As it said these words, a faint smoke began to materialize to take on the appearance of a human body. From its outer appearance, you could see that it was a male human body but with undefined features.

It was hard to take it seriously looking at that undefined body, but the pressure it was giving off was far from cheerful. Its barely accentuated eyes exuded incredible combative intent, as if it had a mortal enemy in front of it.

"Taking into account the talent level of the partic.i.p.ant, the difficulty of the continent trial was raised. The partic.i.p.ant is no longer required to win, but the pa.s.sage of the trial will be decided by the evaluation of the Artifact Spirit in charge of managing the formations on the islands. Attempted communication with the Artifact Spirit performed."

All of a sudden the metallic voice spat out other words that left Hei astonished. But before he could ask questions about it, a male voice with a hoa.r.s.e tone resonated in the room.

"It has been a long time since someone decided to face the continent's trial on the Rainbow Island, but that there are two people in the same place who possess a high-level talent according to the standards of the Continent... it is quite surprising." the male voice uttered in a surprised tone.

"Who are you? What is happening? What does it mean that the difficulty of the trial has been raised?" Hei asked as he frowned.

Even if together with his mother, they had a.s.sumed he and Lian would have to face the continent trial directly, they didn't imagine that such a situation would happen. Before starting the fight, he wanted to understand all the details and the reasons for such a change.

When he replied in this way, two smoke-like eyes materialized over the opponent generated for Hei by the trial combat formation.

"Greeting young boy, I am the Artifact Spirit in charge of managing all the formations on the islands. Ah, but I guess you don't know what an Artifact Spirit is. The Artifact Spirits are nothing but the consciousness that are born within an object. There are various ways of creation, but it isn't the time to talk about it. In any case, I was given the management of all the formations provided by the Sun Empire to the islands. Normally, I would remain at rest letting the automatic formation function do its work, but in particular cases, I can move myself into one of the pieces of consciousness inside the trial formations. Although this is the first time I am actually called because there is a worthy candidate."

'The man', in spite of his hoa.r.s.e tone, was very friendly and lively, perhaps because it was the first time he was talking to someone after a long time.

'Artifact Spirit? Consciousness inside an object?'

As he pondered this, Hei asked.

"Then are you a kind of elemental essence?"

Right, didn't the elemental essences also stones that had developed a certain degree of consciousness along with absorbing part of a specific element?

The Artifact Spirit laughed and without delay, he answered the question that had been asked.

"We are similar but we aren't the same. The elemental essences are 'creatures' born in a natural way without the aid of being human or demons. We Artifact Spirits are instead artificially created and we do not possess our own original power. The Artifacted Spirits are basically divided into two, Artifact Spirits Weapons and Artifact Spirit Formations. I am an Artifact Spirit Formation, and as you can guess from the term, I am in charge of managing a specific formation. Further details can be discovered once you reach the Continent."

Then he paused as the 'pair of eyes' of the Artifact Spirit looked down at Hei's opponent.

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"Normally the continent trial consists in defeating the adversary designated by the formation. But since the talent level of both you and the girl with you is high, even by the standards of the continent, you have been given another opponent. You will only have to fight as much as you can and based on your performance, you will be a.s.signed not only the right to enter the Continent, but also to join one of the war academies. Obviously, the prestige of the war academies in which you can register will depend on your performance."

"War academies? What's this?"

"Ah yes, I forgot that the sects' system is still in force on the islands. Nowadays, on the continent, sects no longer exist or at least do not const.i.tute the main power. There are some sects, but they have little power and they concentrated in smaller cities. Instead, this system has been replaced with war academies that are nothing more than places where to train martial artists based on their own performances, canceling the concept of belonging to a specific sect but promoting the concept of belonging to the human race.

This was a necessary measure in order to have enough war potential to fight the demons. The system of sects almost caused the collapse of human society on the continent, so it was necessary to reach this solution. However, you can find out more about the continent's history in the future. Now that I have explained everything to you, if you don't have any other questions, you should start."

Seeing that the Artifact Spirit would not answer further questions and actually answered those concerning the changes in the continent trial, Hei nodded his head and positioned himself with his spear, ready to start fighting.

In a similar room, Lian was also preparing for her fight while taking a big mouthful of air. She didn't care so much about the continent's history, and if Hei had no other questions, she wouldn't make them in turn.

Seeing the two that were ready, the Artifact Spirit gave the signal to their opponents to start moving.

Seeing it moving, Hei immediately filled the distance with his enemy and tried with an initial lunge with the tip of his spear. Since it was a first blow to break the ice, he didn't use so much power and didn't lengthen forward too much.

By learning the basic spear techniques, he had in fact acquired the knowledge about how to dose his strength and adjust the thrust forward based on the positions his hands took on the spear shaft. He had also learned that with good reflexes and understanding of the combat flow, he could use the flat end of the spear to parry incoming attacks, and then quickly rotate the spear to direct the sharp head and vice versa. In this way, he would have more variability in his attacks, thus being able to surprise his opponent more often since he wasn't giving a monotonous attack pattern.

The enemy parried the lunge using the weapon that suddenly materialized in its hands - it was a large two-handed battle axe whose head had two ends with blades.

With a lateral movement, it tried to move Hei's spear to the side so as to leave him exposed. However, since Hei hadn't leaned too far forward, he managed to avoid the axe blow by moving backwards.

'A two-pitted battle axe. Because it is using two hands due to the weapon's size, the enemy's speed of movement is limited as is that of the weapon. But one blow is capable of doing enormous damage.'

a.n.a.lyzing his opponent, Hei then prepared his combat plan. He decided to try first with lunges from afar as before. Only, he would do them in succession, one after the other.

