Path of the Ascendant

Thankfully, this technique did not come with the front seat for the physical partnership between a man and a woman, but instead included the process of first discovering and practising it. Most curiously, it also included a glimpse of Lord Meng’s cultivation technique, and it was both simpler and more unusual than Yi Wei had expected.

For one, it was not of the lighting element as some had assumed. Instead, it was a dual technique – a technique of fire and metal. Together, it formed something akin to lightning, but far inferior. Despite that, it was the only cultivation method suitable for practising any of the Thunder Lord’s legendary techniques. Or, at the very least, that is what she found upon attempting to practise it purely using fire or metal planar energy.

When she used a wisp of her planar energy instead, there was no issue whatsoever. Thus, despite the fact that she had never studied a dual technique, Yi Wei had no difficulty in applying her limited understanding of the Storm Blade Wreathing Technique.

That discovery did not assist her when it came to conjuring a weapon to apply it to, however. She almost returned to ignoring memories, like the lewd ones from before, when she spotted something.

An attempt by a younger Seventh of Meng to apply his technique not to his famous blade, but to his own hand. In the memory, he was fighting against a blurry opponent without access to a weapon, so he did the only thing he could think of and recklessly infused his fingers and palm with the power of storm, resulting in a narrow victory for him.

‘It did also do significant harm to his hand, preventing him from using it properly for over four years, but… I have my Condensed Formation Body, my planar energy that is already able to condense into a liquid using the Elysian Palm, and its reinforcing properties. Even if it doesn’t work out, I have to attempt it,’ she concluded, browsing through the scroll for a second time to be sure that she got all of the important details memorised correctly.

With that, and every other combat technique in mind, she gathered her planar energy at her hand. Drawing upon her experience with the Elysian Palm, Yi Wei siphoned it out in a stable form to surround her skin, assembling it in a form that would then allow it to be transformed into lightning.

In a way, it was like constructing an array, as there was no chance of her performing a technique meant for a far higher realm without one. Luckily, she had plenty of experience.

‘If only the rest of my so-called experience could have been transformed into something useful like this. Rather, if I ever have the misfortune of acquiring someone’s memories again, I should make sure that they’re a woman who doesn’t mix business with pleasure, so to speak,’ she still complained internally, though she stopped rather quickly – it was important to focus.

The construction of the planar energy array was complete without too many bells or whistles, but it was clear that it wouldn’t be able to remain in place for long. Even with external force, she was not in the Planar Pool realm, and so her energy was insufficiently powerful to resist the planar energy of the world. She held her hand as far away from herself as possible, just in case she made a mistake somewhere in the process, and active the Storm Blade Wreathing Technique.

The violet planar energy, disguised by a thin layer of earth-type energy, burst into a sharp silvery flame and suddenly exploded, temporarily blinding her.

As her vision was returning, she heard crackling in front of her, and the occasional glimpse of light.

 

Great Light had completely given up on reacting, so he simply muttered, “What is this? Why is a first realm cultivator performing a technique of the fourth realm? What…”

“No, that isn’t quite it. He created the base for the technique… and then activated it to allow himself to use it without the ability to rapidly manipulate planar energy outside of the body… Though, the technique is very high-grade…”

 

It succeeded, albeit barely. The only cost to herself was a large quantity of energy, and light burns both on her glove and hand.

Since the version of the technique she executed would only last a minute, Yi Wei needed to get as much understanding of it in that time as was possible. First, she familiarised herself with the ability to manipulate the shape of the lightning wreathing to transform the tight layer into a short blade emerging from one of her fingers.

That took a few seconds, after which she spent a few more to observe its limits, as well as how it affected her movement. Despite not using any metal planar energy, she still felt as if her movements from the arm up were faster, enough to create a major advantage in any battle on relatively even odds. Perhaps even more important was the fact that this technique could be merged into all forms of unarmed techniques, and that they could be integrated into the Storm Blade Wreathing Technique. In other words, it meant that she could any technique she knew, with or without a weapon.

‘I guess I can revise my policy on weapon techniques, though I should really do so after I make good use of the time I have,’ she thought, waving aside the less relevant topics.

Three quarters of her time were still remaining, so she began to practise her combat skills, beginning with the one she was most familiar with – Gentle Breeze Fist. Having reached Great Stride with it some time ago, before the mysterious characters within her dantian awoke, it was no challenge to use it both as a weapon skill, and a finger technique.

Then, she moved on to her more recent acquisitions: Elysian Palm, Scarlet Metal Strike and Sinking Finger, which is a technique she had memorised when she happened to be in the perfect place to read it alongside a superior member of the family.

