Chapter 31: God of Fire
While looking some more around the rubble he concluded a few things about the sword training ground he was in. first of all, it was a private training ground, the layout suggested that only a max of 5 people could stay here at the time coupled with the fact that at most 2 duels could be held at the time inside the center training ground.
Now looking around for nearly 5 minutes James found a particular-looking patch of rubble, when he looked through it, he found what probably was the only room that was somewhat left untouched by the power of time. When he stepped into the room he immediately understood why. every item was filled with divine might, it was likely that this was the room of a God in the past, so it was obviously strengthened more than the rest of the training center. Looking around the room James didn't find anything of worth, since this particular training temple wasn't guarded by anything, it was probably swept clean by some other explorer long ago.
Having investigated everything James moved closer to the center of the island, hoping to find some training grounds that were still standing. That was probably the place where he could complete his [Tier 1] promotion.
After about 1 hour of searching, he found only a couple of other destroyed training grounds. What James found interesting though was that every new temple had the same 1 room that was overflowing with Divine might, and every one of those Divine might was slightly different. In strength but also just a slightly different aura. This indicated that all of the temples were sword training grounds for different Gods in the past.
That so many different Gods practiced swordsmanship didn't surprise James. All gods, especially the stronger once at the very least try to become proficient in all kinds of weapons. The thing that surprised him was that all of these buildings were right next to each other. He couldn't understand why these gods wanted to train the sword here from all places.
Laying his curiosity on the back burner for now James started moving to the center of the island, he didn't know if this was the right move but the constant increase in strength of the Temples seemed to reassure him. He hadn't come across an intact temple yet but the strength of the divine might in the personal rooms was getting stronger.
It took a full 2 hours before James finally came across an intact training ground, there were two big differences apart from the main building being not destroyed. Firstly, 2 statues stood outside of the entranceway of the grounds, both being some type of monster, and both giving off a lot of divine might. James could only guess that this was to prevent ordinary beasts from wandering about before the gate. The second thing was that the place was guarded by 5 Golems, coming closer by James inspected them.
[Magic Guard Golem] (Golem, Lord Rank)
Level 20
HP 2,000,000/2,000,000
James was kind of shocked by their strength. It wasn't that he couldn't defeat them, but he presumed that this was the weakest temple that wasn't destroyed, and the closer he went to the center the more dangerous it would become. He could only imagine what kind of monsters he had to defeat to get into the best temple and get the SSS grade evaluation.
At that moment he couldn't help but feel quite lucky that he had upgraded his equipment before. it would have been a challenge to even defeat these Lords while he was under the pressure of divine might if it wasn't for his equipment.
Without any further ado, James rushed towards the golems who seemed to immediately rush at him when he was a curtain distance away. James, not wanting this battle to last long, immediately coated his sword in a golden flame, seconds later, right before James and the Golems were about to make contact his sword also coated itself with electricity. Now that all Golems were in place James gripped his sword and stuck it into the ground.
[Lightning discharge]
-1,980,000
-1,980,000
-1,980,000
-1,980,000
-1,980,000
Leaving the Golems with basically no health and stunned James quickly finished them off and let go of his sword, which instead of dropping turned back into golden divine light that traveled through his arm back to the Divine weapon orb.
Looking at his status, James frowned after realizing he couldn't gain EXP while in here. A real shame since there are so many temples here with even more high-ranking monsters protecting them. After a few seconds, he got over it and started walking toward the entrance of the building.
Walking inside the training field James could see a partially translucent man standing on the field with a one-handed sword in his hand. He didn't seem to be the fight-on-sight kind of guy, but James still inspected him before coming closer.
[Projection of the God of Fire] (????, [Tier ?])
Level ????
HP ?????????/?????????
James just stared in shock at the projection who suddenly spoke up.
"Are you going to come and challenge me, young man, it has been a long time since I had a good fight."
James didn't dare to move; it didn't matter how high his stats were. The projection of an ancient god could kill him in a second right now, but still, this one didn't seem aggressive in the slightest.
"Don't worry about it brave young man, I will forcibly bring my Tier back to yours, I will also not use any skills or techniques that I couldn't use at that Tier."
