Using entries to cultivate immortality in chaotic times

Now it was Chen Qiu's next opponent's turn to be dumbfounded.

His face constantly changed between pale and flushed as he stood stiffly on the spot, his lips trembling slightly, yet he couldn't utter a word for a long time. Chen Qiu played his cards openly; those five entries were laid out there, surrounded by clouds on the panel formed by the Heavenly Dao.

Even if you have exquisite control over spiritual energy, you can't form such a panel out of thin air.

You can only form words in the air, but not that cloud-enshrouded panel.

Genuine and beyond doubt.

Then the dilemma was handed over to him; doubting was certainly not possible, he could only grit his teeth and follow up with another statement. However, Chen Qiu's previous opponent, sitting beside him, could no longer contain his impatience and roared excitedly, "Go fool a ghost!"

"Bang."

The next contestant was eliminated; now only two people were left on the stage.

"Phew..."

Chen Qiu breathed a sigh of relief, casually playing with the jade fan in his hand and speaking little, admitting to himself that he had been somewhat lucky. If his next opponent had been more serious or had a few dozen breaths' time to think, he would have easily realized that the boasting tone Chen Qiu used when showing the entry panel didn't quite match his persona.

From the beginning, he had been sitting there in an extremely calm state.

Suddenly flaunting his open challenge was a bit too abnormal.

And abnormal behavior often heralds mischief.

...

"It's just the two of us left."

Chen Qiu's previous opponent stared at him icily, word by word, "I didn't expect you to actually have five entries. I'm too lazy to waste time speaking pointless repetitious words like last round. Let's decide life and death right now!"

"I have six or more entries!"

"Do you dare to follow?"

Chen Qiu shook his head casually, "I have six or more entries, and I've eaten six buns."

"?"

His opponent, taken aback, his eyes flickered with confusion. Wasn't this what he had said in the previous round? He reacted instinctively, "I have six or more entries, and I've eaten six buns, and I also have seven or more entries!"

Chen Qiu quietly added, "I've eaten six bowls of rice."

He no longer needed to doubt his opponent; his opponent had all he claimed to have, and now he was speaking purely from his own experiences, waiting for his opponent to lose his temper.

"Eight."

"A meal of six dishes."

"Hey!"

When Chen Qiu added one more thing, his opponent finally couldn't help laughing wildly, stood up from his cushion, shook off the dust from his clothes, and looked at Chen Qiu with a hint of triumph in his eyes, "Do you think I've lost my mind? That I would keep increasing my claim?"

"I was just setting a hook for you."

"Eight entries, you really dare to follow? I don't have eight entries, so why do you think you could have them? Or do you firmly believe I wouldn't dare to doubt you? Oh right, I almost forgot, only the lower player can doubt the upper player, the upper player cannot accuse the lower player."

"After so many rounds, you might have gotten used to it."

"But did you forget? There are only two of us left on the stage, and I too am your lower player now!"

"Fool."

The man sneered coldly, "I'm not buying that bullshit today. Show me if you can come up with three more entries?!!!"

As his voice fell, accompanied by the surge of spiritual energy on the stage, the man who had just stood up was suddenly slammed by the spiritual energy and flew out of the stage, falling several meters away before incredulously climbing up from below the stage.

...

"Sigh."

Chen Qiu stood up with a hint of helplessness, patted the nonexistent dust off his clothes, didn't even glance at the man below the stage, and walked straight down from the stage towards Fat Long waiting by the side of the stage.

And that superior Foundation Establishment Earth Fire Pill, too, slowly ascended from beneath the stage when he was the only one left, easily grabbed by him and tucked into his chest.

This passage through.

It meant he had officially become a selected Inner Sect Disciple for Chao Tian Sect, though this status was useless since it was just a form of challenge within the Heavenly Dao Secret Realm. The Earth Fire Pill was the real highlight, a true treasure that could be exchanged for a significant amount of Spirit Stones.

...

He was unsure of the content of the fourth round, but hoped it was not a challenge heavily reliant on luck like this one. Although he had passed this time, no one's good fortune lasts forever.

At this time, Fat Long was feeling gloomy near his stage, coming over immediately when he saw him stepping down.

"What's wrong? You look like you didn't make it through."

"Don't even get me started!"

Fat Long said angrily, "I was eliminated in the third round after I got on stage; my previous opponent straight-up said he ate crap. At that moment, everyone's gaze turned to that bastard. To be honest, I wanted to grit my teeth and follow, but my next opponent clearly told me that if I dared to follow, he would definitely confront me head-on."

"His logic was simple."

"Though eating crap is a rather unusual habit, it's not impossible; however, the likelihood of two Foundation Establishment Cultivators who don't know each other and sitting next to each other both having done this is too low."

"The logic is simplistic and brute."

"But I have to admit, he made sense."

"So I had to confront my previous opponent, betting that he was lying, and then I got eliminated. The bastard truly had eaten crap!!!"

"I truly don't understand!"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"An Ancient Sword Cultivation Sect that looks like it was quite powerful in ancient times, named 'Chao Tian Sect', which means mocking the heavens, but what are all these messy trials the sect disciple selection consists of? Allowing someone who has eaten shit to become a candidate for the Inner Sect, isn't that too damn insulting to sword cultivation?!"

"..."

Chen Qiu helplessly patted Fat Long on the shoulder. "Stay safe and start by exploring the buildings around the third round. If you encounter any opportunities, just remember the faces; there's no need to fight over them."

