From the perspective of Zhuge Su Yeon
The castle gate creaked behind me as if trying to dramatize my entrance. Perhaps, in another life, I might have been impressed by the deep echo that ran through the empty hall, but now… it was nothing more than another architectural cliché of an ancestral ruin.
The first hall was vast, expansive, as if it had been carved solely to make the visitor feel small. Black columns rose up to a ceiling lost in the shadows, each one etched with ancient runes that pulsed like sleeping hearts. The polished, cold floor reflected a pale version of my silhouette.
I took a few steps. Three, perhaps four. Enough.
That was when the environment responded.
The runes glowed in rhythm, and a wave of weight descended upon me as if the very air had decided to turn into stone. The floor groaned under the pressure, delicate cracks opening here and there, as if the castle had waited centuries only to stage this very moment.
I sighed.
"Ah, of course. The inevitable 'pressure formation.' What inheritance would be complete without it?"
My muscles tensed out of habit, but not necessity. The burden that should have crushed bones and paralyzed meridians was nothing more than a mild nuisance, something between carrying an overly heavy coat and walking against winter winds. For a young cultivator at the Spiritual Refinement stage, this hall would be hell — each second a test of will, each step a triumph of determination.
But for me?
It was merely a slightly stifling room.
I observed in silence. The logic was clear: this was the first phase. It required no technique, no strength, only tenacity. With enough time, any cultivator with a firm spirit could cross. But those who resisted better would be rewarded with an advantage, and by accumulating advantage over the weak, seizing the inheritance became easier.
A simple system. Elegant, even — if I weren't the exception the author forgot to program.
I smirked.
Without prolonging the theater, I adjusted my robe, inhaled deeply only out of habit, and walked forward. My boots echoed against the stone like a solitary metronome, each step erasing centuries of expectation that this hall had carried.
When I reached the staircase rising at the back, I did not hesitate.
I climbed.
The first challenge was overcome — or, for me, merely ignored.
The second floor did not bother disguising its trap.
As soon as my feet touched the worn stones, the air vibrated in multiple patterns: formations of movement to drag bodies, of isolation to sever fates, and finally… the inevitable ones of summoning.
The script was obvious.
No cultivator delights only in static pressure — sooner or later, monsters must be summoned for spectacle.
In an instant, the hall fragmented. The walls, once solid, dissolved into curtains of energy, and when I realized it, I was already in a solitary arena, surrounded by runes pulsing like hungry eyes.
The first roar came quickly.
A beast of flaming Qi, at the first level of Spiritual Refinement, lunged as if I were a banquet. Before it could take half a step, a single gesture sufficed.
A wave.
An explosion.
Nothing but dust remained.
The second creature appeared, more robust, already at the second level. Eyes blazing, claws capable of rending steel.
Another wave.
Another flash.
Silence.
The process repeated itself, predictable as a poorly written game.
Third. Fourth. Fifth.
Each beast more threatening than the last, each appearance accompanied by rehearsed roars, theatrical poses, sparks of Qi trying to impress like poorly programmed fireworks.
For a common young cultivator, this would have been a battlefield of life and death — sweat dripping, meridians trembling, the heart torn between advancing and retreating.
For me… it was nothing more than a string of interruptions.
Gestures.
Explosions.
Silence.
On the tenth battle, the arena dared to raise the tone.
Before me rose a creature at the first level of Spiritual Condensation. Its body seemed fused of stone and fire, eyes like embers, each step echoing like an ancestral drum. The pressure emanating from it would force any youth at Spiritual Refinement to their knees.
I merely raised my hand.
A dry wave.
And the colossus collapsed into fragments, disintegrated before finishing its entrance roar.
Ten battles.
Ten gestures.
Ten nonexistent corpses.
I sighed.
"Indeed, a demanding challenge… for those who still believe this world follows rules."
The arena trembled in recognition. The walls of energy vibrated, as if the very formation had run out of script in the face of how quickly its tests were erased.
Without waiting for invisible applause, I adjusted my robe again and prepared for the next level.
The third floor, at least, decided to vary the show.
There were no roaring beasts, no suffocating pressure. Only silence — a heavy silence, as if the castle itself awaited to unveil its favorite scene.
Before the door, two things stood.
First: a dark jade stone, with fine lines engraving a martial technique.
Second: the door itself, its handle nothing but a black sphere, still, pulsing like a closed eye.
The instruction was as plain as a market sign:
"Learn the technique. Only then may you proceed."
I smirked.
A simple test. Too simple. The real problem lay in the content.
As my eyes slid across the inscriptions, I understood.
It was not a technique of fist or blade, nor a method of Qi manipulation. It was a mental cultivation technique — rare enough to justify centuries of dust guarding this hall.
The method was cruel in its elegance.
To cultivate it, one had to traverse an endless rosary of nightmares, illusions capable of corroding the mind and fragmenting courage. Each failure, a fall. Each success, a step forward.
I sighed.
"Of course… the author decided to season the journey. Nothing like gratuitous trauma to strengthen young protagonists."
Even so, I did not hesitate.
I sat before the stone, breathed deeply, and dove into the method.
The first wave hit me like a nocturnal tide: fire devouring the city, screams I recognized, faces of brothers and disciples falling one by one.
Then another: invisible chains, suffocating darkness, the void of a wasted lifetime.
And another still: lost battles, blood on my fingers, death always one step ahead.
