The Sect Leader System-Chapter 243: No Survivors

Yuan Yaozu entered the Trial Pagoda full of confidence. After all, if the juniors he met could all pass their trials, how could he, a Golden Core cultivator who’d experienced nearly a millennium of life, possibly fail? He even knew what to expect. From the juniors’ stories, some form of apparently unblockable qi would be hurled at him, and he would experience death after death until he learned whatever lesson the trial was trying to teach him.

While challenging for a junior, someone possessing the knowledge wrung from his long years would have no trouble. Maybe he wouldn’t finish on the first try, but surely he’d figure out the trick to it by the second or, at the very latest, the third attempt.

With that attitude firmly in place, he calmly observed how it felt as the orb transported him. He ended up, as expected, in a gray space that was exactly as the juniors had described. There was enough light to see, but the source was unknown. The light simply existed, as if a powerful cultivator had declared it to be so and thus reality obeyed. And the gray seemed to stretch to eternity. There was nothing in the room. Not even air. Yet he could breathe if he wished.

Even his highly trained spiritual sense detected nothing. There was no qi in the space. Curious, he tried to pull in a mote and … was successful. Yet none appeared to his senses. Interesting.

Yuan Yaozu had to admit that Chao Su’s Trial Pagoda was unlike any of the ones he’d been in or even heard about.

“Face your fear and advance,” a man’s voice said.

Yuan Yaozu spun. There was a man, a being, behind him. The man or being or whatever it was had not been there an instant ago. Yuan Yaozu was sure he’d been alone. It concerned him that someone or something could appear at his back with him not detecting any movement.

Still, he wasn’t paranoid enough to find danger lurking around every corner. He was here for a specific purpose. It was best to focus on his goal.

“Face my fear and advance?” Yuan Yaozu said, confirming what the entity had stated.

“Face your fear and advance.”

Yuan Yaozu took exception to the implication that he was afraid of anything. He took greater exception to the implication that it was his fear that held him back from advancing to Nascent Soul. His many attempts at breaking through had led him to one inescapable conclusion—there was some issue with his cultivation or some trick he was missing. It was not possible that he’d struggled for multiple centuries and something as simple as fear was the problem.

Maybe, though, fear had nothing to do with it. Maybe the space was special in some way that would allow him to advance if he simply made the attempt.

Yes. That made sense. The part about fear was a misdirection. The trick to passing the trial was to ignore it.

He chuckled at the simplicity of the pagoda. Like he had thought, a junior might find the place complicated, but a Golden Core cultivator with centuries of experience would figure it out in an instant.

Yuan Yaozu sank into a lotus position and began yet another attempt at advancement. He was well used to the process by that point. After all, he’d tried at least a hundred times over the last five centuries.

Part of him still couldn’t believe that his life had reached the end of its span without him advancing again. He hated that he’d been forced to beg on metaphorical bended knee for access to a Trial Pagoda.

After all, he’d been considered a prodigy for his entire existence as a cultivator. He’d reached Foundation Establishment in one year and seven months, though he’d had the help of a Qi Gathering Pill to advance one of his minor realms. Reaching Golden Core had taken only a bit over eight years instead of the ten most sect members took. And he’d practically flown through those ranks, reaching the peak of that realm in just over four and a half centuries, quicker than almost anyone on record.

Challenge the heavens? Not for him. There was no challenge at all. He simply advanced through the realms by leaps and bounds. frёewebηovel.cѳm

Talented. Possessing a bright future. That was how all the seniors had always referred to him. The entire sect expected him to break through from the peak of Golden Core to Nascent Soul in less than a century. Instead, he’d lingered and lingered and lingered.

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In theory, advancing to Nascent Soul was simple. First, one gathered as much qi as one could hold in one’s core and filtered it through one’s most powerful Concept, aligning qi and Concept with the Dao. Next, the cultivator must shatter their Golden Core. As long as there was enough qi present and the connection to the Dao was strong enough, the qi would combine with the shattered core and the cultivator’s existing soul to form a brand new soul.

Obviously, it was important to get all the steps right. Shattering one’s core and not advancing meant the end of one’s cultivation journey and, more often than not, one’s life.

