Arrival at the Summit
The moment Gu Ding stepped onto the mountain, he noticed the unusual gravity of the mountain.
"The initial gravity is about seven times that of normal gravity in this world. This intensity should be related to the strength of your physical body." The Sea Emperor probed the general situation of this mountain. "With each step you take, the gravity will actually increase slightly. For every meter the altitude increases, the gravity will double. Moreover, there will be an obstacle every ten thousand meters. In addition, you will encounter some monsters blocking your way."
"Indeed, gravity increases with every step you take." Gu Ding was also aware of the changes in gravity here. "However, this doesn't pose much of an obstacle for most people."
"You're wrong about that. Gravity is a huge obstacle for the people of this world. Because everyone in this world is Body Cultivation, their body cells are naturally different from yours. In addition, with their training, the density and weight of their body cells are hundreds of times greater than yours. Each of them weighs at least hundreds or even thousands of times more than you," the Sea Emperor corrected.
"In other words, the gravity they experienced from the very beginning was hundreds, or even thousands of times greater than mine!" This news was somewhat unexpected for Gu Ding.
As Guding climbed upwards from the foot of the mountain, Gu Ding could feel the gravity increasing with almost every step, but it didn't have a significant impact on his body. Gu Ding quickly ascended to an altitude of several thousand meters, and with the increase in altitude, the seven times gravity Gu Ding had initially felt rapidly increased to several thousand times.
"There's a group of First Sequence true god-level demonic beasts not far ahead. There are eleven of them in total. The life forms in this mountain are relatively agile due to their long-term living in this strong gravity environment. Should we go around them?" the Sea Emperor suddenly asked.
"No need, taking a detour would waste more time. It's better to just solve it directly."
Gu Ding didn't plan to take a detour because the territories of True God-level demonic beasts were usually quite large, and a detour would require traveling a long distance. Moreover, according to the Sea Emperor, the demonic beasts here were agile only because they had adapted to this environment, not because they truly had an absolute advantage in speed.
After traveling several kilometers, Gu Ding appeared directly in the territory of that group of demonic beasts.
They were a pack of Black Armor Wolf Beast. They were enormous, each over ten meters long and almost as tall as Gu Ding. Their entire bodies were covered in black scales, with a solid black shield covering their foreheads. Furthermore, their sharp claws and teeth were as sharp as silver daggers, reflecting a chilling light.
Clearly, this is a group of monsters with both excellent defense and attack power.
Upon seeing Gu Ding's appearance, all eleven pairs of eyes, glowing Red Radiance, simultaneously fixed their gaze on Gu Ding direction.
"It seems they really want to eat me; they're all drooling." Gu Ding also noticed that several of the eleven demon beasts had drooled onto the ground.
"Their reaction indicates that they must have encountered humans before, eaten them, and found them delicious. Your appearance has stirred up their longing for human food, which is why they can't help but drool." The Sea Emperor began to analyze from a scientific perspective why these monsters were drooling.
"Okay, it seems it was my fault..." Gu Ding was speechless after hearing this analysis.
The exchange of consciousness between the two lasted only a moment. In that instant, eleven demonic beasts also made their pouncing movements.
Gu Ding stood still, not moving an inch. He was not as adaptable to the environment as these monsters, so he chose to remain still and wait for the right moment to strike.
As the eleven demonic beasts opened their massive jaws to bite down, Gu Ding finally moved. He pointed out several fingers in quick succession, the Finger Force pierced directly through the eyes of the eleven beasts and shot out from the back of their heads.
The eleven Black Armor Wolf Beast also fell to the ground, lifeless.
With a wave of his hand, Gu Ding collected all the General Beast corpses and continued climbing forward without pausing.
The entire battle took less than ten seconds. If they had gone around it, the time lost would have been definitely more than ten seconds.
Gu Ding continued climbing, his altitude steadily increasing—three thousand meters, four thousand meters...
Along the way, he encountered several groups of monsters, all of which he easily dealt with.
In just over ten minutes, Gu Ding reached an altitude of 10,000 meters.
Looking at the enormous waterfall thousands of meters high and the almost vertical cliff in front of him, Gu Ding narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Here, gravity has reached more than ten thousand times the normal force, and the water in this waterfall is not ordinary water, but heavy water with extremely high density. The impact of the waterfall will be terrifying. This waterfall covers almost the entire mountain area, and there is only one narrow path, which can only be passed by one person at a time, but it is very far away, hundreds of kilometers away. For safety reasons, I personally suggest that we take the detour and go through that narrow path," the Sea Emperor gave his advice.
"Not many people probably know about that little path, right?" Gu Ding suddenly asked.
