Maria had just gotten struck by another bolt of green lighting. The green lightning tried to rampage through her body and destroy any energy that was in her body but after hundreds of lightning strikes over the past month Maria’s body was getting used to this green lightning and it was not as effective as it was the first time. The only thing Maria felt was the pain of getting struck by lightning, but it had very little effect now. She couldn’t escape from the lightning either, as she had already tried that. There is no place to hide her as it is just a giant open space. The only thing she can do is accept it.

When the lightning finished rampaging through her body, she waited for the next strike to come. She waited for 10 minutes, but no lightning strike. Maria opened her stunningly beautiful golden-blue eyes and looked up. She saw the clouds dispersing.

“Is it finally over? Can I finally stop being struck by lightning?! A-Ahaha! Finally! Get! ME! OUT!” Maria screamed as she jumped up and waited for the mechanical voice to come and tell her it’s time to leave.

“Congratulations on passing Stage 7 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 8.”

Maria was finally dragged out of that tortuous place! She was then immediately thrown into a world that was so bright that she had to immediately shut her eyes. If she shut them a second later she would’ve gone blind. Even with her eyes closed, the light was still blinding like it didn’t matter if they were open or closed.

“Welcome to Stage 8. Stage 8 is the World of Light. Use this place to temper your eyes as well as increase your understanding of the element of light. You will be able to advance to the next stage when you can open your eyes and find the exit. Begin!” Even with all this light, the mechanical voice was like the darkness here.

“What the heck is this?!?! The last stage actually killed me and now this stage is trying to blind me! Plus, it seems that this isn’t a matter of waiting for the time limit. I actually have to find the exit! I also don’t know if there are beasts here or not. Dammit!” Maria screamed.

She waited around as she tried to listen for any beasts around her, but no matter how long she waited or how much she tried to listen she didn’t hear any beasts. This made Maria feel a bit better.

‘If I think back to the stages prior, the whole point of them is to kill a lot of beasts as the real benefit is in the quantity of energy. The other thing is that the more something is used to affect the body, the less effective it will be over time. I guess all I can literally do here is just make sure I don’t go blind by opening my eyes too much or too early. Ugh!’ Maria thought to herself and she sat down in a lotus position with her eyes closed and covered by a beast pelt. Even with the pelt over her eyes, the light was still blinding.

She was just going to cultivate until her eyes aren’t being blinded by the light through the beast pelt. Then she will remove it, but still, keep her eyes closed and wait for her to get used to the light with her eyes closed. Once she doesn’t feel blinded with her eyes closed, then she will start to blink every so often. She will just keep going about this extremely slow. If she accidentally opens her eyes too soon or loses focus until she can open them, she will go blind.

‘What a troublesome stage! I’d rather fight beasts or even get struck by lightning! Hopefully, I can gain some insights into the Dao of Light though.’ Maria thought to herself.

She then started the extremely boring but mentally taxing job of keeping her eyes closed.

***

Mira was sitting down with a faint smile on her face. She was basking in the feeling of her icy-lightning coursing through her body. Mira has tried to see if she can wield lightning but to no avail. It seems that she can’t actually control lightning, she can only control her ice to produce a form of lightning. This lightning also seems to be unique to her as it is not hot like normal lightning. The lightning itself isn’t that strong either but has very niche uses. It is only really useful for the inside of her body and she hasn’t found any other uses for it other than it can look terrifying when combines with her ice. Other than the fear factor of it, lightning is not that dangerous to other living things. Mira mused that at least if she gets hit by a lightning attack, this icy lightning should help her out a little bit.

As Mira was just sitting down drowning in her own thoughts, she noticed that she hasn’t been struck by lightning in a while. She looked up and saw the clouds dispersing and sighed.

“This stage helped me tremendously. With everything that I’ve gained so far, I’d honestly be content with what I have. But since there are 13 more stages, I might as well see how far I can go! Next up should be a World of Light and if it’s not then it is a World of Dark. Hmmm, usually we are just thrown into the world, and light will probably incredibly blinding if that’s the case. I might as well keep my eyes closed before being thrown in there.” Mira said to herself as she closed her eyes. Right after she closed her eyes, she heard the mechanical voice again.

“Congratulations on passing Stage 7 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 8.”

