Monstrous Talent

She instantly realized that her master had secretly come to Heishui Commandery to watch the trial without telling her.

Xue'er looked down at her own body. By now, blood was seeping from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and her skin was covered in bloody veins. Her flesh was torn and bloody; her body had completely reached its limit.

Looking up at the steps ahead, she was shocked to discover that she had forced herself past her limits to reach the thirty-five hundredth step—pushing herself a full five hundred steps past her previous limit.

But even so, the four-thousandth step was still agonizingly far away.

After a long moment, she finally stopped.

She was indeed unwilling to accept defeat, and she dreaded disappointing the master who had nurtured her so carefully. But she dreaded losing her life and leaving her master behind even more.

If she were to forcibly overdraw her foundation today and lose her life here, that would be the ultimate betrayal of her master's efforts.

At this thought, she slowly turned around and began to make her agonizing descent, step by step.

Once Xue'er had managed to climb down the spiritual stairs and steady herself, the elder of Jingshui Yaotai stepped forward and offered her a precious foundation-solidifying pill.

This pill could nourish her damaged body, repair her overextended cultivation foundation, and safeguard her path in martial arts, ensuring that her future cultivation progress would not be hindered.

Xue'er and her master, who had rushed over to embrace her, quickly knelt on the ground. They bowed deeply toward the high platform, expressing their solemn gratitude.

...

By now, almost all the martial artists on the Heavenly Spirit Stairs with shallow cultivation or insufficient talent had succumbed to the heavy pressure and withdrawn from the trial one after another.

Those who remained on the spiritual stairs were without exception elite geniuses who possessed absolute confidence in their own strength.

With unwavering determination, each of them took steady, firm steps upward, advancing toward their designated goals.

The first tier, which had originally occupied the highest section of the spiritual stairs, had now completely split into two levels.

The top five among them had already crossed the seven-thousandth step, firmly securing their positions at the absolute forefront.

Meanwhile, the remaining geniuses of the first tier were still pushing themselves hard around the six-thousandth step.

Those who had successfully reached the seven-thousandth step were all familiar faces who had distinguished themselves in this selection.

Ye Ling's gaze swept over to her side, where she saw that Ye Chen, Su Qinghan, Xiao Zhan, and Liu Yanli were all among them.

After crossing the seven-thousandth step, the gravity of the spiritual stairs suddenly doubled, and the suppression of spiritual energy grew increasingly intense.

None of the four looked at ease, their postures betraying a touch of exhaustion and strain.

Only Ye Ling remained poised and relaxed, the most composed of the five.

Possessing half-step Sword Force, she had a unique comprehension of the forces of heaven and earth.

Instead of trapping her, the ever-increasing pressure of the spiritual stairs allowed her to further refine her understanding of Sword Force.

The other three from Heishui Commandery looked quite surprised, the same thought simultaneously rising in their minds.

What kind of monstrous genius was this? Such terrifying gravity and spiritual suppression did not seem to hinder her in the slightest.

Beside her, Ye Chen, who was already accustomed to her extraordinary nature, simply withdrew his gaze, remained silent, and continued his steady climb.

Time flew by, and the first day of the trial came to a close.

Only a few hundred people remained on the Heavenly Spirit Stairs, with Ye Ling firmly holding the top spot.

She had already reached the seven thousand nine hundredth step, and her goal of eight thousand steps was within arm's reach.

Behind her, Ye Chen and Su Qinghan climbed side by side around the seven thousand eight hundredth step.

Further back, Xiao Zhan and Liu Yanli hovered around the seven thousand six hundredth step.

Even those ranked lower were all firmly standing above the five-thousandth step.

By noon, Ye Ling had reached the seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-ninth step, only a single pace away from the eight-thousandth step.

Without the slightest hesitation, she lifted her foot and stepped forward.

In an instant, her surroundings shifted dramatically. The Heavenly Spirit Stairs vanished into thin air, and she found herself standing in a small, cramped room.

