Kaelen's jaw didn't just drop; it practically hit the jade step. "You... you ate my Gale-Force Palm?"
Vincy stood there, looking at his glowing hand like it was a ticking time bomb. "I didn't mean to!" he squeaked, his voice cracking. "I think I just have... very absorbent skin?"
The surrounding examinees, who were currently vibrating from the spiritual pressure, paused their struggling.
"Is that a new cultivation technique?" one girl wheezed, leaning heavily on a cane. "The Sponge Path?"
Suddenly, the blue glow in Vincy's palm surged upward, flooding his eyes. His posture shifted instantly. The panicked, rounded shoulders of a village lad squared into the rigid, domineering frame of a conqueror.
The air around him didn't just feel light—it turned cold.
"Absorbent skin?" Vincy's mouth moved, but the voice that came out was deep, melodic, and dripping with enough sarcasm to wilt a forest. It was Piet. He looked at Kaelen with the bored expression of a god looking at a particularly dull pebble.
"Listen here, Golden Hair," Piet-Vincy drawled, flicking a speck of dust off his rags. "In my world, if you threw a strike that weak at someone, they wouldn't kill you. They'd give you a copper coin out of pity and tell you to find a new career in basket weaving."
"You—!" Kaelen roared, lunging forward.
Piet-Vincy didn't even move his feet. He simply leaned two inches to the left, letting Kaelen's momentum carry the noble head-first into the 501st step with a sickening clack.
"Now then," Piet thought internally, "let's give these old men something to gossip about over their tea."
With a sudden burst of speed that left literal afterimages on the stairs, Piet-Vincy blurred. He didn't climb the stairs; he ignored gravity. He reached the 2,000th step in the time it took for Kaelen to groan.
On the observation platform, Elder Karl dropped his ceremonial tea whisk. The other elders, who had been lazily napping or meditating, stood up in unison.
"Is that... the Ghost-Flicker Step?" one elder whispered, his voice trembling. "That's been lost for three millennia!"
"No," Karl narrowed his eyes. "Look at his aura. It's chaotic. It's like two storms fighting over a single puddle."
Just as Piet-Vincy reached the final ten steps, the blue light vanished. Vincy's soul slammed back into the driver's seat. The sudden transition was like hitting a brick wall at full speed.
"Wait, why am I at the top?!" Vincy yelled, his legs turning to jelly. "And why is that old man looking at me like he wants to dissect me?"
He stumbled over the final step, falling flat on his face right at Elder Karl's feet. The "inhuman speed" had evaporated, replaced by the crushing fatigue of a body that had just been used as a high-speed conduit for a prince's soul.
A shadow fell over him. Elder Karl was standing there, his milky eyes staring directly into Vincy's soul.
"Vincy Sparrow of Buckinga Village," Karl said, his voice a low thunder. "You arrived in twelve minutes. You broke the record held by the Sect Founder. You also seem to have... misplaced your dignity on the way up."
Vincy looked up, his face flushed. "I... I have a very fast walking habit?"
"Is that so?" Karl leaned in, sniffing the air. "Then perhaps you can explain why you smell like Forbidden Royal Incense and why there is a faint 'sarcastic' echo vibrating in your meridians?"
Vincy gulped. Inside his head, Piet's voice sighed. "Don't tell him about me, or he'll lock you in a basement. Tell him it's a... chronic digestive issue."
"It's... it's a chronic digestive issue, Elder!" Vincy blurted out.
The silence that followed was deafening. Behind them, the first few high-ranking disciples finally reached the top, gasping for air, only to see the 'peasant' being interrogated for having magical gas.