Mira was then forcefully taken from the World of Lightning and thrown into a world filled with nothing but light.

“Welcome to Stage 8. Stage 8 is the World of Light. Use this place to temper your eyes as well as increase your understanding of the element of light. You will be able to advance to the next stage when you can open your eyes and find the exit. Begin!” It rang out again.

Mira felt the blinding light around her and still felt the need to cover her eyes with something else.

“It seems I guessed correctly. I’m glad I closed my eyes before or I might’ve gone blind. It also seems like I won’t be able to pass this stage unless I can keep my eyes open. *Sigh* This may take some time. Well, it didn’t say anything about fighting beasts and there doesn’t seem to be a time limit, but if you open your eyes then you go blind. Might as well cultivate or meditate on my Absolute Ice Dao and wait until my eyes start getting accustomed to this light.” Mira said out loud as she thought the same thing as Maria.

Mira sat down in a lotus position, covered her eyes with several beast pelts, and began to cultivate. She had the same strategy as Maria except she had more beast pelts covering her eyes. She would remove one every time her eyes got used to the light and keep slowly having the light affect her eyes until she can leave her eyes open.

Time passed extremely slowly for these two as they continued to cultivate. Mira was working towards Stage 3 and Maria was going for Stage 4. They knew they probably wouldn’t make it to that stage of power in this World, but it’s better than doing nothing.

After an unknown amount of time, Maria removed her beast pelt as she felt the intense light trying to force its way into her eyelid. She then went back to cultivate until her eyes got used to this.

Mira would remove a beast pelt after an extended period of time, then go back to cultivating. It wasn’t that far behind Maria that she was able to remove her last beast pelt and exposed her eyelids to the light.

Both Mira and Maria were both sitting in a lotus position without any pelts covering their eyes. After cultivating for a while Maria was the first one to do something else.

Maria felt like her eyes were used to light now when they were closed so she opened and closed her eyes extremely quickly. In that split second she could see the blinding light. It even slightly damaged her eyes in that split second. She waited for them to heal before she blinked them again. She would keep doing this until her eyes hurt and began to injure from the light, then close them to heal, and repeat until she can keep her eyes open.

An unknown time later, Mira did the same thing. She felt like her eyes have gotten used to the light while being closed so she blinked them rapidly one time and felt the same thing as Maria. Her eyes got slightly injured and she waited for them to recover before doing that again.

They both kept blinking their eyes every so often.

After a while, they were able to blink their eyes more rapidly as their eyes were getting less and less injured from the blinding light. After they could do this, they then began to leave their eyes open until the light injured them, then closed them again to heal.

It wasn’t much longer until Maria was able to keep her eyes open like normal, but this wasn’t enough. She might as well focus on this until this light barely affects her. She can also feel her understanding of the Dao of Light increase as well.

Mira was also able to do this now as well. She was only a bit behind Maria.

This continued until they were able to keep their eyes open and the light wouldn’t cause injuries.

They began to get up and search for the exit. Maria took longer because she spent some time understanding her Dao a bit more.

The two of them were now currently looking for the exit and soon came across a large set of stairs, but in front of the stairs was a Peak-Stage magical beast for both Mira and Maria. It was a wolf-like creature but was smaller than a wolf. It was around the size of a fox and had a blinding light emitting from it.

Mira took out her scythe, added her ice blade to it making it a double-bladed scythe, and started to release her Ice Dao to try and create something like a mini-domain. The light wolf turned into light as it shot towards her. It started to shoot light beams out of its eyes and used the light to increase its speed as well. It was incredibly fast and Mira could barely keep her eyes on it.

She created some ice plates in her domain to help defend and reflect the light. Mira just stood there in her domain. The wolf was running around it looking for an opening. I found one that was behind Mira. Mira was trying to form a lot of small ice needles in her domain as she waited for the wolf to attack.

It attacked behind her. One of her Ice needles nicked it on the shoulder, but it was barely a minor injury. Mira heard this and just used the momentum that was gathered in her scythe to slash behind her as she was turning. One could say that Mira was quite lucky with that slash. It was able to pierce into the wolf’s head and kill it with that swing. She didn’t even know the exact position of the wolf and just estimated it would be there and luckily got the timing right.

