Chapter 167: Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

Words : 1428 Updated : Oct 13th, 2025

With 100 stages to complete, I needed to be extremely efficient with my use of both qi and time. I had reason to believe I could complete 50 in one day, but I didn’t believe for a moment that the second 50 would be as easy as the first 50. My quickest and most stamina-efficient way to take down the Trial’s constructs was by piercing them with a thread of my wood-based spirit fire. My most qi-efficient and least mentally taxing way of taking them down was bashing them apart with the ball end of my staff. Because the Trial’s environment contained only pure earth qi, I was able to cultivate while moving and fighting without needing to worry about accidentally drawing impurities into my body. To use that to my advantage, I started fights by blasting my enemies with spirit fire until my qi reserves fell under 10%. Qi Recovery Pills were most effective at these low energy levels, so whenever my qi recovered to more than 10% of its maximum capacity, I sent out a spirit fire to quickly destroy another construct. While waiting for my qi to recover, I fought against the golems using my staff. It took far longer to destroy them like this, but by switching between spirit fire and physical power, I was able to make swift, constant progress through the initial stages of the Trial. The only minor difficulty was maintaining my qi-empowered muscles at such low energy levels, but I was able to quickly adapt my combat style to account for this handicap. In half a day, I had advanced all the way to stage 30, setting a pace slightly above what I had expected. Once I reached stage 40, though, things slowed down dramatically. Instead of simply needing to destroy my opponents, new challenges presented themselves. At first, these changes only concerned the terrain of the arena. For example, on some stages, large pits and high cliff walls separated me from my enemies. However, after stage 60, there were also formations I had to be wary of. These new impediments were annoying. I was skilled enough with Grandmaster-level formations that they didn’t have a chance to stop me, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that they slowed me, and I couldn’t afford to be slowed down. At the end of the first day, I had slightly surpassed my goal of stage 50, making it to stage 54. At the end of the second day, I had made it to stage 90. From there, my progress slowed to a crawl as I had to expend nearly all my energy on each stage to deal with the terrain, formations, and dozens of opponents. The only real challenge for me was time. I had the skills needed to complete anything this Trial wanted to throw at me, but I needed the time to do so. Three days was a tight deadline, but I was able to get it done and reached stage 100 with a few hours to spare. I expected 100 to be more of the same, an ever-increasing number of enemies and traps littered around an increasingly complex battlefield. To my surprise, I was presented with only a single opponent and an arena that looked suspiciously like the first stage. When I appeared, the construct didn’t move to attack immediately, so I had time to prepare. After assessing the battlefield, I was worried. It looked far too similar to the first stage for my liking. I didn’t believe things would be that easy. I spent time carefully examining everything in the arena, but I only found one important change from previous stages of the Trial. There was qi of multiple elements in the air. All five basic elements were present. Not only would that mean I would need to be more careful when cultivating while fighting, but it also meant that this golem would have some way to make use of these different elements. I tried to use energy vision to get a sense of what I was up against, but the golem shone with a solid white hue which blocked me from seeing its internals. All I could see were the inscriptions it used to power itself. To my disgust, filters of all five elements were indeed present in those inscriptions. Instead of taking the risk of fighting an unknown enemy for no reason, I decided to use my tried-and-true method of creating formations to drain the arena and easily disable my opponent. I moved to a large rock and started to carve a Qi Gathering Formation, but as soon as I did, the golem attacked. This didn’t surprise me. I had been waiting for it. What did surprise me was that its target wasn’t me. Instead, it attacked and destroyed my half-finished formation. Unlike in previous stages, this thing wasn’t about to let me slowly carve formations around the room. Since that option was out, I went with plan two. I tapped into my wood-based spirit fire and shot a lance of energy at the creature to destroy it in a single attack. When my flame was within half a meter of the thing, a red shield formed around it. Instead of striking into the golem, my spirit fire wrapped around this shield. Cost 500 billion credits. That number made me groan. Yan gave me a funny look, so I explained. “Those memory orbs are probably a Rank 6 item. That’s why you’ve had so much trouble finding them. They’re not something that would be available to a lowly Grandmaster.” He nodded and refrained from asking how I knew that information. “I’ll look into other options. Since you and LiTing are going to rush up to Emperor, I’ll leave researching the orbs to you.” “Yan, there’s also something else I want you to investigate... How much do you know about essence cultivation techniques?” He rolled his fingers in thought. “I know you’ve been cultivating that earth one. I didn’t understand why you bothered, but I’m starting to have a guess. Why?” The side of my mouth twitched. “I need techniques for the other elements. I only have one for earth. I want one for every element possible. Neither the Academy nor the sect has them in their libraries. Do you think you can help me find them?” “They probably burned any copies they had to prevent people from wasting essence. I’ll see what I can find out for you, but no promises. Essence techniques are rare, and while they aren’t valued highly here, they are of immense value to most clans outside the sect, so few would be keen on sharing one.” “I understand. Just let me know if you find out about one. I can worry about the details of acquiring it later.” With those issues taken care of, Yan and I rejoined the group. LiTing and I would be racing to Profound City to stay ahead of the news that we had left Mortal City, and we didn’t know how long the journey would take. There was always a risk that we would get stuck on one of the paths for an extended period of time, so we made plans to meet up outside the gates to Mortal City in three months. If that didn’t work out, we would try again once every three months thereafter. We said our goodbyes, and I patted Yan and YuLong on the back in farewell. I got a bit of a surprise when JiaQi hugged me, but I was able to respond somewhat naturally, even if I was a little stiff. Before we left, I looked at the three of them. “Lord Hao is an annoyance, but in truth, he’s just a bug. Our real problem is the Zhuge Clan. If you ever leave the sect’s territories, be careful of them.” I focused on Yan. “You know what they can and will do more than me. Everyone needs to stay safe until our... protections are in place. I don’t want to risk losing anyone before then.” A look of resolve appeared on Yan’s face. “Don’t worry. I know what to do. The clan would never risk directly offending the sect master, so they will have to play by the same rules everyone else does. Even if we can’t fight back against them, I can keep us alive.” After one last round of goodbyes, I turned to LiTing. “Ready?” A bittersweet smile appeared on her face. “Yes.”

Chapter 167: Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

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