Peace in the fairyland (2): Heartbreaking

However, the two figures overlapped and exchanged positions, and there was no sign of anyone being squeezed off the white jade slab.

After being amazed, everyone immediately realized that this must be the work of immortals. Even if there were no guardrails, there was no need to worry about falling off the white jade slab. In this case, what was there to hesitate about?

The young people around them immediately stepped bravely onto the white marble road.

When the young people preparing to take part in the selection let go of their hands and feet, the white marble slab seemed too narrow, and only two or three people could step on it at the same time.

This speed was really not enough compared with the huge crowd of people preparing for the exam. In a short period of time, young people who were a little far away could not get close to the examination location at all and could only worry anxiously without knowing the situation.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huai were hiding relatively far away from the white marble road. They knew they would have to wait for a long time before it was their turn to participate in the selection. They looked at each other and started to act in tacit understanding.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian were very strong. They reached out and pulled quietly, and the people blocking the road in front were pushed to the sides, making room for the two of them to get closer to the assessment location.

In this way, the two of them manually split up and gradually approached the white marble slab road.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian worked in perfect harmony and quickly approached the target, which made life difficult for others.

The servant who originally followed Cheng Huaiqian did not have the strength of the two and could not keep up with their pace. If he missed a moment, Cheng Huaiqian would have squeezed to the front. If he missed another moment, the servant would completely lose sight of the “Fifth Young Master” in the vast crowd.

Just as Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian were busy splitting up, a young man who had already climbed onto the white marble slab road missed a step during the climb and fell from mid-air.

“ah!”

The family members who came to accompany the exam were paying close attention to the situation on the white marble slab and witnessed the whole process with their own eyes. Although it was not their own child who fell, the crowd still subconsciously cried out in surprise.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian looked up at the same time, and saw a young man falling screaming and being caught by a white cloud. With a confused look on his face, the white cloud slowly lifted him up and lowered him to the ground.

“Wow!”

The crowd was once again amazed at the miraculous methods of the immortals, and cast even more eager glances at the immortals who were still suspended in the air on their flying swords.

Xia Ruize also became more interested in cultivating immortals. His eyes lit up and he used more strength in his movements, wanting to quickly get closer to the white marble road.

Finally, more than ten minutes after the entrance selection officially began, Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian made their way to the lowest white jade slab and stepped on it.

But after actually stepping onto the white marble slab, the two of them suddenly realized that they were the only ones on the entire white marble slab? !

Xia Ruize climbed up a few stone slabs easily and couldn’t help turning his head to look back. He saw that the noisy crowd below was still there, but the young people closest to the white marble road had disappeared one by one.

Xia Ruize guessed that as long as one stepped onto the white marble slab, one would actually enter a unique space. The white marble slab road that seemed to be crowded with people was actually divided into countless spaces, and everyone faced a dedicated examination room.

Xia Ruize turned around in amazement, really curious about what kind of method this was.

His interest piqued. Looking up at the white jade slab suspended in the air in front of him, Xia Ruize continued to climb without hesitation.

From the perspective of the family members waiting at the foot of the mountain, a large number of young people stepped onto the white marble pavement. Their figures were stacked one on top of another, and many people could stand on one step without anyone being squeezed out. They were so amazed that they didn’t even dare to make a loud noise, but just watched their children’s performance with their eyes fixed.

For the young people standing alone on the white marble slab, as they climbed higher and higher, some began to panic.

The figures of the onlookers below were getting smaller and smaller, and even the expressions on their faces could no longer be seen clearly. Clouds and mist began to appear all around, and they were standing on a small stone slab with no protection.

The young people who participated in the selection knew that they would be fine even if they fell, as the white clouds would hold them up, but this did not reduce the fear in their hearts.

The more they told themselves not to think about it, the more they kept thinking about it. Some people’s legs couldn’t help shaking. Climbing became difficult. Every step up required great determination. Cold sweat kept dripping from my forehead.

For those who found the climb more difficult, their entire bodies became stiff and they had to use both their hands and feet to climb up holding onto the stone slabs one by one, fearing that they would accidentally fall.

But the reality was that one of them would accidentally fall off the white jade slab and end their assessment.

Every young person who fell from the white jade slab could get a small white jade tablet from the white clouds. The number displayed on the tablet was the ranking of their climbing height.

It was a pity that this ranking kept changing and was heartbreakingly delayed.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian were not afraid of heights. This lack fear probably came from the confidence that they knew they could protect themselves even if they accidentally fell, so they climbed up step by step on the white jade slabs with determination.

Half an hour later, the group of young people who had climbed the highest had already reached a height higher than the sea of ​​clouds, and the crowd watching below could not see them at all even with their eyes wide open.

There were still a lot of young people waiting to step onto the white marble slabs in front of them.

It took a full three hours for all the young talents who came to participate in the Qingyang Sect’s entrance selection to step onto the white jade stone road.

