The God Virus

Walking to the open gate of the fortress, Virus looked at the ancient engravings carved on it. 

Although he had a lot of knowledge about the Cultivation Multiverse of Qi, all that knowledge was from nearly one and a half million years in the future! 

In that long of a time, many civilizations would fall and be replaced by new ones, therefore, nearly everything was different from that time in the future.

And gazing upon the ancient engravings, Virus could find no information regarding this type of language anywhere in his database, he could not even locate a single mention.

Even though he could stay here and attempt to decipher these engravings, Virus was aware that was going to take a rather long time even for him, the kind of time he did not have right now.

Thus, shaking his head, Virus decided to move on. 'I'll just memorize them and decrypt them later.'

Then, no longer paying them any heed, Virus started ambling into the gate. However, just as he had made a few strides, he suddenly stopped.

'What? Why can't I remember the engravings?' Stupefied, Virus' eyebrows were raised as he gazed back in a rush.

After that, with a simple experiment of locking his eyes with the engravings and then looking away, much to his shock, Virus noticed that he could only recall and analyze them only when he was directly looking at the ancient engravings!

The second he looked away, it was as if some peculiar laws were extracting the knowledge right from within Virus' brain.

It was as if the world itself was forbidding him from learning and memorizing them!

"So strange…"

Mumbling that, not wanting to lose a second more, Virus moved into the castle despite how much amazed and confused he was feeling due to this strange phenomenon.

Subsequently, the instant he strolled inside, he was once again greatly disturbed!

Currently, in front of his eyes, Virus was witnessing a meadow of grass and flowers as far as his eyes could spot. Mountains of titanic sizes were also perceivable at the far background of the grassland.

The mountains were so gigantic that the biggest mountain on Earth was like child's play compared to it!

'Huh? There is a world inside the ancient fortress?' As this impression hit him, Virus realized something. "So that's why they call it the Invisible Ancient Fortress 'World', huh? Makes sense."

"Welcome to the first floor of the Invisible Ancient Fortress World, trial taker number eleven!" As if the world itself was suddenly talking, an archaic voice reverberated everywhere!

That promptly shook Virus' heart as he searched around trying to determine the source of the sound. Unfortunately, that could not be done as the archaic voice was transmitting from everywhere and all directions!

Not waiting for Virus to get a grip, the archaic voice continued, "Your final prize and rewards will be calculated according to how distinct, bold, and colorful your mark of the Invisible Ancient Fortress World becomes!"

'Hmm? Mark of the Invisible Ancient Fortress World?' Throwing a glance at the back of his left hand toward the tree tattoo, Virus doubted, 'Is it referring to this?'

However, while he was busy questioning himself, suddenly, he sensed a burning sensation at the back of his right palm.

SSsss~

Quickly bringing his right hand in front of his face, Virus looked at it in surprise only to notice barely perceivable blurry lines there.

'Ah, so it's another mark.' Virus determined at once. 'But I wonder how I should be making it more distinct and b-'

Before he could even finish, the ancient sound spoke again, "At each floor, you are to continue persisting until you're no longer able to. When you reach your absolute limits, all you need to say is 'I concede' and you shall be sent to the next floor. Remember that the trial in this floor is adjusted according to the cultivation level of the trial taker and the rewards too shall be based on it."

Listening to the elaboration, Virus became aware that it did not matter if the participants were at the Liberation or Sublimity Emergence, they all were going to face trials that were adjusted according to their relevant cultivation base, and probably the more they exceeded their limits, the higher the rewards were going to be!

Shortly after that, while various notions were passing through Virus' brain, astonishingly, a cat monstrous beast at the peak of the First Order took shape and existence in front of Virus before it directly charged at him. Strangely, the cat's body was somewhat ghost-like but it did indeed exist.

"Huh? What's this?" Casually punching the new assaulter, Virus straight away sent it to death!

Promptly, the carcass seemed to evaporate as it turned into some kind of smoke which immediately rushed to the back of Virus' right palm.