If the formation exactly reproduced the features of a real enemy, then it also had to simulate the fatigue generated by agitating such a large weapon. He would continue like this for a while, and if he hadn't seen changes in the opposing rhythm he would move on to something else.

Because his opponent was nothing more than a smoke that had condensed into a humanoid shape with few details, it was difficult to evaluate its reactions from its expressions. So the only way to do it was to observe changes in its body and how he moved.

Hei's lunges were all parried without fatigue by the enemy, who from time to time threw big blows from the top down with its huge axe. During one of those hits, noticing that the smoke reproduction had shown signs of slowing down, Hei instead of dodging backward, dodged to the side.

Immediately afterwards, he leaped forward towards the enemy with the tip of the spear directed towards the smoke body's stomach. However, his opponent did not let itself be surprised, and as if was expecting that, it used the head of its ax on the ground as a support point. Then he raised both its legs up avoiding Hei's lance while at the same time throwing a kick to his face.

Bam!

There was a loud bang. The blow hid more power than expected and made Hei back off a few steps. Fortunately, he had his spirit power as a defense but he had felt the damage.

'He pretended to attack me head on and get tired so that it could hit me as soon I tried to used its "fatigue". Without my spirit power being active, I would probably have been put to sleep with that kick in the head.'

With his heart pounding with excitement, Hei prepared to resume the battle. Even though he was calm and thoughtful, that didn't mean he wasn't excited at the sight of a strong enemy. His desire to overcome his limitations and challenge ever stronger beings was worthy of the son of a spirit beast.

In fact, after the dream trial, this feeling had become even more intense because if he managed to become the number one, then he would no longer have to fear that something would happen to his family. And to become the number one, he had to win against everything and everyone in this world. So the more his opponents were strong, the more he would try to challenge himself in order to acquire the necessary strength to protect his family.

The trial resumed more intensely than before. Hei and his adversary exchanged repeated blows exploiting every minimum opening. Both had an advantage over the other - Hei had the advantage of speed and stamina, while his opponent had pure power advantage.

In fact, it could exert a strong power in its blows thanks to the weight of the axe that would surely have broken Hei's spear in half if they had come in direct contact. However, this meant having a slow reaction speed and a considerable energy consumption. Nevertheless, the smoke figure seemed apparently without fatigue. It also had a rather agile body that allowed it to dodge the blows by lifting its body with agility and attacking immediately after those movements.

Hei was repeatedly forced to retreat. Although there were various openings on his opponents, not all of them were real. And when he landed a hit, it would only be a light damage given the dense spiritual power of the enemy.

'It's not good, as the fighting continues I am finding myself more and more in a pa.s.sive position. I could try Spider Lance, but it would consume so much energy and I can use it only once without the enemy realizing its real power. It is rather agile, so it may even end up avoiding the blow. With my spear I have the advantage of distance, but if I don't get close I can't use my techniques."

While thinking of this, Hei decided to try a change of fighting style.

He continued for a while to try to hit the enemy with his spear, and when that was parried for the umpteenth time and his opponent went on the attack, Hei moved to its right and threw his spear against the smoke body.

The weapon, taking strength from the launch, cut through the air as it hissed while approaching the smoke body. Taken by surprise, it raised its axe to parry the incoming spear. However, it left its sides and back uncovered.

Taking advantage of this, Hei pointed to the side as it was more appropriate as an area to hit for a piercing technique like Snake Lance. A shattering blow would have been more ideal for a back injury instead.

The smoke body that became aware of his arrival, condensed as much spirit power over the part of the body that was about to be hit, as to decrease as much as possible the damage it would receive while engaged in parrying the thrown spear.

But the power behind the Spider Lance was stronger than expected and broke its spirit power's protection, coming to cut the 'flesh'. Since it was a body made of smoke, despite having been condensed so as to have the same consistency as a human being, it was different to the touch.

The smoky being spit gray blood from its mouth and without dwelling in pain, it let go of its huge battle-axe since it had already blocked Hei's spear. With its right arm, it blocked Hei's, whose hand was still inside its body. Then, concentrating all its spirit power to increase the attack of its fist, it used its other arm directed to Hei's restrained arm in order to break his bones.

His reasoning was simple - since it was a dangerous move, the best solution would have been to completely prevent him from reusing it again.

Seeing this, Hei smiled and instead of using more spirit power for defense, he concentrated it on the free right arm, even reducing his spirit power on the trapped arm.

Snap!

Hei's left arm bent in half, a sign that the bone itself had broken. He groaned in pain but this amount of pain wasn't enough to cloud his mind. By now, he had begun to get used about receiving pain and certainly he wouldn't allow it to stop him.

With a high jump, twisting his legs on the smoke body's waist so that it couldn't escape backwards, Hei used his right arm for another Spider Lance straight to its face this time.

Bam!

There was more rumble and the protection of spirit power on the head of the smoke body broke as Hei's blow caused a deep wound on his enemy's forehead.

Not stopping there, Hei started hitting the wound in the center of its forehead using his Snake Fist with his right hand in succession.

Snake Fist Storm.

In a short time, more than a dozen hits were inflicted in rapid succession.

Without the protection of spirit power, the skull of the smoke being was broken, and Hei's Snake Fists ended up smas.h.i.+ng the brain directly, making the smoke body vanish into nothingness.

On the side, the eyes of the Artifact Spirit looked with surprise at the boy before him who had used such a fierce method to win.