"No one should know, because it's hidden very well, Buli."
"In other words, almost everyone climbs over this waterfall. So there's even less reason for me to take that shortcut. Besides, going around for hundreds of kilometers would waste a lot of time." Gu Ding still chose to climb.
Gu Ding reached the foot of the waterfall, the powerful impact of the heavy water almost causing him to lose his footing. However, within seconds, he adapted to the intensity of the impact. Once he regained his footing, he began to climb.
The stones, smoothed by the impact of the heavy water, were incredibly slippery. Gu Ding had to carefully control his strength to generate enough friction. Too little force, and the friction would be insufficient, causing his hand to slip. Too much force, and he risked crushing the stone. Normally, this control wouldn't be difficult, but under the impact of the waterfall, he had to engage every muscle in his body to resist the force, making it very difficult to control the strength in his hands. Moreover, under the relentless pounding of the heavy water, there was no way to look up and see where the stones were; he could only reach them by touch, which added to the difficulty.
Gu Ding could only close his eyes and grope his way up slowly.
More than two hours later, Gu Ding finally managed to climb to the top of the waterfall. During this time, he crushed hundreds of stones and was knocked down twice by the heavy water.
"It's only climbed 20,000 meters and it's already taken more than two hours. Most people would probably have a hard time completing it in 20 hours." Gu Ding never expected that a preliminary selection would be so difficult.
"The later ones aren't this difficult. You were the first to finish the waterfall challenge. The tallest one is only a little over 4,000 meters, and most of the others are around 2,000 meters. I estimate it would take the average person at least ten hours to climb this," the Sea Emperor said, trying to comfort him.
"Let's continue!" After glancing at the river in front of him, Gu Ding knew that what he had to do was to continue upstream.
Unbeknownst to Gu Ding, his performance had already been observed by the examiner Bartley.
"Gu Lotte ...this guy is quite good. He completed the most difficult waterfall climb in just two hours. Among this group, those who fail will probably fail because they wasted too much time on this waterfall climb." Bartley also knew the difficulty of these tests.
20,000 meters, 30,000 meters, 40,000 meters...
Gu Ding easily overcame each obstacle, and even when he encountered a demon beast at the level of a true god, he dealt with it quickly without wasting any extra time.
Three more hours passed quickly. When Gu Ding had already climbed to an altitude of 90,000 meters, the second waterfall climber had just finished climbing.
Meanwhile, Gu Ding entered the final Frost Zone.
This area was covered in ice and snow, and the biting cold made Gu Ding's body tremble involuntarily.
"It's so cold..." Gu Ding's voice trembled slightly as he spoke.
"You cannot use the divine fire to keep warm, otherwise the secret of the divine source within you will be exposed, and you will have to tough it out with your body." The Sea Emperor stopped Gu Ding from using the divine fire to keep warm.
"If I try to tough it out, I don't think I can last much longer." Gu Ding realized that the surface of his body had begun to freeze, and he was afraid that he would be frozen solid soon.
The Sea Emperor was silent for a moment before speaking, "I found a method of heating in the database, which uses muscle tremors to generate heat. This method requires a lot of energy, but you have a large amount of Crimson Blood Crystal, so that's not a problem."
"Muscle tremors? I'll give it a try." Upon hearing this method, Gu Ding immediately put it to the test.
As early as when he reached the realm of martial arts Micro Realm, Gu Ding was already able to perfectly control every muscle fiber in his body, and making his muscles tremble was an extremely simple thing for him.
After just a brief attempt, Gu Ding's entire body of muscle fibers began to tremble. The frequency of the trembling increased from low to high until his body began to generate heat, enough to resist the cold outside, at which point the increase stopped.
"It really works!" Gu Ding hadn't expected that this attempt would actually be effective.
After swallowing a handful of Crimson Blood Crystal, Gu Ding accelerated forward while controlling the trembling of his muscles.
Seeing that Gu Ding, who had been moving slowly, suddenly became much faster and that the ice and snow covering his body had melted away, Bartley, who had been watching him closely, was also somewhat surprised.
The intense muscle tremors caused Gu Ding to consume a lot of energy. Almost every time he walked a certain distance, he needed to swallow a handful of Crimson Blood Crystal to replenish his energy.
Bartley found his behavior strange as well. "The energy inside the Crimson Blood Crystal can be absorbed using some special methods, but can it really be digested by eating it like this? Or is this kid's digestive system abnormal?"
With a method for obtaining calories, Gu Ding easily overcame this final hurdle.
About half an hour later, Gu Ding finally reached the summit. He also saw the plaza the examiner had mentioned earlier. He darted forward and stood on the ground in the center of the plaza. (To be continued~^~)