Entering the Tower

"The Nine-Tailed Emperor really shows no mercy, huh?" Minos couldn't help but say after the puppet used its light-based attack.

It was common knowledge that Dark Nux was weak against Light Nux, the latter capable of defeating the former even in weakness due to this superior inferior relationship.

"This test is meant to be hard after all, so it makes sense that he would go all out. Besides, most elements don't actually have such clear weaknesses, so it's mostly his bad luck."

"Maybe so, but while it has its weaknesses, it certainly has its strength as well." Minos said, his True Vision allowing him to see everything clearly.

While no one else was paying much attention, the young man in question was sneakily transferring his dark energy through the floor, slowly making his way towards the puppet's shadow.

The puppet seemed unaware of such a move, just sending off wave after wave of light attacks, trying to dismantle him from a distance.

By the time it noticed, it was already too late, the darkness springing up from within its shadow and latching onto its body.

Almost immediately, the puppet summoned an orb of light in an attempt to dissolve this darkness and set himself free, but it was too late.

A large spear of darkness had already impaled it, ripping a massive hole through its chest and 'killing' it instantly.

Once again, the room flashed a bright green, the young man relieved his trick worked, but also aware that it wouldn't work again now that the tower had learnt and memorized it.

With the first puppet defeated and his energy restored via the tower, the second puppet soon emerged.

However this time its cultivation went up a layer, matching his own, and with his prior trick already exposed, he quickly fell into a disadvantage.

Despite the puppet being purposely matched to around his own level, the elemental advantage gave it a large edge that was hard to equalize.

Those who usually used Dark Nux typically relied on its sneaky nature, mostly attacking from the shadows, hoping to kill their enemies in one blow.

But a straight on battle like this was exactly the kind of scenario Dark Nux was weakest in, unable to use any of its strengths.

Hence, without any surprise, the battle only lasted for a short while before the young man was blown back by a barrage of light beams.

With the tower stepping in to save him, the young man was fortunately spared death, but he had still lost, only passing two floors in total.

But such a result was to be expected, after all the tower wasn't notoriously known for its difficulty for nothing.

Defeated, the tower promptly teleported the young man back to the entrance after healing him, his face a little down-fallen as he rejoined the others.

No one seemed to pay him any mind though, after all the battles had just started and there were many more competitors to watch.

Though not surprisingly, the next competitors pretty much all performed just as poorly, some not even managing to beat a single floor.

It was only as they reached the top thirty competitors or so did the performances start to improve, three and occasionally even four floors beaten sometimes.

However, the true gems were the top twenty competitors, most able to easily beat four floors, a few more skilled one's even reaching five or six.

The one outlier, much to everyone's surprise, was actually the Fourth Prince, who only managed to beat three floors before failing, causing everyone to question his actual capabilities.

Though Princess Asumi's amazing performance afterwards immediately made them forget all about him.

Minos had long since noticed that Asumi had recently broken through to the Aperture Opening Realm, and with her new found strength, she managed to clear six floors, only failing on the fourth and eighth's floors respectively.

Her combat skills were also incredibly refined, and given her young age, that meant her talent in that regard should also be high.

The only unfortunate part was that at no point did she activate her physique, which was a shame because Minos had always wanted to see one in action.

But given that it was both her greatest trump card and secret, it made sense that she wanted to keep it under wraps for as long as possible.

"How'd I do?" Asumi asked as she exited the tower to the crowd's applause.

"You could have done better had you used your physique."

"Maybe, but what's the point? Your victory is all but guaranteed at this point, so I'd only be exposing my own abilities for no gain."

"That's a bit surprising… I didn't think you'd be one to give up."

"I'm stubborn, not stupid. Besides, we're partners, so what difference does it make between who rules?"

"Hahaha, you're right, what difference does it make? I just hope you can use that strength in the future to help me."

"Of course, my strength is yours to use." Asumi replied firmly.

Smiling, Minos had nothing more to say, just walking up to the tower as Ryold called out his name.

"Good luck!" Asumi said from behind, Orino and the Seventh Prince also wishing him the best.

The crowd also went crazy at his name's announcement, but at this point Minos had blocked out the rest of the world, his eyes firmly glued on the imposing tower that seemed to stretch into the heaven's themselves.

With a smile and nod from Ryold, Minos stepped into the tower, the crowd immediately looking at the holograph, curious to see the performance of the one personally chosen by the Nine-Tailed Emperor.

Reaching the center of the tower, Minos waited patiently for the puppet to manifest, which didn't take long.

Soon enough he was confronted by a puppet the same dimensions as himself, its face blank and devoid of any emotion.

Activating his Soul Vision, Minos scanned the puppet, but without much surprise, he didn't see anything.

The puppet wasn't a living thing; hence it had no soul of its own, only acting in accordance with the tower itself.

However, after a bit of an inspection, Minos came to a shocking realization, and that was that the tower itself had a soul.

'The Nine-Tailed Tower is… Alive?'

Though he had actually read about this in the past, so after his initial shock he quickly steadied himself.

According to the records, all things could actually acquire souls, however the process was long and tumultuous, not simple at all.

This was naturally true for weapons as well, and it's said advanced weapon's that go beyond the Moon-Tier system may sometimes evolve souls naturally.

Of course one could also try to create an artificial weapon soul, but from what Minos had read, those were usually quite feeble and lacked the potential natural weapon souls had.

And while Minos couldn't tell the difference between the two due to his lack of experience, given the strength and brilliance of the tower's soul, he could assume it was the second type.

Either way, the soul was so powerful that he found most of his abilities nullified, not even able to read the tower's 'mind.'

Despite wanting to look some more, it was clear now was neither the time nor place, the puppet's sudden attack reminding him of that.

With a quick dodge, Minos swapped over to his True Vision, aware that his Soul Vision would be worthless here.

Not activating his Future Sight right away, Minos instead studied the puppets attributes with his True Vision, understanding its speed, strength, weight, etc.

While it wasn't comparable to reading a mind directly, he could create a similar result via understanding and mastering all of these elements.

Based on how the numbers shifted and changed, Minos could make incredibly accurate predictions as to what the puppet would do next.

For example, if the speed or strength on its arm suddenly changed, then Minos knew it was getting ready to attack.

He could also tell whether a move was a feint or not in the same way, able to tell whether the puppet was actually using its true strength or not.

There were also dozens of other things he looked into, which when all combined, allowed him to reach an incredible precise understanding.

This was a training opportunity for him, so rather than using his Future Sight to 'cheat' he slowly understood and mastered his True Vision.

He had yet to actually properly train his True Vision, so this was a perfect opportunity, and with the puppet acting as his guide, his skill rapidly advanced.

From a shallow understanding to a deep one, Minos began connecting these numbers more deeply, understanding how they interacted with one another.

On a physical level, everything was just an exchange of information, and through this information one could understand both the past and future.

Of course the spiritual realm added chaos to those calculations, but the puppet lacked that spiritual domain, making it the best target to practice on.