeing his 'companion?' being struck down, panicked and tried to defend himself. Which was an awful idea.

The other hawks didn't like that, and immediately went on the offensive. Channeling the lightning from the heavens themselves and striking them down against the second cultivator.

Seconds later, the man turned to ash, with the exception of his palm.

The hawks continued hovering around the area where the two had died, and soon after they were certain that the cultivators no longer drew breath, the flock dispersed.

"Nature is scary," Law said.

"Nature is fair, they attacked the hawks first, unprovoked and that was the end for them. Also, it's a good opportunity for the both of us," I said as I guided the ship to the corpses.

I left the ship in hover mode above the corpse's area and went down to collect the arms. Once I had them in hand I went back into the ship and began fusing the arms again.

Only this time, one arm wasn't enough.

The tattoo on the newly acquired arm created a half circle on the original tattoo. And by adding the other arm was I able to have a three-layer tattoo.

"I guess it's incremental," Law said.

"It is, we'll need four more arms I would suppose to have four symbols. Also," I said as I pointed at the third circle, "This one is red."

"We'll need to find red Soulsteel then."

"Yeah, it should be in the third region. We're not that far off," I said as I headed back to the command room on the ship.

I resumed the ship's voyage forward, we still had a lot of distance to cover.

***

"What an impressive man," the Commentator said.

"Not only did he understand the formation made by the Blue Sun, he also recreated it, and is using it to protect his ship from thunder," Eccentric Long commented.

"That's not the only thing, the fact that he's still moving through the Thunder Domain without the Blue Sun's blessing in itself is an amazing feat. He seems to understand a lot about Thunder Law." Xiao Du added.

"What about the rest of the contestants?" the commentator asked, "Do you think any of them is capable of overthrowing the competition? They do have a lot of potential to have made it this far."

"No one is guaranteed to win, only those who make it to the fourth region and back. But, I do believe that if it was not Du Shen, then at least the Fire Lord or Zhang Tian would be one of the winners," Eccentric Long said.

"How so?" Xiao Du asked. "Because although Zhang Tian and the Fire Lord have shown great ability and flexibility through the competition, the Demon Sword is still one of the favored to win it. After all, he made it to the top three the last time."

Everyone seemed to agree with Xiao Du's opinion, after all the Demon Sword is pretty powerful and has proven himself time and time again.

"Because that fool is going toward his doom as we speak," Eccentric Long said shrugging. "We're in for a really good show. Buckle up," he added as a wide smirk showed up on his face.

It took a few seconds for everyone to realize what Eccentric Long meant with his words. And only when the monitor showing Shen Bao shuddered. Did everyone finally understand what Eccentric Long meant.

Up on the screen, the Demon Sword was flying high up, with four of his swords flying behind him, with an ugly and angry scowl on his face.

"DU SHEN! COME OUT!" he shouted.