Chapter 113: The Second Path
The city of Sky’s Edge was a chaotic and hopeful place, built at the foot of the Skyspire Peaks.
From a distance, the mountains looked like any other colossal range of rock and ice, their peaks sharp against the blue sky.
But as one drew closer, the true nature of the Azure Sky Palace was revealed. The face of the largest mountain was not solid rock.
It was riddled with thousands of openings, each one glowing with a soft, internal light. The entire mountain looked like a giant, vertical beehive, a home carved into the very stone of the world.
Rhys stood at the back of a line that was thousands of people long. The line snaked through the main street of Sky’s Edge and ended at a massive, open gate carved into the base of the mountain-sect.
This was the entrance to the outer grounds, the place where the annual disciple selection was held.
He had been travelling for weeks to get here. He looked different now. His face was plain, his features unremarkable. His pitch-black eyes were now a simple, common brown.
He had used a skill to change his appearance, to become just another face in the crowd. The powerful, dangerous aura he usually carried was gone, hidden away.
He looked like any other eighteen-year-old boy, his face a mixture of nervousness and a desperate hope for a better future.
He looked at the other young men and women in the line. Some were dressed in the fine silks of wealthy merchant families, their faces full of arrogant confidence.
Others wore the simple, rough-spun clothes of commoners, their expressions a mix of fear and determination.
They were all here for the same reason: to try and pass the trials and become a disciple of one of the most powerful sects on the continent.
This was his plan. A plan born from a cold, hard truth he had learned in a dusty inn room in a frontier town a lifetime ago.
There were two ways for one to ascend.
The first path was Ascension through Merit, a judgment by the universal law the locals called the God of Karma.
Rhys had seen the System’s calculation.
His karmic debt from erasing the Azure Province was a black mountain that could never be balanced. That path was locked forever.
That left the second path. A loophole. The Celestial Cleansing Tournament.
It was a grand tournament held every five years, a competition between the disciples of the great powers.
The winners were given the right to enter a sacred area at the foot of the Great Seal, the barrier that trapped them all in this world.
There, they would be "cleansed" by the Seal’s primordial energy, purifying their souls. For them, it was a ritual. For him, it was his only way out.
It was a way to bypass the judgment of Karma and force his way to a higher realm.
But the tournament was only for disciples of the great sects and families. An outsider would never be allowed to enter. So, he had to become an insider.
He had to join one of them. The Azure Sky Palace was the most logical choice. Their territory was in the northeast, the closest to the Seal.
And so, the Grey Ghost, the mysterious hunter of Boulder Creek, had disappeared. A new person was born: a simple, hopeful young man with no past and an unknown future.
The most difficult part of the plan had been leaving his family behind. He remembered the look on Sera’s face when he told her he had to go alone.
Her small, tear-streaked face was a painful memory. But he could not take her with him. The Azure Sky Palace was a den of experts.
He could hide himself, but Sera’s unique, powerful nature would be too hard to conceal. She and Seduction were safer in his Ashen Dimension, a hidden world where no one could find them.
The line began to move.
The hopefuls shuffled forward, their faces a mix of excitement and fear. They passed through the massive gate and into a vast, open courtyard carved from the mountain itself.
At the far end of the courtyard was a dark, circular tunnel entrance, about twenty feet high. Several figures in the blue and silver robes of the Azure Sky Palace stood watching from a high stone ledge above the tunnel.
An older man, an elder of the sect, stepped forward. His voice was loud and clear, echoing across the silent courtyard.
"The first trial will test your endurance and your courage!" he announced.
"This is the Swarm’s Gauntlet. You will run through this tunnel to the testing grounds on the other side. Inside, you will be met by our sect’s Crystal Stinger Wasps.
They are not lethal, but their sting is incredibly painful. If the pain breaks your spirit, if you turn back, you fail. If you endure and reach the end, you pass. Begin!"
A murmur of fear went through the crowd. The first group of a hundred aspirants hesitated for a moment, then one brave soul took a deep breath and ran into the dark tunnel. The others followed.
A few moments later, the sounds began. Sharp cries of pain echoed from the tunnel, followed by the sight of several young men and women running back out, their faces pale, their bodies covered in small, red welts.
They had failed.
Finally, it was Rhys’s turn.
He took his place in the line and ran into the tunnel. The inside was dark and damp. The only light came from faint, glowing moss on the walls. Then he heard it: a low, angry buzzing sound.
A swarm of glowing, fist-sized wasps made of blue crystal appeared from holes in the ceiling. They descended on the group, their sharp stingers glowing with a faint light.
Rhys felt a sharp prick on his arm as the first wasp stung him. The pain was horrible.
But to him, a man whose body had been erased and reformed, a man who had endured the agony of creating new laws for his own soul, this pain was nothing more than a minor annoyance, like an insect bite.
But he had to act. He had to be ordinary.
He gritted his teeth, letting out a sharp hiss of pain. He stumbled, catching himself against the damp wall of the tunnel.
He saw another aspirant near him scream and fall to the ground, curling into a ball as the wasps swarmed him.
Rhys pushed forward, his face a mask of grim determination, just like the few others who were still running.
An elder on the ledge outside, a man with a long, white beard named Boros, watched the aspirants emerge from the tunnel.
He saw the arrogant youths who had relied on their expensive protective talismans. He saw the weak who had given up.
Then he saw Rhys. He saw a young man whose clothes were simple, who had no visible protective artefacts, yet who was pushing through the pain with a look of pure will.
"That one has a strong heart," Elder Boros murmured to the disciple beside him. "Keep an eye on him."
Rhys burst out of the end of the tunnel and into another vast cavern. He fell to his knees, breathing heavily, his body covered in red welts. He had passed the first trial.
The second trial was a test of potential. In the centre of this new cavern was a row of tall, hexagonal crystal pillars. They were called Qi Resonating Stones.
"The second trial will test your foundation!" the elder’s voice echoed from a high ledge.
"You will place your hand on a pillar and pour your Qi into it. The pillar will react. The purity of your Qi will determine the clarity of the sound it makes.
The strength of your Qi will determine the brightness of its light. Those with weak or impure foundations will be rejected."