Sam came back to his senses and looked at Kartikeya with an embarrassed expression. The fight he fought is nowhere near a real fight. He has fought Kartikeya completely taking advantage of the rules of the game.

From damaging Kartikeya bit by bit and his last onslaught like a mad fiend, all of them are his tricks to take advantage of the rule and he did this knowing full well that the other party is going easy on him. Just like the Monkey King did.

"Don't feel bad, I also broke some rules I set for myself, but your performance is better than I expected, at least you can play the game and mold the rules to yourself."

Kartikeya spoke and waved his hand, Sam felt all his mental fatigue recover and sighed in relief. There was too much pressure from this game and he had died sixteen times in total. At least, he avoided the pain and torment and committed suicide most of the time by jumping off the stage.

So, at least he was spared of the torment, but still, he feared that he would suffer some mental damages. He has very few emotions that he could feel heartily. They might even be pain and anger, but he didn't want to lose them.

So, Kartikeya's healing is something he was grateful for.

"Gambler really did pick some good candidate and no wonder that Dumb Monkey likes you so much, it is acceptable. Even I was regretting a bit by not picking you as a candidate."

With that Kartikeya took out a black crystallized metallic ball and threw it to Sam.

Sam caught it and examined it.

"That is the thing Monkey King promised you. It will give a great upgrade for the dimensional traveler you are using."

Sam was ecstatic and immediately placed it in divine dimension. He was not in a hurry to examine it through. After all, there are still rewards that are awaiting him for this Palace of Inheritance. He has suffered too much to not think about them.

"I wanted to give the winner, something that would help them in commanding the battle well. But from what I heard, it was already there with you, even though yours is of the lowest level, the best property of that it can be developed along with you.

Normally, a being at your level, couldn't do much with it as looking after yourself will be hard enough already.

But from the looks of it, you got that covered.

I was so sure that my candidate will win, I mostly prepared the rewards that would be suitable for him."

He paused for a bit and said.

"I don't want to cheat you, how about we make a deal?"

"I am open for it."

"Actually, the ultimate winner will be getting three rewards in total, but the rest of the candidates will only get one reward based on the level they reached and the performance they had shown.

At first, I wanted to give you a spear, the commander's table, and some life-saving trinkets, but I want to request you to forfeit the spear so that I can give it to my candidate. In place of that, I will give you my Ripple style technique.

And since you won the game technically which I didn't expect from any candidate, I will give you a superior reward that the final prize dictated."

"What kind of rewards are we talking about?"

"How about the Chessboard?" Kartikeya asked with a smile. Sam was stunned, he didn't expect that Kartikeya would give him a cultivator chessboard.

Sam pointed at the table in front of them and asked still in disbelief.

"This board?"

"Not this one exactly. Another board which will suit you more. Trust me its value is on par with the thunder prison you already have."

"What about the trinkets you spoke of?"

"I will give you five items, one of them will be aiding your breakthrough after you reach the Consummate realm. I heard that you already got the peaches the Monkey King awarded and this treasure will go well with those peaches."

As he spoke he took out a small glass vial which has a drop of transparent liquid. Even though it looked like water, Sam could feel its divinity.

"This is a diluted drop from the Divine river of Akashaganga. Even though, it is diluted, if can help you a lot in the break-through. Drink it with the Heavenly wine you have after eating the peaches, right before the breakthrough.

And the breakthrough should be done only after you feel like your body couldn't bear the extent of the power it is sheltering in.

The second one is a battle puppet. It has the strength of a Consummate level cultivator and it can be used three times. Anyone within the limit of Consummate realm will die no matter how strong they are."

Kartikeya took out another small humanoid metallic doll and place it. It almost looked like a transformers toy.

"The third reward is the transference scrolls. Five of them. You can never have enough of them. But their range is different from the previous time, you can now reach the range of five thousand kilometers."

Kartikeya then places five scrolls on the table.

Sam was ecstatic. But he still waited, there is another present waiting for him, these three items are all one reward. The skill is the last reward.

"The Ripple style and Void style have been rivals for many years. The disciples of the two schools of thought are fighting for centuries to prove which one is better. But I couldn't have imagined, there would be a day, a single person will be learning two of them."

Kartikeya said and a stream of light came out of his forehead and shot into Sam's forehead.

Sam felt like he lost control of his body and tried to resist it at first.

"Don't resist, observe."

A voice was heard in his head and Sam started observing his own body. He could see the energy circulation. For the ripple style. It was different from the void style. The void style mostly used a volume of spiritual energy in a place to create a small space of vacuum that would create an explosion and chaos of spiritual energy.

But ripple styles, consider the energy to be in the form of fabrics and all the energy in the atmosphere is comprised of the layers of connected fabrics.

The ripple styles create ripples in the fabric create the necessary damage.

Sam observed as the ripple style circulated all over his body and Kartikeya demonstrated it several times. Unlike most battle techniques and cultivation techniques, there are no stages of practice or levels in the technique just like the Void style.

Both of them are completely auxiliary and anyone can use them in any form of technique if they are smart enough to figure out a way to do that.

After the demonstration, Kartikeya even left some images in his mind so that he could practice some forms using this style.

Sam was delighted by the time the demo has ended and thanked Kartikeya repeatedly.

"Now, let us get back to the chessboard, shall we? As I said, this thing would be on par with the thunder prison."

With that Kartikeya took out a chessboard and placed it on the table. The board is a lot smaller than the first one and there are no pieces on it.

The board is made of some crystalline substance as it is almost transparent to look at.

"This is called Prison Chess. A variant of the original Cultivator Chess and that is because the game is played with the prisoners you catch with it.

Since you have thunder prison, this would be a great addition to your arsenal when you are dealing with too powerful enemies.

At your cultivation level, you can catch Level-1 Consummate stage cultivators when they are in an injured or exhausted stage. As for transcendent stage cultivators, you can easily capture them as long as you caught them off guard and if you employ thunder prison and could restrain them for fifteen minutes, you can imprison them in there perfectly.

As for Pre-transcendent stage cultivators, it would be easy for you and the Peak stage Pre-transcendent cultivators will make you exert some extra mental strain.

Once you have captured them. You can assign them to different pieces on the board on both sides.

They will be stuck in that block and after all the pieces are filled, you and an opponent can take the places of the king and play with them.

Their cultivation levels would be limited to the rules we have set. If you are the King, at Nascent stage peak level, the pawns would have Level-3 Nascent stage strength and if you have Consummate stage level-1 strength, the pawns will have Level-5 Transcendent stage.

But the only drawback is they should not be placed in a piece that would be higher than their actual cultivation. A piece position can reduce their cultivation, but not increase it.

You also don't have to be the king necessarily, you can capture the thirty-two pieces and you can assign the kings as you please and let them battle. They can never defy you and will be stuck there unless you will them to come out.

And you don't have to play with them every time. Just like how you and I played, two friends can play will all the pieces being themselves even with the prisoners still present.

It can be used to capture your strong enemies and slowly destroy their wills to make them your own soldiers.

The last function is an attack function. If the opponent is too strong for you and you didn't get a chance to capture him using the Thunder Prison and the board itself, you can use this function.

You can activate this function with a gigantic amount of spiritual energy and forcefully drag the opponent or opponents into a chess game and you fight them in a chess game according to the rules, if you won, they will be captured. But if you lose, you will be captured and the chessboard will change the ownership. So, you have to exercise caution when you use it.

But pulling them into the game is no easy task because the energy that would be needed is massive at the same time, it takes some time based on the level of opponent."

Sam was overwhelmed by the new knowledge that flooded his brain.