Chapter 29: Trial Of Body

(Chikyu trivia: While the pairing for this story is straight, Chikyu himself is bisexual)

"Out of these, I recommend Trial Of Body, since it's actually the quickest and easiest trial you'll have to take. You'll first have to fight some entities using nothing but your physical capabilities. After that, you will be given a herb that you must consume that will significantly enhance your physical statistics."

"Very well. Where do I go to start the trial?"

"Follow my trail, and you'll find it"

After having said that, a neon silver trail showed on the floor of the cave. Following it, Chikyu eventually found himself in front of an entrance that was marked with a strange symbol at the top.

Chikyu recognized it as the runic symbol "Teiwaz", which was used to represent victory or warrior. A fitting rune for the trial he was about to take.

-Chikyu POV-

As I stepped into the entrance, the entrance behind me was blocked by stone closing it. Guess they want me to fully commit to these trials once I start them.

As I walked further into the trial area, I was almost immediately attacked by strange creatures. They had horns as well as several spines on their back.

(Appearance)

They were pretty fast, and they constantly tried to use their claws and teeth to attack me. I eventually managed to get some breathing room after a few minutes of dodging and killed almost all of them using the sheer wind force generated by Fist Of The Black Turtle. Only one survived.

I ran up to the creature, who was stunned after seeing all its brothers and sisters decimated in a single attack. I hit it in the head with a knee strike several times consecutively, bursting its head open on the fifth kick, since each consecutive kick increases in power from the last one.

[Facial Strike]

(Illustration of what Facial Strike looks like)

-3rd POV-

The first round of creatures having been taken care of, Chikyu moved further on into the trial cave.

Once again, it didn't take long before he was once again attacked. But this time, the creatures were different. They were extremely skinny, save for their forearms, and were pale as snow, which made sense seeing as they lived in a cave. There were fewer of them than the previous creatures, but they proved to be more of a challenge.

(Appearance)

For starters, they were much faster than the previous creatures. In fact, their speed was comparable to Tenya Iida, Chikyu's classmate whose specialty was speed. They weren't as fast as him, but they weren't too far behind.

Second, they possessed a surprising amount of physical strength in their arms. One of them managed to interlock their hands with Chikyu's and the two of them had a strength contest, trying to push the other into a wall. All while Chikyu had to deal with the others attacking him at the same time. He won the contest pretty quickly and easily, but it was made much harder by the interruptions.

He dispensed of the first two using their speed against them by coaxing them to run at him at the same time from opposite sides and jumped far up just before they hit him. When the two of them crashed into each other at high speeds, they died nearly instantly.

With six remaining, he used Fist Of The Black Turtle to dispose of three who were packed close together. The last three opted to try and overwhelm him and ran at him together.

As they all were right at him, he lowered himself as far as possible and spin kicked, tripping all of them up.

[Lowest Hwechook]

While they were still in the air, he grabbed one of them by the leg and started beating the other two with its body. They died shortly after, both the one being used as a weapon and the other two.

The second part of the trial completed, Chikyu moved on once more. This time, it took quite a while for him to encounter any more opposition. Only after 10 minutes of walking did he find more enemies. And once again, they were different from the ones before.

For starters, they looked much scarier than the previous creatures. Their bodies were a dark shade of grey, they had no eyes at all, and they had a membrane of skin on their head that reminded Chikyu of the hood that cobras and some other snakes possessed.

(Appearance)

When they saw him, they did something different from the other creatures. He was still attacked, but instead of all of them attacking at the same time, one came at him while the others made strange noises and movements.

He was cautious, but still fought the one that went after him. The creature was actually really strong, but it also had a strange style of fighting suited to it that was established enough to say that it was a martial art made for it specifically. Swift and complex movements, concentrated attacks, and disorienting him with loud shrieks. That's what it did.

He was still winning the fight, but he noticed midway that it was getting stronger. He didn't see it doing anything that looked like it would boost itself, since it was spending all its effort fighting him. So he took a guess.

As the creature was about to go in for another attack, he suddenly disappeared and reappeared right next to one of the creatures on the sidelines doing their strange noises and movements.

[Bo-Bup]

Before the creature could react, Chikyu killed it instantly by chopping down on its neck with his hand with so much power that it cut its head off.

[Cutting Bull's Horn]

(Illustration. The one using it in the picture is basically a spirit form of Beadal Choi, a real-life man who made the real-life Full Contact Karate martial art. The man would have a good chance of beating Bruce Lee by the way. In fact, that happens in the story. He beats a guy who uses Bruce Lee as a spirit to fight.)

Not wasting any time, he repeated the process of using Bo-Bup and Cutting Bull's Horn on all the sideline creatures and returned to the one he was fighting when he killed them all.

The creature was shocked for several seconds before charging to attack Chikyu in what he assumed was rage. Countering with a Fist Of The Black Turtle directly through the chest, Chikyu killed it instantly.

His hunch was right. That wouldn't have pierced it so easily before, because he tried it and it didn't work. Whatever the sideline creatures were doing was giving it extra power as they fought.

Having dealt with the third wave of creatures, he once again continued one. This time, it took even longer for him to encounter more creatures. Well, it would be more accurate to say creature, since there was only one.

This creature was the most different of all the ones so far. The biggest difference was that it was absolutely ripped. Like if a professional bodybuilder inhaled every performance-enhancing drug at once type of ripped.

(Appearance)

The fact that this was the only creature that was by itself made Chikyu wary. It could mean a lot of things, but a large part of him believed it was a subtle hint that this would be the hardest fight yet.

