While Lin Mu's companions rested, he continued to fight and improve his proficiency with the Longgui Bulwark Armor.
The longer he went, the better he got at finding the energy cores of the Lava beasts. And eventually he reached a point where he could find it in a single strike, managing to eliminate them in one go.
But that didn't mean that the beasts were all killed soon. In fact, it took Lin Mu a long time.
Minutes turned into hours and hours became days.
It wasn't Lin Mu's first time getting lost in battle, with his mind tuning into a keen machine that finely calculated each of his actions. He observed, analyzed, and improved his moves with the progressing battle, his skills getting better and better with each passing hour.
And by the time an entire week had passed, all that was left was a boiling, molten and barren landscape.
All the Lava Beasts had been eliminated while two red spheres floated in front of Lin Mu.
~huu~
He let out a breath as he looked at the two spheres, knowing what they were.
"So this was the condition… if we had ignored them, we probably would have missed out on these keys," Lin Mu muttered to himself.
When he had eliminated about half of the Lava beasts in this area, the first key had popped up. Of course, he was surprised by this and had rushed to store it away to prevent it from getting damaged.
He then went back right to killing the lava beasts and hunted hundreds of them down before another key appeared.
This time though, the key's appearance wasn't detected by him but rather by Lady Kang as it had appeared next to her. They wondered why the keys were appearing like this and reckoned that there was a condition they were not able to understand at first.
But when the third key was spotted by Ashy far back at where they had started from, Lin Mu soon realized what the condition to obtaining the keys in this area was.
'Upon the killing of a certain number of Lava beasts, an Iron key will randomly spawn in the area.' Lin Mu understood.
Three keys had been obtained in the way and there were still more Lava beasts appearing in the area.
Thus, Lin Mu got the idea that as long as the Lava beasts were here, there would still be more keys appearing. This proved to be a good thing for him, as he could focus on one thing and keep on eliminating them while Lady Kang and his tamed beasts watched out for them.
Lin Mu fought nonstop and eventually reached a point where basically no beasts were left alive in the area, and yet a short while later, more of them suddenly spurted out from the lava rivers that were spread around in the area.
And not just that, even the rocky vents from which the smoke spewed also birthed more Lava beasts.
These happened to be the bigger Lava beasts that also had greater intelligence than the others.
This led to Lin Mu understanding the difference in the various Lava beasts that were present in the area. Those that were born from the lava rivers were the normal ones with low intelligence, while those born from the vents were those with a higher intelligent.
Once Lin Mu had eliminated all the lava beasts for the second time and obtained another Iron key, the Vents in the area seemed to become overactive.
They kept on spitting out large balls of Lava that transformed into various Ape like Lava Beasts.
These were the sources of the various Gorilla, Monkey, Chimpanzee, Orangutan and other ape beasts. At a certain point, there were literally monkeys raining down in the entire area, which created a memory for Lin Mu that most others would simply find odd.
But once he got through it, all two more Iron Keys appeared directly in front of him.
These were in the form of the red spheres and were still contained in their shells.
~STEP~STEP~STEP~
"No more Lava beasts seem to be appearing." Lady Kang spoke.
"Yes… Either its due to the fact that we haven't collected the key or because this isn't the end." Lin Mu replied magma flowing around his body.
Unlike before, Magma fury functioned differently for Lin Mu.
There were two claws on his arms, while two whips with spiked rock tops extended from his back. His body was also fully clad in a rock armor at the same time, keeping his defense at the maximum.
It didn't seem like he could be threatened at all if one saw him right now. The aura that he had around him also spelled utter fear for most beings that would see him.
The Tyrannical aura from the Tyrant Bull and the Stubbornness from the Longgui Bulwark Armor mixed together along with all the killing he had done, creating an unmentionable aura of terror.
Though it was dispersing at the same time and it didn't seem like it would be able to last for a long time.
Lady Kang could see it and knew what it was.
'He managed to condense an aura of slaughter even while killing beasts that are nothing but puppets… the techniques he is cultivation are certainly ones that are made for battle.' Lady Kang thought to herself.
She knew of many techniques that worked like this and all of them were those that were made for war and slaughter.
The manifestation of a slaughter aura was considered as a pro and con by most people. Some considered it a pro since it further added to the domineeringness of the skills, along with its power and added the ability to scare others.
While some considered it a con, as it further pushed such skills to the unorthodox path, making it seem negative and evil by several factions. This was further enhanced by the fact that many techniques of the Orthodox path condensed a righteous aura instead of a slaughter aura when one used it to kill others.
There were exceptions to this, but the majority agreed on the basic norms as such, there were many misconceptions to it all.
Regardless of what it might be though, Lady Kang was not one to misidentify Lin Mu.
She didn't belong to the orthodox or the unorthodox path.
She was an ambitious merchant thorough and through, a businesswoman at the very minimum and thus what she respected was power and knowledge in the end.
Both of which that Lin Mu held.
As such, observing his capabilities only inspired confidence in her. Especially with the two Iron keys appearing upon the competition of his slaughter.
"Let's see if this is it." Lin Mu said as he finally made his move towards the two keys that were still contained within the red spheres.
~SHUA~
Lin Mu's hand, that was protected by a stone gauntlet, made contact with the first sphered, causing it to disappear. The Iron Key became visible behind it that Lin Mu quickly took hold of and stored it away in the ring.
"Hmmm… Nothing yet." Lin Mu muttered as he narrowed his eyes.
He turned and looked at the second red sphere that contained the iron key. Lady Kang was looking at it as well and questioned what would be happening.
They had no idea of the next trial and neither of the current one.
~SHUA~
And when Lin Mu touched it, the sphere disappeared as well, revealing the lone iron key inside it.
"One more." Lin Mu steeled his heart and touched at.
~HONG~
As soon as he did, a change seemed to happen as a echoing sound spread in the entire trial ground.
~GURGLE~GURGLE~
The lava all around them seemed to boil over, while the vents spewed out copious amounts of smoke. No matter what way one observed this, it was clear that something was happening to this space.
Little Shrubby sensed several spikes in the fire elemental energy, as well as Lin Mu, making them look at the space in front of them.
~HISS~
The twins quickly jumped in front of Lin Mu, as if protecting him, and glared at a stone arch that appeared.
It was made out of rock and lava, but contained hundreds of runes. These were runes that both Lin Mu and Lady Kang could understand and made their eyes go wide.
"Those runes…" Lady Kang muttered.
"A Teleportation gate." Lin Mu finished her words.
"Is this the end?" Lady Kang asked, looking at Lin Mu, knowing that his abilities would allow him to perceive better.
~SHUA~
Lin Mu closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again.
And when he did, the scene in front of him changed.
He looked past the gate and saw a Teleportation channel that went to the depths.
"No… there's more." Lin Mu could vaguely see several branches joining in, showing that this was not the end yet.