The wolf then began to disappear as energy gathered in its place. This energy was like light itself. After the wolf disappeared completely, the energy rushed towards Mira’s eyes as it forced its way in. It traveled through her eyes as it slightly tempered them, but the energy went into the retinas of her eyes; this is the part of the eye where visual images are formed from light. The light energy started to gather here and then spread out to the rest of her eyes. The light energy began to soak into her eyes until it was completely used up.

After the energy was used, Mira opened her eyes and felt like the world around her was a bit more vibrant.

She looked around for a while, but since this was the World of Light, there wasn’t anything here other than light. Mira began walking on the stairs after defeating the light wolf and heard the mechanical voice again. She knew this stage would be the World of Darkness, but she didn’t know what this would entail.

“Congratulations on passing Stage 8 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 9.”

***

Maria had just got done defeating the Peak-Stage Rank 2 Light Wolf. It was a tough fight for her, but with Maria being a Stage 3 Qi Condensation along with her transformation, killing a beast of her own element wasn’t nearly as difficult as the Peak-Stage beasts in the ice world.

The energy that went into Mira’s eyes also went into her eyes as well. It didn’t hurt, but she had to close her eyes while it was happening. When she opened her eyes, Maria was extremely surprised. The light in the world looked deeper and she could even see further as well.

She stood there stunned for a moment before looking at the stairs and walking up to them.

“World of Darkness! Here I come!” She said before walking up to them.

“Congratulations on passing Stage 8 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 9.”

***

Mira heard the congratulations from the mechanical voice and she was thrown into a world of complete darkness. Not only was it so dark that even with her new eyesight, but she also couldn’t even see herself. But she tried to move and felt all of her senses locked. She couldn’t see, hear, feel, smell, or taste anything. Mira wasn’t too fazed by this as something similar happens when her soul is sucked out of her body when she dies and has to wait to be placed in a new body, but she can still see, hear, and talk while in that state. Even though this wasn’t as terrifying as it might be for someone else, that doesn’t mean she likes being in this state.

“Welcome to Stage 9. Stage 9 is the World of Darkness. Use this place to enhance your senses. You will only be able to advance to the next stage when you can sense the area around you and find the exit. Begin!” The voice rang out in her mind this time.

‘Hmm. I can assume there is another guardian. The only way I will be able to beat is if I am able to sense its presence. I don’t really know what to do here, but I guess I will just start with trying to feel my own movements first before I move on to trying to sense what’s around me.’ Mira thought to herself as she tried to follow through with the movement of sitting. She wasn’t able to sit and ended up just falling to the ground, but Mira didn’t know this.

While Mira was trying to sense her own movements, Maria just heard the announcement from the mechanical voice.

***

“Congratulations on passing Stage 8 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 9.”

Maria was thrown into a world filled with darkness. She then heard the mechanical voice ring out in her mind this time.

“Welcome to Stage 9. Stage 9 is the World of Darkness. Use this place to enhance your senses. You will only be able to advance to the next stage when you can sense the area around you and find the exit. Begin!” It said and Maria went to try and say something, but soon figured out many things.

She couldn’t hear, feel, see, taste, or smell anything around her. She started trying to talk but found that even if she is talking she didn’t know what she was saying.

Maria then tried to open and close her eyes. She didn’t know if maybe something went wrong with the energy in the last stage and as she tried to follow through with the movements of closing her eyes, but once again couldn’t tell if she was doing anything.

Maria started to panic now.

‘What’s with this stage?! This is actually freaking me out! Am I dead? No, I heard that voice just now. It said that I need to sense the area around me to pass this stage. How the heck do I do that? I don’t even know if my body is moving or not, much less sensing the surrounding area. *Sob sob* Can we get these elemental stages over with? I just want to be done with this!’ Maria cried in her mind. All she wanted was to be able to do is sense her own movements!

Maria just spent her time trying to feel and sense her movements. Maria tried to stay as calm as she could but failing to sense her movements for so long started to weigh on her mind after a while.

***

Mira didn’t know exactly how long it’s been since she has lost all senses, but she was starting to figure it out. Mira felt like the nerves that connected her brain to the rest of her body were blocked by something and the only way to get past the blockage was to understand her body more. Mira started with her fingers. She would try to go through with the sensation of wiggling a finger. After focusing on this and finding the nerve for the finger that she wiggled, she would then follow that with her mind. Once she was able to follow that nerve to her finger, she would try to memorize that feeling and connect that finger nerve back to her brain. Doing this would allow her to feel/sense her finger moving.