"You can rest assured about that, Brother Qiu. I have my own path of survival in this regard," Fat Long answered.

"It's just a bit hard to accept, I should have known..."

Although Fat Long didn't finish his sentence, the meaning was clear—he would have made several choices differently, if only he had known about such trials before entering the Heavenly Dao Secret Realm.

Chen Qiu smiled and comforted Fat Long before heading alone towards the entrance of the fourth round.

The fourth round was in a 'Sword Pavilion' a few hundred yards away from the Martial Arts Hall.

He also felt puzzled internally. It seemed somewhat frivolous for a Major Sect to conduct disciple selection in this manner, or perhaps... these selection criteria were precisely suited to the iteration of Heavenly Dao at the time?

Did subsequent versions of Heavenly Dao evolve, and the 'Chao Tian Sect', unable to keep up with the latest iterations, faded into complete desolation or even extinction?

The term 'Heavenly Dao versions' was something he heard during a conversation at the third round; the people talking about it didn't conceal much, implying that this concept wasn't highly secretive. While ordinary people might not know about Heavenly Dao versions, it seemed to be an open secret within sects and major families.

...

The fourth round, Sword Pavilion.

By this time, hundreds of people had gathered here, all patiently waiting for the winners of the other arenas in the third round. Only when everyone had arrived would they be able to enter the fourth round.

A magnificent and towering pavilion soared high into the clouds, the whole building shaped like a long sword with its blade thrusting into the ground, towering hundreds of yards high. Standing before this pavilion made one feel particularly insignificant.

Even though the place had been abandoned for a long time, the lingering sword intent in the air still brought a stinging pain.

If one's cultivation wasn't sufficient, they could even be severely injured by the sword intent lingering for who knows how many tens of thousands of years.

Once this was over, he planned to find a place to cultivate bitterly.

Chen Qiu silently planned his next moves in his mind. He had not had time to cultivate after reaching Foundation Establishment, merely managing basic spiritual energy protection. He couldn't, like others, precisely adjust the strength of spiritual energy protection on different parts of his body.

He knew only one spell, the 'Thunder Summoning Technique', and two low-level techniques: 'Earth Tunneling Technique' and 'Blinding Technique'.

And he could only release them with full force. Normally, the upper limit of a spell's power is determined by one's cultivation and several other factors, but the lower limit could be controlled by oneself. However, since he had entered this Secret Realm right after his Foundation Establishment, he hadn't had any additional time to cultivate, resulting in weak control over his spiritual energy.

At the entrance of the Sword Pavilion, the familiar barrier once again blocked everyone's path.

At the entrance of the pavilion, seated neatly cross-legged on a short stone pillar was a human skeleton, without a trace of flesh, its bones transparent and greenish-white due to the passage of time, which looked quite aesthetic.

The fourth round—

"Sever One's Self."

Surrounding the base of the short pillar beneath the skeleton were numerous, somewhat unique decorations. Although worn by the years and appearing somewhat decrepit, one could imagine that, tens of thousands of years ago, the people of Chao Tian Sect must have held this set of bones in the highest regard.

The pillar was engraved with several lines filled with dense sword intent.

A daring cultivator tentatively touched it with his hand, only to rapidly retract it, the extended fingers already bloody and covered in countless tiny cuts, and the man's complexion turned ugly as he sealed his fingers with spiritual energy. The sword intent had entered his body, complicating its removal.

If not removed from the body, the sword intent would continue to burrow inward as time passed, eventually causing excruciating pain and death.

-

'Entry name': Sword Bone.

'Entry level': Grey.

'Entry effect': Your understanding of swordsmanship will be extremely slow, but anyone who touches your skeleton after your death will gain a certain degree of enhanced understanding of their own learned swordsmanship, the extent depending on the individual's innate talent.

-

"A rather good entry," Chen Qiu nodded silently. Honestly, having such a figure meant that a sword cultivation sect truly had a legacy, or perhaps it was precisely because of this figure's presence that such a pure sword cultivation sect existed.

It's a pity he didn't cultivate in swordsmanship and hadn't learned any sword techniques.

Otherwise, even as a magic practitioner, he wouldn't mind gaining a deeper understanding of swordsmanship.

This inscription wasn't only visible to him; however, everyone who tried to touch the Sword Bone had been repelled by a mysterious force, perhaps indicating that only Inner Sect Disciples were qualified to touch the Sword Bone.

Just then—

All the cultivators who had passed the third round arrived.

As the barrier at the entrance of the Sword Pavilion gradually faded, the crowd also saw several lines engraved into the ground at the entrance.

'Fourth round, Sever One's Self.' Explore more stories with empire

'To sever the enemy, one must first sever oneself. Only through countless life and death situations can one clearly discern and correct their weaknesses.'

'Entering the Sword Pavilion is like entering an illusion; it contains a thousand puppets with the same level of cultivation as yourself, all wielding swords and launching simultaneous attacks on you.'

'Kill ten, and you pass the round.'

'Kill a hundred, and you are deemed to have passed the fifth round.'

'Kill a thousand, and you are deemed to have passed the sixth round.'

'Although this round is an illusion, one can still die here. If you die in the illusion, your physical body will also be severely injured, and if you're killed in the illusion while losing your true self, you will truly die.'

'Passing this round makes one an Inner Sect Disciple of Chao Tian Sect and awards a Sword Enlightenment Stone.'