After the three Elders and the inner sect disciples finished their business in Qingmu City, they led the immortal seedlings from the other side of the immortal city and began the ascent up the mountain on foot.
"This path is called the Path of Ascending Immortality. It has nine hundred and ninety-nine steps. All disciples who wish to enter our Qingmu Immortal Sect must walk this path with their own two feet—it is a rule handed down by the founding ancestor."
"These nine hundred and ninety-nine steps are a test of your stamina, your endurance, and even your willpower. If you lack even the determination to reach the top and give up halfway, the Qingmu Immortal Sect will not accept you."
"The first ten to reach the summit will be known as the Vanguard Elites, and the sect will reward them as well."
"First place will be rewarded with one bottle each of the Peiyuan Pill, Yijin Pill, Xisui Pill, and Yangqi Pill."
"Second and third place will each receive one bottle of the Peiyuan Pill, Yijin Pill, and Xisui Pill."
"Fourth through tenth place will each receive one bottle of the Peiyuan Pill and the Yijin Pill."
"These four kinds of pills will allow you to quickly complete your cultivation of the fourth stage of Fetal Breathing. On the road of cultivation, being one step faster means staying ahead everywhere."
"Now go! Immortal seedlings! Go fight for those top ten spots. This is the easiest trial on your path of cultivation. There will be countless more occasions when you must strive to be first on the road ahead."
As soon as Inner Sect Elder Ma Baocai finished speaking, he rose into the high sky and watched as the immortal seedlings charged toward the steps.
The other two Elders remarked, "This batch of immortal seedlings is considerably larger than previous ones, but quite a few have inferior aptitude. The Supreme Elder's single word has instead become an opportunity for them."
Elder Qian Yu said, "Supreme Elder, if you obtain the Golden Core opportunity and break through to the Golden Core realm, it will be heaven blessing our Qingmu Sect. What does it matter if we take in a few more inferior disciples of four spirit roots or five spirit roots?"
"That blessed land space disintegrated into hundreds of fragments before it even descended... All the opportunities within it, great and small, have scattered—who knows who has obtained them. We can only gather up all the suitable immortal seedlings in the vicinity, and under no circumstances let those opportunities slip away."
"After all, these are merely outer sect disciple slots. In no more than three to five years, a new screening can be conducted. If any of them carries an opportunity, their cultivation will surely rise exceptionally above the rest, like the difference between the bright moon and fireflies."
"If none of these disciples carries an opportunity, they likely won't even break through the third layer of Qi Refining, and they won't consume many resources either. Before recruiting the next batch of immortal seedlings, we can simply send them off to do some odd tasks."
Elder Xu Wen said, "It's just that all this fanfare has still alerted the Crimson Flame Sect and the Bai Family of Taiyuan. Both families have sent quite a few spies, who have also come searching for the opportunities..."
"After all, it fell within our Qingmu Sect's territory. Once the Supreme Elder emerges from seclusion, there will be plenty of time to deal with them."
"I've heard that within that blessed land, there was an opportunity to form a core! For our Qingmu Sect, this is the closest we've come to the Golden Core realm in twelve hundred years. As long as the Supreme Elder can achieve the Golden Core, then whether it's the Crimson Flame Sect or the Bai Family of Taiyuan, they will all have to bow their heads and submit to our Qingmu Sect! We would be the number one sect across ten thousand li of territory!"
"Once there is one first Golden Core, a second Golden Core will not be far behind... By then, our Qingmu Sect might no longer be called the Qingmu Sect—we would have to call ourselves the Piaomiao Sect."
"It's just... if even we know it was an opportunity to form a core... isn't this all a bit too much of a farce? Or could it be that the Supreme Elder is deliberately muddying these waters?"
...
The nine hundred and ninety-nine steps of the Path of Ascending Immortality.
Lin Donglai looked up and felt as though he could not see the end of it.
These steps were extraordinarily treacherous. Ordinary mountain stairways wound around the mountain in nine bends and eighteen turns, but this stairway was a straight line directly to the summit.
At its steepest, it was practically no different from a sheer wall—extremely perilous.
Higher up, one could even see wisps of ethereal cloud-mist.
Jagged rocks and sheer cliffs—not even a few plants could be seen taking root on the cliff faces.
What this Path of Ascending Immortality tested was nothing more than whether one had the courage to reach the summit!
Lin Donglai took a deep breath, said nothing, and began his ascent toward immortality.
Each step upon each stair was like taking another proof along the path of immortality.
He would climb, step by step, to the very pinnacle of the immortal path!
The Dao of Immortality!
Here I come!
Though the Path of Ascending Immortality contained no illusions, it seemed to consume an extraordinary amount of stamina.
Lin Donglai had previously followed Lin Meng up the mountains to hunt pheasants and hares, and ordinary climbing and hiking posed no problem for him.
Yet after climbing only some four hundred-odd steps of the Path of Ascending Immortality, he was already panting heavily, his lungs even burning somewhat, his legs as heavy as if filled with lead.
Not to mention that ahead of him lay an even more treacherous stretch of the path.
It was a section of stairs that ran almost entirely along a stone cliff, with only a single iron chain hanging down. One could only climb up by gripping the chain; the moment one's focus lapsed, one could fall.
"Say, if we fall, do you think the immortals would protect us?" Ding Zhen had also climbed to this point, her voice trembling slightly.
Lin Donglai said, "Hard to say. I've seen how those immortals hold themselves high above, dividing people's aptitude into ranks and grades. For bottom-grade five spirit roots like us, I imagine if we fall to our deaths, we simply die—it counts as normal attrition."
Ding Zhen shuddered. "We're so high up! A fall from here would shatter us to pieces!"
"Then we can only keep climbing!" Lin Donglai said. "High or not, we climb. Are you going to give up? The immortals just said that whoever gives up halfway has no fate with the immortal sect."
"Our spirit root aptitude is already poor! If we give up so easily, then there will be no hope left at all!"
Lin Donglai analyzed, "I was just observing for a while—quite a few immortal seedlings with a chance at the inner sect have already climbed up with ease, like Xue Hong and Sang Qiao."
"Even if they're stronger than us, they were only secretly coached by inner sect disciples for three days—they can't be that much stronger. These stairs look steep, but as long as you can plant your feet and find purchase, you can climb a hundred or so steps gripping the chain."
"Every hundred steps or so, there's a small platform where you can rest. Rest well, and then you can keep climbing."
These words were meant to persuade Ding Zhen—and also himself.
With that, Lin Donglai began to regulate his breathing—it was the "Peiyuan Breathing Technique." This breathing method could quickly restore stamina, and moreover, it could draw the mysterious seed in his mind to breathe along with him, making the effect even greater.
Seeing this, Ding Zhen began her own breathing exercise as well.
The spiritual qi within the Piaomiao Mountains was twenty to thirty times denser than in the mortal world. Even if the spiritual qi did not remain in the body during such breathing exercises, it could still greatly relieve aches and pains.
Sensing that his stamina had mostly recovered, Lin Donglai directly began climbing the steep stone steps, breathing and regulating his qi as he climbed, emptying his mind, trying to look only upward, never down.
The supreme pinnacle of the immortal path—what happened here could hardly count as the first threshold!
When Lin Donglai first began climbing, his body was somewhat stiff, but later his mind was filled with nothing but how to find handholds and how to climb up step by step.
That hundred-odd steps took him nearly three-quarters of an hour before he finally reached the first small platform.
After a brief rest, Lin Donglai continued climbing... thinking to himself, "As expected, it only looks difficult. In reality, once you're willing to take the first step, what comes after isn't so hard! That strange force that drained so much stamina has also disappeared."