The Legend of Min Hong

Thus, he went to the third pulpit that contained another set of familiar rewards and paused a bit before speaking into the empty air;

"Can I swap a higher tiered reward for lower tiered ones?"

Then after three breaths he heard a rumbling before a scale balance descended from the roof of the rewards room, then the mechanized voice spoke once again; "Permission granted…"

"You can only exchange rewards gifted by the 'Pagoda of Ascension'…" It added.

Then after about another ten breaths, the mechanized voice once again spoke;

"Place the higher tiered item you wish to convert on the left scale…"

Min Hong then picked up the 'Deep Forest Mamba' beast core and placed it on the left scale of the scale balance…

"Place the lower tiered item you want as an equivalent exchange on the right scale…"

The voice guided Min Hong once more as Min Hong went over to the third pulpit and picked up one of the rewards and placed it on the right side of the scale and then the scale massively tipped towards the left side as the mechanized voice once again came to life;

"Exchanging one 5000-year-old 'Deep Forest Mamba' beast core for an 'Axinite Star Shard'…"

Min Hong looked at the scale expectantly as he began to guess how much of this ore, which can improve the level of any weapon by one level, would he recoup in exchange for the beast core…

Whilst he was already making several calculations, the mechanized voice once again spoke;

"Equalizing rewards!" Then Min Hong witnessed one of the most mysterious occurrence in his life.

The space above the right scale where the 'Axinite Star Shard' was rippled and opened up as another shard dropped into the plat as the scale began to balance each other out.

Then a third shard dropped and the followed by a fifth, sixth, seventh and eventually on the eight shard, the scale was finally balanced.

Then the 'Deep Forest Mamba' beast core and the rest of the rewards vanished leaving only the eight 'Axinite Star Shards' hovering in front of Min Hong, then everything including the mechanized voice went silent…

Min Hong grabbed the eight 'Axinite Star Shards' and smiled elatedly as he whistled towards the portal leading to the sixth level of the 'Pagoda of Ascension'…

"You could have exchanged your second reward for more shards and then upgraded your 'Soul Slayer Blades' to multiple levels higher…"

Daniel King's voice echoed within Min Hong's head as he voiced his thoughts…

"You are only talking like that because you don't know how much I desire that weapon…"

Min Hong who had taken the 'Forsaken Bow' as his first reward responded to the black-robed Daniel King's curiosity…

"I now have two Peak-grade Bronze Tier weapons in the 'Forsaken Bow' and the 'Soul Slayer Blades'. Thus, I plan on upgrading these weapons four times when I get a suitable blacksmith to do so for me." Min Hong explained.

"Moreover, I don't think these shards would be able to upgrade a weapon more than an entire tier…"

"This means that, exchanging for more shards would be useless at this point." Min Hong added.

"Hmm... So, what level do you think the upgraded versions of these weapons can possible reach?"

Daniel King understood the logic behind Min Hong's choice, so he moved on to his next concern.

"Breaking through Tiers for these weapons would definitely mean, they would have to evolve and not simply upgrade."

"Thus, at worst, it would take these weapons three shards to evolve and fall into the Mid-grade Silver Tier…" Min Hong explained.

"But since I seem to possess uncommon luck, it might just take two shards to evolve them and they can fall into the High-grade Silver Tier…." Min Hong added.

"According to our knowledge, such a weapon should only belong to people who are ranked Clan Heads of Super Clans or higher, right?" Daniel King voiced.

"Yes… Though, it might seem impossible to the sect that a disciple of the sect could own such a high tiered weapon, I could always tell them that, my father gave it to me to serve as an extra layer of protection…"

Min Hong stated the cover story he was going to give in the future, if he was ever questioned on how he came to possess two weapons of such tier, which even the entire Dogon Empire had less than thirty of.

"Hmm… Even I, would believe that…" Black-robed Daniel King nodded in consent as he heard Min Hong's cover story.

He knew that as long as Min Hong could keep his background a secret, then he would be able to deter everyone from trying to forcefully snatch it from Min Hong.

After all, a Clan Head who could gift two of such weapons as an added layer of safety is completely unheard of, none of them is that generous.

Thus, it is either the clan backing Min Hong was very powerful and wealthy that they could actually afford it, or Min Hong's father who they would think is the Clan Head of a powerful Super Clan was just too strong that such weapons made no difference from his bare hands…

But, there was also another scary possibility, what if Min Hong's father was even an ordinary member of such clan, would the Dogon Empire be willing to offend such a power over two Silver Tiered Weapons?

The answer is a, Capital No!

Since everything have been sorted and they have produced a suitable excuse or cover story for any future troubles that may arise from the usage of these weapons, Min Hong finally took a step and entered the portal of the sixth level.

Min Hong arrived in the sixth level of the 'Pagoda of Ascension' and found himself standing on basically the smallest dueling platform he had ever fought atop.

It was a plain and smooth surfaced marble ground that was only about 10 meters in radius.

Though, the atmosphere was pristine and relaxing, Min Hong knew fully well that trials such as this are always one of the hardest one will ever face.

He scanned the physical realm with his mental sense but got nothing, then he scanned it with his soul trying to get the spiritual images of anything in the area.

But to his surprise, he found nothing other than the fact that he could sense several Daos in the atmosphere.

