C35 Trials

Kyle blacked out and felt his consciousness leaving him...

After an unknown of time passed...

Kyle woke up groggily in the middle of a room. This room was quite big since he cannot see the edges of it.

He only deduced that this was a room because of the ceilings above him, but the ground was nowhere to be seen.

Kyle looked down and he saw himself standing on a formation. This formation was laid out throughout the whole room.

Kyle wondered what this formation really is so he started to explore the room, but just as he took a step.

He suddenly heard a loud ringing on his head.

*RIIING!!!!*

The ringing was so loud and painful that it made Kyle stumble and fell on the formation while clutching his head in pain.

The ringing continued non-stop... It was getting louder by the second. This made Kyle hopeless and didn't know what to do.

He grits his teeth and did anything to stop the ringing inside his head, but it was fruitless.

The pain was so agonizing and painful that it made Kyle scream in pain.

It was even more painful than breaking through the Xiantian with his body.

The pain was now so powerful that it was starting to make kyle lose his consciousness, but just as he was about to become unconscious and faint.

Kyle felt a familiar sensation.

He felt some energy gushing out from inside him. It clashed against the source that was making the ringing in his head and repelled it away from him.

Sooner later, the pain and the ringing in his head finally stopped.

Now that the ringing has finally stopped, Kyle could finally stand up and think clearly. He could now realize that the familiar sensation that he felt was just like when he was using his HaoShoku.

"What the hell is that? Did someone just use HaoShoku on me? No, wait... That's not possible. If it was HaoShoku, I should've at least been able to sense and defend it for a bit before it hit me. Or could it be... soul attack? Ya, that's right, its possible that this might be a soul attack." Kyle thought after he gained clarity.

He then embraced himself for another attack.

Kyle had read a lot about soul attacks, so he realized it fast just by experiencing it once.

There are some Xianxia stories that he had read where cultivators learned how to harness the power of their souls and used it for attacking or in any various means.

He doesn't know what him, so he just made a hunch.

He wasn't sure of his hunch, but it felt quite similar to the descriptions that he learned about soul attacks.

A worried expression has now escaped Kyle's face since he doesn't know how to defend or ward off against soul attacks.

He had never seen or heard anyone using a soul attack ever since he transmigrated in this world.

Fortunately... his HaoShoku protected him before he gave out, but Kyle wasn't exactly keen on depending his HaoShoku every time a soul attack hits him since he still doesn't know how to control it perfectly, and he wasn't sure if it really was his HaoShoku that protected him due to the lack of information.

Retreating was out of the question since he doesn't know the way out, but standing here like a sitting duck was a stupid decision.

So he can only move forward and get ready for the upcoming attacks.

Thankfully... There wasn't another soul attack after the former one, so Kyle continued to travel peacefully.

After walking for a few minutes... Kyle came to face a dead end, but he wasn't worried about it, because there is a door-like formation on this dead-end.

Kyle proceeded to place his palm on it, and he successfully got sucked inside.

---------------

This time... When Kyle woke up, all he could see now was a fog. There were strange howling all over the place. It had a scary sensation all over it.

Kyle felt there were organisms flying through the fog and around him, unfortunately... The fog made it harder for him to see, preventing him from being able to see those organisms.

When Kyle was sucked by the formation again. He felt that this pagoda was like a dungeon.

Those gate/door formations were like portals that led him to advance a floor.

He deduced that the strange ringing on his head was a trial or requirement to pass the first floor.

Seeing that he successfully survived or passed the former floor, he dubbed this new area as the second floor.

He was wondering what are the criteria to pass this second floor.

While he was thinking all about this. A foggy shadow with a shape of a person suddenly appeared in front of Kyle.

It stared at him with a grin on its face, but suddenly, the foggy shadow dashed towards Kyle and went inside of him.

------------------

Kyle wakes up from a long deep sleep. He opened his eyes and look at his surroundings.

He saw his former bed, computer, gadgets, etc. from his former life on earth.

He was now back inside his room at his apartment.

Kyle got momentarily shook. He tried to recollect his memories and re-organize his thoughts.

Before he blacked out, he remembered that he was at the pagoda in the forbidden ruins.

He remembered that he was on the second floor, where a shadow suddenly formed in front of him and went inside him.

"What's the meaning of this? Are all those my dreams? No, it cant be..." Kyle despaired when thinking about this.

He had finally achieved one of his dreams. He transmigrated into a Xianxia World and even gained his favorite devil fruit.

He made some goals, he was finally able to live his lifelong dream, yet now he woke up from the harsh reality.

Kyle was having a hard time accepting that it was all a dream "No, it can't be," he denied the reality and tried to slap his face.

*PAAAH!!*

But the cold, harsh reality struck in, and he only felt pain on his face when he slapped it.

Kyle despaired when thinking about this, but since there was nothing he could do, he could only accept the reality and lived with it.

...

It has been a week since Kyle came back to earth, he had been living with his dull life again. He met his neighbors, the shop owners and everyone from his neighborhood.

He continued to live with this boring life day after day. The Kyle that who was searching for someone to communicate with back in the plains was now gone.

When he came back to earth, his old lifestyle came back with him, being a shut-in otaku who doesn't care about the world.

It might due to the environment, or the culture, but Kyle really felt that he didn't belong to this kind of world.

The days continued but each day Kyle felt a sense of longing from within his heart.

Kyle was thinking about his current situation each day. He thought that this was some kind of illusion or something since the last moment he remembered at the pagoda was a shadow coming inside him.

But then again, he also thought that he must have been escaping his reality and was dreaming all this time.

Kyle felt that he was slowly becoming crazy, he was now having a hard time differentiating reality with his fantasies.

He had been pondering about this for days...

"No, there's no way those memories are a dream. The training that I painstakingly did, the hardships that I faced, the people that died by my hands, there's no way it was all a dream," Kyle thought while remembering his memories.

He had been thinking in these past few days that when he came to the first floor of the pagoda, a strong force hit inside his head. He felt that the strong force that hit him was a trial from the pagoda.

So Kyle guessed that this scenario of him coming back to earth was another trial from the pagoda. There has been a lot of this kind of trials in every Xianxia story.

Those trials test your heart demons or Dao's heart. Kyle felt that this was kinda similar, so he was trying his best to break it in the past days.

"Heart Demons huh... What could possibly be my Heart Demons?" He thought.

"If this was a test, then is it that me returning back to earth means I miss my former home and life? No that's impossible, there's nothing or no one I cared about in this world that could make me yearn from it." He speculated, but then he realized something.

"So that's what is this huh. It's not that I yearned to return to this kind of life, in fact, it was the opposite. This must be my Heart Demon. All those times living in the new world, all I ever feared was me waking up from a long sleep, thinking that all of the things that were happening was only a long dream." He realized the fear that was deep inside him.

This was true... All of the events that happened since he died was like a fantasy. He transmigrated, gained a devil fruit, cultivated, he felt all of this was too good to be true.

The fear of waking up to reality resulted in creating a heart demon inside him.

When Kyle finally realized what his real heart demon was, he felt a huge relief from inside his heart, and he felt his body lightened. Someone or something came out from his body and his scenery changed.

He was now back in the second floor of the pagoda, but this time, there was no fogs or howlings. The second floor was now like a clean, white room. It was spotless and looked very neat.

He smiled when he saw that he was back. He was happy that he was right, he really dreaded the thought of all of this was just a long dream.

He looked forward and saw another formation with a door-like symbol on it. When he saw this, he did not hesitate and immediately proceeded to the next floor.