The Genius Trial — The Powerful Black Stone Men

*Inside Shiman Tower.*

His skin, his bones, his muscles, his organs — everything was rising in tandem, surging forward with each passing moment. A truly comprehensive transformation.

The tempering continued climbing until it had risen by nearly thirty percent, then gradually leveled off.

Lu Yuan clenched his fist and murmured quietly to himself.

He hadn't expected this ruin to yield such staggering returns. The improvement was enormous.

He felt powerful. Genuinely, undeniably powerful.

His gaze steadied, and a thread of confidence pulled at the corner of his mouth: *Even warriors who've encoded the same elite genes — if their tempering is ten or even twenty percent higher than mine, I doubt they'd be my match anymore.*

"My current physical strength..." He turned the thought over. "It should be enough to equip the Moonstone now."

His eyes lit up. He reached into his battle-mark space and drew out the Moonstone.

With a single mental command, the gem dissolved into a stream of deep cyan light and merged into his body.

In the white mist, the massive Gene Chain stood towering. A spectral image of the Moonstone materialized around it — waves of deep cyan radiance flowing in slow, luminous pulses, gradually fusing into the chain itself.

He felt a powerful force pour into him.

"So this is what a boss-tier Gene Armament's enhancement feels like." A delighted grin spread across his face. "Incredible."

*He hadn't expected this much. Not even close.*

He flexed his hand, feeling the new weight of strength in every tendon.

Then, as that surge of satisfaction was still fresh, the system chimed again.

*Beep.*

"Detected that Challenger XI9201 has cleared Level 4 of the Elite Trial. You have qualified to open the Genius Trial. Do you wish to open?"

Lu Yuan blinked.

*A Genius Trial? Something even higher than the Elite Trial?*

He sat with that for a moment — and felt, somewhat despite himself, a prick of deflation.

*So I'm still not actually a genius yet?*

He held that thought, then let it go.

"Well." He gripped his fist. "Since I've come this far, I might as well see what the Genius Trial has to offer. Open the Genius Trial."

*Outside Shiman Tower — the ruin space.*

More Gene Warriors had gathered outside the tower than before, drawn from all four races.

Zhuo Ming and his golden-haired teammate had been joined by a third — a young man with short black hair and an entirely ordinary face. He was also one of Zhuo Ming's squadmates.

"If you die out, you walk away with nothing," Zhuo Ming said, shaking his head with a wry smile. "I get it now. In the Land of Origin, the greedier you are, the faster you die. Get yourself killed once and you're locked out for weeks — and that gap between you and everyone else just keeps growing."

The golden-haired youth laughed. "True. But sometimes you can't just switch off the greed."

The black-haired youth sighed. "They had to know better."

"You'd think," Zhuo Ming agreed.

Knowing and doing, of course, were two entirely different things. Actually being in that moment — hands stretched toward something just out of reach — and choosing to pull back was not always a choice a person could make.

Just then, a system chime rang out:

*"Challenger AS22203, opening Elite Trial!"*

"Another person entering the Elite Trial," the black-haired youth noted. "That's the nineteenth now, right?"

"Mm. Nineteenth," Zhuo Ming confirmed.

"The captain still hasn't come out," the black-haired youth added. "Do you think they opened the Elite Trial?"

Zhuo Ming analyzed it: "Almost certainly. A hundred stone men are no match for the captain — but the captain is Guardian type, so clearing a hundred still takes real time. This AS22203 might actually be the captain."

The golden-haired youth shook his head. "Setting aside Ami's group for now — Xiao Yu at least should have the ability to clear Level 2. He hasn't come out yet, so he probably couldn't help himself and pushed for Level 3. Level 3 is definitely beyond him."

He paused, then sighed. "And Ami's group hasn't come out either. With their strength, Level 3 is probably too much to clear. They've been in this long... they must have died out."

"Too greedy," the black-haired youth muttered.

"Like I said, though," the golden-haired youth replied with a tired smile, "sometimes you just can't help it."

Zhuo Ming said nothing. The golden-haired youth followed suit.

Then, right in the middle of that quiet, a boom rang out from the sky — entirely unlike the flat mechanical chimes that had come before. This sound had weight. Presence. It resonated through the air like something significant had just happened.

Zhuo Ming's eyes went wide. "What was that? Thunder?"

The golden-haired youth looked completely baffled. "Can a ruin space even thunder?"

All around them, warriors froze, heads tilting upward in confused silence.