Once she had gotten through a basic use of every technique, there were still a few seconds left, so Yi Wei decided to see what she could do at her full strength.

She moulded the lightning into a blade atop her fist and channelled a vast quantity of her remaining energy into it. Her skin burned, turning bright red in the brief moment that her hand had to endure that enormous quantity and quality of power, and then, as if she had called down the heavens, it happened.

A storm of golden lightning burst from her hand, forming a far larger blade. Violet lightning, almost seeming to be a portal into the distant skies, full of nebulae and stars, entwined with the gold, creating a cacophony of colour and sound, akin to entering the very depths of a thunderstorm or the tribulation clouds of a Daoist cultivator. In fact, the destructiveness soon matched one as well, as the condensed mixture of thunder and storm exploded.

 

Outside the pagoda of the Deadly Martial Colosseum, near an adjacent administrative building, Yi Yaling was waiting for her father, who worked in a management position within this particular combat arena.

After her encounter with the strange woman in the library, she decided to go back to the basics, and spent some time browsing the low-grade techniques of various types. Unfortunately, she didn’t see the woman from before, or else she would have made sure to inquire regarding every somewhat difficult technique on the entire floor.

‘Come to think of it, I didn’t get her name,’ she thought, waiting in front of the door to be allowed inside, ‘I should make sure to display my gratitude properly the next time I see her.’

For whatever reason, she glanced at the pagoda to her side, when it exploded.

A storm of lightning burst out of the fifth floor, a mixture of gold and violet dyeing the sky in an instant. It expanded to cover a massive area above the compound, as if it was a cloud sent down from the heavens. From within came rumbling and crackling, loud and ominous.

She wasn’t sure exactly what caused it, but Yi Yaling felt her legs getting weaker with every second. Something within that storm cloud radiated immense danger, causing her to feel an extreme pressure of dread, threatening to cease her breathing completely. Although she could not understand what could possibly cause such a phenomenon, she did know, without a doubt, that if she had been caught up within that tempest, she would have been obliterated in an instant.

And yet, that very instant, the lightning vanished. The broken side of the pagoda vanished, replaced by its pristine original form.

‘W-what was that?’ she either thought or muttered – she herself was unsure of which it was – and collapsed onto her knees, feeling her entire body shaking with fear. Her clothes stuck to her tightly. Clearly, she had also sweated heavily during the ordeal.

‘Huh. I… I didn’t even notice… hehe…’

 

“The formation array is repaired… The lightning is dissipating slowly…” Great Dark said, their eyes focused on the floating, glowing array composed of their own earthly planar energy, “I will dismiss any reports with the claim… that it was a mistake with the illusory reality array.”

“It was clear that it wasn’t fake even all the way down here! Do you really think anyone would believe that?”

“They’d have to… Our group is too powerful to be ignored…”

“True. Then, what about that madman within the pagoda? Surely, something of that magnitude would have torn his arm apart?”

“Only his clothes are damaged… he has thin arms…”

 

Yi Wei’s left arm was covered in burns and scars from the lightning, but her flesh and muscle were unharmed. She wriggled her fingers for them to recover their sense of touch and ripped off some of her robe’s spare cloth to wrap it around her exposed arm.

‘Good thing that didn’t spread all the way to my chest, or else ‘those two’, whoever they are, would certainly notice something, even if they haven’t already,’ she thought, bandaging her scorched arm with a long strip of black cloth, ‘However, the fact that my Elysian Palm was this effective in combination with the Storm Blade Wreathing is truly remarkable. I don’t know how much my particular planar energy changed its effectiveness, but that technique is probably why the Thunder Lord was considered to be such a mighty warrior.’

She glanced over to where the scroll with the skill was previously floating, but it had vanished since she had last seen it. In fact, even the marks from her fight with the Seventh of Meng were gone.

‘Did my attack damage the illusory array?’ she understood quickly, noticing that the dust on the floor only showed her most recent footprints.

Since she had expended most of her energy and had no more access to the scroll, she calmed her breathing and circulated her planar energy to the parts of her arm that were covered up, to calm the unpleasant feeling the burns were causing.

Like that, she waited, and waited, but no notice from above came.

Eventually, she just decided to ask the darkness above her, “Is this floor over, or are you letting me recuperate until the next challenge?”

There was a slight delay in the response, and even then, it was the least sure it sounded since the first message from the slightly odd version of the voice, “Please proceed to the sixth floor.”

Yi Wei nodded, feeling the restriction on her planar energy recovery be lifted immediately after. Since she would most certainly need it on the upper floors, regardless of the challenges posed to her, she made sure to walk slowly up each step, taking her precious time to breathe in some more energy before ascending further.

