Young Gods Tournament 2: A Cultivation LitRPG Adventure, page 1
YOUNG GODS TOURNAMENT 2
©2024 ALEX BEAUMONT AND CALE PLAMANN
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Contents
Also In Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Thank you for reading Young Gods Tournament 2
Groups
LitRPG
Also In Series
YOUNG GODS TOURNAMENT
Young Gods Tournament
Young Gods Tournament 2
Check out the entire series here! (Tap or scan)
Chapter One
Power.
Everyone wants it, at least to some small degree. Freedom, authority, control. Every major goal in life all required one baseline, one fundamental foundation — power. Whether it be financial, physical, mental, or even the ability to discard all limitations despite the potential consequences. None of that mattered in the end, as it all came back to that one key point — what did he wish to use his power for?
Tom had achieved a notable level of power. Compared to his peers, he was a monster — both physically and in terms of his Gifts — yet there was always a level above, a new height to achieve and more challenges to overcome. Despite that, he thought he’d at least grown enough to reach his goal — thought being the operative word.
“Damn it!” Tom cut off the connection with his raging blood and dropped against the sturdy tree at his back. His clothes had long since burned away, leaving only the darkened metal of his armor to cover his body. “This isn’t working. I must be missing something.”
“You knew it would be hard, kid.” Krieg spoke up from his lofty perch, far above Tom’s head atop a skinny tree branch. “You’ve got to keep pushing, the same as you always do.”
That was easier said than done. Though Krieg had taken Tom up on his request to find the Phoenix, that task wasn’t so easily accomplished. And while he waited, Tom had set himself a comparatively simple goal: break through to the Fourth Realm. To help him with that self-appointed mission, Krieg had taken it upon himself to ferry his Prospect back to the edge of the Fortune region, far to the south of Prestige City and the seat of the Empire.
“I can’t even feel the edge of it. It’s like trying to pick out a specific needle in a giant stack of needles.” Tom ground his teeth as he straightened his back once more. Even from the merest of touches, the bark of the mighty tree simmered and creaked in protest as it cooled. “How do you suppose I find the highest concentration of Phoenix blood when it’s all the same to me? I don’t have your nose for this.”
“Kid, no one has my nose. Other than me, of course.” Krieg flipped another of his seemingly endless stock of apples under his hood, interrupting his rambling as he crunched it down in one bite. “Try again. You’ve got to find a way to filter it down. It might take a while, but you’ll need to at least reach the Sixth Realm if you want to continue on to the next stage of the Tournament. Just keep going.”
After his victory in the elimination stage, Tom had slammed headfirst into yet another barrier — one that seemed impassable despite everything he threw against it. There had to be a way. He hadn’t gone through so much just to give up at the final hurdle.
“Found it yet?” Krieg called down, shattering Tom’s concentration yet again.
“No.” Tom gave up on the fruitless search for his elusive target as the Guide dropped from his perch. Never mind reaching the lofty heights needed to move on with the Young God’s Tournament, he couldn’t even solve the issues blocking him from taking a single step. “Are you sure there’s nothing more to this?”
“Search, and search, and search, and then find it. Simple.” Krieg paused for a moment as he glanced around the small clearing. “This might be the best place. It’s better to find a location filled with the same attribute, but I doubt you could happen upon another legendary creature with an equal or greater affinity to fire, could you?”
“Not until you lead me to the Phoenix, no.”
That was the crux of his problem. He needed to find the Phoenix, but even the Sentinels had trouble tracking it down. At least, that’s the line Krieg had fed him. Tom trusted his Guide. Somewhat. Mostly. Yet in every word, there was a hidden meaning, even if they weren’t outright lies.
“True enough. Quite a predicament it left you in though, eh?” Krieg, as always, seemed to take some satisfaction in his Prospect’s suffering. “There is one thing you could try. It’s risky though.” Krieg reached into his mismatched clothing and pulled out a fist-sized hunk of rock. “It’s not really a shortcut, though. More of a direct route filled with pitfalls and dead ends. Want to give it a shot, kid?”
“And you didn’t mention this before because?”
“Well, the whole not wanting you to die part factored in.” Krieg flicked the jagged rock into Tom’s hand. “Your doing well up to now. See this as another test.”
