Chapter 4678: The Path to Clearing the Trial
Soon, the second trial began, and Chu Feng was transported to another brand new world.
This world was pitch-black, and all that could be seen was a flight of stairs that emanated dim radiance.
The stairs were headed upward, but the dim radiance only illuminated the first few steps, so Chu Feng couldn’t tell where the flight of stairs was leading him to.
The topic of the trial was much simple this time around, ‘Potential’, so Chu Feng decided not to think too deeply into it. As the name suggested, this should be a test to gauge his potential.
He had been through similar tests before, so he wasn’t too worried. Based on the surrounding clues, it was obvious that he was to climb the flight of stairs.
So, he began making his way toward the stairs.
Weng!
As soon as he made his first step onto the stairs, he felt a slight resonance in his bloodline. The step beneath his foot glowed even brighter, and he found that the dim radiance was gradually extending upward, allowing him to see a little further.
Just as he had thought, the stairs were leading upward, as if the stairway to heaven.
If he was still harboring doubts at the start, he was more than certain now that this flight of stairs was used to gauge one’s potential.
What Chu Feng had to do was very simple. He just had to climb to at least a certain height in order to clear the trial.
So, he continued to head upward. As he climbed higher and higher, the stairs beneath his feet also grew brighter and brighter. Soon, the dark ground was illuminated, and the sky began to light up too.
Chu Feng stood at the very center of the light, as if he was a rising sun of the world. As long as he climbed higher, the light emanated by the flight of stairs would reach out further.
He guessed that as long as he could reach the height required to dispel the darkness from the world, he would be considered to have cleared the trial.
However, as he headed upward, he soon realized that the resonance in his bloodline was getting stronger and stronger, and a dull pain began to engulf his body. He could vaguely hear weird noises in his ears, and the stairs before him also began to distort. All of his senses were being rattled.
The most frightening thing of all, a terrifying power had begun gushing into Chu Feng’s head, meddling with his mind and leaving him feeling deeply restless.
If Chu Feng couldn’t cope with the disruptions, he wouldn’t be able to continue scaling the stairs. Perhaps, he might even tumble off the stairs and fail the trial.
This made him realize that this trial was far more complicated than he had thought. It tested not just the talent of the cultivator but their perseverance and focus too.
If it had been a simple test of talent, Chu Feng would have surely been able to reach the top with ease. However, if his perseverance and focus were being put to the test as well, the trial would become a huge challenge.
It was fortunate that Chu Feng’s focus and perseverance far surpassed that of normal people. This had nothing to do with his talent at all. It was simply what he had tempered from all of the difficulties he had been through.
Knowing that he shouldn’t underestimate the trial, he slowed down his footstep to give himself more time to adapt to the pain and disturbances brought about by the stairs.
At his initial speed, he should have been able to scale to a great height within an incense’s time. However, his footsteps gradually grew slower and slower, such that there were times where it took him an entire incense’s time just to take a step upward.
72 hours passed, and Chu Feng’s face had turned ghastly pale. He was panting heavily, but his eyes remained unwavering.
As for the stairs beneath his feet, it was shining as bright as the sun, illuminating the whole world. There was nothing special about this world—there were just flowers all around. Even the sky didn’t look particularly blue. Yet, compared to the pitch-black world he saw when he first entered, the world had become vividly colorful.
And with one last step, Chu Feng finally arrived at the very top. Even the white clouds were drifting beneath his feet. Without a doubt, he had cleared the trial.
The ‘Potential’ trial was not easy, but with his perseverance and focus, Chu Feng still managed to clear it in the end.
After clearing the second trial, the mysterious voice didn’t give Chu Feng any time to rest. Just a brief moment after returning to the cavern, the mysterious voice declared the start of the third trial, and Chu Feng was teleported to a brand new world.
This time around, the world was extremely beautiful. The sky was filled with stars and comets, just that these comets weren’t falling downward. Instead, like playful elves, they were dancing around Chu Feng.
