Alex stepped into the swordy trial, and the first bout hit him like a cold p.
One moment he stood among the gathered disciples on Sword Peak; the next, the world blurred and he found himself alone in a wide stone arena under a pale sky.
A figure shimmered into existence across from him—a young disciple gripping a wooden sword. The attacker came on without hesitation, de shing in a simple, textbook arc from the Wudang basics.
Alex''s pulse quickened. He had trained these same forms for years. He saw the opening before the strike even finished its path: the slight drop of the elbow, the overextended shoulder.
His own wooden sword snapped up, parried cleanly, and drove forward in a crisp counter. Wood cracked against wood. The disciple staggered and dissolved into light.
Ten points shed in front of his eyes.
He allowed himself a tight smile. So that was how it worked.
Every victory added ten points. Every loss would strip them away just as fast. As long as the tally stayed positive, the trials would keeping.
Most of the early opponents relied on the same foundational Wudang swordy. Alex moved through them with growing confidence, each win sharpening his focus.
The forms grew more intricate the higher he climbed angles tightened, feints multiplied, footwork turned slippery and deceptive. Yet the core truth never changed.
"This is pure technique," he murmured, half to himself. "No inner force, no raw power. Just speed, timing, and understanding."
The realization settled over him like a quiet thrill.
Gaia had already begun its work in the background of his vision: analyzing every iing strike, tracing faint red lines across the air to mark the perfect counter.
Alex didn''t need to think; he only had to feel the logic behind each glowing path, let his body follow, and learn why that line existed. It turned the fight into something almost beautiful-a dance of prediction and response.
He cut down opponent after opponent. The counter in the corner of his sight rolled upward steadily.
Two digits. Then three. The arena never emptied; the next disciple simply appeared the instant thest one vanished.
Outside the testing array, on the stone terraces of Sword Peak, the crowd had fallen silent.
At first they hadughed when Alex''s name appeared at the very bottom of the ranking stone—ten-thousand-and-something, a nobody from the outer sect daring the trial.
Now that same name climbed the list without pause, passing rank after rank like a spark racing up dry tinder.
Lu Piao''s voice cut through the hush, bright with excitement. "Look-our big brother! He just shot from ten thousand to five thousand. That fast!"
Kuang Liang let out a short, scornfulugh. “Any outer disciple who''s spent a month on Sword Peak could reach five thousand. Nothing shocking about it."
"Yeah," another disciple added quickly, folding his arms. "I''m sitting at three thousand myself. Five thousand doesn''t mean a thing."
"It''s nothing," one of them muttered.
"Exactly," another agreed.
They kept watching the ranking stone while they talked, voices still easy and dismissive. But even as the words left their lips, Alex''s name continued its steady climb. It had already reached the three-thousand mark.
A disciple from Thousand Herbs Peak nced over. "Is getting to the three- thousand rank really that easy?"
"Of course," a Sword Peak outer disciple answered with a shortugh. "Even I could reach it without much trouble."
Inside, though, a flicker of panic stirred in his chest. He had spent more than ten years as an outer disciple on this very peak and had never managed to climb above the four-thousand line.
The sword trial grew merciless the higher you went each new opponent sharper, faster, more unforgiving. Even the elders still tested themselves against the Sword Stone when they wanted a true challenge.
Elder Guo stood a short distance away, watching the exchange in silence. He understood now that pressing the issue would change nothing.
These Sword Peak disciples were too proud, too convinced of their own superiority, to ever admit they might be wrong.
No amount of proof would make them acknowledge a mistake.
Besides, he could not punish them without stirring up serious trouble—especially with Jun Jiu involved. The whole effort had be pointless.
He had already turned to leave for the Discipline Department Peak when a ripple of shock ran through the crowd.
“Impossible!” someone cried out. "Alex has already passed the two-thousand rank!” Kuang Liang and the rest of the Sword Peak disciples fell instantly silent.
On this peak, crossing the two-thousand line meant everything. It marked the divide between outer and inner disciples—the invisible barrier that separated the ordinary from the elite. In a single leap, Alex had now surpassed every outer disciple on Sword Peak.
"Wait," another voice broke in, tight with disbelief. "He''s already reached the one- thousand rank. How is he moving this fast?"
"Is the Sword Peak trial supposed to be that easy?" someone else asked, confusion thick in his tone.