I knew.
I knew they were illusions.
I knew each detail was woven to wring reactions from my mind.
And yet, I was forced to admit: they were convincing.
Extremely convincing. The realism bordered on unbearable, as if the world itself had decided to record memories I had never lived.
However, recognition was not defeat.
It was merely acknowledgment.
I resisted.
I cut through each nightmare as one opens windows in a stifling room. I did not allow myself to sink, only to observe.
When I finally awoke from the last scene, an hour had passed. Perhaps more. My body still sat, unmoving, but my mind… had crossed entire abysses.
The black sphere blocking the door trembled, releasing a silent glow. Without sound, without triumphant announcement, the passage simply opened before me.
Another level concluded.
"A mid-tier Earth-level technique, guarded as the third test of an inheritance… curious. If I were a protagonist, I'd already be crying with gratitude."
I stood, adjusted my sleeves, and advanced.
The fourth floor did not receive me with pressures, monsters, or illusions.
Only walls.
But they were not common walls.
Each stone bore detailed inscriptions, almost paintings made of solidified Qi. And within them, the story of a man.
The narrative was clear: a cultivator born weak in this desolate world, but who, strike after strike, rose against enemies, won battles, and grew the sect he bore on his shoulders. A path of sweat, blood, and ascension.
Until he met an obstacle greater than himself.
A sect too powerful, an enemy too formidable.
The result was predictable: his own sect collapsed into ashes, his brothers scattered, he himself forced to flee, wounded, dragging only his dignity with him.
At last, here, in this abandoned castle at the edge of the world, he left his inheritance.
There were no vows of vengeance.
No promises of future power in exchange for sacrifice.
Just a simple record: "This was my life. This is my legacy."
I stopped before the inscriptions and inclined my head slightly.
It was not a request, but there was sincerity in it.
And for that, I respected it.
I kept the name of the enemy in my heart.
Sect of the Waning Moon.
Not to seek them out.
I would not be so foolish.
But if one day that sect dared cross my path and show insolence, then… why not extend a hand in the name of this unknown ancestor?
I moved on.
The final test awaited before a narrow door.
Unlike the previous ones, it was almost… poetic.
A brush rested upon a pedestal, and beside it an inscription:
"Write your strength. The reward will be proportional."
It was a test of martial will, simple and elegant.
A common youth would write "fire," "sword," "courage." Others, more arrogant, might dare words like "heaven" or "immortality." And from that, the formation would release compatible techniques, a fragment of the treasure.
I smirked.
"A fragment… is not enough for me."
I wrote nothing.
Not a word.
Greed, yes. But also calculation. If I accepted the rules of this inheritance, I would receive only what its creator deemed appropriate.
I, however, had already decided: this entire place would be mine.
So I studied every detail of the room.
My eyes traced every rune, every pulse of energy, every invisible line linking the brush to the formation.
And after some time, I found it.
No, I could not control the formation. Not yet.
But I could damage it.
My Supreme Jade Body pierced through barriers as if they were mist.
And before that wall, which should have been solid as steel to any other cultivator, I simply walked.
The stone trembled, screeched, resisted — and then gave way.
On the other side, a silent staircase awaited.
The passage to the final level.
The last floor was not a test.
There were no invisible pressures, paper monsters, or deceiving illusions. Only truth.
And the truth was… abundance.
For a moment, I understood why that cultivator had not entrusted his entire inheritance to a single disciple. It was not mistrust, nor petty calculation. It was pure logic.
The inheritance was far too vast.
Entire halls filled with martial techniques, ranging from human level up to advanced Earth, some even brushing against the Celestial level. Weapons of every form and age rested on black shelves, each bearing more history than entire clans.
Auxiliary profession manuals so numerous they filled several shelves.
There were cultivation items carefully preserved, some too rare to even circulate in empires. And above all, the controls.
The formations that sustained the castle, the barriers that shielded the mountain range, the invisible threads binding this piece of the world to the will of a single man. Everything was here, as if the very heart of a sect had been transplanted into this frozen refuge.
It wasn't hard to deduce.
That man had not been a mere member.
He was the master.
The lord of an entire sect, dragging with him the bones of his lost glory to hide them at the world's end.
A dry smile escaped my lips.
"So this is it… inheritance or plunder? Hard to say."
I stepped away from the shelves and walked toward the side balcony.
It was small, almost modest, as if its owner had reserved it as a personal space.
There, a solitary chair remained, facing the horizon. Perhaps the last place where that ancestor had rested, perhaps the only one where he could look at the world without feeling the weight of defeat.
I sat.
The view, I admit, was magnificent.
To the south, the Winter Forest stretched like a sea of green and white, its silence broken only by the shadows of beasts roaming among the trees.
To the north, the Frozen Sea widened until it was lost from sight, an infinite expanse of shattered ice and dead waters, as if the world itself had decided to end there.
I looked then below.
The Black Castle, solid and somber, rose like a scar upon the mountain range.
I could not help but think: it needed a new color. The Zhuge wore white, not black. And sooner or later, this inherited fortress would have to wear the same robes as its new family.
I closed my eyes for a moment.
The reasoning was simple:
I had just found my new home.
And destiny, in its usual irony, had even offered a bonus.
This castle, with all its formations, corridors, and traps, was perfect for training protagonists.
Well… I had a few.
An entire family of them.