After emerging on the second floor, Jason stretched his body, while trying to put together the intel he received just a few moments ago.

The number of Merit points he received was more important than one thought, and Jason had learned of their use after being rewarded with lots of them when he had been inside the temple Inheritance site.

As such, he wanted to maximize the number of merit points he could get inside the first trial.

'Passing gives me one and being unscathed, and fast enough gives me a bonus of 100% each...that means if I pass the exam just before the gate turns blue, I should still be within the time limit for the bonus'

WIth that in mind, Jason wanted to put together the best possible plan in order to advance through the tower's floor, without the need to neglect his cultivation or other things.

Thus, he had to acquire more intel first.

Because of that, Jason's first task was to find the gate leading towards the second floor.

He had to figure out the requirements to open the gate, in the first place, and there might be other requirements too.

Thinking about that, Jason spent five days adventuring through the second floor, while trying to avoid being attacked by ferocious beasts.

The first trial was filled with beasts that were thirsting for his blood, but Jason felt that the second floor had roughly the same difficulty as the first one.

This intel was also important, and it gave him a lot to think about, in order to tweak his plan if required.

Thus, he could think about adjusting the time he spent somewhere and the time he required to pass a floor.

With a marginal increase in the floor's difficulty, spending a week to advance might be enough for his soulbonds to balance out the increase of difficulty in the following floors.

However, that was just a naive thought and Jason knew it quite well.

From his point of view, the difficulty would increase by a minuscule amount on every normal floor, only to increase drastically every fifth or tenth floor.

That was, at least, what Jason thought to be logical.

However, instead of speculating, he had to figure out the truth beforehand.

As such, when Jason found the closed gate that led towards the third floor, he approached it immediately.

To his astonishment, the gate didn't behave as Jason had assumed, and instead of remaining closed with specific requirements that had to be fulfilled, it instantly opened. A sky blue wolf was revealed that had a height of five meters.

It was a Maest beast once again and had a strong ice affinity that seemed to have enhanced freezing properties.

Jason could tell this because he had seen the same through his Emperor Eyes a few times before when he and Artemis had been fused.

As such, he knew that the enhanced freezing property was extremely powerful and that it was not to be underestimated.

Yet, before the sky blue wolf was even able to fully emerge from the portal that had manifested only a few moments after the gate had revealed itself, Jason had already slid below it with a complete change in his entire demeanor and appearance.

The moment the gate opened, Jason didn't even want to give the opponent enough time to take a single breath, let alone take a good look around.

As such, the moment the gate opened, he had acted instinctively.

Fusing with Petri, Jason shot towards the gate while black scales with golden vein-like patterns grew on his entire body.

At the same time, his Celestia aura turned more ferocious, while a second Stigma manifested on top of his own Stigma.

The Floating Sky movement technique was fully exerted and Byakur had already manifested in his hand.

Just as Petri's scales covered his entire body, Jason's reptilian eyes changed and a tail grew out of his coccyx. Meanwhile, Solaris manifested itself around the black scales armor, and Byakur.

Through this, Jason received a double-layered protection armor that was highly resistant to physical and elemental attacks, with additional destructive properties owing to the searing hot flames of Solaris.

However, his defenses were not important right now, rather his attack would make him win the battle. With that in mind, he had already emerged in front of the sky blue wolf the moment it had just emerged, oblivious to the position of its opponent.

Thus, Jason, who had the time on his side, utilized his battle intent that intertwined the race specific weakening curse, the petrification curse, and the abyssal effect which he released at once.

Subduing the oblivious sky blue wolf, Jason didn't hesitate a single moment before he propelled himself into the air, beheading the beast before it could even react.

He didn't hesitate a single second and seeing the blood splurting through the air, a faint gleam emerged in his golden eyes, only to disappear a moment later.

His plan had worked perfectly and the guardian of the second floor didn't even notice that anything had gone wrong as it met its death.

Moments later, Jason returned to his normal appearance before taking a deep breath.

"Unfortunately, I don't feel like it will be that easy every time!"

In the end, the fight might have looked extremely easy to win, but the amount of mana Jason had used was three-quarters of his entire stored mana!

That might seem feasible for most, but Jason was also aware that his victory had been possible because he had taken the sky blue wolf by surprise.

As such, the moment he attacked another guardian in the same way without the surprise effect, it would probably fail.

There were too many unknown variables Jason had to pay attention to, and he only attacked the sky blue wolf because of one particular reason- information.

Without wasting his time, Jason had wanted to procure more information about the tower, the floors, and to be precise, the entire first trial.

After the sky blue wolf had been killed, it dispersed into countless particles that were absorbed by the gate that began to glow brightly.

The silver color of the engravings was extremely vibrant, and Jason could already figure out the first piece of information he had been curious about.

'If I'm not wrong, there is no reward above the 100% bonus for speed. That's good to know!'

Because there didn't seem to be a greater reward for speed, Jason was able to spend more time clearing the dungeon before starting to peacefully cultivate for a few days.

This would be extremely helpful in order to become stronger, balancing out the steadily increasing difficulty levels with each subsequent floor that were bound to occur.

Jason's mind was already rattling wildly, and he tried to make a rough estimate on how much time he had to finish each floor.

Yet, what confused him was that the silver color seemed to be fading much faster than it did before.

Just at that moment, Jason was forcefully dragged out of his thoughts as Petri, Spyro and Solaris issued a loud warning.

Within a split second, he turned around as black wings sprouted out of his back. Jason pushed himself instinctively into the air away from the gate.

Through this, he evaded the attack of a pack of Netherworld sabertooth tigers that had attempted to assassinate him.

For a short moment, Jason had forgotten that there were other beasts that would attack him the moment they saw him.

Luckily, he had saved himself from the ambush owing to his soulbonds' warning. His expression turned serious and he decimated the group of sabertooth tigers within the following five minutes.

This caused a loud commotion once again, and Jason couldn't help but get a little frustrated because he could already tell that the next batch of beasts was about to come.

Yet, a moment later, the beast corpses disintegrated into countless particles that were also drawn towards the gate. Like before, it began to glow lightly as the blue color was retracted, replaced by a silver touch.

'Isthe silver color maybe a timer? And the particles increase the time I have? Does that mean by killing beasts I can increase the time in order to receive the speed bonus!?!'

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