The First Store System

Chapter 1125: The Palace(2)

The spear raised his hair, which made Aakesh feel uncomfortable. He didn't like being threatened by anyone, even if they were stronger than him. His indifferent expression turned cold as he stared at the puppet.

The puppets weren't living beings and were Level 500, around two hundred levels above Aakesh, and yet when they were faced with the stare, the fear engraved in their hearts toward their master kicked in. The puppet immediately stabilized since Aakesh was no match for them. He couldn't even scratch them or survive against them, let alone kill them.

"Creature, what connects the past to the future?"

The puppet didn't move its spear away and asked. To go ahead and enter the palace without having to fight the two Level 500 puppet guards, he needed to answer their puzzles.

"Bloodline," Aakesh immediately replied, since bloodline connected an ancestor from the past to their descendants in the future.

The puppet nodded and moved his spears away, but before Aakesh could celebrate, he suddenly found the pressure around him growing while he was bound to the spot, with him unable to move even slightly.

Aakesh found his knees slowly sinking to the ground while the second puppet opened its mouth and asked the second puzzle.

"Creature, what's a force that moves the world, and yet it has no physical, energetic, or spiritual form?"

"Power," Similar to the last time, Aakesh responded immediately.

The pressure attacking Aakesh disappeared as his answer was correct. There was nothing more significant than power, despite it not having any kind of form.

The first puppet then asked for another puzzle, and soon time flew by. Every question they asked, Aakesh gave an immediate and correct answer to it.

After an hour, when the two puppets had asked tens of thousands of puzzles in total and yet failed to receive an incorrect answer, they stopped since they no longer had any questions left.

Crack! Crack!

The next moment, the puppet started to crack, and in no time, they expanded to cover every corner of their rocky body.

"Creature, you have made us free!"

"Creature, you have made us free!"

The two puppets suddenly spoke simultaneously, and there was a hint of gratitude in their voice.

The next moment, the two puppets exploded into dust while a similar item dripped from the two puppets on the ground.

Aakesh bent down and picked it up. It was a vial containing a drop of white liquid. Aakesh's face grew solemn as a wave of pressure that he couldn't bear emanated from it and attacked him.

Before the pressure could harm Aakesh, the vial in his hands that was made of valuable material lightened up, and the pressure disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place. All of it was Aakesh's illusion.

Aakesh's vast knowledge made him know the item at a single glance. He also understood why the puppet said what it said at the end.

The white drop of liquid was pure soul energy that was in such high concentration that it looked liquid. Aakesh had received two of them, and even one of them was almost equal to a Divine grade item.

The soul energy was made of living souls, and the puppet must be the original owner of the soul energy that was bound into the puppet by whoever created it.

Aakesh didn't believe Sudas would do it since beings at Level 500 were no less than ants. They deserved not even the slightest attention from him.

Still, it was Aakesh's gain, so he wasn't complaining. A single vial in his hands could help cultivators between the Sacred King and Sacred Monarch levels increase their soul power in the Sacred Dimension, so Aakesh had another item to trade if he ever needed anything there.

As for the 5,000 percent exchange rate, Aakesh was immune to it since he was the store owner.

The scene of pressure attacking him repeated when Aakesh picked the second vial from the ground, but the end was the same as earlier.

Aakesh now had no armored puppet stopping him from entering the palace, so he raised his right foot and stepped forward.

No second puppet group appeared and Aakesh finally reached the touching range of the entrance of the palace. The palace was endless, and so was the entrance, but fortunately for him, it was opened, and didn't need another test to pass.

Aakesh believed the puzzles from the puppets were the real test. What Aakesh didn't know was that there were only five puzzles, and only those who answered all five of them correctly would enter the palace.

But there was a hidden condition that there was no limit to how many puzzles the puppets could ask if the answering time for five correct puzzles didn't exceed 60 seconds.

Every correct answer from the entree would loosen the binding on the soul energy of the puppet, slowly freeing them.

Since Aakesh answered five correct puzzles in less than thirty seconds, he activated the hidden condition.

The puppets also saw their way to finally attain freedom, so they asked every single puzzle they were left with their master, and finally, when the last puzzle was answered, their restraints completely loosened, freeing their souls. After the hidden condition's activation, the only restriction was that they could only ask for as many puzzles as possible in 24 hours. Even their master didn't believe that someone like Aakesh, who would have such vast knowledge and unlimited intelligence, could solve all the puzzles in around an hour.

Aakesh raised his foot and finally stepped inside the palace. He felt like he was passing through an invisible membrane when his foot landed on the ground.

Aakesh didn't even have to enter completely when a white light covered him, and the next moment, he disappeared from the entrance.

The palace was endless and spanned over countless light years. It was a universe in itself since Sudas, at his time, was a giant humanoid being who towered over one hundred and eight lightyears.

If Aakesh were to wander around the palace, it would take him tens of thousands of years, if not millions of years, to cover every corner of the palace. There was a sentient spirit in the palace, so when Aakesh entered the palace, it teleported him to the place he came here for.

***

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