The loss to Zhao Tian marked the first halt in Li Wei's climb.Not because his will faltered, but because the Stele's rules demanded it.
Defeat meant three days of silence.
So while the square buzzed with gossip, while others pressed their tokens and fought for ranks, Li Wei sat quietly in his courtyard.
Three days of stillness.Three days to replay every serpent step in his mind.Three days of sharpening the edge dulled by frustration.
---
At dawn the following day, Li Wei stood before the Stele once more. The crowd buzzed with fresh anticipation — some waiting to see if Zhao Tian's stalemate had broken his momentum, others eager to prove that the newcomer's rise was over.
The Stele rippled. A new opponent emerged.
Opponent: Rank 229 – Fang Hui.
A talisman user whose firestorms had seared challengers into retreat.
The duel flared hot, runes exploding across the air as Fang Hui's papers ignited into blazing serpents of flame. Heat pressed down, the stage suffocating with fire qi.
Li Wei did not yield. Flowing Cloud Steps carried him through the inferno, Tempest Fang Slash cutting through flames, scattering heat into sparks. In a single burst, his sword carved the last talisman in half. Fang Hui staggered back, eyes wide, before conceding defeat.
The Stele flared.
238 → 229.
And still he climbed.
Two days later, he bested a spear cultivator whose thrusts blurred like lightning. The next morning, a saber-user fell, his rhythm broken by Li Wei's shifting steps. One duel left a bruise along Li Wei's ribs where a strike nearly landed; another shredded the hem of his sleeve with a blade's grazing kiss.
But none stopped him.
His name rose steadily. 229. 214. 196. 183.
By then, the murmurs in the square had shifted from disbelief to inevitability.
"He's already top two hundred."
"From eight hundred in a month? No one's done that before."
"He'll break into the inner sect soon."
Disciples who once scoffed now watched with measured awe. Veterans who had once dismissed him now studied his fights closely, their expressions tight.
Not everyone was pleased. Jealous whispers ran beneath the admiration — mutterings of arrogance, of hidden backing, of how fast rises always led to harder falls.
Li Wei as always, ignored them all.
On the fifteenth day of his climb, he stood again before the Stele. The glow reflected in his eyes, but his hand paused before the token.
He had reached Rank 180.
His body bore aches beneath his calm exterior, his qi stretched thinner with each duel. More than that, Zhao Tian's serpent steps still lingered in his thoughts, a reminder that strength without adaptation could not carry him higher.
The Stele loomed above, its names stretching into the hundreds, then the fifties, then the rarefied glow of the top ten. That path was not yet his to tread.
Li Wei withdrew his token.
Gasps rose around the square.
"He's stopping?"
"Why? He could climb higher!"
"Cowardice? Or caution?"
Han Lin, watching from the edges, only smirked faintly. "Not cowardice. He's sharpening his blade."
Meng Yao's brows softened. She, too, understood. The higher ranks were not a ladder to rush, but a battlefield of endurance. To climb without pause was to invite collapse.
Li Wei turned from the Stele. His sword at his side gleamed faintly, but his eyes were already elsewhere — not on the rankings, but on the training grounds, on the wilderness beyond the sect's gates, on the tempering yet to come.
---
Later, standing in the Mission Hall, Li Wei studied the glowing boards of contribution points.
The duels had rewarded him — more than he expected. Each challenge, each climb, had swelled his points. Enough for lesser pills, for talismans, perhaps even a minor-grade manual.
But not enough.
Not enough to gather the full materials he needed to establish his foundation.
To reach Foundation Establishment required spirit stones, herbs, treasures hidden in wilderness danger zones. No amount of Stele duels alone would suffice.
His gaze traced over the glowing mission listings:
Herb collection in Mist Valley.
Escort of sect merchants to Ironclaw Town.
Beast-clearing around Silent Ridge.
Extermination of rogue cultivators near Broken Fang Gorge.
Risk and reward rose in tandem.
Li Wei's jaw tightened. The Stele had shown him the path of prestige. But true strength… that was forged in blood and danger, not applause.
The climb could wait.
If he wanted to stand among the top one hundred — no, to surpass them — he needed more than a sharp blade. He needed to reach Foundation Establishment.
His hand tightened on his token.
Missions, then.
---
The next morning, Li Wei was back in the Mission Hall.
Rows of glowing jade plaques lined the walls, each inscribed with shifting golden script. The air hummed faintly with spiritual energy, the combined weight of thousands of recorded tasks. Disciples crowded before them, some in groups debating rewards, others hurriedly inscribing their tokens before the better missions vanished.
His gaze swept over the shifting boards.
— Escort a caravan through Wolf Fang Gorge. Reward: 320 contribution points.
— Collect Moonshade Grass in the Mist Valley. Reward: 150 points.
— Investigate disappearances near Redclaw Hollow. Reward: 500 points.
— Beast extermination: Three-Spike Boars, Ironwood Thicket. Reward: 400 points.
His brow furrowed slightly. Contribution points were one thing, but danger was another. Many of these missions had ended with disciples returning bloodied—or not at all.
Still… this was the only path forward. Obtaining further points from the Stele would prove difficult, and waiting for the monthly stipend was too slow. Missions were the only way forward if he wanted to reach Foundation Establishment before the Outer Sect tournament coming up.
The tournament itself was simple in theory. Only the top one hundred outer sect disciples were eligible, chosen directly from the Stele of Names. Once every three years, they clashed before elders and inner sect overseers.
From those hundred, only the top ten earned the right to enter the inner sect. Ten victors, ten futures rewritten.
But there was a cruel truth buried in the rules: if you had not stepped into Foundation Establishment, you stood no chance. Against cultivators who had already condensed their foundations, a peak Qi Refinement disciple was a paper wall before a storm.
Li Wei's gaze darkened slightly as the thought settled. Without Foundation Establishment, the tournament might as well be a wall of stone. His climb on the Stele meant nothing if he couldn't cross that gap.
That was why points mattered. Pills, resources, manuals—all of them demanded contribution.
A single Foundation Establishment Pill cost 3,000 points, and even that was the most basic refinement. To ensure stability, protective medicines for the dantian added around another 1,000 points more or less. And the Spirit Convergence Chamber, where spiritual density was several times higher than outside, demanded 840 points for a single week's use.
Around 4,800 more or less in total—the price of one clean step forward.
His token pulsed faintly in his hand. Enough points already sat within it to mark him above average. But above average was not enough.
He scanned until his eyes fixed on a listing edged in faint crimson light.
Hunt and eliminate: Ironfang Wolves, numbers unknown. Location: Broken Fang Ridge. Reward: 520 contribution points.
A hunt. Dangerous, but direct. The kind of mission that tested steel against fang, technique against raw ferocity.
His hand hovered over his token.
Yes. This would do.