The First Store System

1501 The Challenge for Breakthrough(22)

Chapter 1501: The Challenge for Breakthrough(22)

After stepping out of the portal, Huo Jinglin found himself in the middle of nowhere, with just a closed door in front of him.

It was simply a door, no matter from what direction Huo Jinglin looked at it. The challenge for the breakthrough to Level 4 was different than the usual challenges and had no external rewards.

Huo Jinglin himself was the key to entering the world inside the door, so when he was just a step away from it, a suction force appeared out of nowhere. He couldnʼt put up any struggle against it at all and was sucked inside.

The next moment, Huo Jinglin found himself in a different environment. In front of him, there was an endless field filled with different circular altars, with the shortest having three steps and the tallest having fifteen steps.

The challenge detailed the name of the world, and it was the ʼWorld of Elemental Altars.ʼ As the name suggested, the altars spread across the endless field were linked to different elements, and the number of steps determined the challengeʼs difficulty. Since Huo Jinglin was only a beginner to the world, only the three-step altar was available to a Level 3 challenger like him. He was a fire element user, so he needed to find altars related to that element.

Fire altars looked different than other element altars. It appeared as a towering structure carved from volcanic rock, rising defiantly against the endless landscape. Different kinds of flames licked the edges of the altar, casting a fiery glow that brightened the surrounding area with a mysterious light. Smoke rose from the crater at the peak, swirling ominously in the air.

There were more than a hundred fire altars visible to Huo Jinglin, and each was available to him. Since there was no difference from the outside, it was up to fate to find what kind of challenge awaited him once he selected the altar.

Since Huo Jinglin needed to make a random guess, he chose the one closest to him. He found his intuition to be silent, meaning even that was restricted inside the world, so he could only pick randomly. Since that was the case, he simply left it up to luck and didnʼt waste any time thinking.

Once he decided, he walked to the altar and climbed the first step. The next moment, a searing heat enveloped him, causing a burn to his skin while his eyes stung. The view in front of him also changed: he was no longer in the endless field.

It was a closed surface, with its area being only under a thousand square meters. The entire area was bathed in a light due to the flames dancing along the walls. Lava flowed in creeks along the floor, casting a dreadful shine that reflected off the walls, adorned with numerous ancient patterns.

In the center of the room, there was a small pedestal, and atop it, a small ball of fire was burning. Hiss!

With just a glance at it, Huo Jinglin felt a stinging pain, forcing him to move his eyes away. That small ball of fire was the target Huo Jinglin needed to capture to complete the challenge.

The dangerous ball of fire was only a slight part of the difficulty. The major thing that worried Huo Jinglin was how to get to the pedestal.

In an area of ten meters around the cylindrical pedestal, there was a pit, and it was engulfed with raging fire, ready to destroy the world.

At the same time, the abundant fire element in the area was wild. It meant that Huo Jinglin couldnʼt recharge any energy there and only had his energy reserves to draw from.

Huo Jinglin didnʼt know the difficulty of other altars, but he could be confident about one thing. His luck hadnʼt helped him, and he had received one of the most difficult challenges for the three-step fire altar.

Huo Jinglin then took repeated deep breaths to calm his heart down since there was no point in thinking about other difficulties. The one ahead of him was the one he had received, and he needed to complete it to become a Level 4 being in the trial of power.

Without wasting any more time, Huo Jinglin took a step forward, rushing to his destination.

He was cautious in his steps, but until reaching the pit, he received nothing dangerous and peacefully reached there.

The challenge had finally begun since he needed to cross the pit to reach the pedestal. Jumping was an easy way, but Huo Jinglinʼs intuition immediately warned him against trying any such stunt.

To be completely sure, Huo Jinglin took out an item from his storage shape and threw it toward the pedestal.

As if the item had started a violent reaction, the raging fire in the pit turned even crazier and immediately expanded. The pedestal was no longer visible to Huo Jinglin. As for the item thrown by him, it got immediately vaporized.

Huo Jinglin was forced to back away since the heat released by the wall of fire was too intense for him to handle.

Since things were like that, Huo Jinglin was only left with one choice, if he wanted to cross the pit and reach the pedestal. It was to jump in the pit and then reach the pedestal bit by bit.

Huo Jinglinʼs decision turned out to be correct. When he jumped down, the wall of fire immediately calmed down and welcomed Huo Jinglin.

What welcomed him wasnʼt some warm feeling but a sense of danger. The fire in one meter around him gathered together to form a living creature.

In only a moment, a creature twice the size of Huo Jinglin appeared ahead of him, and without giving any time to Huo Jinglin, the fire elemental pounced.

Huo Jinglin had been continuously cautious, so he immediately jumped to his left, and following that, a ball of fire passed by the spot where he was a moment earlier.

The power of the attack could be sensed by the burnt skin even though it didnʼt directly touch Huo Jinglin.

Huo Jinglin ignored that kind of pain and pounced back. He couldnʼt let the elemental take advantage right from the beginning. Orange fire engulfed his hands, and he slashed like a beastʼs claw.

The claw tore through the creatureʼs head like it was nothing. Immediately after the strike, the creature began to regenerate but Huo Jinglin didnʼt give that much of a time and slashed for two more times.

Following the three slashes, the life core hidden deep inside the center of the elemental chest cracked. In response, the being disappeared and the one-meter range turned into an empty area devoid of fire.

Huo Jinglin didnʼt waste any time and walked forward. His next step landed outside the one-meter distance.

His right foot had only landed when the fire spread across two meters and enveloped him.

A searing pain attacked Huo Jinglin, and he immediately activated the defensive skill purchased from the store.

For the next full minute, the fire kept attacking the defensive barrier. Fortunately for him, he had completely mastered the skill using the upgrading ability of the glowing stone, so he persevered through it by only paying through his energy reserves.

Once the fire dissipated, Huo Jinglin deactivated the skill, and following that, the two meters of the surface had turned devoid of any fire. In total, three meters of the pit spread across ten meters now lacked even a bit of fire.

Huo Jinglin didnʼt immediately walk further but sat down in a meditative position. Keeping the defensive skill activated for one full minute without any interruption cost him one-fourth of his total energy reserve.

Since there was no help from the environment, Huo Jinglin couldnʼt recover the lost energy for the moment. But what he could recover from was physical and mental exhaustion from the two tests, so he decided to wait.

After an unknown amount of time, Huo Jinglin opened his eyes. He was ready to face the next test, so he stood up and stepped forward. After his second step, he stepped outside the range of the no-fire zone.

Time flew by, and once Huo Jinglin was ready, he finally stepped forward to face the next challenge. Following the sequence, he faced the combination of fire in three meters for his third test.

For the fourth step, the remaining four meters of raging fire gathered around and turned into a firestorm, with the single aim of destroying Huo Jinglin.

He didnʼt try to activate the defensive skill since he felt that no defense mattered in front of the firestorm. Even though it was material, Huo Jinglin felt his consciousness burning, not his physical body.

(Chapter End.)

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A/N: Sorry, only one chapter. I will try to make up for the absent chapter tomorrow.

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