The sixth floor was the most different in appearance so far. Where the other floors had a simple, wooden surface, and a black void surrounding everything, this floor was a complete room with five sides and five tables beside each wall. On each table lay an item that represented a great art: a pill furnace, an array, an anvil, an inscription blade and a talisman brush and ink. Even before the voice of the pagoda had a chance to speak, it was clear what the theme of the next challenge would be.

“Sixth floor: profession challenge. Solve a challenge involving each art. Success in three or more is required to proceed. Success in all five will grant a reward.”

Her expression soured. Having completed five floors almost perfectly, she wasn’t too excited about failing this one. However, she knew that unless the challenges for pill forging and engraving were incredibly trivial, or were purely testing her physical and cultivation strength, there would be no possibility of her earning the reward from completing all five. This was especially frustrating as the last reward was an incredibly powerful technique.

‘Well, I’ve had decent enough luck earlier, so perhaps it will continue in this task,’ she hoped, and proceeded to the table with the array. Out of all of the great arts, this was the one she was most compatible with after her dantian was cleansed.

She reached out and touched the formation array, which she recognised as a two-star array, the Restraining Phantoms Array.

Upon that touch, her vision blurred, and she saw scores of humanoid phantoms charging at her, each with their arms outstretched, ready to grab her and ensnare her within their eternal embrace. Some were only bones, but others were half-rotten, with scraps of skin hanging off their long-forgotten bones and desiccated muscles.

In that moment, before she had a chance to process what was happening, her body had already acted.

Planar energy surged to her bandaged hand, and she thrust it forward, unleashing an Elysian Palm onto the horde of fiends around her. In a flash of light, they were thrown away, and then – the world around her cracked.

It collapsed the next second, and Yi Wei found herself within the same five-sided room as before. The miniature array on the table was broken into a dozen small pieces, and the surface was melting.

‘… Eh? That… that was a two-star array, wasn’t it? My attack… destroyed such an array?’

“Formation array challenge complete. Four out of five remaining.”

And yet, no matter how strange it was to break a two-star array in a single hit in the weakest realm of cultivation, there was no evidence to the contrary. Some part of her technique was able to forcefully collapse an array with a single, careless hit.

 

“That is the case, then.”

“Indeed. Though it had not affected the Thunder Lord’s technique due to his significantly higher cultivation and skill, this Elysian Palm does indeed have the power of disrupting the planar energy around it, which seems to include breaking arrays,” Great Light nodded, “I swear, that man can’t be from around here, or else his family would already be ruling the district.”

“And if it is part of the inheritance?”

“Even though the stories regarding him have obviously been embellished to some extent, I have never heard of an Elysian Palm, nor an undetectable body cultivation method, nor the ability to summon the equivalent of tribulation lightning at a realm in which one is meant to be unable to externalise their energy,” they stated, “And on the topic of that attack, it was also not part of Lord Meng’s inheritance, nor had there ever been a rumour of him bringing down such power upon even the worst of his enemies.”

“Are you suggesting… that he creates his own techniques?”

“It is, unfortunately, a good possibility. To modify a technique within a minute of learning it… is terrifying. Never tell him that I attacked him first, understand?”

“…”

 

Since the first challenge ended a little unexpectedly, Yi Wei moved on to the talisman table. Talisman crafting was the second most compatible art for her, so it was only natural to get it over with before moving onto the true challenges.

As soon as her finger pressed against the brush, she felt the room change around her. The other four walls vanished, and all that remained was the fifth of the room with the talisman crafting kit carefully laid out on the table. However, it was now far further away than before, and a new piece of talisman paper appeared beside the ink where it hadn’t been a moment prior.

Soon after that, the darkness between her and the wall cleared, and the trial revealed itself.

In the space between them was a large pit, seemingly stretching infinitely into the depths. Four platforms hovered within even intervals of one another, and atop each was a different collection of objects, items and features.

The gap between each platform, including the final one and the one she stood on, was far too large to be cleared by someone of her realm.

Floating in the air beside her were five stacks of talismans, each stack containing three talismans each. They were, from left to right: Flaming Slash, Air Platform, Earthen Shard, Water Push and the Wooden Tendril Talisman. In combination with the floating platforms full of materials and the pit, it was all too clear what the challenge intended her to do.

‘Can’t I just… jump over with the Air Platforms and Water Push Talismans?’ she wondered almost immediately after setting her eyes upon those two.

 

“As he might have observed… the challenges are not meant to be purely relating to one’s ability in using that art… they are meant to find the most capable… the most interesting warriors for our Deadly Martial Colosseum, and-”

“Are you able to talk any slower? If you want to reiterate what you’ve said a dozen times, I can do the exact same thing a hundred times faster,” interrupted Great Light, striking the position of an ancient expert, with their arms behind their back and their head raised, before continuing, “The warriors of the Deadly Martial Colosseum have to be smart, strong and interesting to watch, whether in combat to the death or a peaceful sparring match. So long as they are able to win, it is irrelevant how they do so.”

