Soon, the people realized what had just happened, the silence turned into cheering.

“Someone just reached the shrine.”

“The record has just been broken, in just 1 step someone reached in the shrine.”

The participants who shifted their attention from the trail to see who came first had their heart wavered and were now just climbing, not moving on.

When people who spend their entire life to rise high suddenly find themselves in the bottom of the cage, they either break themselves or break the cell and when the one who thinks one has broken the cage finds out the cage broken wasn’t not even theirs, they reach their limit.

When the princess saw herself at the bottom. She started to remember the expectations placed upon her and the gazes that would always be pointed at her. When one is trapped in a cage, one can also consider the cell to be the shelter that would protect it from the outside.

The gazes were no longer there, and she was not the center of attention anymore when she was at the bottom. She felt a moment of relief but also felt that she did not belong there.

She took a calm breath and started climbing again. This time she was able to complete the climb in just 10 steps, with her 11 steps from before she had reached the shrine in a total of 21 steps.

Like that, another young high elf was able to reach the shrine in just 15 steps. The high elf had red hair, blue eyes, and a muscular body.

Many of the participants had shown exceptional results, but they got little attention from the elders. The concentration of the elders was now solely on the young boy with spatial Magic.

Spatial Magic was considered rare even among the elves. Only the high elves who would have practiced it for 1000s of years would be able to completely master it. Sometimes few exceptional were born who were talented in spatial Magic from their birth, but it would take 100s of years to completely master it even for them. The ancient elf king was the only one who could master it in just a few years. But now another like the ancient king had appeared.

The shrine had the statues of three elf gods.

The elves would come to pray here. The prayers would then be listened by the gods, and a prayer born out of virtue would be fulfilled, and the one who prayed with integrity would be blessed by the gods.

But the gods were not the only ones who listened to the prayers.

Some prayers would come out of desires. Prayers born out of desires would also be listened too but not by the gods.

The brighter the light, the greater would be the shadow. The prayers born out of desires would gather and give birth to darkness, and the darkness then would hide among the gods.

The elves could not see the darkness present among their gods, but I could see it.

The darkness showed me the shape of my original body and smiled.

When the darkness smiled, I smiled back.

It then disappeared after giving a blank expression.

It was now time for the second trial.

Out of thousands, only two hundred had passed. The two hundred included only 12 elves. The rest were high elves.

We were taken underneath the shrine. There was a cave.

“The participants now would have to enter the cave and exit through the other side.”

“In this trial, many lives could be lost, no judges are watching, be careful.”

We entered the cave, a straight path, and the track was surrounded by various trees and plants.

The trees and plants seem to produce a high amount of mana. With every step, the concentration of mana on the floor would increase.

As the elf bodies are continually absorbing mana, the higher concentration would improve their mana pool and increase their strength. However, if the elves could not handle the higher concentration of the mana, then their mana pool would overflow, and sometimes that could also lead them to their demise. The bodies were made so that they could not control the mana absorption process and simply choose not to absorb the mana in the surrounding.

Those who were able to expand their mana pool would keep walking and find the exit.

I could simply choose to not absorb the mana and keep walking, but I wanted to see if I could improve my own mana pool.

But I could not absorb more than my capacity.

It was one of the flaws of the replica, it could not improve step wise step. Neither could it level up; it would remain the same way it was created. The only way to improve it was to evolve it, but I did not know the required conditions for the evolution of the replica right now.

The pace was filled with mana, meaning no matter how much I use it, I could simply absorb it again. It gave me a perfect chance to create chaos between the elves and the high elves.

The cave was suddenly filled with darkness. But the participant knew the path was straight, so the participants kept on walking.

[You killed a High elf]

[You killed a High elf]

[You killed a High elf] *200

The one who came out first was the high elf princess. After the humiliation in the last trial, this time, she came first. Looking at the judges in front of her, she made a prideful face.

Then the one came out was the red-haired elf, after that was me.

The princess looked at me and gave me a look like she was saying, ‘I was the one who won this time.’

I ignored her.

Then the ones who came out were the 12 elves.

But the time kept on passing, yet no one else came out.

The people began shocked as only 12 elves, and 3 high elves had come out. Others had just disappeared. Deaths had happened before only 2 or 3 in numbers.