"Have you had your fun yet? Let's go, we don't have time. You can play with the fishes when you finish up in the Challenge Gate." Leona suddenly said. As she did so, the approaching auras also became tame.
Damien rolled his eyes. Only a Star Master could look at terrifying aquatic beasts and call them fishes. In front of Leona, these beasts truly were docile.
Clicking his tongue, Damien responded, "tch. I don't really have time to explore though…"
Sadly, Damien only had a month of free time. He still had a long way to go before reaching Death Emperor Star, and he wouldn't feel comfortable going on any long and dangerous excursions until he was at least in its vicinity.
Damien sighed lamentably. 'Whatever. Death Emperor Star probably has an ocean on it too. And considering that world's reputation, it'll be infinitely more dangerous than this ocean.'
Consoling himself like so, he followed Leona for many more minutes until they finally reached a massive ancient gate floating in the depths of the ocean as if it belonged there. As Damien looked at it, he couldn't help but notice the similarities between it and the ancient gate he saw in the Storm Heavens Mystic Realm.
"I'll get going now and finish as soon as possible. Don't miss me too much while I'm gone." With a light wink and a simple goodbye, Damien left Leona behind and passed through the gate.
Leona shook her head wryly and watched him go. She was already several thousand years old, so she'd long since lost the right to participate in the Dimensional Leaderboard's activities. She could only use her privileges as the Azure Rain Star's Star Master to somewhat track Damien's progress.
'I wonder what you'll show me, so-called man of my destiny…' she thought to herself. Her figure slowly melded into the world, disappearing from the ocean entirely.
***
The entire environment around Damien changed the second he stepped through the gate. Most noticeably, he was on dry land.
All around him were luscious and saturated green grasses that almost looked fake. The flowers growing from the ground were several mystical shades of bright color, and the trees towered higher than the eye could see.
It was an unruly scenery, but in its center was a single dirt path that seemed to be manmade. Damien stood at the start of this dirt path.
Immediately, he poured mana into his eyes. The All-Seeing Eyes activated, searching for an illusion, but just as soon as they activated, they were forcibly shut.
Bzzt!
"Ack!" Damien yelped as he rapidly closed his eyes. Two thick streams of bloody tears left his eyelids. In that moment, his eyes almost exploded.
'This…is this a restriction?'
Damien could tell that he was in an illusion based on spiritual power alone, but he couldn't shatter the illusion easily at all. The All-Seeing Eyes were a cheat code for this type of task, but as Damien just learned, using them was disallowed in this trial.
'I see…Leona did say it's a test of mental abilities. The All-Seeing Eyes are the bane of all mental abilities, but in themselves are a trait. Therefore, it isn't strange for them to be restricted.'
The All-Seeing Eyes were powerful, sure, but they also limited Damien. Since they were a fast pass to destroying any illusion-related or mental ability, his own mental abilities weren't given space to grow.
Now, such a chance had come along.
'I guess I'll be spending more time in here than I expected.'
With that thought, Damien began walking down the dirt path.
His steps led him through the forest. As he watched on, he found himself in tune with nature.
The breath of a dying tree ten kilometers away, the symbiotic relationship between a pale blue flower and a strange reptilian creature, the cycle of life, death, and reincarnation that forever repeated in all living things, Damien almost got sucked in by these simple yet profound sights.
But he kept walking, never allowing himself to veer off the main path. The second he did so, his mind would be forever lost in these illusions.
Rain poured in the forest. The rain nourished the plants and wildlife, promoting their growth. It filled the rivers and caused them to overflow, giving aquatic beasts more room to hunt. As the rain continued to pour, it flooded the forest entirely and formed a massive sea.
Damien kept walking. The waves picked him up as they grew. His feet barely touched the surface of the water. He never veered off the invisible path that his body was on.
The forest's ecosystem was destroyed by the sea. Marine life began to form, using those deceased plants and animals as sustenance to grow. Soon enough, the sea was populated by a plethora of creatures.
They grew and evolved at an even faster pace than the forest creatures, and the relationships between them were even more incredible. The sea even birthed some creatures who naturally had the intelligence of mortal humans even while being classless beasts.
But Damien remained unfazed. No matter how much beauty he was shown, his steps never diverged.
The sun in the sky became hotter and hotter. The sea evaporated with time and gave way to the sand below. Under the sun's intense heat, this sand began changing properties.
A desert formed. Damien watched how the biome functioned and how its ecosystem was built. After an unknown period of time, the desert froze into a tundra, the tundra became a swamp, the swamp became a wildland, the wildland became a jungle, and the cycle continued.
'The flow of all things…the universal system…' Damien muttered incoherently as he walked. He seemed to be on the precipice of something major, the tip of a heaven-shaking iceberg.
Yet, he was lacking the final push he needed to shatter the barrier between him and this truth.
He did, however, shatter a different barrier. The cycle of biomes continued shifting endlessly for a very long time, but eventually, Damien's tenacity won out.
After the cycle reset for the 118th time, everything paused like time stopped. And then, the scenery slowly crumbled away.
What was left was a small white room. Inside, there was a table and two chairs of the same color. Damien sat in one of these chairs and waited.
Soon, another man arrived in the room. He sat down in the chair opposite of Damien and looked at him.
"James."
"Damien."
"Good luck."
"Same to you."
Their conversation was short. The room limited their ability to speak.
Once they were ready, the table opened and a game board similar to chess emerged.
Damien looked at the board wryly. While intelligence wasn't the main focus of this challenge, it was surely a part of it.
Unfortunately for him, intelligence wasn't really his strong suit. Nor was strategy.
'To kill or not to kill…' Damien eyed James with squinted eyes. Killing him seemed like an easy solution, but he didn't think the Dimensional Leaderboard would like it very much if he did that. He didn't want to needlessly lower his score.
Just as Leona said before, every Challenge Gate tested only a single facet of a practitioner's abilities. Since this one was mental, he needed to stick to the script.
Besides, even if he lost this match, he could still bring his score back up in later tests. This was the benefit of Challenge Gates being singular cohesive tests instead of broad trials like Mystic Realms.
With one final sigh, Damien turned his attention back to the game. He had no idea how to even play, so he was just going to do whatever he wanted and pray that it worked out.