Tom didn’t comment on the half compliment, half insult as he caught the lump Krieg had tossed with such a casual fling. The moment it touched his skin, though, his evaluations of the seemingly random rock took a sharp one hundred and eighty degree turn.
“How?” Tom narrowed his eyes and looked up at his Guide. “Where did you find this?”
“That’s another shortcut, kid. Focus on what’s in front of you first.” Krieg looked off into the sky as he answered. “Risk and reward. What do you say?”
“I’ll take it.” Tom turned his attention back to the stone in his palm, brimming with fiery essence. It called out to him, or at least that’s what the Phoenix Will wished him to believe. He clasped his hand around the rock and allowed the mana it contained to filter into his veins. With the immense pressure of both his own demise, and a harsh, Gift-less future of the Empire’s dominion hanging over his head, there wasn’t any time to lose. “Show me.”
“Okay, kid. I’ll get it ready.” Krieg looked back at his Prospect as the last strands of grey dust fell to the floor. Without the mana to hold it together, the rock shattered and turned to ash. “Head toward Prestige City. I’ll meet you by the southern entrance once it’s ready. Maybe a day, maybe less. Good luck.”
A muffled pop rang out as his Guide vanished . Again, he questioned whether the eccentric man had left him to travel alone as part of his training, of if it was merely an action meant to amuse him as it frustr
Enna and the Red Prince had their own tutors lined up. Though the estimate had been close to a day, he barely trusted Krieg to stick to the timeframe, and there was no way he trusted the fool’s patience if he wasn’t there to meet him when he decided to turn up. But without a Technique to rival his Guide’s teleportation, it would take a good while to reach the spot he mentioned.
Despite the inherent risk in travelling through Empire territory alone, Tom didn’t spot a single Imperial Guardian until he reached Prestige City. There wasn’t much reason to enter, so he dropped down to wait on a slightly raised mound. The Guardians could see him — a fact made clear as at least one amongst them pointed in his direction from atop the walls — but the massive gates remained closed. If they were interested in his arrival on the edge of their domain, they didn’t show any desire to investigate it directly.
Seconds drifted by, followed by minutes, and with each passing moment, the feeling he was wasting what limited time he had intensified. Shortcut or no, he needed to do anything within his power to progress, to climb to the higher Realms. Still, it wasn’t like he could train in any meaningful way. Without anything better to do, Tom settled down and focused his thoughts inward.
The Phoenix Will — cowed significantly after witnessing the destruction of its mirror duplicate mere days before — shifted a little from its silent perch as he reached out and grasped the invisible, intangible prison that held it in place. Fear, confusion, repressed rage — many fragmented emotions and feelings rushed out as the source of his power tensed up.
But he didn’t move against it. Instead, he brushed his thoughts against the edge of its prison and sent a wave of calming energy inward. Though the Phoenix Will didn’t take the bait all that easily, he could sense somehow that it had settled down a little as it realized his intentions weren’t openly hostile.
How did you communicate with a mythical beast? And not just a mythical beast, but a fraction of its will formed by a single drop of blood? The level of intelligence and sentience it held exceeded his expectations, but his prior experiences proved one thing: instinct was its primary and perhaps only driving force.
Logic wasn’t its strong suit. Emotions, feelings, and instinct. From what he’d read, even the lower ranked mythical beasts had a level of cunning that reached or even surpassed humans and the other civilized races, never mind the other animals and monsters who lived, died, and perhaps even served under its shadow.
“I want what you want. Power. Strength. Freedom.” He kept his thoughts simple, to the point, and without any unnecessary frills. “We can work together. Rise. Strength.”
The repeated words, phrases, and nuances wove together to entice the Phoenix Will out of its hiding spot. Though Tom didn’t have an actual cage within his body, the mana flowing through his veins had a tight grip on the last remnant of the Phoenix’s sentience, that tiny fragment of a long dead beast that still hung on despite everything.
Survival. That was key. Even if he promised they both aimed for the same goal, there was no incentive for his hidden passenger to assist him if it believed it would be wiped out as soon as he no longer had a use for it.
“Hey, kid.”
Thomas pulled back as Krieg’s voice called out . He’d made some headway with the source of his power, but any further steps would take a significant amount of time — far more than he had at his disposal. Still, he was moving in the right direction at least.
“You got here fast.” Tom glanced up at the sky and noted he had been in his meditative state longer than he’d anticipated. “So, you know where we need to go next?”
