Chapter 35

Wei Qingtong was still in a daze, staring at the unfamiliar woman before him. Suddenly, his mind cleared—why did this person look so familiar? How could it be her?

With a face full of dark lines, he dispatched the figure before him, and the illusion dissipated. Wei Qingtong’s expression was grim as he examined the rewards for this trial. On the platform, several glowing orbs rested, one already empty. This was the fifth level of the Tower of Trials; it seemed one of the couple who’d left earlier had reached this stage.

Among the remaining prizes, one was a treasure-grade curved blade—by the classification of spiritual tools, it was already close to the level of an immortal weapon. Although all such items were generally called spiritual tools, there was a hierarchy: after treasure weapons came immortal weapons. In the current cultivation world, there was scarcely anyone capable of forging immortal weapons, so treasure weapons were already extremely precious.

However, Wei Qingtong was a sword cultivator, so the curved blade was of no use to him. There was also a small jade bottle containing an unknown elixir, a sealed spirit box with a millennium spirit herb—both roughly equal in value to the treasure weapon. None of these interested him. His gaze finally settled on a jade slip. He reached out, took it, and left without hesitation. Damn it, he would never come to this Tower of Trials again in his life.

On the tenth floor, Wei Qingtong swiftly defeated the puppet golem and took one of the three jade slips on the platform. From the fifth floor onward, he always chose the jade slips as his reward. He’d discovered that while the fifth floor tested the heart, from the sixth floor up, every trial—whether illusion or golem—used sword techniques. Though the sword techniques weren’t supreme arts, merely the most basic foundations, they moved him deeply. If he could collect the complete set, his swordsmanship would likely break through to a new level. Thus, on every floor, he chose the jade slip. As expected, each one contained a segment of a comprehensive sword technique, distributed in parts to those who entered the tower.

With this in mind, Wei Qingtong charged into the eleventh floor. Aside from the trial of the heart, in his view, the difficulty of this tower was about the same as the Ten Thousand Swords Formation of Kunlun—it grew harder, but not to the point of utter defeat.

The eleventh floor held the final segment of the sword technique. There would be no more on the twelfth, so he was curious what the last reward would be.

After claiming his prize on the eleventh floor, a staircase to the twelfth appeared.

To his surprise, the final floor was completely empty—no golems or guardian beasts, just a vacant space with four sealed doors and a pitch-black wooden plaque on the central platform.

For once, even the stoic Wei Qingtong couldn’t help but smile a little. So this tower could recognize a master—if he could take it away, perhaps the Kunlun Sword Sect might develop a new branch of swordsmanship.

Without hesitation, he refined the array token of the Tower of Trials. Instantly, its contents flooded his mind.

It turned out this tower once had a spirit, but after so many years, the spirit had grown weak and was now in a deep sleep, on the verge of dissipating entirely. In the past, the tower’s trials were far harsher than now—even Nascent Soul cultivators could only make it to the seventh or eighth floor. Now, someone could easily reach the twelfth.

Wei Qingtong realized that Wang Mingzhe, who’d entered earlier, had gotten exceptionally lucky. He was among the last to be greeted while the spirit was conscious, so the path was made easy for him; he reached the fifth floor and received some foundational inheritance. The tower’s spirit feared the sword sect’s legacy would die out and did everything possible to ensure its survival—never imagining that right after he fell asleep, a sword genius with an ancient sword physique would enter.

Such is fate, Wei Qingtong thought. By a twist of luck, both he and Wang Mingzhe gained something; the confrontation between him and Bai Lian’s protector was inevitable.

This time, though, both were dual cultivators of magic and sword, both had obtained the sword sect’s inheritance—who would win, it was hard to tell.

Xu Xiangyuan was ejected at the tenth floor, Ba Yicheng was defeated at the eighth, and Wen Yuanyuan, too absorbed in studying the tower’s materials, only made it to the sixth. After leaving, none disturbed Li Mengze, who was still cultivating. As fellow sword cultivators, aside from Wen Yuanyuan, who was lost in the sea of refining knowledge, the other two had gained much and left the tower deep in thought, sometimes unconsciously miming sword moves, lost in reverie.

Once Wei Qingtong had fully refined the tower, Wen Yuanyuan, who’d been squatting in front of it, suddenly saw a flash of light and the tower vanished. Blinking in confusion, she searched the area, only to see Wei Qingtong appear before her.