"Is that normal?" black-robed Daniel King asked Min Hong who smiled bitterly as he shook his head;

"We should always assume that everything about this place is life-threatening and dangerous…"

Min Hong replied as he thought to himself;

"Can anything about this place be normal… anyways, I am raring to go…"

But even after an hour, nothing still happened as he continued to wait…

Then hours upon hours passed as Min Hong still didn't get any reaction from the trial as all his pent up battle intent began to subside gradually.

This continued till the first day passed, then Min Hong sat cross-legged as he began to meditate.

Like that weeks passed and Min Hong was now growing mentally weary.

Though, he barely did anything to exhaust his mental energy, but when someone stays in a place as plain as where Min Hong currently was, if they weren't mentally strong, they would have most likely turn retarded.

It was like locking someone in a completely clean white room for weeks with nothing to see, do or hear.

Min Hong had chatted with the black-robed Daniel King so much that they had nothing to talk about again as they both went silent.

Min Hong had even tried to return to his meditation but he could settle his mind as the boredom was soul wrenching and the silence deafening.

It was not until about half a year later when Min Hong was teetering on the verge of going nuts, that there was finally a reaction from the trial dimension.

Min Hong saw rays of light from the sun in this dimension gather together at a spot about five meters (Fifteen Feet), then after about ten minutes an image the same height as Min Hong began to come into view.

Then after another twenty minutes that brought everything down to half an hour, the image in front of Min Hong finally came into view as Min Hong stood speechlessly rooted to the spot as he kept staring at what happened to be a perfect replica of himself.

From hair to face to neck length, to body length and structure, they were both exactly the same.

"I'm going to be fighting myself?" He blurted in shock.

Min Hong didn't dwell on any ceremony, as he stretched his hands to the side and grabbed at the empty air as Metal Qi rushed from his surroundings into his hands and formed a carbon-copy of his 'Soul Slayer Blades', before Chaos Qi followed suit and formed a black hilt for the twin ninjatos before spiraling all over the blades…

Min Hong then looked up to his opponent Min Hong who just like him, replicated everything Min Hong had done and was currently wielding the same type of twin swords Min Hong was now wielding.

Voosh!

Whoosh!

Min Hong and his replica moved at the same time as they signaled the start of his Level 6 trial…

Fwee!

Clank!

Clank!

Sounds of swords cutting through the air as well as clashing against another sword resounded all through the close quarters dueling platform as the dueling duo entered into an intense but deadly royal rumble.

Because of how restrictive the stage was, Min Hong couldn't fleet around with his [Chaotic Shadow Steps] since it wouldn't make any difference because of the negligible distance he would be creating for himself.

Furthermore, the replica had replicated his techniques earlier, so Min Hong was very sure that, his replica would surely be able to replicate the technique…

But at this point, he still had black-robed Daniel King watch his backs just in the case of an unforeseen sneak attacks as he began to battle his replica with his 'Dao Realm' [Song of the Wind Spirit], but the crazy thing was that, it seems Min Hong's replica was following his exact thought process.

If Min Hong ducked he ducked, if he struck he would also replicate the same thing, Min Hong tried using mental and soul attacks but it didn't work because his opponents had neither of those and as a result couldn't be affected by techniques based on those types of energies.

"This guy doesn't seem to be growing exhausted at all whilst I, on the other hand, don't have such limitless source of energy… if this continues this way, I might probably lose all my energy and become a defenseless meat on a chopping block for him…"

Min Hong thought to himself as he wracked his head for a possible solution.

But he didn't have to think too long before a very familiar voice rang out in his mind;

"Why don't you let me fight instead?"

black-robed Daniel King spoke as Min Hong nearly stabbed his own guts for stupidly overthinking the entire thing.

Then just as they have discussed, Min Hong and Daniel King swapped place as the nature of the fight abruptly changed as the Min Hong duo was being forced backwards as Daniel King was still trying to get in sync with the brain he had just been given control over.

But as an expert himself, it didn't take him up to ten minutes before he started pushing the replica backwards and after another thirty minutes of intense dueling, Min Hong finally landed a strike.

It was then that something utterly mind-stunning happened, Min Hong was the one who actually felt the pain as he staggered backwards about in shock;

"What in Odin's butthole just hap-?"

Daniel King tried to curse but was not given the time to gather his thoughts before being overwhelmed by the replicas attacks.

"Huoyi's curly beard, that did not just happen…" Min Hong exclaimed as he began to wrack his brains for the possible reasons why such a thing happened…

"Is it because I switched places with you?" he suggested…

"No, that's not the problem…" Daniel replied with a deep and infuriated frown plastered on his face as Min Hong asked;

"Do you happen to know what the problem i-?"

"Was…" Min Hong tried to ask but was interrupted by Daniel's correction.

Then Daniel sighed as he explained; "Was, because we made the error from the moment we decided to swap places… and the problem is that Empty Head…"

Daniel bitterly scoffed out that statement as Min Hong spoke; "Who are you refer- oh, I get it now."

Min Hong wanted to ask who Daniel was referring to but cut short his statement because he already knew who he was referring to… It was his third personality; the dumb Min Hong.

Apparently, he had subconsciously influenced Min Hong and Daniel with its lack of knowledge and wisdom.

The reason why they believed that was what happened was because Min Hong and Daniel in their right minds would surely know better that, an expert on the level of the creator of this 'Pagoda of Ascension' would have thought about the probability of someone like them existing and as a result would have put a rule to counter such tactics.

But for them to actually think that they could pull a fast one over someone who would at least be half as powerful as the 'great creator'... Were they looking to fool an expert on that level with such stupidity?