A young woman was holding a takeout container, staring at a laptop screen, engrossed in a drama featuring a white-clad martial artist.

Ye Ling's heart jolted. This scene and this person were clearly her past self from her previous life.

“Have I returned to the past?”

As the thought crossed her mind, the Dao imprint deep within her soul suddenly flashed with a brilliant golden light. A cool, refreshing energy instantly washed away her confusion, snapping her completely awake.

Ye Ling immediately reined in her thoughts and calmed down. No, this was not a return to the past, but an illusion created by the Heavenly Spirit Stairs.

After steadying her mind, she looked up at her past self.

Gazing at her once ordinary, lazy self from the perspective of an onlooker was an unprecedented experience.

In the next second, a long sword materialized in Ye Ling's right hand.

With a swing of her sword, she shattered the illusion completely.

The events of her past life were like morning dew or passing clouds, not worth clinging to.

The moment the illusion burst apart, Ye Ling stepped forward with composure and set foot onto the eight thousand and first step.

On the high platform, the four elders were filled with shock. The eight-thousandth step was a massive chasm on the Heavenly Spirit Stairs; only peerless geniuses could set foot upon it.

Stepping onto the eight-thousandth step inevitably triggered a personalized illusion, and many geniuses became trapped inside, unable to break through this barrier.

Since the records of the trial began, any martial artist who could break free from the shackles of the illusion within the time it took for a stick of incense to burn was already a one-in-a-billion talent.

Yet Ye Ling had taken only half the time it took to drink a cup of tea to slice through the falsehood and break out of the illusion.

This peerless state of mind—remaining calm in the face of danger and shattering illusions to clarify her path—was truly terrifying.

The elders of Jingshui Yaotai, Xuanling Valley, and the Burning Heaven Martial Academy exchanged glances, having secretly made up their minds.

No matter what, they had to recruit Ye Ling into their respective sects.

Her talent and comprehension were of the absolute highest tier, and she could break through the illusion in a mere fraction of a tea-drinking interval. Such talent was world-shaking and must not fall into the hands of another sect.

In contrast, the elder of the Qinglan Sword Sect had completely lost the composure she had shown during the initial talent test.

She had long known that Ye Ling possessed exceptional talent, able to touch upon the true meaning of the sword path while still in the Houtian Realm, making her a rare swordplay prodigy.

But she had never expected that in addition to her swordplay talent and peerless comprehension, Ye Ling's state of mind would also be so incredibly elite.

Watching the other three sect elders plotting to fight over her, the Qinglan Sword Sect elder's mind was thrown into complete disarray, making it impossible for her to continue meditating.

Her heart was filled with anxiety, terrified that this peerless swordplay genius would be snatched away by the other three major sects.

Half an hour passed in the blink of an eye. Ye Chen and Su Qinghan successively set foot on the eight-thousandth step, both triggering the spiritual stairs' exclusive illusion and falling into a state of delusion.

With a stable Dao Heart, Ye Chen took only the time it took to drink a cup of tea to see through the mist of the illusion and calmly break out.

Su Qinghan, however, took a full incense stick's worth of time to painstakingly break free from the illusion's shackles.

One fast, one slow; the difference was clear. The gap between their states of mind and mental fortitude was obvious at a glance.

As Ye Chen and Su Qinghan broke out of their illusions one after another, the four elders on the high platform were secretly astonished.

Su Qinghan's performance of breaking through within an incense stick's time was already the absolute ceiling for ordinary top-tier geniuses. In previous selections, she would have undoubtedly been the number one genius.

Meanwhile, Ye Chen's feat of breaking through the illusion in the time it took to drink a cup of tea was the second-best score in the history of Heishui Commandery's trials, a rare feat indeed.

Unfortunately, with a peerless monster like Ye Ling paving the way ahead, his brilliance was completely overshadowed, leaving him a step behind.

Ye Ling and Ye Chen had already transcended the category of "geniuses." They had entered the ranks of monsters unmatched by any of their peers, utterly dominating everyone else in their generation.