Then the announcement came — its tone elevated, ringing, carrying an unmistakable charge of grandeur:

*"Challenger XI9201, opening Genius Trial!"*

Half a second of silence.

Then the plaza erupted.

Gnolls, elves, cat-kin, humans — every race, every faction, every onlooker cried out at once.

"There's a tier above the Elite Trial?! A Genius Trial?!"

"Wait — XI9201? Isn't that the one who was first to open the Elite Trial?!"

"Who is XI9201?"

"Human? Elf? Cat-kin? Gnoll?"

"Must be a seasoned veteran. Someone with an established reputation."

"Possibly."

Everyone was talking at once, speculation running in all directions. The figure who had been first into the Elite Trial was now opening a tier of challenge that none of them had even known existed.

*Who was XI9201?*

*Inside Shiman Tower.*

The moment Lu Yuan confirmed the Genius Trial, the gray-white ground about twenty meters ahead began to stir. A stone man condensed out of nothing — its entire body an absolute, opaque black, like solidified shadow.

When it finished forming, it didn't charge.

It stood with feet planted wide, fists raised at its sides, and settled into a fighting stance. A strange one — nothing Lu Yuan recognized. Then it moved — just a small shift of weight, a minor adjustment — and the motion was utterly fluid. Where every stone man he'd faced before had been rigid, mechanical, purely reactive, this one *flowed*. It looked almost like a living person.

*This is martial arts?*

Lu Yuan stared.

The stone man's foot came down once against the gray-white floor. When it lifted, a web of hairline fractures radiated outward from the impact point.

*That power...* he thought, watching its fists. *It could beat my old self without any effort at all.*

Wind coiled visibly around its knuckles — dense, invisible force compressed into readiness.

*This is what the Genius Trial throws at me?*

Still — he was confident. He gripped his greatsword with both hands, planted one foot, and moved. Black Iron Body pushed to its absolute limit. Military Body Killing Sword's force-channeling technique activated. He swept the blade out in a straight, full-power slash — a black arc through the air, wind shearing off the edge.

But as the sword closed in, the stone man's body twisted mid-charge. A single lateral step, a brief wobble — and its speed never faltered. It came straight back at him.

Its left hand shot out and barely grazed the flat of his sword, just enough to knock it off-line.

Lu Yuan's eyes narrowed. He pressed both hands harder, shifted the angle, angled the arc up toward the stone man's neck—

The stone man's face was blank. It torqued its body, drew its right arm back, and drove its fist straight into Lu Yuan's chest.

*BOOM.*

The impact crushed inward against his sternum. Bones cracked.

A rib gave way.

Massive force launched him backward — over ten meters. He crashed hard, staggered, and barely kept himself upright. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His face had gone pale.

Sharp, radiating pain pulsed from his chest.

*My defense is this strong, and it still broke through?!*

That thought had barely formed when the stone man blurred into a black streak. He had no time to even wipe the blood from his mouth.

Twenty meters in an instant. Before Lu Yuan could raise his sword, it was already on him — right foot swinging down toward his head with crushing force.

Every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Cold sweat burst out across his back.

No time for the sword. He tensed his whole body and threw his palm up, slapping the stone man's descending leg.

The foot deflected — barely. It grazed past his ear. The wind wake sheared off several of his hairs and left his cheek burning. His palm went completely numb from the rebound.

But the stone man wasn't done. The palm-block had staggered it for half a breath — then it stomped both feet into the ground, stepped forward, and drove its left knee up into Lu Yuan's abdomen.

He felt as though every internal organ had ruptured at once. The force picked him up and hurled him backward again, over ten meters, and he hit the ground hard.

Lu Yuan rolled sideways and forced himself to his feet.

*Damn it — not a single opening?!*

His pupils had contracted to pinpoints. A fierce, ugly expression crossed his face. He spat blood and brought his sword back up.

He could feel his body screaming from the abuse. But underneath the pain, underneath all of it, he could feel everything he'd built over the past days — the tempering, the cultivation, the sheer physical foundation he'd hammered into place — and it had held. He'd taken all of that and he was still standing.

He flexed his fingers around the hilt.

*What in the world is this thing's attack power?*

The black stone man circled toward him again, fluid and unhurried, wind still writhing around its fists.

It hadn't even changed expression.

Lu Yuan gripped his sword tighter, watching it come, and smiled — grim, sharp, ready.

*Fine. Let's keep going.*