 

In one hand, Yi Wei held the Water Push Talisman, and the Air Platform Talisman in the other.

She had done some quick calculations and figured out that the six talismans were just barely enough for her to successfully cross the bottomless pit… as long as she made use of a few other personal tricks.

When she was putting together her Condensed Formation Body, she had thrown in literally every body technique she could find, with the exceptions of those that wouldn’t work with her body no matter how skilled she was with arrays (the Yang Concentrated Body being one such example, although she also made sure to remove the potential side effects from the likes of the Bovine Stomach Skill, to ensure that her body was able to finish developing on its own). As a result, she had accumulated quite a number of abilities that she hadn’t had the chance to use yet. Most were rather minor, as the effect of any basic cultivation art was bound to be, but the inadequacy in her strategy only needed a minor effect to correct it.

Breathing out slowly, she crouched down, sending all of her energy to her legs. Her muscles tensed to their absolute limit, and then, she leapt up.

Her motion was directed upwards, so she flew upward at an impressive speed. In just a few seconds, she got so far up that the black fog completely covered the platform she was previously on, and she had only stopped moving once any sign of the array challenge was out of view. Once her momentum began to slow, she threw out one Air Platform Talisman.

It created a thin square of solid air behind her, at a 45-degree angle. Yi Wei landed on it, and before it dissipated, she launched off of it again. Now heading slightly further towards the other side of the pit, she flew even further upward, with the darkness growing ever denser.

 

“Clever…”

“Do you not get tired of saying tha- is he using another Storm Blade Wreathing? F-”

 

While performing her second jump, Yi Wei also began to assemble the structure of the Storm Blade Wreathing Technique on the hand that held the Water Push Talismans. It required quite a long time to prepare, so by the time she reached the peak of the second jump, it was only half-way done.

As soon as her ascent stopped, she threw out the last Air Platform, and leapt off it diagonally.

The technique was complete at the peak of her last jump, so she turned in mid-air, stretched out her arm and activated Storm Blade Wreathing and Elysian Palm while channelling both into the Water Push Talisman. A second after, the talisman exploded in a flare of gold and purple, releasing a geyser of water propelled Yi Wei in the direction of the other side of the pit.

The water’s immense force threatened to tear her arm off, containing the energy of a Planar Pool cultivator mixed with two incredible techniques that vastly increased its power, but that power also brought her an impressive momentum, and as she slowly lost her altitude, she noticed that she was over the first platform, and moving towards the second.

A single talisman would last only fifteen seconds, so she was be able to use all three within the duration of the Storm Blade Wreathing.

Despite her best efforts, however, she was still heading for the middle of the pit between the last platform and the other side. This was slightly better than her estimate, so she smiled and turned back around to face her destination.

Her planar energy coursed to one of the dantian shards within her body and filled in the shape of a technique diagram. Upon the completion of the last line, it was about to ignite, but a moment prior a tendril of lightning sunk into it, changing the colour of the planar energy to gold and purple. The next moment, it burst out of her body, splitting into two strands that both formed an illusory wing each, one luminous and the other dark.

They crashed into the air, ceasing her fall in an instant. It transformed into an unsteady glide instead, all for only a few seconds before the wings burst into nothingness, leaving behind only two charred holes in Yi Wei’s clothes and burn marks on the skin where the wings connected to her bones.

This brought her forward, just enough to put her within reach of the edge of the other side. Despite that, she still had one more element of her body technique to try out. With her empty hand, she raised her mask slightly and sent a gust of planar energy to her neck, mouth and the nearby dantian shard before inhaling loudly.

After her lungs filled, the effect borrowed from the Floating Whale Lungs skill activated – the stream of air transformed into a gust so powerful that it grew to encompass her whole body and lifted her by the sheer force of the wind.

That brought her up and allowed for an easy descent onto the cliff on the other side.

When her feet touched the ground, the challenge vanished from sight, and she found herself back in the original room. The talismans that she did not take were gone, and the table which initially held a bottle of ink and a brush was now empty. Unfortunately, the new damage in her clothes remained, much to Yi Wei’s annoyance.

‘Since I’m not too sure which array I’m in, I don’t know if it is possible to regenerate my state with each stage, but if this keeps going, I’ll be facing the final floor in the nude,’ she considered.

“Talisman challenge complete. Three out of five remaining.”

Now, what remained were the pill refining, engraving and blacksmithing challenges.