This was the ‘Enlightenment’ trial.
A martial skill was hidden amidst the beautiful constellation of stars, and Chu Feng had to learn it within an incense’s time, or else it would be deemed as his failure.
However, this trial didn’t pose any difficulty to Chu Feng. To him, it was much easier than the second trial.
Before an incense’s time was up, he had already grasped a rank six Exalted Taboo Martial Skill known as the Three Forms of the Crouching Dragon. It was a skill created by the founder of the Hidden Dragon Martial Sect.
…
The fourth trial was the trial of ‘Wisdom’.
It was pretty easy. All Chu Feng had to do was to find the way out of the world, and the time limit was a year.
At first glance, a year’s time seemed to be plenty of time, but in this world, Chu Feng’s martial power and spirit power were sealed, and his treasures were all unusable. He couldn’t even use his World Spirit Space at all. He was unable to communicate with Eggy and Yu Sha, so he could only rely on himself.
He was like an ordinary human in this world, and if he wished to leave this world, he had to use the resources that this world had to offer.
The first thing he had to do was to find the location of the exit, then he had to find an efficient means of transportation. While doing all of these, he had to make sure to avoid the threats lurking all around.
In here, Chu Feng could feel just how weak and frail ordinary humans were.
This was actually no more than a tiny world. If Chu Feng still had his cultivation, he could easily explore every nook of cranny of this world within just a day’s time, let alone escaping from here.
However, now that he was a mortal, if he were to attempt to blindly search for the exit, he wouldn’t be able to get out of here even a hundred years from now.
To be honest, the trial and its imposed time limit was really a huge hurdle for Chu Feng to overcome.
Fortunately, Chu Feng was not an ordinary mortal. Even if he had lost his strength and means, he hadn’t lost his sharp instincts and intuition he had sharpened from overcoming turmoils.
Despite the inconveniences that came with being mortal—he had to eat and sleep every single day in order to survive—he was still able to locate the exit within just half a month.
Using the rivers and all sorts of natural transportation means, Chu Feng was able to greatly increase his traveling speed. In just half a year’s time, he had managed to leave the world.
Weng!
After clearing the trial, Chu Feng was brought back to the cavern.
“The fifth trial, Martial, begins.”
Chu Feng’s surroundings began to distort once more as he was brought into another world.
“Wait a moment, Chu Feng, what’s going on? Didn’t the fourth trial just begin? Why did we suddenly skip on to the fifth one?” Eggy asked out of bewilderment.
After a quick talk, Chu Feng realized that he was the only one being put through the fourth trial. He might have spent half a year inside the tiny world, but in truth, the world was illusory, and even the time he had spent there was fake.
In truth, it had barely been a second in the real world.
“My gosh. You had to survive all alone in a mortal’s world for half a year? Isn’t that too cruel?”
Upon learning of what Chu Feng went through, Eggy immediately felt her heart aching for him. Putting aside how dangerous the world was to a mortal, just the sheer loneliness of having to be alone for six months was enough to crumble most minds.
“It’s fine. I passed it without a hitch, didn’t I? Besides, it’s actually quite interesting to challenge the world as a mortal. After all, I used to be a mortal myself,” Chu Feng said with a smile.
“Hearing your words, I’m starting to think that it’s a pity that I wasn’t able to go through it with you. It would have been much more interesting that way.
“Chu Feng, hurry up and tell me what you have been through there. Is there anything particularly interesting? Quick, share it with this Queen.”
Eggy urged curiously, seemingly not wanting to miss out on whatever that Chu Feng had been through. She requested for Chu Feng to tell her every single detail.
“Milady Queen, I’ll tell you whatever you want me to, but it isn’t very convenient now.”
A silhouette had appeared not too far away from where Chu Feng was standing, and it was slowly approaching him. This silhouette emanated the aura of a rank six Utmost Exalted level cultivator. From the ferocious look on his face, it was clear that he was here to pick a fight.