They had all seen how smoothly Alex advanced, as if the test itself bent to his will.
Nearby, a disciple from another peak stepped forward, medallion in hand, and pressed it firmly against the sword-testing stone. He needed to see the truth for himself.
A few minutester, one disciple staggered out of the sword-testing array, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Damn," he growled. "How the hell is it so hard to pass?"
More followed, each one emerging with the same bitterint, their shoulders slumped in defeat.
"Look!" Lu Piao called, his voice cutting through the murmurs and pulling every eye back to the ranking stone. "Our big brother just passed the five-hundred rank!"
The blood drained from every Sword Peak face.
No one had ever heard of a neer breaking the five-hundred mark on their first attempt. That alone thrust Alex straight into the upper tier of inner disciples.
Kuang Lian stood at the absolute peak of Sword Peak''s inner sect—the favored direct student of the peak leaders and the one they called a genius born once in a thousand years.
With their full support behind him, he had fought his way to rank twenty-five. That was the only reason he could speak with such practiced scorn.
"Five hundred might sound impressive," he said loudly, the sneer sharp enough to cut. “But I''m already sitting at twenty-five. What''s so special about five hundred?"
The wordsnded t. Every Sword Peak disciple knew the truth he tried to bury: Kuang Lian had needed a full century of brutal effort to reach that rank. His cultivation had long stace advanced to the great Foundation Establishment stage. Alex, byparison, stil operated at the Great Qi Condensation level.
Inside the array, the test had grown sharper. The holographic opponents now moved
with lethal grace, threading faint currents of inner force into every strike.
"This test is incredible," Alex said under his breath, genuine admiration warming his tone. “They''re using the smallest possible amount of inner force to create the greatest possible effect."
"Gaia, you need to study this."
"Yes, Master "Gaia answered calmly inside his mind. "I''m recording every detail. I can already iste the exact quantity of force and the precise acupoints they''re channeling through. I''llpile it all for you to learnter."
"Good,” Alex said, a quiet spark of satisfaction lighting his chest.
The swordy trial turned out to be far more than a simple test of skill.
It was a hidden treasure of the peak, quietly recording every strike, every parry, every flicker of inner force so it could teach anyone brave enough to step inside. With Gaia capturing every detail, Alex''s knowledge of swordy and inner force grew by the second.
He absorbed lessons faster than he could have imagined, turning each bout into a master ss.
Time stretched inside the array. The higher the ranks climbed, the longer each fightsted.
A few times he let himself lose on purpose, studying the exact mistake before stepping back in sharper and more focused than before.
Outside on the terraces of Sword Peak, a futt day had slipped past. Still no onedeft. If anything, the crowd had only grown, disciples from every peak pressing shoulder to shoulder around the great ranking stone.
“He''s already at rank twenty-seven," Lu Piao called out, loud enough for the whole gathering to hear.
"And I remember Senior Kuang Liang saying he was one of Sword Peak''s top students at rank twenty-five. I''m opening bets right now—will our big brother pass him or not?"
The Sword Peak disciples exploded.
“Impossible!” one of them shouted. “No one from Thousand Herbs Peak could ever cross that line!"
"Yeah!" others roared in agreement.
But the Thousand Herbs disciples answered just as fiercely. "Big brother won''t just pass rank twenty-five-he''s going all the way to first ce!" "Impossible," the Sword Peak group snarled back. "There''s no way someone from Thousand Herbs could ever im the top rank on our peak."
"Our big brother is special," a Thousand Herbs disciple fired back, voice sharp with pride. "And your Sword Peak? Weak."
"You dare call us weak!" a Sword Peak outer disciple bellowed, face twisting with
rage.
"What? Can''t handle the truth?" the other taunted. "You think your peak is the best
in the whole sect? You''ll be kneeling before my swordy soon enough."
"You dare—!”
No one saw who threw the first punch.
In the next breath the terraces erupted into chaos-fists swinging, shoulders
shoving, bodies mming together as disciples from the rival peaks crashed into one another.
"Stop this at once!" an elder from Sword Peak shouted, wading in alongside several others from different peaks.
They grabbed arms and pulled fighters apart, but the brawl had already taken on a
life of its own. No one listened.
Then a single voice cut through the noise like a de.
"Look at the ranking stone!"
The fighting stuttered and died. Every head turned.
A heavy silence dropped over the entire area.
What they saw was impossible.
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