This was because after several physical conflicts among the young people in the queue, the immortal with the flying sword finally came out in person to maintain order. Under the immortal’s command, five or six people could step onto the white jade slab at the same time, greatly increasing the speed.

When the last young person who participated in the selection stepped onto the white jade slab, there were already tens of thousands of young people who had completed the assessment.

After most of the young people who had completed the assessment found their families, the whole family stared at the number on the white jade tablet, watching with fear and horror as the number continued to grow.

Once the number on the white jade tablet was greater than two thousand, the small tablet would break away from the palm of the holder, fly up slowly and disappear into the clouds.

This meant that the holder had climbed to a level outside the top 2,000, and had no chance of entering the second stage of the Qingyang Sect’s disciple-recruiting assessment, and thus had no chance of entering the Qingyang Sect.

The devastated family could only slowly retreat away from the central area.

The families whose children were still on the white marble road took the trouble to inquire about the situation and learned that the reason most of the young people fell from the white marble road was not because they were afraid to climb up, nor were their movements stiff so as to cause mistakes. The most common reason they heard was that they could not climb anymore.

It literally meant that they couldn’t climb anymore. It was said that after climbing to a certain height, they would feel pressure all over their body, as if they were carrying a mountain on their back, and they had to use all their strength to climb each stone slab.

In addition, the young people on the white marble slab could only see their own progress, but not others. Without a reference, they didn’t feel too nervous. Many young people who were born into wealthy families and had never suffered any hardship easily gave up when they felt difficulties, and then they were eliminated.

After this news spread, new news soon followed. It was said that the “Ladder to Heaven” was testing the cultivation qualifications of the young people participating in the selection. The better the qualifications, the higher they could climb. Those who felt too much pressure and could not climb up were actually not qualified enough.

This truth was really heartbreaking, but soon no one cared about those who were eliminated. What everyone cared about were the young people who still remained on the white marble road.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian were both men of strong minds. More than ten minutes after they stepped onto the white marble road, they vaguely felt a slight increase in pressure around them. They immediately understood the challenges they might encounter, and climbed more carefully thereafter.

Two hours later, the two had climbed more than 500 layers of white jade slabs. The pressure around them increased greatly. Even though they both felt the difficulty, they never had the slightest thought of giving up. They would rather stay and rest for a little longer than give up the hope of climbing to the next level.

What Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian didn’t know was that they were already the two people who had climbed the highest level so far, and at this moment, many people on the top of the mountain were watching their movements.

“Whose families are these two people who climbed the highest? Why have I never heard of them before?”

A middle-aged man sitting at the top seat asked with a smile, a gleam in his slightly narrowed eyes.

In fact, the Qingyang Sect would take the initiative to pay attention to the younger generations of some large secular families, especially those secular families that prospered because of the frequent emergence of immortal cultivators.

After all, a big family meant abundant resources to train the younger generation from an early age, allowing their own children to win at the starting line. Moreover, those young people had the blood of immortal cultivators, so they were more likely to embark on the path of immortal cultivation again.

This time, the Qingyang Sect opened its doors to recruit disciples, and they had some guesses about which young people would be the first to come out on top. However, the reality was completely different from their expectations. The two young people who climbed the highest on the “Ladder to Heaven” were both strangers, and their information was still being urgently collected.

“I do know that the third one is Li Shunchen¹ from the Li family. This kid has a weak name, but he has a very powerful talent. He is also the great-nephew of the inner sect elder Li.”

The other person responded casually, but there was not much smile in his words, because Li Shunchen was dozens of levels lower than Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian.

“Very good. It is precisely because our Qingyang Sect opens its doors to the public and does not ask about the origins of its disciples that we have been able to recruit so many talented young disciples. Now we have discovered a group of good talents. Great! In the long run, our Qingyang Sect will surely prosper for thousands of years!”

Watching the young people’s assessments for a long time inevitably became boring, so the immortals of Qingyang Sect found their own entertainment, and some joined the group chat to pass the time.

Xia Ruize, who was unaware that he was being watched and commented on, gradually felt the strain. Every time he stepped onto a stone slab, he could feel an additional layer of pressure all over his body. This pressure acted on his entire body, making it difficult for him to breathe.

Finally, after a long time, Xia Ruize was pressed down by the heavy pressure and could not move at all. He could not even lift his fingers. He lay on the white marble slab to rest for a while, then his body tilted and he fell off the slab.

Immediately, soft white clouds caught him and carried him slowly down to the ground.

After leaving the white marble road, Xia Ruize immediately felt relaxed, and the heavy pressure on his body disappeared completely. However, the strength he had consumed had not recovered immediately, so he simply relaxed and sank into the white clouds.

The white cloud automatically put a white jade tablet into his hand. Xia Ruize raised his hand and took a look. There was a number “one” written on the white jade tablet.

1. Shunchen can mean Dust ↩︎