Elara held her breath and sank into the "swamp" to take a glance at her body, which was still standing in place with no visible changes. Feeling her consciousness slowly sink into the suffocating mud, she had no choice but to withdraw from this strange "god's perspective." She lifted her head and fought desperately to swim upward.
She was currently in a strange out-of-body state. She could feel everything, but she had no physical form, no hands, no feet, not even a body. Elara had no idea how to struggle and swim out of this suffocating whirlpool swamp in such a state.
But her instincts and subconscious kept urging her to fight upward with all her might, or else she would be swallowed by the swamp.
So training wasn't going to be easy after all. Elara felt like she had returned to the pain and struggle of fighting between life and death during the physical training.
The feeling of being drowned and suffocated in the swamp was no better than the pain of collapsing from exhaustion. Elara took a deep breath with her consciousness and forced herself to adjust her state, then began struggling upward with all her might.
After she finally managed to reach the surface of the swamp and take a breath, a sudden force dragged her down deep into the mud again.
Fortunately, after going through that brutal physical training, she had already expected something like this. Her mental preparation had been completed before the training started. While gritting her teeth and resisting the huge suction from below, Elara struggled to swim to the surface and tried her best to adapt to the abnormal part of this mental test.
But she had to admit, this kind of hellish training was actually effective.
Even though Elara didn't even understand what mental power was at the beginning, after repeatedly sinking and struggling in the swamp for a long time, she suddenly felt that she had gained stronger control over her non-physical conscious form.
Her body, which remained standing still below, began to emit faint threads of something, as if drawn out by her consciousness, and they began to attach and merge with her conscious form.
What was attaching itself was transparent, but the moment it did, Elara felt a surge of powerful energy merging into her consciousness.
This feeling was strangely familiar. Was it internal energy?
Elara was slightly stunned. Was there a connection between mental power and internal energy?
The internal energy that was being drawn out by her conscious form appeared in long, thread-like shapes, like transparent tentacles. For martial artists in this world, internal energy had always been hidden in the body like an engine. She had never heard of anyone drawing it out in this way like she was doing now.
Not even Uno had ever told her about such a thing.
Had her internal energy mutated? After it merged with her conscious form?
Feeling more and more of those internal energy tentacles attaching themselves to her consciousness, Elara didn't have time to think more. The suffocating feeling washed over her again.
She pushed down her thoughts and continued to struggle toward the surface of the swamp.
Maybe it was thanks to the support from the merging internal energy, this time she swam with much more ease. Before long, she had successfully reached the surface again and could breathe smoothly.
Just like during the physical training, the difficulty of the training increased as Elara grew stronger.
She hadn't had long to enjoy the relief of reaching the surface of the swamp when a stronger pulling force came from below and dragged her deep down again.
Elara was pulled by the enormous force into an even deeper abyss than before.
The doubled suction power made her feel like she was about to drown in the depths of the ocean, suffocating between life and death.
The shadow of death and pain pressed in on her.
Elara struggled with all her strength to swim upward again.
Her mind returned to the highly focused state she had during the physical assessment.
Everything around her gradually faded from her awareness.
As she fought against the increasingly strong suction from below time and time again, the longer she struggled, the more internal energy from her body was drawn out and attached to her conscious form.
As it merged into her conscious form, the energy became more solid and condensed.
With the absorption of these internal energy threads, Elara felt her strength to rise becoming greater.
But at the same time, the force pulling her downward kept increasing as well.
In this cycle of drowning and surfacing again and again, she had no idea how long she had spent in this mental training.
However, each time her mind returned to her body after completing a round of training, she clearly felt that her internal energy had become much purer.
The unstable foundation that had formed from accumulated medicine had become much more solid during this training.
Her control over her internal energy also improved step by step at a speed visible to the eye.
When Elara successfully completed the fifth round of training and returned to her body, she was surprised to find that she could now use her real body, like her conscious form, to control her internal energy.
It transformed into invisible transparent threads that extended out from her body.
These clear and solid mental energy tentacles spread silently around her.
With just a thought, they would move along with her will, as if she had suddenly grown many invisible hands.
Each of the tentacles carried immense strength.
With just a little force, they could easily break anything they touched.
It felt like she had turned into a transparent internal energy tentacle monster.
This discovery made her feel delighted again.
After all, no one else could see these mutated invisible energy tentacles, and she could extend and retract them as she wished.
It was like having a hidden trump card.
In future dangerous situations or against top-level opponents, she could use them to catch careless enemies off guard.
Even when facing strong enemies, she would have one more advantage.
Training truly did come with both pain and reward.
There were a total of ten rounds of mental training.
After completing the first five painful but rewarding rounds, Elara continued with the remaining five in a mix of pain and joy.
When she finally finished all ten rounds of training, returning to her body, she instantly felt her ears clear and her mind sharp.
Her senses also seemed to be enhanced.
Her thinking became faster and clearer than ever before.
Her mental strength had indeed improved.
Her internal energy also became purer and more flexible than ever.
When using the techniques she had learned before, she now gained double the power from them.
What surprised Elara even more was that the seventh level of the Divine Spirit Technique, which she had just broken through during the physical training, had now risen by three more steps after the mental training.
If the gap between the seventh and eighth levels of the Divine Spirit Technique was imagined as ten steps, she had already completed three out of ten.
Only seven more steps remained, and she would reach the threshold of the eighth level.
The feeling of her combat power rising was extremely satisfying.
Elara believed she could now rank among the top five on the Tian-level list of the Blood Cloak Tower.
Even across the entire world's combat rankings, she could now at least break into the top fifty, maybe even higher.
Just from the improvements gained through these two types of training, this trip to the hidden trial had already proven to be completely worthwhile.
The light screen above her head switched again to show "Mental Assessment."
Elara tapped "Start," and the blue light once again projected onto the sides of her face, forming a pair of glowing blue headphones.