Deva Wizard: The Great Xian in King Arthur's Realm

They were fast. Their movements resembled the monkey kings’. And worse, they were clever, unlike typical trap-formation statues.

Getting on each other to chase Merlin, they had reached the top.

Seeing that, Merlin decided to continue running. He soared high with the precious Moon Spring then moved quickly on the walls.

The rock giants, one after another, climbed up to the top of the maze's walls.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Merlin turned his head to watch after he heard that.

Heavens! Those rock giants were running and climbing on the walls, frantically chasing him.

They hunted Merlin as if they had been enemies for many lifetimes. The giants followed Merlin with all their might.

The chase went on furiously. Merlin dashed to shake them off his tail.

There were rock giants guarding everywhere; whenever Merlin moved past the spots, they were awakened. So, the number of giants chasing him increased tremendously.

Those rocky statues were like an army of ants behind him. Some of them were climbing up from the side; some fell down from the walls. It was full of commotion and confusion.

Hmpph!

“It seems like I can’t shake them off.” His face was filled with emotions.

His brain was processing but his eyes were fixed at the beam located deep in that place. He was intrigued.

This maze worked like a trap formation: to destroy it, the logic was to cut the power that was feeding lives to these things. The science of magical power was too mystic, Merlin could not see the connections. The only thing he saw was the beam, which by his assumption, was the core power for everything.

Merlin then decided to head towards the center where the beam came out. He assumed that these rock giants were given power by that shining light. Their role was to wipe out the intruders. If those intruders were still in the area or still alive, they would never stop the chase.

Merlin doubled his speed. Finally, some of them fell behind and their number noticeably decreased.

But looking ahead, he found a lot of rock giants sleeping on both sides. So, the number was not any less.

Before he arrived at the maze’s center, it seemed like he had accumulated more and more enemies.

This place was packed with deadly dangers. Not only did it camouflage itself from getting discovered by wizards, but there were also traps too cruel for ordinary humans to get through everywhere.

Eventually, Merlin had arrived.

At that center, he found a spacious courtyard.

In the middle of that yard stood an enormous monolith as high as the sky. Oozing out the archaic energy and overwhelming amount of mystic magical power, it was no ordinary pillar. This space was condensed with rich magical powers.

He was right; that monolith was the core energy of the maze’s mechanic.

At that moment, a thought appeared.

“Can I absorb these intense magical powers?”

Like a dazzling ray was shining on his body. If he could absorb these powers, probably, he would probably be able to achieve the high stages without having to save up the less effective powers for the cultivation.

If he absorbed these powers, probably, he would succeed in a short period of time.

He could not hide the ecstasy in his eyes.

Merlin looked around, he realized that those giants were afraid to come near this place. Other than that monolith, there was nothing else in the courtyard.

After he had made sure that there would not be anything to bug his cultivation, Merlin walked straight to the ancient monolith. Every step was careful. Finally, he got to the monolith safely.

Merlin sat down and started absorbing the magical powers. A large number of magical particles were absorbed and distilled into Xian energy for cultivation. That monolith was powerful; therefore, its magical power was unquestionably strong.

A while after, the boy’s eyes, filled with joy, started to shake. His thought was right, he could absorb its powers.

Merlin continued his cultivation with a gleeful heart, not realizing how much time had passed.

After a while, Merlin started to feel the change. A loud bang sounded in the zone of his Xina energy, at his dantian spots.

Merlin’s skin and flesh were shrinking, his eyes showed that he was going through a terrible pain. His body slimmed down in the blink of an eye. He looked like a dying person. Surprisingly, a smile appeared on that boy’s face.

Why was his face full of joy? How did the pain make him happy?

At that second, his skin started to get swollen, then firm. Dark wastes came out from every pore.

Zooom!

Suddenly, a strange gust of wind blew around his body and swept out everywhere. The aura of Xian energy went out all over the place.

Succeeded! Level four of Qi accumulation!

Merlin had achieved the fourth level of Qi accumulation already.

Now, Merlin could seal the Xian energy to fight. His eyes were filled with gratitude and satisfaction. His aura now was totally different from before. The border of his Xian energy had expanded, so his Xian energy’s aura expanded as much as well.

“Heaven still has mercy on me for leading me here.”

