Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 229: Gate 13

Chapter 229: Gate 13

Gate 13 was opening and the contingency plans were set. Xavier was given his orders and so was Charles. Dasha did not think he would fail. However, in the event things went awry, he set plans in place.

Sigurd’s cloak, Tarnkappe, granted invisibility like few could. Dasha could do away with the natural darkness that his being exuded and hide in plain sight. At the opening of Gate 13, it was no different. The amateur players couldn’t detect him in between the hundreds that waited. He wondered who else was aware of the Silent Forest. He assumed Daughter kept quiet about it. In a normal Heavenly Game, the Whispers would have informed the larger guilds for a price. That wasn’t the case this time around.

[ Attention players! Gate 13 has opened! ]

Dasha went through the eastern gate of the Heavenly Tower. The Server Room was packed. Quickly, everyone entered the server portal.

The world went white.

Dasha had entered Gate 13.

A thick, earthy scent entered his nose. When Dasha opened his eyes, he saw a thick white mist and nothing else. The soil below him was wet and crunched under his weight. Dasha didn’t move. Not yet.

[ Gate 13 : Silent Forest

Main Objective: ?

Prize Pool: ?

SPECIAL OBJECTIVE: ?

SPECIAL PRIZE POOL: ? ]

He was here. He was alone. He was officially inside the gate that no one in history had been able to solve. First thing, scanning. His eyes, his ears, his taste...use everything to scan the surroundings.

’Hrm. Exactly as Xavier claimed. Qi Sensing is useless.’

To describe the sensation, it was like dipping a toe into pool water and instantly touching the floor. It was a disappointing block he could not get over. The colour and shade implied it was deeper and yet...

’Useless. Qi Sense is absolutely useless.’

Dasha struck the mist. Even with Thor’s gauntlets, the mist stayed. There was nothing he could do to combat the mist.

’Open inventory.’

Via his hand, he pulled out a black capsule. It was the size of a basketball and was carved in magical markings. He inserted a tinge of Qi inside and tossed it high up. As casual as it might have appeared, the toss in fact travelled a hundred feet up, disappearing into the mist.

BOOM!

The explosion was vaguely caught by his ears. Set off by a timer, the pure explosion of flames created the tiniest of openings in the mist. At the end of the day, it did nothing. ’Fog droplets should theoretically evaporate upon receiving sun rays. The Class Three magic bomb I bought should have dropped down both temperature and humidity level.’

The temperature had indeed dropped although not significantly. The fog, more importantly, remained without the slightest change. It became clear that real-world science did not apply to this fog. Just in case, he tossed two more of the magic capsules. Both failed to even slightly thin out the fog. That was three hundred thousand points down the drain. Dasha was truly on his own.

Readjusting to his normal five senses wasn’t an issue. In the days leading up to Gate 13, he had been training to rely solely on his five senses. During the Golden Generation, a blind sorcerer by the name of Sandhya Chadha wrote a book on sensory magic and its adaptations. She identified the semi-common System skill called Magic Sensitivity and cited it as a skill that developed after the body adapted to a powerful dosage of energy. Not all bodies adapted but according to her own experiments, one in ten players did. Due to the nature of the Heavenly Games, it became neither common nor rare. Following the Enlightenment Era and the establishment of the University of True Magic (currently known as the Tower of True Magic), Magic Sensitivity became common for Wizards and Sorcerers.

However, a select few no matter how hard they tried could not gain the skill. It was a matter of compatibility. In her studies, she judged it was an issue of talent and specialization. Often, she found that those that could not learn Magic Sensitivity were warriors, swordsmen, lancers, and cultivators. Players who shared the trait of manipulating their energy in equal amounts outwardly and inwardly. Their sensing capabilities were significantly shorter and focused. Less of an emphasis was placed on the detection of mana sources and more on their location and movement.

In another book, Sandhya Chadha went on to explain her experiences prior to becoming a full-fledged Wizard capable of Magic Sensitivity. As a blind woman, her senses were naturally sharper than normal humans. However, in the Heavenly Games, that meant nothing. She did not have superpowers. She could not detect everything around her like sonar. Being blind in of itself was not special. And she, despite her inclination toward Wizardry and Sorcery, did not possess Magic Sensitivity. Instead, she was forced to adapt and naturally develop a sonar.

In her case, the sonar became something truly special.

After nearly a year in the Heavenly Tower, her senses became greater than ever before. She suspected that her accomplishment was in part due to the System and the deftness stat. On Earth, this would have been impossible. Here, the System made the impossible possible.

Sandhya Chadha was a genius. Her name was often cited in current research books regarding the body and its relationship with magic. Because of the sharpening of her senses, Sandhya Chadha’s sensing capabilities became the greatest in the Heavenly Games. As of last year, her maximum range was a radius of twenty-six kilometers. A sonar of that scale was ludicrous. She was essentially able to scan an entire city in the blink of an eye.

But what Dasha focused on was that second book and the training regiment she took on. Dasha could never replicate it completely due to time restraints. But like Sandhya Chadha, he was a genius. Grasping the general concepts was simple after forty hours of uninterrupted training. The most vital step was to match one’s breath with their heartbeat.

Listen close. Listen well. Listen calmly.

The Silent Forest could be as loud as an intense autumn wind or as quiet as nothingness itself. He stood there for minutes. He did not move.