After disembarking from the ship, Yuan followed Huang Xiao Li and her family onto the land.
'Giant's Continent… It's not in Tian Chengyu's memories. Did this place exist before his birth or after his death?' He wondered as he followed them.
Sometime later, he asked out of curiosity, "Where are we going now?"
"We're going to the Southern Stronghold. It's where most travelers like us go to exchange treasures with giants, so it's quite popular." Huang Xiao Li said.
"I don't know much about giants. Can you tell me about them?"
"Sure!" She nodded with enthusiasm, and she continued, "Giants are humans with the Mammoth Bloodline. Their ancestors were ordinary humans that have trained a unique technique called the Great Mammoth Body Refinement that gave them immense strength and a near indestructible body, but it also increased their body size temporarily."
"Their ancestors not only reached the peak with this technique, they had even altered it so that the technique would continuously affect their bodies and never deactivate, making them giants permanently. However, because such a feat required them to alter their genes and blood, their descendants would also be born with such blood and genes in their body, making them giants at birth."
Yuan was speechless after hearing this information.
Giants used to be humans before they altered their blood and genes with a technique? He didn't know techniques were even capable of such a feat, which was akin to creating their own bloodline and race!
Huang Xiao Li continued to speak, "The giants created their own family, and after cultivating that family for thousands of years, they moved to an uninhabited land that would soon to be known as the Giant's Continent."
"Giants nowadays are mostly isolated within the Giant's Continent, so you won't see them outside. In fact, most people live their entire life without meeting one. They're practically phoenixes and dragons."
"However, since they rarely leave the continent, they mostly rely on travelers like us to provide them with resources and treasures from the outside. It benefits us as well because there are resources and treasures that can only be found within the Giant's Continent."
"That's pretty neat, I guess." Yuan mumbled.
"Indeed. If you have any treasures you don't need, you can try to exchange or sell them to the giants."
A bittersweet smile appeared on his face after hearing her words. Even if he had plenty of treasures that he could and wanted to trade, he wouldn't actually acquire anything because he was inside the Stairway to Heaven and nothing there was real.
'Although I can learn techniques in the Stairway to Heaven, that is only possible because they only need to be memorized. However, treasures don't work that way. It's impossible for me to acquire real treasures during trials. How unfortunate.' He sighed inwardly, thinking how nice it would be if he could actually acquire something from the trial.
Suddenly, the head of the bodyguards, Dong Zhou, shouted, "We have company!"
Yuan panicked a little when he heard Dong Zhou's voice because he didn't sense anything with his divine sense that he's kept active this whole time.
However, sure enough, something appeared before them a few seconds later, and it was a massive bird that was so big that it could easily lift an entire building with one of its claws.
Seeing this massive bird that came out of thin air, Yuan prepared to attack it, but then he realized its cultivation base was in the Spirit Emperor realm.
'Spirit Emperor magical beast! This is my first time fighting an opponent of this level!' He cried inwardly.
"Yuan! It's coming!" Huang Xiao Li shouted.
Yuan immediately snapped out of his daze and confronted this massive bird in the sky right as it tried to dive down.
"Ha!"
He enveloped the Empyrean Overlord with Sword Qi before sending it in the magical beast's way.
"Kaaaw!" The bird released a painful scream when it lost one of its claws to Yuan, who was surprised because he'd expected to kill the bird with that strike.
However, before he could get another strike on the bird, it turned around and flew away, leaving him speechless.
"It ran away…?" He muttered in a dumbfounded voice.
"Are you okay, Yuan?!" Huang Xiao Li approached him afterward.
"Yes, I am fine. But that magical beast was stronger than I anticipated."
After all, under normal circumstances, his attack just now would've killed even a Spirit Emperor with ease.
"I forgot to mention this, but giants are not the only entity on this continent with the Mammoth Bloodline. The magical beasts on this continent also have it," she said to him.
"What? How is that even possible? I thought the giants' ancestors only managed to achieve such a feat through a technique! There's no way ordinary magical beasts could possibly comprehend techniques, much less master them!"