Honestly though, only the first step was in the least bit tricky, and it was there that Yuan Yaozu always failed. Something was wrong with his cultivation. It had to be. He simply could not gather enough qi in his core to support the transformation.

Time after time he’d filled his core until he couldn’t cram in any more and felt that there just wasn’t enough contained within. Proceeding without enough would be foolish, resulting in instant failure.

The rest of the process he felt would be no issue. His Concept was strong, and he’d meditated for centuries on its alignment with the Dao. There was no problem, there. And any idiot could explode his own core, so there was no problem on that front. If he could just garner a little more qi into his core, he’d have enough for the transformation.

Fear didn’t hold him back. A substandard cultivation method did.

Which left him where, exactly? Stuck. Just like he had been for the last over half a millennium.

But being stuck in this place on this day was not acceptable.

Yuan Yaozu felt intense pressure to succeed. If he didn’t pass the trial, ascend, and join the fight, and do all that quickly, there would probably be no more Chao Su and, therefore, probably no more chances to use the Trial Pagoda.

Well, he wouldn’t give up. That was for sure.

He expelled all the qi he’d gathered in his core and started over. There had to be a trick to it, and he was going to find it.

Ye Zhengsheng was more than a little impressed with the combat abilities of Chao Su. For a mere Golden Core cultivator even to survive against two Nascent Souls for as long as he had was an accomplishment.

And the man had done more than simply survive.

Whatever array he’d used to propel the purely mundane projectiles was extraordinary. The dense metal moved so fast that it packed a deceptively hard punch, and because it did not contain qi, it was harder to detect and was not affected by auras. The combination of those traits made it an adequate weapon against him and Yan Mingxia.

Not that either of them was in any danger from the weapon. But neither could they simply ignore it. The projectiles were bothersome, something akin to a bee sting back when they were mortals.

The formations he’d erected were likewise stronger than Ye Zhengsheng had anticipated. Most of the time when dealing with sect defenses, only a few qi bursts at minimal intensity were required to bring down the shield. The Rising Tide Sect’s defenses required him to fully exert himself for multiple shots. His available qi actually noticeably dipped!

Even more interesting was the use of the Teng family’s Myriad technique. How had Chao Su gotten ahold of that? And the version he used was clearly superior, producing more illusionary clones at cheaper cost and better fidelity than anything in use by any member of the Jade Chameleon Sect.

Chao Su also appeared to be able to switch places with any of the clones, a functionality that made him extremely difficult to pin down. Ye Zhengsheng almost shuddered. If the man ever advanced to Nascent Soul and gained the ability to have those clones act independently… Such an opponent would be someone even Ye Zhengsheng would hesitate to take on.

At the moment, though, he was much more formidable than had been anticipated, but he still was a Golden Core cultivator. The Earth aspected projectiles he fired off, possessing no less than four distinct Concepts somehow, hit hard, but the tyranny of an aura was not something easily overcome.

The Wind Slashes he’d sent against Yan Mingxia, on the other hand, would have been enough to actually injure her due to how much qi the man had charged into them. The amount was far more than a typical Golden Core would have access to. And the Concepts were all top tier. There was no deviation from the Dao weakening their power.

If Yang Mingxia hadn’t had a bracelet that disrupted Wind attacks, her greatest weakness among common elements, the battle might have had a far different outcome.

As it was, though, Chao Su could stay in the fight only as long as he made no mistakes. The first time he did, Yan Mingxia punished him for it.

He’s lingered just a tad too long after an attack, and he’d been left with insufficient qi to power his shield. Her Water Jet had hit him in the shoulder, obliterating it and his arm.

If he hadn’t been in the process of teleporting right as she hit him, he would have been struck down and soon ended. Given his injuries, he probably died upon reaching his destination anyway.

Ye Zhengsheng’s senses didn’t detect him anywhere. Then again, that had been true throughout the fight.

Either way, it was time for him and Yan Mingxia to finish off the sect’s Grand Defensive Formation before destroying the towers. If Chao Su hadn’t re-appeared by the time they’d reduced the two defensive structures to rubble, they’d move on to annihilating his sect members.

Ye Zhengsheng sighed. He took no joy in killing innocent children, but his duty was clear. There were to be no survivors.

Well, perhaps the Poison Claw elder and his sect members could be allowed to surrender. It depended on what they could offer in the way of concessions.