The moment she tapped, the surrounding scene changed again.
Even though she hadn't moved, once the surroundings shifted back into place, she found herself back in the small room at the center of the examination chamber, the one originally separated by a blue light. It felt as if the entire exhausting climb up the cliff had been just a hallucination.
The "Divine Vein" technology truly surpassed the twenty-first century.
[The temporary intensive training will enhance participants' basic physical capabilities in speed, strength, agility, and endurance. One full round of training consists of all four segments and consumes one training opportunity.]
The mechanical voice sounded again, quickly explaining the training rules and content to Elara.
[Each training session will push participants to their limits in all four aspects — speed, strength, agility, and endurance. Kindly be reminded to prepare necessary recovery and healing medications beforehand, as the training cannot be interrupted once it starts.]
Elara took out a few pills from her medicine pouch and swallowed them.
After the strong medicinal effects restored her condition, she stood up and formally tapped [Begin Training].
The scene shifted again.
The weight on Elara returned, but this time it didn't start at one hundred jin right away.
It began from 20 kilograms.
[First Segment: Speed and Endurance Training]
[Training Content: Maintain maximum speed while crossing all paths and obstacles ahead. Do not let the rolling boulder behind crush your body.]
[Countdown to training begins: 15, 14...]
Crush the body?
Before Elara could think further, as soon as the mechanical voice ended, the ground beneath her turned into a narrow path that only allowed one person through.
This path was full of various obstacles, and it wasn't continuous — some sections required her to grab onto nearby branches or falling rings to cross.
Seeing the countdown nearly reach zero, Elara turned her head to look behind.
Sure enough, at some point a massive rolling boulder had appeared behind her.
That giant boulder was over two meters tall.
Its solid weight caused the entire ground to shake with every slight movement.
There was no doubt, if it caught up to her, Elara would be crushed.
Damn...
Elara didn't know if getting crushed by the boulder in this so-called training would actually kill her.
But right before the countdown reached zero and the solid boulder began rolling, she instantly dashed out like an arrow, carrying the 20 kilograms of weight on her.
The training room's illusionary narrow path was no different from a real one.
Who knew what kind of advanced technology could alter and extend space like this.
Carrying full weight, Elara could hear the terrifying rolling sound of the boulder closing in behind her.
Sometimes she vaulted over obstacles with one hand.
Sometimes she leaned back to slide under them using momentum.
Sometimes she swung from falling rings and branches to fly across gaps in the path.
In a daze, Elara felt like she was playing a real-life version of Temple Escape.
The boulder's pursuit speed truly matched what the voice had described.
It adjusted to her limits and kept chasing her with the same extreme speed.
But maintaining top speed was extremely draining.
After sprinting at full pace for a while, Elara's strength began to wane.
Yet the boulder behind her didn't slow down.
Instead, it sped up even more.
Hearing the crushing vibrations getting closer, Elara couldn't help but curse again.
This was clearly designed to force her to break through her limits.
She pulled another pill from her pouch and popped it into her mouth.
Then she dragged her increasingly sore and heavy body forward.
She clenched her teeth and pushed through this weighted, high-speed version of Temple Escape that was about to deplete her stamina completely.
Thanks to Oswyn's pills for support, even though Elara was forced into a state of extreme exhaustion, through the pain all over her body, she could still barely feel that she could keep going.
Time passed without her knowing how long it had been. Elara had no idea how far she had already run.
This training space transformed by the "Assessment Room" seemed endless. No matter how far or how long she ran, there was always a road full of obstacles ahead, and the giant boulder behind her kept rolling after her endlessly.
In the back-and-forth tug-of-war where she kept "gathering strength to widen the distance," "getting caught again," "pulling away," and "getting caught again," her body was gradually pushed to its limit.
Her breathing grew heavier and more intense from long-term overexertion. Her throat sounded like a broken bellows.
Her chest felt tight and blocked, and her heartbeat was so fast that it felt like it was going to leap out of her throat.
Even though Oswyn's pills continuously restored her stamina, the effects of the medicine had a limit.
And maybe because she had taken too many, Elara noticed that the pills were becoming less and less effective.
The sound of the giant boulder behind her rumbled forward again like a death sentence.
Elara could barely catch her breath. Her chest was unbearably tight.
Her whole body ached and felt so heavy she could hardly feel her limbs. She relied only on sheer willpower to force herself into mechanical running movements, dragging her numb body forward at full sprint.
She ran through several more turns like this… Just when she began to suspect she might die from exhaustion, the giant boulder behind her suddenly accelerated again, rolling toward her at an even faster speed.
"Damn it"
Elara immediately raised her hand and grabbed the ring hanging off the cliff edge. As she swung across, she used her other hand to grab a large handful of pills from the pouch at her waist and shoved them into her mouth.
Not knowing whether she would die if the boulder ran over her, Elara focused all her attention on sprinting forward the moment she sensed it speeding up behind her.
The pain from overexerting her body was completely replaced by the fear of death right behind her.
Elara clenched her teeth and endured it. Once again, she gathered all her strength and lifted her limbs no longer feeling like her own mechanically sprinting with everything she had.
The whooshing wind and the rumbling of the giant boulder chasing her filled her ears.
At that moment, she could see nothing but the road ahead of her.
So she didn't notice that the screen that had been suspended motionless above her head had started to change.
[Detected: the participant's speed and endurance have reached their limit and are breaking through... Progress increasing 1%... 2%... 3%...]
Elara didn't see the breakthrough bar above her head slowly rising, nor could she feel her numb body that felt like it was already dead.
Her mind was filled only with the giant boulder closing in behind her and the only path of escape beneath her feet.
The scenery around her rushed past with the roaring wind as she dashed forward.
Even in the past when she still had internal power, Elara had never felt her speed so clearly.
After running desperately for an unknown length of time, driven by sheer will to survive, Elara suddenly felt something inside her snap.
In the next moment, the screen above her head suddenly lit up with a golden glow, and the mechanical voice was drowned out by the roaring wind around her.
[Ding ~ Congratulations to the participant. You have successfully broken through your own limits. Your base speed and endurance have increased.]
Unfortunately, with her ears still full of the sound of wind and the rolling boulder behind her, Elara couldn't hear it.
She only felt that after that strange sense of something breaking inside her, her originally heavy body suddenly seemed to shed a burden and became much lighter.
At the same time, a strong force surged from all parts of her body, rapidly repairing and replenishing her almost completely drained strength and energy.
This force was very familiar to Elara. It was the same one she felt every time she took one of Oswyn's pills.
But she had only taken a little bit earlier nothing close to the amount of power that was now pouring through her body.
This power didn't just restore her drained strength, it even soothed her nearly burned-out spirit.
But she had never taken anything to restore her spirit.
While she was still confused, hearing the crushing boulder still following close behind her, Elara used her now much lighter body to pull away again.
Without any kind of tool to measure, Elara could tell just by her own feeling she was now running much faster than before. Her limit had risen to a new level.
But the boulder didn't accelerate again this time.
It just followed her from a fixed distance behind, no longer closing in.