“Master Uncle, where did the tower go? I wonder if it had flash stones or talc added, making the light so subdued. There must be space stones and void stones in its construction, or else its flexibility and adaptability wouldn’t be so good.”

Wen Yuanyuan was really just talking to herself; she didn’t expect anyone to answer. Wei Qingtong understood and glanced at the three still lost in their own thoughts, then at Li Mengze still in the formation. A trace of awkwardness flashed across his face. Heaven knows he’d never entertained any ideas about her—a girl barely in her teens, whom he hardly interacted with. It must have been because he’d learned more about her in the secret realm, and so she’d appeared in his illusion. Yes, yes, that must be it—he found his own reasonable excuse for why her image had appeared in his mind during the trial.

Afterward, Ba Yicheng and Wen Yuanyuan went off to train separately, while the Nascent Soul cultivators chose to wait by the exit, ready to leave once the secret realm opened.

Though many places remained unexplored, the realm was no longer suitable for Nascent Soul cultivators. At a certain level, such trials were just a diversion during breakthroughs.

One day, as Li Mengze was meditating in her tent, absorbing foreign fire, she sensed intense spiritual fluctuations outside—a sign the secret realm was about to open. With a wave of her hand, she packed up everything and emerged, seeing the others already prepared to leave.

There were three days to exit once the realm opened. Leave in time, and you succeeded; fail, and you’d never leave. The Nascent Soul cultivators of Kunlun could not depart immediately, for many laid ambushes at the exit, resulting in high casualties among their disciples.

Though cultivators preached that life and death were fated, that only truly applied among equals. With powerful backers, bullying the weak was forbidden, but many rogue cultivators of the Nascent Soul and Golden Core stages did just that. So, when the realm opened, Li Mengze and Ba Yicheng, along with some Foundation and Core disciples from other peaks, exited first.

Outside, someone was already waiting—the leader, a Nascent Soul cultivator, the Peak Master of Lingjian Peak, at the height of the Nascent Soul stage. Clad in celestial robes, standing in midair, he truly looked the part of an immortal.

He was famous in the cultivation world, not for his strength or swift progress, but for his androgynous beauty. It was said that when his cultivation was still low, he was once deemed the most beautiful woman in the realm—and even now, people thought so, though none dared say it with his power.

Li Mengze looked up, then quickly lowered her head, afraid she’d be entranced if she stared too long.

As soon as the Kunlun disciples emerged, they naturally gathered behind their Peak Master. When the three days ended, fewer than two hundred of the over three hundred Kunlun disciples who entered had returned—nearly half were lost, though compared to other sects, whose numbers were around a hundred, it was not a small showing.

Though they knew that once they entered, their fates were out of their hands, it was still hard to remain unmoved seeing familiar faces lost.

They returned to Kunlun on the flying dragon boat, where the sect had already prepared tables on the platform—clearly, the sect valued wealth, not even letting them rest before trading resources.

Upon leaving, one-tenth of all gains had to be turned over to the sect—a rule for ordinary inner and outer disciples, but elite disciples were exempt.

Li Mengze went straight back to Sword-Hidden Peak. She was going to see her uncle, but as soon as she entered the peak’s territory, she received a transmission from him, telling her to rest first and report the next day.

See? Only family knows how to care for you. Not bothering with false modesty, she returned to her own quarters. She’d lived in the courtyard next to the main hall since she was five and never moved, though after reaching Foundation stage she could have opened her own cave-dwelling. She found it inconvenient, so she never bothered, and no one urged her. She was happy to save the trouble.

Inside, everything was as she’d left it, unchanged. Yet she felt a profound comfort, the kind that comes only from being home. As the saying goes, a nest of gold or silver is not as good as your own humble den. Of course, if she ever called her abode a “doghouse,” it would cause an uproar—who would let a dog live in the most spiritually rich place on the whole mountain? That would be sheer extravagance.

She flopped onto her bed and took out several small creatures she’d been carrying, setting them on the floor to explore as they pleased. Originally, only two stayed with her, but after her spatial ring upgraded on the second day, three more were ejected—these ones refused to enter the spirit beast pouch, so she had to carry them in her arms. Luckily, they were all only the size of mice; otherwise, even if she wanted to, it would have been impossible.