Meanwhile, watching and studying his palm, Virus realized that the mark was slightly more distinct now, almost to an unnoticeable degree.

"So that's how you make it clearer!" Grinning from ear to ear, excitement began to boil within Virus' blood while two more monstrous beasts, this time at the early phase of the Second Order, appeared in front of him as he charged at them with no delay.

BAM! BAM!

The two were dead at once while their smoke entered Virus' mark, making the tattoo more heightened.

ROAAAR~ Roar!

Following that, four beasts at the middle phase of the Second Order were crushed to kingdom come before eight at the higher phase of the Second Order replaced them.

Swish! Swish! Swish~…

Activating his longsword, Virus sliced through all eight monsters, making them silent forever. However, it was what happened next that made Virus' eyes shine like two burning suns!

Right after killing the eight monsters, Virus perceived that the fusion rate of his next pair of pathways had increased by an extremely meager amount as Origin sucked their energy and concentrated them all on his pathways synthesis procedure before the carcasses turned into smoke!

'Damn, so Origin can even suck the energy out of these ghost-like beasts as well! That changes everything!' Virus thought in zeal.

Now that he was already at the Fifth Level of Liberation, even those monsters at the higher phase of the Second Order barely assisted him in increasing the fusion rate between his ninth and tenth pathways.

"Hell yeah!" Gripping both his fists, Virus shouted in anticipation since now he could progress as long as more beasts continued to appear. 

Before, he was only killing the monstrous beasts in order to make his mark more distinct while he wasn't even sure whether that would eventually result in a worthwhile reward or not.

However, now that Virus had noticed Origin extracting energy from these weird smoke creatures, creatures that he wouldn't really call 'true' monstrous beasts, he was looking forward to the process with passion.

Soon, the next round of monsters was naturally summoned. Their cultivation this time was at the very peak of Second Order and they totaled sixteen!

Despite being in the fifth level of Liberation with four synthesized passages liberated, Virus knew facing sixteen monsters at the peak of Second-Order all at once would still be rather hard for him!

Thus, with his longsword already in his grip, he began to ran in the open meadow while the monsters rushed at him from behind.

Virus' purpose from doing this was to implement a hit-and-run strategy on the monsters. He was going to run around and face them one by one!

Swish! 

Lowering his pace slightly, Virus slashed the fastest and closest monster before picking up his speed once more!

The constant battle continued as Virus massacred the odd creatures while running and slowing down at certain times when he found the opportunity to catch and strike them alone! And just like that, all sixteen were finally gone!

"Phew…!" Taking a deep breath, Virus began to wonder whether the subsequent beasts to appear were going to be at the early phase of the Third Order which was equivalent to cultivators at the Sublimity Emergence stage!

'Don't tell me the trial is also going to double down the numbers again and force me to battle thirty-two monstrous beasts at the early phase of the Third Order?' 

Virus was aware if that indeed happened, he would have no other choice but to concede since his current level of cultivation was simply not enough to go against that many strong opponents that were definitely faster than him!

No, not talking about that many monsters, Virus doubted whether he could defeat a single one at the early Third Order!

Fortunately, much to his relief, the trial proved him wrong by sending a single monster at the early Third Order. With that, even though Virus wasn't totally confident, he felt like he might stand a chance of defeating it if he used all his cards right.

ROAAAR!

After catching a brief glimpse of the features of the hideous gorilla with two heads and four arms covered with fists of metal, Virus stormed toward it while the gorilla also accelerated in his direction.

BANG!

Virus brandished the longsword and the gorilla also punched using two fists at the incoming weapon, creating a loud bang as a result!

Next, Virus' body was sent flying back helplessly. The two-headed gorilla had clearly won in the direct contest of strength. Moreover, since its fists seemed to be naturally made of some kind of metal, Virus' sharp longsword could not even leave a dent on it!

Nonetheless, with no intentions of giving up, Virus charged at the smirking gorilla and attacked once more!

'Twisting Tempest Thrust – First Form!'

