Rewarded, Entering the Sect

[You battle the two mannequins in the same way that you battled the first, taking your time to push your offensive technique to the limit. The goal of the stage is to show the elders how proficient you are with the given technique, so you use it to the fullest.]

[You continue to use the technique until you feel that you are no longer making any progress in mastery. Slaying the two mannequins, you decide that if two aren't enough, then three will aid you. If three doesn't help, then you'll just fight more.]

[An unknown number of hours tick by as you continue to fight in such a manner. After fighting 7 mannequins at the 1st level of Essence Refinement, you move onto the 8th floor.]

[Here, only a single mannequin appears, however you notice that it is at the 2nd level of Essence Refinement.]

[It seems that the goal of the tower is to force the contestants to fight both at and above their cultivation level. But for you, whose Essence is extremely dense and powerful, there is not much of a difference between 1st and 2nd level Essence Refinement cultivators.]

[You challenge this mannequin in the same way that you challenged all the mannequins before it, slowly refining the offensive technique in battle. With you strength massively overshadowing the strength of the mannequin, the progress is slow.]

[Soon, you slay the mannequin and move on to the 9th floor. Here, two mannequins appear once more. You slay them in the same manner and move on.]

[Time goes by once more, and soon you make it to the 22nd floor.]

[Again, a single mannequin spawns in front of you. Yet, the level of the mannequins breaks your expectations. Following the previous trend, you had thought that a mannequin at the 4th level of Essence Refinement would appear in front of you, yet what you see is at the 7th level.]

The jump in strength surprised Aron. 

He had already felt that being able to leap so many levels in combat would be enough, yet the Tower decided to skip a few levels of cultivation.

He had no doubt that he would be able to handle the challenge, though it did seem like the difficulty of the Tower may be a bit extreme.

After all, the power of the mannequins was solely dependent on the power of the challenger. Aron thought that if he had been at the peak of Essence Refinement, he would have to be challenging a mid leveled Meridian Establishment cultivator.

While he could do that himself to some extent, already, the end of the tower would have him facing mannequins at the peak of Meridian Establishment.

With his dense Essence, he may be able to make that happen, but for someone like Julia, the difficulty of such an endeavor would be immense.

[While you think that this still won't be enough to challenge you, you understand that it will still provide more opportunity for you to increase your technique proficiency.]

[As you practice against this higher level mannequin, you can feel that the rate that you are increasing your mastery over the technique has increased several times. Still, you believe that it isn't enough and proceed to destroy the mannequin and progress through the tower further.]

[Eventually, you go through all of the mannequins at the 7th level. Though you haven't yet made it to the First Step of mastery, you can feel yourself on the verge of that level.]

[As you reach the 29th level, a single mannequin at the 9th level of Essence Refinement starts to attack you. More than being at the 9th level, you can tell that the mannequin is at the peak of the realm. If the tower wasn't purposefully limiting he mannequins, you believe the mannequin would already have entered Meridian Establishment.]

[Only now that you are fighting a mannequin at the 9th level do you begin to face difficulties in playing with them. While you can't toy with the mannequins as effectively, your progress in the offensive technique is sky rocketing.]

[Just before you finish off this first mannequin, your technique progresses into the First Step of mastery.]

[What you don't know, is that all of the Sect elders watching the disciples take this exam are shocked by your progress. Not only did none of them expect to see you enter this stage of the exam, once you did, they attributed it all to luck. Now, however, upon watching you fight, they are shocked to see just how many levels you can fight across.]

A small, smug smile tugged on Aron's lips.

While it wasn't actually him fighting, it was a version of him. To be able to give some old monsters a shock was a thing of pride. After all, who could say that they had such an ability.

Trying not to let it get too far into his head, Aron moved back to the simulation.

Still, being young, wasn't it only natural he felt some pride over his future self?

[With your offensive technique now in the First Step of mastery, you are able to kill the mannequins at the 9th level with ease. Yet, you practice restraint and use them as practice like you had on the prior floors.]

[As if caught in a trance, you cruise through the tower at remarkable speeds. All of the elders that thought you would finish once reaching the Meridian Establishment realm were shocked as you pummeled them into the dirt.]

[Thinking about it, you feel that you would have been stuck on the 1st level of Meridian Establishment had you not increased your mastery in the offensive technique.]

[While you have full confidence that you could have killed one or two 1st level Meridian Establishment mannequins before, you would have eventually been overwhelmed by their numbers.]

[Now, however, you think that you may have a chance to fully conquer the Tower.]

[After some time passes, you make it to the 43rd floor of the Tower. Here, you face a mannequin at the 5th level of Meridian Establishment.]

[Through your battle with the mannequin, you feel that unless you can increase your mastery to the level of Minor Achievement, you won't be able to fight more than three 5th level mannequins at the same time.]

[You believe that if these were real humans or beasts, you would have long failed. Humans have intelligence, while beasts have overwhelming defense. These mannequins seem so have neither.]

[On the 45th floor, as you are battling three 5th level Meridian Establishment mannequins, you enter an instance of enlightenment and comprehend your offensive technique to the fullest.]

[As the three mannequins disappear into motes of light, clarity returns to your eyes as you realize that you have entered into Minor Achievement.]

[Feeling that you have been in the Tower for too long, and knowing that you have the ability to kill all the mannequins needed to conquer the tower, you no longer use the mannequins as a tool for practice and instead go straight to the end.]

[Finally, as seven mannequins disappear on the 49th floor, you begin to glow.]

[As you open your eyes, you realize that you are still in the tower, but whether you are above the 49th floor or below the first, you do not know.]

[In front of you is an alter. You remember one of the elders talking about the alter before the trial. They said that once one deicides to end their attempt at the Tower, they will be brought to this room before being brought out of the Tower. It is here that the Tower will reward the challenger with a reward the suits their effort and achievements.]

[Only a few have ever fully conquered the Tower, yet none of them have ever disclosed what the reward is.]

[A voice enters your head. The voice is angelic, indistinguishable between man or woman. The voice congratulates you for conquering the tower and tells you that for the achievements you made in pursuit of conquering the tower, and for being at the 1st level of Essence Refinement while doing so, give cause for a special reward.]

[With a final farewell and congratulations, three items appear on the altar and the voice disappears.]

[Approaching the altar you take in the sight of the three rewards.]

[On the far right is a bottle of thick, dark red fluid. Though the bottle it is in is meant to contain and suppress the aura of the liquid, you can feel an intense and heavy pressure from the fluid. Without knowing what the liquid actually is and knowing that you are far to weak to consume something so powerful, you can only move onto the next reward.]

[The middle reward is a small ring. Looking at it, you feel that it is far too large for your fingers, yet as you slide it onto your right hand, it shrinks into the perfect size.]

[Recognizing it as a spiritual treasure of some kind, you funnel some of your Essence into the ring. Instantly, the ring glows and you feel a connection to it.]

[As you bond with the ring, you discover that it is a storage ring. The space within the ring is larger than the entire Perch villa. With the Perch villa being larger than a kingdoms capital city, the size of the space within the ring was enormous.]

[Inside of the ring, you find a massive amount of Essence stones; there are enough to carry you all the way to the peak of the Meridian Establishment realm, even with your terrible cultivation talent.]

[Also inside of the ring were several techniques. As you look at the techniques, you realize that the angelic voice had seen through you entirely. Your unattributed Core, your Dao Seed, everything.]

[Most of the techniques were at the Peak of the Black level---something beyond what you are capable of practicing at the moment. There was even a middle rank Purple technique.]

[The final technique that you see is a low rank Purple technique. It is different from the others, however, as you can tell from a quick glance that it is related to your Dao Seed.]

[Even if it is at the low rank Purple level, simply by being a Dao Seed technique, its true power probably reached the peak of Purple or even the low level of Gold techniques.]

[Now having a space to place the red fluid, you will the liquid to enter the ring.]

[As you move onto the last reward, you can tell that it is likely the most valuable of the three. A simple glance would make most look over it, with its small and gray appearance making it very unassuming.]

[However, you could feel the connection between yourself and all of the treasures up to now. This small, ticket-like reward was giving you the biggest reaction.]

[Without a label, however, you could only store it in your storage ring and wait for fate to tell you its purpose, the same with the red liquid.]

After reading through all of the rewards, Aron could barely reign in his shock. The spatial ring was something he had only heard about, not seen. The Perch family, though being prominent in this kingdom, was only a small family in the grand scheme of things. 

When compared to the major Sects, it was less than a worm. Even the major Sects may only give their spatial rings to the members that have had the largest contributions. It wasn't something that was given away lightly. 

[As the ticket disappears into your ring, you begin to glow once more. In an instant, you reappear at the same mountain that you had been at with the rest of the examinees.]

[As you look around, you notice that the rest of the examinees have also gathered in the area.]

[After a few minutes, once all of the examinees are gathered once again, several elders and Variant Earth Sect seniors appear in front of you all.]

[Having all passed the final stage in some way or another, the elders have come to take in the 3rd stage examinees as personal disciples.]

[While you will officially be marked as Inner disciples of the Sect, your statuses will be higher than others once you have a personal Master, as well. Furthermore, the powerful cultivators that have gathered in front of you now, are among the most powerful of the Sect.]

[The only Sect executive that are missing are the Supreme Elders and the Sect Ancestor, all of which have long since aged past the point of taking personal disciples.]

[Slowly, one by one, the Sect elders select the examinees that they feel the most connected to. And, soon enough, only you and Julia remain to be chosen.]