The air surrounding the gate didn't just feel heavy; it felt viscous, like wading through invisible mire. Elder Karl stood atop a hovering stone platform, his hermit rags fluttering despite the lack of wind. His eyes, milky white and devoid of pupils, scanned the sea of thousands below.
"The Myriad School does not seek the strong," Karl's voice boomed, vibrating in the marrow of Vincy's bones. "Strength can be built. We seek the Will. If your soul is brittle, your cultivation will shatter at the first sign of tribulation."
With a casual wave of his hand, the massive gate behind him groaned open. Instead of a courtyard, it revealed a staircase of pure white jade that climbed steeply into the clouds, seemingly disappearing into the heavens.
"The First Trial: The Stairway of Mortal Shedding," Karl announced. "Three thousand steps. Reach the top before sunset, and you become a Sect Student. Reach it in three hours, and you earn the rank of Outer Disciple. The first ten to finish... well, let us see if any of you have the destiny for the Inner Court."
The crowd surged forward. Vincy, caught in the middle of the throng, felt a strange, tingling heat in his heels. As soon as his foot touched the first jade step, a massive weight slammed onto his shoulders. It wasn't physical weight—it felt as if his very spirit were being pressed into the earth.
"Pathetic," a whisper echoed.
Vincy froze, looking left and right. "Who said that?" he muttered, but the applicants around him were too busy gasping for air, their faces turning the same ashen color he had seen on himself in the cave.
He took another step. Then another. To his bewilderment, the "weight" that made others stumble seemed to slide off him like water off an oilcloth. While noble sons in silk robes were already crawling by the 50th step, their lungs wheezing, Vincy found himself jogging.
"Keep your breathing rhythmic, you bumbling brat. Sink the Qi into your lower dantian, don't let it scatter to your head."
The voice was crisp, arrogant, and strangely familiar. Vincy clutched his temples. "I'm going crazy. The heat... it's the heat."
"It is not the heat, it is your ignorance," the voice snapped back, sharper this time. "You are currently using the 'Cloud-Step' movement of the Royal Lineage. If you keep running like a panicked rabbit, you'll reveal our presence to that old crow on the platform. Slow down!"
Vincy's heart hammered against his ribs. He realized with a jolt of terror that he was already at the 500th step. He turned around; the rest of the crowd looked like tiny ants far below. Only a handful of people—mostly those with expensive-looking swords and glowing talons—were anywhere near him.
His sudden burst of speed had not gone unnoticed. A few steps ahead, a young man with hair tied in a golden crown turned back. This was Kaelen of the Great River Clan, a favorite to become a Successor. Kaelen's face twisted in disgust as he saw Vincy—a dusty, plain-looking youth in rags—effortlessly gaining ground.
"A peasant using a forbidden stimulant?" Kaelen sneered, his voice strained by the pressure of the stairs. "You dare foul these steps with your gutter-born tricks?"
Kaelen lashed out with a backhand, a gust of concentrated wind pressure flying toward Vincy's chest. It was a strike meant to send him tumbling back down the mountain.
Vincy's eyes widened. He didn't know how to fight. He didn't know magic. But as the wind hit him, his body moved on its own. He twisted mid-air, his spine supple as a serpent, and his hand shot out—not to block, but to catch the wind.
The air hissed. The wind pressure didn't explode; it simply... vanished into Vincy's palm.
"Tsk," the voice in his head muttered. "I told you to be subtle. Now you've gone and eaten his spell. How are you going to explain that, Vincy Sparrow?"
Vincy stared at his own hand, which was now glowing with a faint, ghostly blue light. He looked up at the horrified Kaelen, then at the distant Elder Karl, who had narrowed his milky eyes.
He wasn't just a village boy anymore. He was a vessel for something that could set the world on fire.