Chapter Thirteen: Climbing to Heaven

  At noon, the two Golden Dan True Immortals of the Tianxuan Sect, who had been sitting in meditation, stood up and slowly rose into mid-air. One of them spoke out loud: "Those who did not pass this test, please return for now. In 50 years, the Cultivation Realm will hold an Ascension Conference. If you still have aspirations to join our sect, you can participate in the Ascension Conference at that time and obtain an ascension quota. We will welcome your joining then."

  Anyone who is not a loose cultivator or a disciple of a cultivation family can participate in the Immortal Ascension Conference, as long as they are under 100 years old and have achieved a foundation. Those who failed this test are either without spiritual roots or have very poor spiritual root qualifications. If you fail this test, it's basically impossible to pin your hopes on the exceptionally brutal Immortal Ascension Conference 50 years later.

  Most of the untested people were disheartened, only a small number of people were excited and eager to make a name for themselves at the Ascension Conference 50 years later.

  There were still tens of thousands of people left on the scene, and the accompanying personnel had been driven away at the end of the test. Huang Luoxue woke up more than an hour ago and received many envious, jealous and hateful glances. For a time, even Bing Xiaomei couldn't maintain her usual calmness, fortunately Liu Zhangmen quickly took her to the main hall.

  Wang Zhenren waved his long sleeve in mid-air, and countless white jade tokens flew into the hands of the crowd, one for each person, without a single mistake.

  "Each of you will receive one jade token, please keep it safe. Later, I will send you up the heavenly ladder, and those who can reach the top before sunset with their jade tokens intact will pass. If anyone gives up along the way for any reason, they can throw away their jade token, at which point they will be automatically transported out."

  After finishing speaking, Wang Zhenren swung his long sleeve again, and a strong gust of wind suddenly rose, lifting everyone gently to the first step of the green stone stairs in front of the upper gate.

  This stone ladder is the ladder to heaven, named with the implication of ascending to heaven in one step. As long as you climb to the top of this ladder, you can enter the door to cultivate your true self, and for most ordinary people, it's really a matter of ascending to heaven in one step.

  There are 10,000 steps to climb to heaven, the whole journey is 5000 meters. Looking up, it's like a sword inserted into the clouds. The stone step surface is only 5 meters wide, but standing on the step, you can see that the entire step surface extends left and right for 5 kilometers, and many people stand in between without feeling crowded.

  Beforehand, the elder at home had specially explained to Luo Yu and others that this Heavenly Ladder was a top-grade treasure refined by the ancestor of the Tianxuan Sect, specifically for selecting disciples within the sect. Normally, it was just used as an ordinary stone ladder, only activated during major selections, where one's entire cultivation would be reset to zero upon entry, with other mysterious uses. Moreover, he repeatedly instructed everyone to cooperate closely when climbing the Heavenly Ladder, without any gaps.

  The children of the big family were strictly educated, they would not dare to do anything that would harm their own people in public. So Luo Yu was not worried about her family members causing trouble, and besides, she had her brother to protect her. The crowd on the stone steps, some looked around in confusion, while others had already started running up.

  The ten members of the Huang family stood together in a group, with the four strongest cultivators standing at the four corners and the weaker ones in the middle. They walked forward together, neither too fast nor too slow. This was all planned before they came.

  Luo Yu and the others climbed for less than half a time, and found that on the stone ladder, they discovered a scene. It turned out that some big kids were bullying smaller ones, or a group of people were bullying someone who was alone, forcing the weak to throw away their jade tokens, and if anyone refused, they would beat them up.

  At that moment, everyone was in danger. Some clever ones quickly formed teams or desperately ran forward to avoid this disaster, but there were still those who couldn't outrun it. Those targeted either resolutely threw out their jade tokens and teleported away, or refused to yield until they were beaten to a pulp and finally had no choice but to throw out their jade tokens. Some even wagged their tails and begged to join the strong teams, truly displaying all sorts of human nature.

  Those who started running up the stairs from the beginning are already out of sight, it can be seen that they had anticipated this situation early on.

  Watching all this commotion, Luo Yu saw the cruelty of the Xiuzhen world for the first time.

