I stopped on my track when I noticed something, while I could feel the smell of the cloud-horn tree leaf, and it is energizing every part of my body, but my runes are not feeling anything at all.

This should not be happening; as long the resources are not stored in a contained environment of any object or formation, they will sense it, but now, there is no reaction from them. Not only for the cloud horn tree leaf but also for a divine crystal.

To test my theory, I moved closer to them, as close as I could, but my runes have not reacted at all. For the one final test, I tried to remove something from my storage, but it's being locked down as expected; if I could take out a single thing from my storage, I would be sure, but now, I have to make the decision on my instinct.

I looked at the clues, and all of them except for reaction from my runes told me these things are real; only my runes are telling me they are not real, and my runes could be locked down; that might be the reason why they are locked down.

There are no restrictions on my runes, visible ones or invisible; my runes are working fine, and I am able to circulate both my Inheritance Energy and Bloodline energy. I tried asking Ashlyn who was inside me, but I got no answer from her; she had blocked the connection on her side, leaving me on my own.

I do not want to make a mistake, if runes are not reacting for some other reason, I might lose these resources, and I really don't want to. Finding the resources at the level of the divine crystal is extremely hard.

"They are fake; all the things here are fake," I said finally; the thing that forced me to say it is the information the Pyramid had provided, which said that all the challenges are strange. All six people who had come had received the strange challenge.

I did not receive received an answer; there was only silence and nothing; I even began to think whether I had made a mistake and correct my answer as soon as possible, but I controlled myself and did not say even a word.

The wait lasted for seven minutes before I heard that singsong voice, "Congratulation, Challenger, you have passed the first challenge," The singsong voice said. 

I am not happy hearing that; instead, I am feeling sad. I was hoping it to admonish me and tell me it is a thing and I should choose the rewards as it told me to. I needed those things to be real; they would have solved nearly all my problems.

As I was in my thoughts, a formation below had lit up, and I disappeared from my spot and appeared what seemed to be a domed hall or arena. The arena is neither big nor small, I could fight here, but I would still prefer it would be bigger.

In front of me are five black-colored weapons standing in the air; the weapons are a sword, saber, halberd, a morning start staff, and a lance. They are not emitting any aura, but I am not getting a good feeling from them.

Aside from being strange, these challenges are dangerous, weapons are the epitome of danger, and I prepared myself for everything.

"The second challenge is survival, the challenge is hour-long, but as long you survive for fifteen minutes, you will be considered a pass, but the higher you remained in the challenge, the greater your reward would be," The singsong voice.

Sup Sup Sup!

I had barely digested the words when the five weapons coming at me, blurring speed. Seeing that, the power of all three boosters rushed into me, and five thick vines with sharp ends rushed toward the coming weapons.

Seeing their speed, I know my lone sword would not be enough to defend against the coming weapons. 

So, I brought out the five thick vines and poured the power of the everwings and bloodline energy into them; getting the energy, the vines acted like they were supercharged and moved toward the weapons with the same speed they were coming at me.

CLANG CLANG CLANG!

My vines clashed against the five weapons, and I couldn't help but become surprised. The power of attacks is powerful but not as powerful as I had expected.

To be honest, I had expected these weapons to be powerful, bring the power of the leader class Tyrant with them, but they only projected power of peak elite, and there is no hidden energy in the attack, only pure physical force, this had surprised me but also rang an alarm bell in my mind.

I know something is wrong and have become even more cautious. 'The more normal it looked, the stranger the challenge would be,' said one of the challengers who attempted this challenge, and I am more than willing to believe her.

Time passed by, and for the first few seconds, it was normal. There was no change in the power of the attacks and nothing; I could not see any difference.

It had changed about a minute later when I noticed something in weapons; they are improving as fight me, and I had not noticed that before since I was able to defend against all their attacks easily.

The thing that shocked me most was that the fighting style of these weapons is not improving like a machine but like a sentient being. Even if it improves while collecting the data of the opponent, there is some rigidity in their fighting style; these weapons do not have that rigidity.

I am able to deal with them now, but I won't be for much longer, and I feel like this is no end to the strangeness this challenge has; there is something more dangerous waiting for me, and I have to prepared for it.