"You're right, but the magical beasts did not acquire the Mammoth Bloodline through techniques. They acquired it through consuming the giants. I mentioned that the technique is never-ending, right? This is still true even when the giants die, so when a magical beast consumes their flesh and blood, they also acquire the power of giants."
"Heavens…" Yuan was speechless by this information.
Since the magical beasts in the Giant's Continent also had the Mammoth Bloodline coursing through their veins, they were much stronger than ordinary magical beasts from the outside.
"It seems we have underestimated the strength of this place. We're not strong enough to do our job as bodyguards, so we'll have to rely on you, Yuan." Dong Zhou approached him and said.
"Sure…" He sighed, silently wondering to himself why the Stairway to Heaven didn't make the bodyguards at least Spirit Kings so that they wouldn't be completely useless. After all, in their current state, they were nothing but a burden to him.
"Since you're all too weak to traverse this land, why don't you just return to the ship and wait for us to return?" Yuan said to him a moment later.
"We cannot do that! Even if we're not strong enough to fight the entities on this land, we must still do our jobs as bodyguards and accompany the Huang Family even if we die in the process!" Dong Zhou exclaimed in a prideful voice.
Yuan felt like facepalming.
'If you cannot do your duties as a bodyguard, can you still be considered as one?!' He cried inwardly.
Yuan eventually stopped thinking about it since it was most likely done by the Stairway to Heaven to make things more difficult for him.
"Just so you know, I am here to protect the Huang Family, so if you get in any trouble…"
"Don't worry, we won't drag you down." Dong Zhou said with a confident smile.
"Yeah… I somehow doubt that…" He shook his head.
After walking for about half an hour without encountering any magical beasts, Huang Xiao Li pointed at the city walls in the distance and said in an excited voice, "We're almost there! I can see the Southern Stronghold!"
They quickened their moving speed after seeing the city.
However, as they got closer, Dong Zhou suddenly stopped and shouted, "We're surrounded!"
Yuan looked around, and sure enough, a pack of massive birds quickly surrounded them, and amongst these magical beasts was one with an injured claw— the same one he'd fought.
"So you ran away to call your friends, huh?" Yuan couldn't help but chuckle at its efforts.
After a quick glance, he counted 9 of these birds, and they all emitted the aura of a Spirit Emperor.
'I won't be able to fight all of them at once and protect the Huang Family at the same time with my ordinary techniques. I will have to use the God of War's Astral Arts…' He sighed inwardly, feeling a little embarrassed to use his trump card so early on in the trial.
Although he could kill these magical beasts even without the God of War's Astral Arts, he wouldn't be able to protect the Huang Family, and his priority was to keep all of them alive for the bonus reward.
After taking a deep breath, Yuan used the God of War's Astral Arts.
The Huang Family and the bodyguards were shocked speechless after witnessing the massive golden figure.
As for the birds, they started making weird noises, almost as though they were panicking.
"Die!"
Not wanting to waste his soul strength too much, Yuan immediately attacked the birds with a 360 sword swing, killing all of them at once.
However, the attack was so powerful that it created a powerful gust of wind that swept in all directions.
In fact, the Southern Stronghold thought they were under attack when they saw the golden figure that looked massive even though they were quite far away from Yuan's location.
Yuan quickly deactivated the technique after killing the magical beasts.
"A-Are you okay?" Huang Xiao Li asked him in a worried voice after seeing his poor condition.
"Yes, I am fine. That technique uses up a lot of soul strength, so I am a little tired— mentally. Give me a few minutes to recover."
"Alright." They nodded.
A few minutes later, once Yuan was feeling better, they continued their journey to the Southern Stronghold, unaware of the chaos that was occurring within the city due to Yuan's God of War's Astral Arts.
After another hour of traveling, they arrived at the entrance of the city.
'So that's a giant, huh?' Yuan was amazed when he saw the two giants guarding the entrance to the city, both of them being around 10 meters tall with a broad frame and incredible muscles that looked like they could crush an entire mountain.
'Besides their massive size, they look just like humans. I guess it's true that their ancestors were originally normal humans.' Yuan thought to himself as they approached these giants.