Immortal Mortal

The moment inner disciples, like Hou Yucheng, entered the Heaven Seeking Palace, there were personal guides to bring them around. On the other hand, outer disciples, like Mo Wuji and Zhen Shaoru, were gathered together and herded around.

Mo Wuji did not mind; he had even been a service disciple before, so how would this treatment be bad? Since he entered the Heaven Seeking Palace, he was constantly looking up and down.

Within the Heaven Seeking Palace, there were truly less sights were clouds pervaded in the air. A 20 to 25 meters wide bluestone path extended forward. There were rows upon rows of magnificent buildings, imbuing a majestic atmosphere. Mo Wuji also saw an unfathomably deep valley. There were many clouds hovering within the valley. Faraway, there was a mountain. On that mountain, was an extremely eye-catching structure.

This eye-catching structure was a colossal tower which extended into the clouds. No one could even see the top of the tower.

”That’s the Heaven Seeking Palace’s Immortal Training Tower, it’s one of the symbols of the sect.” Seeing Mo Wuji mesmerized with the high tower, Zhen Shaoru chuckled and said.

Immortal Training Tower? Mo Wuji immediately recalled the Fringe City’s Immortal Training Tower. He heard from Yan Qianyin that the Fringe City Immortal Training Tower was modeled after the one in the Heaven Seeking Palace. Not even a year had passed, and he already got to see the Heaven Seeking Palace’s Immortal Training Tower.

Since this was the Heaven Seeking Palace’s Immortal Training Tower, it would definitely have a Lightning Tempering Room. As he thought of this, Mo Wuji’s heart burnt furiously. He couldn’t wait to concoct his new channel opening solution before entering the Lightning Tempering Room to open his meridians.

A black robed man landed in front of the crowd of outer disciples. His gaze swept across the outer disciples before saying quietly, ”The Heaven Seeking Palace is a gathering of geniuses. Here, there are no trash, only geniuses.”

Everyone else was silent; they knew deep in their hearts whether they were geniuses or not. Clearly, many of the people here felt themselves to be geniuses.

The black robed man suddenly stopped before snorting, ”But this legacy has been broken. Because today, the Heaven Seeking Palace is accepting a pile of trash, and the pile of trash is you…”

The group of outer disciples immediately became restless. Clearly, they were not comfortable with those words. Besides Mo Wuji, almost everyone was a glorious hero or a Chosen of their sect. To think that they would actually be treated as trash the moment they entered the Heaven Seeking Palace.

”Quiet down! Whoever mutters another word will immediately be kicked out of the Heaven Seeking Palace.” The black robed man’s words were filled with killing intent. The crowd instantly went silent.

Waiting for the crowd to quiet down, the black robed man continued with a cold face, ”Because all of you depended on the spiritual herbs within the Five Elements Desolate Domain to enter the gates of our Heaven Seeking Palace. If not for the Five Elements Desolate Domain, you all are trash.”

Mo Wuji thought in his heart: This guy has balls. Exchanging spiritual herbs for an opportunity to enter the Heaven Seeking Palace was definitely decisions made by the members of the upper echelons. This fella is actually criticizing those people for breaking the rules.

”... So all of you can only stay in the most trashy outer sect mountain…” As he said this, the black robed man waved his hand, and an extremely vivid and life-like image of a mountain appeared in front of everyone. The mountain was even stratified under different districts; Mo Wuji saw that District A was at the peak, while District C was at the foot of the mountain. In the middle, there were Districts B and D.

After everyone had a clear look at the mountain, the black robed man coldly continued, ”Before you enter the mountain, you will need to climb the Heaven Seeking Staircase. 10 steps will get you into District C. 11 to 15: District B, while climbing above 15 steps would allow you into District A. If you can’t even climb ten steps, then you can f*ck off to District D.”

The moment the black robed man finished his introduction, someone asked, ”Senior, why is the District D the worst when its height is no lower than District B?”

The black robed man coldly replied, ”Because District D is positioned at the back of a spiritual energy gathering array, and the spiritual density is extremely low. Furthermore, District D disciples get allocated the least resources. But there are advantages to District D too. At least District D is broad and vast; everyone can have space for their own backyard. So if you want to live comfortably, don’t take that 10th step.”

Everyone instantly understood. But why did they come to the Heaven Seeking Palace? To live more comfortably? All of them were the prides of their sects, why in fart’s world would they want to seek comfort in the Heaven Seeking Palace? Wouldn’t they be able to be as comfortable as they liked back in their own sects?

There’s only one goal here, that is to enter the inner sect and become a true disciple of the Heaven Seeking Palace.

Staying in a place without spiritual energy was akin to destroying their own future, much less becoming a true disciple.

Perhaps there was only one person who would think otherwise: Mo Wuji.

