NOVEL NEXT Chapter 127: Back to Training
With that said, the two of them then enters training once again, this time, the towering middle-aged man already needing to use his petrification ability to nearly its full extent as he even requires his student, Azrael, to stay close to him, having the need to compress the effects of his ability in order for it to work on the young man.
Of course, this is only due to the fact that he no longer possesses the strength he once had back when he was at his peak, a level of strength that should he be capable of using even until now, wouldn't even allow his student to defend himself as even the weakest level of petrification he can use back then is more than enough to turn some divines into stone for all their remaining lives.
Still, what he is lacking in the strength of his ability now he makes up for his experience in using it, the apparent mastery of the ability being fully displayed in his hand as he is even able to control the shape, location and level of strength his petrification has within a certain area of influence.
And there, within a stone mountain made from the victim of a powerful being's ability, said extremely powerful being, along with a young man is located currently, the powerful being, the Twisted Principality of Permanence focusing quite a bit as he maintains the power of his petrification ability which is currently forcing his student to quickly adapt and improve his regeneration to prevent himself from being turned into stone just like the beings who made up the entirety of the stone mountain.
This training, albeit quite the cruel one, allows the young man sitting crossed legged to push himself further and further than his previous strength before, his current level of strength not really fundamentally changing, but the toughness of his body, his resilience, consistently increasing by the moment, allowing him to handle far more of his strength than what he could before.
Hence with this simple cycle of things and tasks that they would do, refining and improving the toughness of Azrael's body, sparring to check the results of such training and then resting for a while before repeating the entire process, the student and teacher duo enters a pseudo-trance state where they didn't even care about anything else outside of their senses, the two of them merely focusing on the training and the feeling of getting stronger and stronger by the second.
Hence days, weeks, passed by…
----------
If an ascender of the second floor is someone not only strong, but also brave and adventurous as well, then they might jus have the chance to stumble upon the great forest seemingly barring the path between the great, towering stone mountain with its peak reaching the heavens, a place that not even ascenders of higher floors than the second dares to invade on.
Who would dare to? After all, the moment that one enters just a single step within those stone area, they will immediately be turned into one as well, not even having the privilege of rotting and returning to nature as they would more likely than not, merely remains into that stone form for all eternity to come.
Some of the luckier few who might survive that won't even be able to if they do not have at least a high-level protection artifact at the very least, something that is also quite the rarity especially since they are on the lowest floors of the tower.
Usually, on any other day than this one, they would hear nothing but the terrified growling of the powerful monsters in the vicinity as if warning every one, monster or ascender, to stay away from that dreadful place, making it so that the stone mountain, in its entirety, is extremely, eerily quiet, as if said place doesn't belong to the second floor, hell, even the higher floor of the Ethereal Tower at all.
However, with today seemingly being a special day, not only was the stone mountain trembling in an inconsistent rate, but there's also a powerful wave of winds that his whirling from the mountain reaching all the way towards the forest seemingly protecting the massive populace from whatever horror is lurking within the stone mountains.
Only if those who were wondering about why such a commotion is happening within the territory of the stone mountain are able to realize, to see the source of these terrifying phenomena, they would, more likely than not, be scared into oblivion that they would even forget to run away from their spot, their legs becoming rooted and their mouth agape in the absolute terror that they might witness.
A terror not from an uncomprehensible level of being, well, even if the source of these phenomena might b, but rather due to the two of them possessing a semblance, if not completely human, one of them, bearing a night black great sword with blood crimson engravings along its blade, swinging the massive weapon in his hand towards his opponent, the less human of the two, towering over the height of the already tall young man, his pale skin cracking in some places here and there making him appear like a statue more than anything else had it not been for the fact that he is capable of moving, unlike a statue.
"Come on now old man, why don't we try that out again?" looking at the towering man, the Twisted Principality of Permanence, and smiling at him, the young man, the student in this duo, Azrael, smiles as the Demonic Energy currently enhancing his treasured Evil Fang Sword was dispelled, the fact that he did so allowing less burden on his body given that he is also maintaining the highest level of Demonic Transformation that he can, just so he can stand on equal ground against his extremely powerful master.
Different from how he was from when the two of them are merely starting their training though, Azrael already has that bearing of terrifying confidence that borders pride itself, the only thing that made it so that it is no mere baseless pride is the fact that he can pretty much accomplish with ease the things he takes confidence, even pride on.
Hearing the taunt from his student, the young man clearly still hiding some of his strength, said young man's teacher, the towering middle-aged man, smiles as he wonders whether he should bite this trick that his student is setting up for him, having the gist of what he is about to do but not the very exact thing he is planning.
Before he could even start contemplating though, he was immediately interrupted in his thoughts by his student, something in the back of his head tingling as he totally dodges a completely devastating blast that might have torn him into two, vertical segments.
"Tsk…" seeing that even the air itself seems to be split in clean half by the attack, the towering man, Zhang Tian, couldn't help but click his tongue due to a complex mix of multiple emotions, among them being impressed at just how much improvement his student had over the weeks he is teaching him with all he got.
In addition to said admiration and the feeling of being impressed, Zhang Tian also felt quite annoyed at the fact that this sneaky attack nearly cost him his own life, this very same attack that he merely thought was troublesome back when the two of them only started their training.
'He's even more monstrous than I expected…' he thought to himself as he scans this student of his once more, the young man's early to mid-twenties of face in a neutral expression with his gaze being the only thing seemingly constantly moving around, as if reading through the movements that is about to happen within the succeeding seconds.
Meanwhile, seeing that his teacher and master seemingly doesn't have any idea of attacking, the young man, Azrael, then moves as his figure clad in his Demonic Energy rushes towards his opponent, the contemplating Zhang Tian who on the start of their training, couldn't even be bothered to put an effort to suppress him, now borderline struggling in a near defeated fashion as he struggles to keep up with his students movements, his swordsmanship along with just his combat prowess as a whole reminding the middle-aged man just how fast of a growth rate this student of his has.
'I'm getting there…' meanwhile, gradually seeming more and more gaps to his teacher's defense, near impenetrable to him back when he just started training, Azrael couldn't help but smile in excitement as he realizes that not only is he able to acquire and increase a hidden stat in the form of Resilience during this training of his with the Twisted Principality of Permanence, his combat prowess, seemingly already stuck in a rut breaking through once more and allowing him to improve on himself once more, even without his stats increasing any longer.