The moment Jason passed through the gate he received multiple notifications from the dungeon's artificial intelligence and one of them was that he had passed the trial successfully.
That could be described as a great achievement, but he couldn't believe that his passing score was still so bad.
Because of that, the notification resounded in his head several times as if his mind wanted to tease him.
It caused Jason to frown deeply.
[Congratulations! The second Trial has been passed successfully! Time required 196 days, 'Void' difficulty, Good+ achievement attained!]
The achievement he had attained was better than last time, where he had only received 'Good', without the '+'.
Sadly, that was not enough to make Jason happy, or even close to that.
Right now, he was just frustrated and wanted to have a lengthy discussion with the creators of the dungeon, and how they could give him such a bad score.
It was even more frustrating because he had spent years completing the second trial.
And the fact that he might not be able to receive the rewards he wanted, once he were to pass all trials annoyed him to no end.
However, that thought was quite naive because he was not even sure what exactly the rewards would be, and how great a 'good' passing score was.
In the end, he had passed the trial which was the only thing that should be counted as important.
Yet, Jason was still not happy with his score because it hurt his pride to be only labeled as good, and not extraordinary after giving his best to ace the trial.
Nonetheless, the passing grade gave him a rough idea of how exceptional the descendants of Primordials should be.
Unfortunately, this made him reconsider how powerful Primordials might be.
This realization made him suddenly question how he was even able to pass both the tower and the valley trial with such a high grade.
From being annoyed and frustrated about his low score despite his utmost efforts, Jason began to see it in a new light. His mindset began to change thinking that the Celestia race belonged to the Primordials.
This meant that he had just received a good passing grade according to the standards of pureblood Primordials!
And that was including the fact that his bloodline was partially sealed, and that he was a halfling!
The more he thought about it, the more amazing he felt about himself.
His previous bad mood dispersed into thin air, as he allowed the other messages of the artificial intelligence to reach his mind, where they were conveyed.
[Dungeon Challenger repaired the mana vein, used the valley's sacred beast, lost 1 village and 1583 Mewi, distributed techniques to strengthen the Mewi, and supported the villages, allowing individual 'Brell' to become the Grand tribe chief, instead of using dominance to rule over everything!]
The message was crammed with every single detail that counted as a positive or possibly negative thing he had caused while attempting to pass the second trial.
This caused him to feel a little bit odd because the positives overshadowed the negatives by a lot.
Hence, he was unable to understand what else he was supposed to do in order to pass the trial with a higher passing grade.
Even if he had already accepted that he was rivaling the standards of true Primordials, something felt off.
Jason felt weird because even higher ranked races had to unseal their bloodline slowly, which meant that the Primordials were at the same cultivation stage as him.
In the end, the Primordials would have only undergone the primary bloodline awakening, which was the same with him…
Yet, when Jason thought about this, he forgot to add one of the simplest factors to the equation- the age of Primordials at his cultivation rank!
Unable to comprehend the shocking truth, Jason's ignorance allowed him to keep a calm head.
He had no idea that the difficulty had been tweaked to suit his age.
Jason had received only a 'good +' passing grade because the Dungeon of the Primordial Descendants' difficulty had been changed in order to be suitable for the cultivation stage of small children!
Oblivious to this fact, he was clearing his mind of his initial worries while he passed through the portal that led him towards the third trial. Jason couldn't help but feel that traveling from the second to the third trial was taking much longer than the first time he had completed a trial.
Nonetheless, the time he had been given allowed Jason to think about many things.
Yet, before he could unravel the jumbled knot of thoughts in his head, the surrounding environment changed.
He saw himself walking towards a vast expanse of a plain where he couldn't see even a single tree or a beast for miles on end.
This confused him, and he believed that it was too good to be true.
But even after turning in all directions, he found no living being.
It was a simple plain with lush grass for as far as his eyes could travel, but that was already it.
Not even the sun was brightly shining on him, and Jason couldn't even see it when he looked towards the sky. It was as if the entire place was just lit by some dazzling source of light that he couldn't spot.
Wondering what he was supposed to do, Jason waited to receive the task of his third trial.
Thus, he simply moved through the empty plain, trying to figure out whether there was something somewhere, or if the entire enclosed area was truly empty.
In the end, several hours passed, but he found nothing, which should normally frustrate him.
However, instead of feeling annoyed, Jason's mind was clear and he felt safe and reassured.
It was a refreshing change to not jump into fighting beasts every single time a new trial started.
Because of that, he decided to cultivate a little bit, given the fact that he hadn't felt as comfortable as right now, for a very long time.
Right now, cultivating meant that he could construct his first, large rotating crystal.
The outlines had already been completed, and only the rest of it was missing.
Knowing what he had to do owing to the Mythic Essence's teachings, he didn't have as many problems as Artemis had with the construction of her first large rotating crystal.
On her first attempt, Artemis had almost made a big mistake owing to her inexperience, but fortunately, nothing serious had happened.
As for Jason, his control over mana was precise, and he knew every single step of the construction process of the large rotating crystal by heart.
Because of that, the only thing he had been missing for so long was time.
In the end, what cultivation required the most was not only time or the perfect environment, but a perfect balance of both, sprinkled with determination, patience, mana mastery, and other ingredients.
Having the necessary talent to excel in it was just a cherry on the cake.
Fortunately, Jason currently had everything he required, even more so because the third trial had yet to start.
With that in mind, time passed slowly, and Jason cultivated for a total of two months before the first of three large rotating crystals was successfully constructed.
It took longer than he had expected, but if someone else were to hear him saying this, they would start puking blood.
Even though it took longer than he had expected, the next time would become much easier because now he had both theoretical knowledge and practical experience to do the same.
Thus, he was now in the need of another 100,000 liquefied drops of mana, but that could wait for some time.
While he had been cultivating, and entering the 2nd threshold of the Prismar stage, his soulbonds hadn't stayed idle.
Artemis was already halfway through the construction of her third large rotating crystal.
Solaris wasn't far behind and had created its second large rotating crystal as well. This was owing to the tremendous amount of mana Solaris had absorbed during the grand battle against the Oceanfolk's army, followed by liquefying a total of 40,000 mana drops.
As for Petri and Spyro, both had constructed their first large rotating crystal, while the Sacred Squirrel was still sleeping as if it was in hibernation.
Through his own cultivation speed and that of his soulbonds accelerated further by the cricula Minatra flowers, Jason's combat prowess skyrocketed, increasing much more.
As such, he was confident in defeating beings at the Peak Prismar stage, solely with his own strength, without the need of letting one of his soulbonds occupy his mana core!
That was a great achievement, but his happiness didn't last long and it vanished when he received a new notification from the artificial intelligence.
[Third trial will now be initiated! 'Chase the Cheetah' has been selected as the third trial! Challenger has one week to catch the Cheetah of the Golden Sun!]
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