Merlin smiled and closed his eyes slowly to start cultivating the next stage again.

This time, it took him three hours. His body changed again. Blisters appeared on his skin; his body was bloody red as if it was burnt.

After quite some time, he felt the Qi’s core inside his body. The core shined out an aggressive energy. It exploded as if it were reaching the limit.

At one point, that vital essence energy spread out of his body. Qi burst out from every single pore like steam. Those blisters disappeared and his body became spotless, unlike any humans. Yellow liquid—pus, from inside the body was disposed of, sending out a disgusting smell.

Right now, Merlin had reached level five of Qi accumulation.

Never before had he thought that he would be able to reach level five given less than a month. It exceeded his expectations. He thought that he would need almost a year, but it was way faster.

The difficult part of Xian energy cultivation was accumulating the Xian energy to reach the utmost limit. When it reached a bottleneck state, one needed to drill through the level.

Reaching each level required the accumulated Xian vital energy thrice more than the prior one. The higher level one reached, the more vital essence one needed to accumulate.

In the past, a lot of practitioners met the dead end of their cultivation. They could only cultivate to levels seven to nine and could never cross over the borderline to the next.

The powers in Qi accumulation and stem-building stages had a huge gap in between. Practitioners in the stem-building stage were capable of killing the practitioners in the Qi accumulation stages just by flicking their hands.

So, many people wanted to get through the rule of the level gap.

However, other than the difficulty regarding gap-crossing, practitioners had to firmly build the nine pillars of Qi. Or else, the cultivation in the next zone would face some problems, and getting through the gap might be harder. Heaven-Splitting would probably break down.

Lots of people were not able to get through the level gap. So, they ended up dying with their misfortunes.

But Merlin was fortunate, Heaven brought him here. Magical power was a special form of natural power. With its purity, as a practitioner, Merlin had not come across the bottleneck problem. As long as he could accumulate enough Xian vital essence, he would be able to get to the next zone easily.

This monolith enabled him to absorb the strong magical energy and turn it into the Xian vital essence. With its intensity, he was able to build even stronger Qi pillars fast.

It could be said that this ancient monolith was a precious Xian potion.

Merlin now saw the value of the intense magical power that he had been absorbing. It made his pillars stronger than normal.

It was such a tempting thing to him.

“If I get closer, the intense magical power will strengthen my pillars exceedingly.”

The stronger his pillars were, the better chance for success his future cultivation would get.

No time wasted, Merlin stood up and walked straight to the monolith.

“What if I absorb the powers by touching it directly?”

Merlin could not stop his thoughts, he walked closer and closer to the ancient rocky pillar. The magical pressure became stronger as if the wind had turned into liquid.

The closer to the ancient monolith, the more intense magical power he could sense

Standing close to it, Merlin could see its details more clearly. He found numerous odd-looking alphabets carved on the surface of the monolith.

Surely, he did not understand them. There was, moreover, the rainbow-colored magical power, surrounding the monolith. It spiraled around the pillar like ocean waves.

The longer he looked at it, the more infatuated he became. And he wanted to touch it even more.

Merlin reached out to touch the monolith unconsciously.

At that moment, a loud thunder sounded as if the sky was crumbling.

Zoom! Zoom! Zooom!

‘What’s happening?!’

The sound of the magical pressure came out of that monolith unceasingly. Now conscious, Merlin took his hand back. The magical waves spiraling around that monolith disappeared one by one.

Until…. BANGG!

The sound of the magical pressure exploding in the air, echoed far and wide. The pressure spread out in every direction. And the beam that prevented the rock giants from getting into the yard had now tumbled down.

Just then, Merlin heard a clamorous noise like an army was marching in.

BOHM, BOHM, BOHM

It was so loud that the ground was quaking. Suddenly the yard was separated into pieces showing hundreds of deep pits below.

The ground was shaking madly, like something frightening was getting up from under the earth.

Not long after, Merlin’s eyes met the gargantuan humans.

No! They were not humans! Even though they had human builds, they were no humans!

Those hundred beasts were gigantic; their bodies were made of gold, sending out such spine-chilling energy.

Their magical pressures were so strong that it felt like they could destroy an enormous mountain easily.

The power of those beasts’ auras spread out, suddenly sending a chill down Merlin's spine.