Monster Integration

Two hours and forty-one minutes later, the pen was in my hand stopped. It is not because I had faced a problem.

There is no problem. Instead, I am just a few minutes away from solving the problem. I had stopped because I decided to do something different; something that might turn risky.

Call it overconfident, pride, or sheer recklessness, but I want to do it.

I thought about a few seconds before I started to erase, a large chunk of runes, in the formations. Within a minute, I had erased more than a quarter of the formation.

I looked at it, and for a few minutes didn't move, before starting to draw the runes in the air, but this time, the runes that came out of my pen weren't the common runes like before, but ancient runes.

I am not drawing them as fast as before, but much more slowly. Using more time to think, that drawing the runes, but slowly, I draw them.

I did it for two hours and seven minutes before finally stopping and looking at the formation. It is far smaller than before, with the addition of five new, small, ancient rune formations.

I stared at it before activating it.

Buzz!

The formation activated and a moment later; it showed the result. The same, that test demanded.

"Congratulations," said the voice.

Hearing that, I couldn't help but feel relieved. There was a fear in my mind that the result wouldn't be accepted and the result of that, the disc would disappear, and I would fall to death on the spikes.

Unfortunately, I have been too worried.

I shouldn't have been. The challenge didn't specify the runes I could use. It just wanted me to create the formation; it couldn't care less about the runes I used.

Hun!

With a smile on my face, I was about to sit on the disc and wait out the day when suddenly, a text appeared.

The text is in a golden letter. Instead of blue like before.

"Special challenge," I read, before reading down the challenge and when I read the last line, a smile couldn't help but appear on my face.

This time, the challenge had specified the type of runes I should use.

The challenge is easy, well, at least for common runes, but the challenge wants me to use the ancient runes.

The formation it wants me to create is near the level of an intermediate or intermediate level and most importantly, the time is unchanged, which means I only have nineteen hours to do it.

I don't think I would be able to do it.

Still, I am going to do it and I started with reading the challenge over and over, till I felt like, I understood every aspect of it.

I sat down and closed my eyes and didn't open them for over twenty minutes, before started drawing the runes.

I wish I had my clones and access to the core; it would have made things much easier, but unfortunately, I didn't. I am on my own and I want to succeed.

There is a desperation in my heart, and it is driving me.

This time, I am without any help. There is no core, nor my clone; I am on my own and I want to prove that I could do it without them.

My mind begins to run like, it hadn't in years. 

This time, my life isn't in danger; I don't think the disk would disappear if I failed in this challenge, but the desperation to succeed is much. Then it would have been if I would have been at death's door.

As of this time, succeeding is proving to myself that I am worthy of the thing I am most proud of.

The first thing I learned and take great pride in it. It is because of this pride; that I want to create the best inheritance at every breakthrough. 

It is this pride that I had started learning ancient runes before I had reached Sovereign; a thing which most people show interest in when they reach Prime. A very few hosts of celestial inheritances would start learning about them before Prime.

I pushed away all distracting thoughts and focused on the formation I was creating.

As I had said earlier, the formation isn't difficult. What is difficult is creating it with the ancient runes.

Ancient runes are difficult, and a single rune could be used ten thousand ways and there are thousands of runes like that, and you have to choose the right one or it misses everything.

It is the main reason why people begin to learn the ancient runes when they reach Prime.

At Prime, one gets the ability to sense the laws of the world and these laws act like a compass. Making the job 99.9% easier. They didn't need to study as desperately as those below.

However, that doesn't mean learning the ancient runes are Prime's either, despite all the conscious power they have.

Hours passed, and I drew and erased the runes. Though most of my time is spent thinking; I am thinking like; I had never thought before, as I tried to solve the formation in a really short time I have.

It was the last hour, and I was trying desperately to solve the formation. 

I am so desperate that I am trying things, I wouldn't usually try. However, these things aren't random, and I am trying them for the reason and nothing seemed to work.

Soon, it was ten minutes and there seemed to be no change in my time; I was still trying to desperately, as I had been a few minutes before.

It was a last minute, and half of it had already passed when I had finally stopped.

Buzz!

"Please, work," I said as I activated, and it shone.

I watched with bated heartbeats as the runes began to move on this small formation, hoping with every fiber of will for success.

'Congratulations, you have passed the basic stage of ancient runes,' the voice rang through my mind; it didn't come from space but from my core.

A person who had been teaching me for years.

I had thought I had crossed the beginner stage of ancient runes months ago, but it seemed like, in the teacher's eyes, I had not.

Now, I did. She had congratulated me.

'Thank you, teacher,' I said to her and looked at the formation showing the result the challenge wanted. I knew it would, the moment the teacher congratulated me.

"Congratulations," said the voice, and two doors materialized.

One will take me to the exit, while the other next and final challenge. I only looked at the doors for a second, before turning to the prize.

I think, I have accomplished really something, and it should reward me according to it.

Click!

With that thought, I opened the wooden box.

Hun!

Immediately, a tiny phantom of the temple came out and seeped into my wrist, and disappeared. I tried to find it, but it had simply vanished into me.

I searched for a minute before turning to the small scroll. I took it out and opened it; when I read what it said, a smile couldn't help but appear on my face.

"I really hope it is worth it," I said and turned to the doors.