Mira repeated this for every major part of her body. Arms, Legs, hands, fingers, toes, core, and back. Once she could feel/sense her body, she moved onto her hearing. This followed the same process as before, but except for nerves she had to feel the vibrations. Sound is essentially just a vibration and hearing is how we perceive that vibration.. All Mira had to do was sense the vibrations in her eardrum consciously and then send that information to her brain. She would try clapping and screaming, but it was hard to tell what the sound actually was with this sense blocked. She could only tell that there was a noise and the direction of it. These two senses became hyperactive and Mira tried to connect the two. If she could use her hearing to help sense the vibrations in the air and ground, then she could use her body to help her feel these vibrations. This would allow her to sense the surrounding area without the need for the rest of her senses.

It took a lot of time and trying, but Mira was eventually able to sense an area of a 10-meter radius around her. It was very mentally taxing to do this though. She could only sense the area directly around her clearly without as much effort.

Mira felt confident enough to try to find the exit now and maybe fight a beast. After wandering around in the dark for a while, she finally sensed something out of the ordinary. She expanded her senses to 10 meters around her and was able to make out the shape of a large bat-like creature. She didn’t know the stage of the beast but guessed Peak-Stage as that was what the last one was. The bat seemed to notice Mira as it screeched and charged at Mira. Mira expanded her Ice Dao Domain to 10 meters as well. She formed Ice shards in it and had her icy lightning bounce off of the shards. This was so she would be able to sense the beast easier as it passed through the lightning.

Mira had her scythe out as she waited until she felt the bat cross her path.

‘There!’ Mira swung her scythe in the direction she felt, but the only thing she felt was a pain in her shoulder. She seemed to miss the Bat, but it hit her shoulder instead. Mira took her battle stance again and continued twirling her scythe.

‘There!’ Mira swung behind her, but was a bit too late again and felt her chest cave in a bit along with some gashes on her body.

Mira needed to get the timing right. She had to go past her limit a bit, even if it is just a couple of centimeters. Mira pushed her mind to the limit and increased her senses and domain by another 10 centimeters and kept all of her focus on the lightning around her. Soon she felt another fluctuation and immediately swung in that direction. She managed to slice the bat in half, but she collapsed and fainted right after as her mind was too exhausted.

The bat disappeared and black energy took its place. This energy went into Mira’s brain and increased the sensitivity of her sensory receptors.

Mira’s body also started to heal even without a pill or her being conscious. This was mainly due to the excess energy that was still leftover after the lightning stage along with her increased blood vitality and all of the Qi in her body. Her body was much more resilient than before.

It took her a while to wake up and as she got up she realized that her body was recovering on its own. Mira was a bit surprised by this, but came to the understanding that it was from the lightning stage. She was also able to sense everything around her further while doing it unconsciously, but it still caused her a bit of a headache due to all of the extra information.

Once she got accustomed to this feeling, she started to walk up the stairs.

“Congratulations on passing Stage 9 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 10.”

***

Maria took a completely different approach. After failing to sense anything, she started trying to hurt herself. She couldn’t even tell if she was feeling, but after hurting herself enough, she started to feel something. Maria had seemingly completely lost her mind at this point as she started to rely on instincts at this point. Once she was able to feel her body a bit, she started trying to use her Light Dao on her eyes to be able to see in this darkness. After being able to utilize her Light Dao in her eyes, she was able to have a bit of tunnel vision in the dark.

Able to feel her movements and see what’s in front of her, she charged forward looking for the stairs.

She soon found the stairs and a bat-like creature guarding them. The bat sensed her, but it didn’t seem to matter. Maria propelled herself with her light beams, activated her Light Sword and Triple Draws at full power, and crashed her sword into the bat as fast as she could. The bat completely exploded and the rest of the force of the slash reverberated through the air and ground around her forming cracks in the ground. She kept slashing at the bat until not a single piece remained then charged up the stairs as the energy from the bat went into her brain to increase the sensitivity of her senses.

When she reached the top she collapsed from exhaustion as she heard the mechanical voice ring out in her head.

“Congratulations on passing Stage 9 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 10.”

***