“Of course, I do, kid. Get up and follow me.” Krieg strode past Tom as he stood and dusted himself off. Thankfully, no one had ventured out of Prestige City while he’d communicated with the Phoenix Will, but Krieg didn’t try to hide their presence as he led his Prospect away from the city. At least, that’s how it seemed at first.
A full Imperial Guardian squad appeared on the horizon. It only took a moment to figure out where they were headed, though as he turned to Krieg, he noted that his Guide didn’t seem bothered about the upcoming collision. If anything, he sped up a little as the armored warriors rushed toward the pair.
“Stand aside!” Krieg waved at the Guardians as they rushed into range. “Come on, I don’t have all day!”
Subtlety and delicacy, two words that best described the opposite of Krieg’s persona. As usual, his actions drew a mass of scrutiny to both of them, and Tom couldn’t help but notice the odd, muffled discussions taking place between the few higher-ranking Guardians.
“Let them go.”
Tom turned to see a figure he knew all too well calling down from Prestige City’s battlements. The Duchess faced them, her usual golden veil hiding all clues to her true feelings as she raised her hand and gestured to the Guardians who blocked their way.
Krieg nodded but didn’t say anything to the leader of Prestige City. It was as if she was a mere passerby who had stepped out to help rather than a high-ranking member of the Empire, and the fact that both of their outfits hid their faces only added to the mystery.
Tom gave the standard bow — the mildest form of respect expected for a position such as the Duchess’s — before he spun on his heel and rushed to catch up with Krieg as he strode away from the city. No one moved to stop the pair, but the heavy gate creaked open to allow the squad entrance before it slammed shut the instant they were clear of its massive bulk.
“I assume you planned for that?” Tom’s query only gained a slight shrug from Krieg. The fact his Guide had chosen to walk away rather than use his spatial Technique was enough of a hint, but with no answer in sight, he changed tact as he looked out across the plains. “So, where to next? Or do you want to keep it a surprise?”
“A temple, one once home to the Golden Elves' prophets. Before they were wiped out, that is.” Krieg’s stiff tone as he spoke of their destination — along with the history of the place — set Tom’s teeth on edge. “But don’t worry, they’ve long since abandoned it. The Empire is more important now, right?”
Thomas sighed as he followed in his Guide’s footsteps. They left Prestige City far behind, but even as the sun dipped closer and closer to the horizon, Krieg didn’t move to jump them along. Instead, he seemed content to stroll ever forward, not speaking a word about his thoughts on the matter. Only after the sun had set and the moon had risen high in the sky did he stop in his tracks.
“We’re here.”
“Wait, what?” Tom looked around, but as expected, he only saw the seemingly endless plains stretching on for miles and miles in every direction. “This is a temple?”
“It was, kid. I did mention they wiped it out, remember?” Krieg pointed to an odd patch of grass not too far from where they stood. “That used to be the main altar. Even the emperor’s finest Guardians couldn’t obliterate every part of it, see?”
Though the place didn’t look much like one of the ancient and mighty Golden Elf temples he’d read about, Tom kept his mouth shut as he walked toward the spot Krieg had pointed to. As he moved closer, it became clear the grass wasn’t growing well due to its foundation, which a slight brush with his foot revealed to be little more than an inch of dirt atop a huge, stone slab.
Old, weathered, yet still in one piece, its surface bore clear markings of worship. Signs, symbols, even carved reliefs of the Golden Elves’ true and ancient beliefs. The sun itself. Warm rays basked those who followed in its illuminated path, while those who strayed into the darkness were hunted and burned.
Why had Krieg led him to a destroyed and desecrated temple? The Golden Elves who lived within the Empire barely honored their old ways as they followed a new master, one whose edicts abolished all paths but the one he presented. And if the race who had created the system of belief didn’t care, then why should he?
But as he cleared more of the altar’s surface, the Phoenix Will within his soul stirred. Warmth spread through the soles of his feet and permeated the rest of his body, as though the slab had absorbed the warming rays of the sun and was radiating that pleasant heat up into his body.
“You feel it, kid? I’m guessing your little pet does, too.” Krieg didn’t step onto the altar as he watched from the side. “Grella gave you something, right? How about you give it a whirl, see if it helps.”