  In the Xiu Zhen world, the weak are preyed upon by the strong. To succeed, one must have innate talent, actual strength and good fortune, and also know how to gauge the situation and take advantage of opportunities.

  Luo Yu first solidified his determination to become stronger. Only by becoming strong himself could he truly control his own destiny.

  In just two short moments, the stone stairs had lost a third of its people. During this time, Luo Yu and the Huang family members did not receive any impact. Some fierce-looking individuals glanced at them, but seeing that there were over 10 of them, with the oldest being 15 years old and the youngest being 5 years old, all of whom had extraordinary temperament and wore clothes and accessories that were not ordinary, they knew that they were from a cultivator family with considerable power. They might even have someone protecting them within the Tian Xuan Sect, so it was best to avoid them. With that thought, those individuals turned their heads away, no longer paying attention to them.

  These people were just preparing to clean up some of the weaker competitors and didn't dare offend those strong ones or the cultivator families, of course, the smaller families were not included. Among them, there were even people who saw the Huang family crowd surrounding Luo Xue when she suddenly enlightened, they didn't dare come forward to provoke her, only hoping that everyone would live in peace.

  At that time, Huang Luo Yi asked for help from an 8-year-old boy, but was refused by the leader's brother Huang Zi Qiang, and everyone else remained silent.

  Huang Luo Yi's eyes were brimming with tears as she looked at Huang Zi Qiang: "Second brother, if we don't save him now, he'll be beaten to death by those few men."

  "He won't die, as long as he throws out the jade token, he will be transmitted away." Huang Zi Qiang explained helplessly.

  "If we save him, it means those few people will become sworn enemies."

  "Let's just settle the score! We're not like we can't beat them, and they might not even dare to offend us. I'll just save him and leave." Huang Luo Yi continued to beg, tugging on Er Ge's sleeve.

  "No way! Even if we can win a fight, we can't afford to fight. What if they get anxious and hurt one of us? Is that little brat more important or are our own brothers and sisters more important?" Huang Ziqiang was also anxious, pulling out his sleeves which had been pulled up.

  "Even if nothing happens to us, what about others who are bullied and come seeking protection? Are we going to save them or not? If we do, we may not necessarily get a good outcome; if we don't, we might offend those who sought our help."

  Who is this child?

  Luo Yu looked at the boy wearing a coarse linen shirt, his face was dark, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, his thin lips were stained with blood, he was curled up on the ground being kicked by five or six fourteen or fifteen year old boys.

  Luo Yu furrowed her brow, feeling a bit reluctant. But just as Huang Zi Qiang had analyzed, they couldn't put themselves in danger for the sake of this unrelated person, especially when she was the weakest among them. Yet why did the proud Huang Luo Yi insist on saving this ordinary-looking boy?

  At this time, the boy couldn't withstand the violent beating. Moreover, with such severe injuries, he could no longer climb the stairs. He had to throw away the jade token. A transmission light flashed, and as the boy was being transmitted, he turned his head to glance at the five people. His eyes were sinister and cruel, he wanted to remember these five people, today's hatred would be repaid tenfold in the future!

  "What a cruel man!"

  This sentence echoed in the hearts of Luo Yu and those five people at the same time.

  The five of them regretted it in their hearts, wishing they had never provoked this person. Now they had made a great enemy, and if only they had known earlier, they would have taken care of him once and for all. At worst, the five brothers could have left the Tianxuan Sect to become wandering cultivators. But now it was too late, and they could only hope to find him one day and kill him to avenge their brother's death, for when one side is dead, the feud would no longer exist.

  The five of them left in a huff, going off to find other targets. As they departed, they still gave Luo Yu and the others a glance.

  It seems they overheard Huang's conversation with others.

  Everyone dispersed, Huang Luo Yi secretly hated in her heart, "Such a good move was not made!" She glared fiercely at Huang Zi Qiang, then swept her eyes over the other members of the Huang family.

  Huang Ziqiang didn't say a word, just urging everyone to hurry up and climb.

  It's such a high peak, it'll be quite a climb!