At those words, James sighed in relief while stepping onto the grounds. Ancient gods were powerful because of their incredible ways to control mana, world laws, and divine might. All things that were not possible at Tier 0 without a mana body, sure even then a normal player wouldn't be a match for them when it came to basic attributes, but James wasn't normal now was he? While he was walking onto the field the divine engravings that James thought to be some form of strengthening lit up and directed all their energy to the God of fire. Heavily suppressing him, James took this chance to inspect the man again.
[Projection of the God of Fire] (Projection of ancient god, [Tier 0])
Level 20
HP 1,000,000/1,000,00
His stats were still insane for a humanoid Tier 0, but this was something James could definitely handle. He still wanted to end this battle as soon as possible though because he had no idea how high the attack power of a projection of an ancient god was at Tier 0.
He, therefore, abused the 1 thing he was pretty sure of that he had the advantage over this Projection, speed. He rushed at the projection slightly startling it thanks to his passive skill divine speed, starting him off at 100% of his max movement speed, before this confusion wore off James activated one of the skills on his cape.
Void Walk
James suddenly disappeared from the arena, normally no tier 0, God or not should be able to sense creatures in the Void. That is what James thought at the very least, but when deactivated his Void walker, appeared right next to the projection. He was staring right at him, with a slight smile on his face while lifting his blade. James, in a panic, activated yet another skill of his cape.
Divine Steps
36 exact copies of James popped out of nowhere surrounding the phantom. Before switching with one to get himself to safety though, James noticed something strange, the projection was slow. He could see the blade moving like it was in slow motion, he had thought that the phantom was strong thanks to the fact that he could sense James in the void, but it seems that he lacked in all the other categories except sense. Looking at the slow-looking blade James just felt extremely ashamed of panicking just now, he decided to end this by teleporting to a clone that was at the back of the phantom and stabbing it straight to the chest.
-1,028,633
Killing the phantom instantly.
Now that the phantom had been killed James went over the confrontation again in his mind, he truly felt ashamed. Not because he had overestimated the power of the projection, he hadn't, to any normal player this monster would have been a nightmare. It had the stats of a High Lord monster of the same level except for its HP and in terms of combat stance it was in the void realm and also in the Ascension Realm, no normal player would stand a chance. It was just that he had been underestimating himself, before this he had never really tried to unleash the full power of his new equipment, so he really didn't have a grasp on how strong he was. Now though he could confidently say that he was unbeatable at the same Tier.
While James was thinking a little dark purple orb flew into the sky from the body of the phantom, accompanied by a system message.
System: Completion Rate 70%. Do you wish to absorb the Legacy orb and complete your Tier 1 promotion?
James instantly rejected the offer; he was looking for SSS grade after all. If he wanted to get that grade, he would have to get over a 100% completion rating, how he was going to do that he had no idea, but he knew it was possible, so he was going to get it.
After looking around the arena James found no loot that the phantom had dropped so he went straight to the personal quarters of the God of Fire to see if he could get his hands on any treasures.
Walking inside James was bombarded with Divine might, he truly could not imagine any normal player even trying to complete this trail, even while looting they would pass out immediately. Thankfully his concentration was close to reaching Tier 6 so even though he could feel himself getting suppressed a little this amount of Divine might did nothing to him.
After around 2 minutes of looking, James came back out of the room with a wide smile on his face, he had found 2 items, both of them being treasures. One of them was a silver ancient tomb with a couple of words on the front of it "starry sky". It was a basic Silver Combat technique for swordsmen, James had hoped to get a sword combat technique somewhere here since it was a place related to training the sword, but he had never hoped to get his hands on a silver one. the second item was a small crystal with the same Divine might that was in the room, a god crystal. James currently didn't have any use for them and also didn't have any quest in mind that would make good use of them, but he wasn't that foolish to think that everything was within his control. Maybe now that he was still in his own little god's domain, he could control most of the things going on, but the moment they entered the greater god's domain, especially with the amount of power they had. It would be best to expect the unexpected at every turn.
James took the 2 items and looked one last time at the tomb before regretfully putting them in his bag. He, even in his past life had always dreamed of learning silver combat techniques, so he was eager to activate the tomb and start learning but now wasn't the time.
Now that he got all of the things he could get from this training ground James left it and started on his journey again towards the center of the island, he was originally not going to do a lot of temples. Just one or two to get familiar with them and then book it straight to the center, but if he could get more combat techniques and god crystals then that whole story changes.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone