When the day turned to night and most of the students had returned to their residence, Princess Jasmine and Yang Yang walked up to the War Trial Pagoda. 

 

"Young Miss, did you not say to not stand out?" 

 

"So what if we stand out? I asked around and learned that through here, we can quickly earn silver-merits. The faster we get through the ranks, the better it would be for our personal strength and we can even leave the junior campus. I went around and found that the treatment between junior, senior, and elite students are great, but the treatments given to legacy students are 'cloud and mud' when compared to elite students!" The princess stepped forward and pressed her hand on the entrance. "We can get our own more resources, more opportunities, more status, and, most importantly, a private estate! Come on, let's go!" 

 

She quickly entered, and Yang Yang followed after her. "You're a princess. Do you really need any more of that?" 

 

He entered the spatial vortex. He could feel his body drifting in a void for a moment and then a large, circular platform around three kilometers in diameter materialized under him. 

 

Yang Yang stared ahead and saw a stone golem looking at him. There was a distance of a hundred meters between them. 

 

The stone golem was thick and large, with the appearance of an gorilla. It stood there menacingly with hollowed eyes. 

 

A mechanical voice spoke out. "New participate. Defeat the Stone Beast Golem. Time limit: None. Reward: 100 silver-merits." 

 

When the mechanical voice faded, the golem's eyes flashed with a red light and lunged at Yang Yang with a roar. It was as large as gorilla, but as nimble as a cheetah. However, Yang Yang would use his Escape Magic to avoid every hit. 

 

No matter how fast or strong the golem was, they were all ineffective since they can't reach him. "Hm...how should I do this..." 

 

He thought for a moment and then placed a Blessed Life spell on the golem. The magical power in the golem started to transform into life force. Clarity and intelligence could be seen in its eyes, and its movement started to slow down.

 

As a Life Magic magus, offensive spells were rare to learn and even rarer to effectively utilize. After all, automatons such as these had no life force to absorb and were not underworld creatures. However, there were loopholes. 

 

"Life Drain!" Yang Yang quickly activated a summoned the green, beast-skulled spell circle and absorb the life force inside the automaton. The clarity in its eyes disappeared. With Blessed Life to turn magical power into life force and Life Drain to absorb the life force, it didn't matter that Yang Yang didn't have appropriate offensive spells to use at the moment. He can simply wither the opponent down. 

 

In a few moments, the golem collapsed from the lack of magical power. “1st Floor cleared. Reward: 100 silver-merits.”

 

A spatial vortex materialized in front of him. “Whoever made this had a decent control over Space Magic.” 

 

As Yang Yang entered the next floor, he noticed that the scenery was still the same, but there were two Stone Beast Golem this time. It took him a longer time to defeat them. “2nd Floor cleared. Reward: 200 silver-merits.” 

 

He passed one trial after another and then completed the 10th Floor before stopping. “1oth Floor cleared. Reward: 1000 silver-merits and a Magic-tier item of your choice." 

 

A catalog of items appeared in front of him. "Oh, there's some good stuff in here." 

 

He went through dozens of pages. "I'm almost a Virtual Aspect magus so I'll have to pick a right item to prepare for that spell." 

 

Most of the items were either offensive-type or defensive-type items. He spent close to an hour scrolling through the catalog before finding out that there was an option that allowed him to go to whatever section he wanted. Bashfully chuckling, Yang Yang arrived at the miscellaneous section. "Oh! This piece of Lifegold Godwood seems good." 

 

He choose a golden tree bark from the catalog. The catalog disappeared and was replaced with the golden tree bark. He stored it away and proceeded to the next level. 

 

......

 

"15h Floor cleared. Reward: 1500 silver-merits." 

 

"2oth Floor cleared. Reward: 2000 silver-merits and a Magic-tier item of your choice." 

 

"25th Floor cleared. Reward: 2500 silver-merits." 

 

"30th Floor cleared. Reward: 3000 silver-merits and two Magic-tier items of your choice." 

 

"35th Floor cleared. Reward: 3500 silver-merits." 

 

"40th Floor cleared. Reward: 4000 silver-merits and two Magic-tier items of your choice." 

 

Yang Yang slowly, but smoothly cleared every floor without a problem. Each time, he would choose the Lifegold Godwood and now he had six of such pieces in total and more than enough silver-merits to become a senior student. Soon he arrived at the 50th trial. 

 

Surrounding him were ten mechanical knights. They wore silver armor and held silver spears while riding silver horses. When he landed on the platform, the knights and horses moved at lightning speed toward him. 

 

"Hmph!" Yang Yang used his Escape Magic again while casting Blessed Life and Life Drain. "Trying to sneak attack me? You're a million years too young for that!" 

 

A few hours passed before the automatons crashed onto the ground, completely drained of magical power. Yang Yang sat down and meditated. The life force he gathered from the fifty trials managed to push him to the seventh-step of the Marker level. "Whew." 

 

"5oth Floor cleared. Reward: 5000 silver-merits and three Magic-tier items of your choice."

 

Yang Yang once again picked the Lifegold Godwood. He now had nine pieces. "Perfect. Soon I'll reach Virtual Aspect, craft my personal weapon, and then start my plans to prepare for the arrival of those demons." 

 

He then tried to advance to the next trial, but the spatial vortex blocked him out. "The next fifty floors from here are exclusively for Virtual Aspect magi. Condense your magic aspect before proceeding." 

 

Another spatial vortex appeared and took him out of the pagoda. When he returned outside, it was still nighttime.