The sharp end of the longsword was thrust at the creature who easily blocked it with its metal punch, pushing Virus back due to the rebound. 

However, without stopping at all, Virus pounced toward the creature again as a sharp glint of focus exuded from his eyes.

'Twisting Tempest Thrust – Second Form!'

Chaotic turbulence gathered at the very ending point of the weapon as Virus unleashed it toward the grinning gorilla.

Woefully, just as the weapon was about to make direct contact with the opponent, the gorilla suddenly stepped aside and dodged it rather effortlessly before launching a punch at Virus' stomach by the shortest route!

BAM!

"PFFT!" Similar to a rocket that had been just launched away, Virus' physique flew away hundreds of meters into the far distance. 

Just as Virus' suffering figure was about to descend like a puppet with its strings broken, it became apparent the gorilla had no intentions of letting him off the hook just yet as it materialized above him and sent an even heavier punch downwardly while combining the might of all four of his fists!

KABOOM!

As Virus' broken figure was redirected toward the ground, like a meteorite falling, the force pushed behind his frame created a deep crater at the surface of the meadow!

Cough!

Coughing once, Virus tasted blood in his mouth. It was clear he was now suffering from some type of internal injury!

'Shit… the difference between Liberation and Sublimity Emergence is like that of an ant to an elephant! It'll be too difficult to defeat it at this rate.' Despite being aware of the fact that killing the monster would be too hard, Virus was not willing to concede and admit defeat just yet!

Instead, utilizing all of his thinking and processing speed, he compelled the time to freeze in his own unique perception.

'First, let's learn the third form!' As this line flickered through his head, Virus immediately started comprehending the third form. 

The third form of Twisting Tempest Thrust mainly concentrated on the word 'Twisting', denoting that Virus needed to add a twirling quality to his own internal energy just like the threads of a screw which would in return gather on the very tip of the longsword, increasing the damage and deadliness of the attack to a terrifying extent.

Normally it would've taken a long time to master, however, considering who Virus was, the following instant, he already had access to the third form of the Twisting Tempest Thrust.

However, with no pause whatsoever, Virus initiated the process of learning the fourth or final form!

'The final form focuses on combining all three previous forms together, creating the true Twisting Tempest Thrust!' Concluding that, Virus promptly began experimenting and analyzing countless pieces of information in order to quickly grasp the fourth level.

What he did first was to send his consciousness to his mindscape as he wielded an imaginary longsword on his hand before doing the thrusting attack with it!

Next, he had to add and fuse the 'Tempest' feature of the technique while maintaining all of its 'Thrust' aspects!

In the outside world, although not a single second had passed by, in Virus' mindscape, he felt as if several days had already gone by as he trained with his imaginary sword tens of hundreds of thousands of times!

Finally, long after he had stopped counting, he felt enlightened about the essence of fusing 'Tempest' with 'Thrust'.

What he needed to do next was to also add the 'Twisting' characteristic of the longsword to the completed Tempest Thrust!

Luckily for him though, he was very familiar with the process of fusing the characteristics of this particular technique very well now. Therefore, it only took him around a hundred imaginary swings before he was done with his intensive training!

Meanwhile, in the outside world, ignoring the sharp pain that was transmitting from all over his physique, Virus jumped to his feet before casting his strike!

In the meantime, the gorilla was still mid-air while it was in the process of falling toward the meadow surface. Stupefyingly, however, the pigheaded gorilla was still stretching its fists backward, intent on dealing a fatal strike on Virus. 

It was obvious the monster's aim was to punch him after gathering and concentrating all the force behind its descent in order to finish off Virus once and for all!

'Twisting Tempest Thrust – Ultimate Form!' On the opposite side below, Virus' internal energy also began to leave from all four of his already liberated pathways before they gathered on the sharp end of the longsword quickly!

Then, imitating the propelling quality of the 'Thrust' motion, the energy also became chaotic as turbulence and heaviness of the wind were added to it as well.

Still not finished, the wind began to twist and turn just like a screw's threats as the ultimate form of the attack was ready at last!

BOOOM!