Mo Wuji was clear about his own situation. The amount of spiritual energy he absorbed during cultivation was crazy. Staying in a spiritual energy sparse environment might affect him, but it was still better than staying with a crowd. If he stayed in a crowd, someone would immediately notice when he starts cultivating, and even find out how absurd his absorption speed was.

Everything else was secondary, the primary thing for Mo Wuji was to avoid the crowd and have place of his own where he could cultivate and concoct his channel opening solution. As for spiritual energy, he had so many spirit stones and he was a Tier 4 Earth Pill Refiner, so what’s there to worry about?

District D was at the side of the outer sect mountain, so the flow of people was naturally lesser. Furthermore, no one would want to specially visit a spirituality sparse district. Most importantly, the area was very vast, and there were few people staying there. This was the perfect place for Mo Wuji to settle in.

So District D it is then. Of course, if everyone wasn’t able to climb more than 10 steps, then he would try to charge to somewhere higher. As long as he stayed somewhere with fewer people, that would be good enough.

”Now, all outer disciples will follow me to the Heaven Seeking Staircase. Thereafter, according to your individual results, you will choose your residences in the outer sect mountain.” With that, the black robed man turned and walked off.

Mo Wuji and co. hurriedly followed behind him, stepping onto that broad bluestone path.

As they followed the bluestone path for a little more than 10 minutes, a huge square appeared in front of everybody’s eyes. The square was on the right of the bluestone path. At the edge of the square, there was a towering statue. By the side of the statue, was a bluestone staircase extending upwards. There didn’t seem to be many steps, but as Mo Wuji looked at the top, it seemed to look very obscure.

As they followed the black robed man to the bluestone staircase next to the statue, Mo Wuji could clearly see three huge words erected by the side of the statue: Heaven Seeking Staircase.

This was the Heaven Seeking Staircase? Each step was no more than 50 centimeters tall, was it so hard climb 10 steps?

Mo Wuji wasn’t the only one thinking this, almost everyone else had similar thoughts.

The black robed man’s gaze swept across these 200 to 300 outer disciples before saying indifferently, ”Everyone will now starting climbing the Heaven Seeking Staircase. Thereafter, report to the Hall of Affairs to exchange for your a residential allocation jade token and some miscellaneous items.”

Feeling rather unsatisfied, the group of outer disciples were very eager to try their hand at the Heaven Seeking Staircase. With the black robed man’s words, they all started charging towards the staircase. Mo Wuji stayed at the back, he saw those outer disciples climbing the Heaven Seeking Staircase climbing without much difficulty, they easily climbed up to the third step.

Mo Wuji also tried stepping onto the Heaven Seeking Staircase. The instant his foot landed, a strong pressure acted against him, pushing and pulling him at the same time. However, this force was nothing much for Mo Wuji; he easily took the second step.

The pressure on the second step was two times that of the first, but it still wasn’t much for Mo Wuji.

Mo Wuji came to understand why these outer disciples’ speed was so fast. His cultivation should be the lowest here, and even he could climb to the second step easily. It must have been more of a breeze for these people.

Soon, Mo Wuji discovered that the Heaven Seeking Staircase wasn’t so simple. As he climbed the third step, he felt a pressure more than two times that of the second step. At the fourth step, it was close to four times the third step. Mo Wuji looked up the the seemingly endless staircase and understood the might of the Heaven Seeking Staircase. At the rate of increase, the higher you went, the more terrifying the pressure.

One can imagine, if one could only barely climb up the 20th step, then it would honestly be impossible to climb the 21st step. Under this rapid increase in pressure, simply pushing yourself would not work.

As Mo Wuji climbed the 6th step, the majority of cultivators had already reached the 10th step.

Even though it was still easy for Mo Wuji, for the sake of not climbing the 10th step, he acted as though he was getting out of breath.

As he climbed the 7th step, he found that he was the only one left. Even the weakest one had already reached the 8th step. A few of the stronger cultivators had even passed the 15th step and made their way into the 16th step.

At the 8th step, Mo Wuji truly felt an intense pressure. He needed to start putting in some effort.

Mo Wuji did not continue to climb the 9th step but looked up. He estimated that he should not have any problems reaching the 13th step. But to reach the 15th step did not look likely. As he looked up, he saw that most of the cultivators were already pressed as they passed the 10th step.

Close to two hours passed. Except for the rare few who were struggling to push themselves up, a majority of the cultivators stopped at where they were. Many of them tries to force themselves up, only to roll back down.

Mo Wuji looked around and noticed that there were only 18 others who were below the 10th step. Only one of them was at the 8th step with him. The other 17 were all on the 9th step.

The black robed man cried aloud, ”Time’s up. Everyone is to record down your own results, then report it to the sect’s outer sect Hall of Affairs for your residences. Learn from this lesson, and treat the top of the Heaven Seeking Staircase as your target.”