He was proven right the second that the creature saw him. Literally no less than 0.1 seconds after it saw him, it sped towards him at speeds comparable to Bo-Bup.

Chikyu couldn't react in time and was punched in the gut with so much force that he was sent flying into the cave walls.

Normally his body would've instinctively used Geo Armour to protect him from as much damage as possible, but it seemed that his powers couldn't be used here even if he tried.

He coughed large amounts of blood upon violently hitting the cave walls. He struggled to stand back up but eventually managed to do so, his breathing now unsteady from the pain.

The creature did what he assumed was supposed to be a taunt, mimicking a laugh with a weird sound.

Not getting riled up by it, Chikyu tried to think of a plan. He would have to use Bo-Bup if he wanted to avoid getting hit since he wasn't even off guard when it sped to him. He was fully aware. Not only that, but it was likely also very durable since physical defense more often than not grows with your physical strength, since your body naturally wouldn't allow them to go above each other.

Its feet looked weaker than the rest of its body, so Lowest Hwechook might work as well.

He'd have to avoid the head as well since it also possessed sharp teeth that it could just use to bite at any time if he gets too close.

Choosing to attack while it was taunting, he used Bo-Bup to appear behind it and used Lowest Hwechook to try and trip it up. Luckily, it succeeded, but Chikyu 100% believed that was only because he caught it off guard.

Intending to fully use the free attack time while it was in the air, he kicked it up higher into the air with a rising kick, following it into the air immediately using Bo-Bup. Rising his leg up as high as he could, he brought it down with just as much effort as fast as he could manage, sending it hurtling down to the ground, cracking the very floor.

[Heaven And Earth Strike] (The last attack during that combo)

Landing back to the ground, he cautiously watched from a distance as he waited for the dust from the impact to clear. He was ready to Bo-Bup out of the way of any attack coming his way. The thing had to have taken at least some damage from that, which in turn would make it at least a little bit slower than before.

Sure enough, when the dust cleared, it showed damage. It most likely didn't attack because it had to expend a good bit of effort getting back up, just like Chikyu after it hit him.

Suddenly, it emitted an ear-piercing screech, and it sped at him at almost the same level of speed as it did when it first saw him. It was literally just slow enough for him to be able to get out of the way with Bo-Bup, which was basically the move that gave him a chance of winning at all.

He spent several minutes desperately dodging rage-induced attacks from the creature before it finally started to tire out and get slower and slower until he didn't even have to use Bo-Bup any more. Eventually, he decided to take an opportunity. As it threw another slow punch, he dodged it, raised his right leg and swiftly stomped on the ground directly in front of it. A shockwave was produced from the kick and offset the creature's balance.

[Kick Of The Red Phoenix]

(Illustration of Kick Of The Red Phoenix)

As it began to fall, Chikyu assaulted it with a range of countless punches that didn't stop until after an entire five minutes of the barrage.

[Torrential Strike]

By the time the barrage ended, the creature was no more than guts and blood. It had died within the first 30 seconds of the barrage, but Chikyu wanted to make absolutely sure. In fact, he didn't stop even after the barrage, to make extremely sure, he spent an extra ten minutes kicking it everywhere on its body. It was now literally just a pile of meat and blood. Only then did he rest.

That had easily been the hardest battle so far. He took a 10 minute rest before continuing on his way.

Much to his relief, he didn't come across any more creatures. He was still feeling the pain of that gut punch at the beginning of the last fight.

Eventually, he made his way into an area that opened up larger than the parts he was walking through before. He saw beautiful purple water and some weird architecture ahead of it.

(This, but the water is purple)

To his surprise, the water, despite looking and flowing just like normal water, was solid. He walked on it like it was solid ground. But it was far from the weirdest thing he had encountered in this cave, so he got over his surprise a few seconds later. As he approached the strange architecture, he saw a pedestal with something on it.

As he came up to it, he saw two things. An unusual looking object that reminded him of a heart, both in appearance and in the fact that it beat like one. As well as a quote on a placque carved on the pedestal.

(The heart)

"He who has passed the Trial Of Body has proven himself to be worthy of demonic strength. Consume the demon heart to gain your rightful strength and begin your journey to true godhood"

Chikyu was now really surprised. That thing on the pedestal was quite literally the heart of a demon, and to gain the strength he did all that fighting for, he'd have to eat it.

He hesitated for a few seconds. The idea of consuming something's heart was pretty gruesome, even for Chikyu. But he soon decided to go through with it. He didn't do all that fighting for nothing. Besides, he needed this to really kickstart his journey to the title of Prime Kurna.

Taking hold of the heart, he opened his mouth and swallowed it. To his surprise, it tasted like nothing in particular. But it didn't take long for some effects to start taking place.

All of a sudden, his veins and eyes glowed in intense purple light, and his body started to go through some changes. But despite what was happening, he didn't feel any pain.

After 5 or so minutes, the glow died and he felt normal again. He noticed that his build didn't change, except for the fact that he was a bit taller now, going from 6"4 to 6"7. However, he instinctively felt like he was so much stronger than before. Like he could beat the previous him with just one hand without having to go anywhere near all out.

He wanted to have a rough test quickly, so he punched a pillar of pure stone that was part of the architecture very lightly. Probably 2% strength at the absolute max.

He destroyed the entire pillar, both the area he hit and the rest of it from the spreading force.

"Oh, I can get used to this!"

(Chikyu Trivia: Chikyu is a book nerd, both physical and online books.)