The rear mountain range of Wenjian Sect was swathed in drifting cloud and mist.
A winding stone-step path cut through layer upon layer of warding formations, climbing all the way to the summit.
Ren Wencai walked with his hands clasped behind his back, leading Gu Chengming upward step by step.
His expression was perfectly serene — but his peripheral vision never quite stopped drifting back toward the young man behind him.
Agreeing to Gu Chengming's request had been partly for the sake of the upcoming disciple evaluation, of course — he wanted this uncut jade to shine all the more brilliantly before an audience. But there was another reason too, one he hadn't voiced: simple, unabashed curiosity.
He wanted to know how far a freak who could, in a matter of days, train the treacherous Flowing Light, Sword Shadows into something that reeked of a sword-cultivator bane would get when he stood before the Sword-Questioning Stone.
"Here we are."
Ren Wencai's steps came to a halt.
With a single sweep of his wide sleeve, the mist ahead was wrenched apart as though by an invisible hand, and what lay beyond was laid bare in all its breathtaking enormity.
Gu Chengming's breath caught. His pupils contracted.
It was a boulder.
Or rather — it was a mountain.
The thing rose over a hundred zhang into the air, its entire surface a deep, abyssal shade of dark blue-green, like the hilt-broken stump of a colossal sword driven blade-first into the earth. Its face was worn and scarred, crisscrossed with countless marks of varying depth.
Some surged like dragons breaching water. Some traced quiet, meandering lines like streams. Some were nothing more than a single cold glint of light. And even from dozens of zhang away, the sword pressure rolled off it in waves, washing against Gu Chengming's skin until it stung.
Around the Sword-Questioning Stone, several stewards stood watch. Catching sight of the Grand Elder of Huiyuan Gate approaching in person, they hastily withdrew their auras and bowed in unison.
"Our respects, Elder Ren."
Ren Wencai gave a slight nod but said nothing. He turned to one side and gestured toward the great stone.
"This is the Sword-Questioning Stone."
He looked at Gu Chengming and explained:
"The Sword-Questioning Stone generates its own field in the surrounding area. The closer you approach, the more intense the pressure of its primordial sword-qi becomes — bearing down on both soul and flesh alike. It will interrogate your Dao-heart. It will grind your will to dust."
"For a First Realm disciple, making it thirty steps up those ninety-nine stairs is considered resolute in spirit. Reaching seventy marks you as a standout among the outer disciples."
He paused here, his gaze sweeping over the shocking marks carved across the stone's face.
"As for those sword-marks..."
"To leave one, you must endure pressure like the weight of ocean and mountain, confront your true heart directly, and when both soul and body have been pushed to their absolute limit — still swing a sword with no regret, and receive the Stone's acknowledgment. That is the only way."
"As a rule, those capable of this tend to be sword cultivators of the Second Realm or above."
Gu Chengming listened in silence, but his gaze had locked onto something else entirely: the faint, unassuming marks in the lowest corner of the stone face — barely visible, yet undeniably there.
"Go on, then."
Ren Wencai stepped back, clearing the path to the stairs.
The stairs stretched upward, vanishing into the sky.
Gu Chengming drew a slow, deep breath, steadied himself, and took his first step.
"Hmmm——"
The moment his foot touched the step, a low, resonant sword-hum seemed to ring out beside his ear.
The air thickened around him, like walking through water — but for Gu Chengming as he was now, it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
He kept his pace even and unhurried, climbing steadily upward.
Five steps. Ten. Fifteen...
Ren Wencai watched from a distance and gave a small nod.
"The first twenty steps should be easy enough for him. He's at the Fifth Layer of the First Realm, after all — if he couldn't manage even this much, that would be..."
The thought hadn't finished forming before Gu Chengming had already crossed the thirtieth step.
That threshold — the one that marked "resolute in spirit" — was cleared as casually as stepping over his own doorstep.
Ren Wencai's eyebrow rose. The motion of his hands stilled.
At this point, Gu Chengming finally felt the first hint of real resistance.
It wasn't merely the pull of gravity increasing. It was something sharper — a stinging that came from inside the mind.
It felt as though countless tiny blades were slicing at his skin, boring into his pores, searching for any weak seam in his will.
[Flowing Light, Sword Shadows: CG Unlock Progress +1]
That voice — familiar and yet strange — rang out in his mind.
[The Huiyuan Sword Art gives a little laugh.]
[She asks if you'd like her help. Just use that move — pressure like this wouldn't even register...]
Gu Chengming's steps faltered for just a moment.
He knew she was trying to help him. If he channeled that advanced sword art and met the pressure with its fierce sword intent, it would be considerably easier.
But he said nothing. He simply lifted his foot again.
Step forty.
Sweat began seeping from his brow, sliding down his cheeks.
Gu Chengming's breathing grew heavy. The pounding of his own heartbeat filled his ears.
.....
Step eighty.
The pressure surged violently.
Every inch of muscle screamed. His bones creaked under the strain, letting out sharp, ominous cracks.
The expression on Ren Wencai's face finally changed.
He had assumed eighty steps would be Gu Chengming's limit. After all, this was a trial that targeted the soul directly — without a stable Dao-heart, every step became impossible, and a cultivator's realm mattered enormously here.
No matter how iron-willed, he was still only at the Fifth Layer of the First Realm.
And yet this kid...
Ren Wencai watched that silhouette: trembling slightly, robes soaked through with sweat — but his spine, perfectly straight.
"This boy's tenacity of character... it's this formidable?"
Step eighty-five.
Gu Chengming's vision began to blur.
The Sword-Questioning Stone before him seemed to come alive. A cacophony of voices exploded through his mind.
"Turn back. You're just an ordinary person."
"You only have a few years left to live — why suffer like this?"
"Use that advanced sword art! Use it and this becomes easy! Why are you being so stubborn?"
"Isn't living enough?"
Gu Chengming stopped.
He stood on the eighty-fifth step, trembling from head to toe. Blood seeped from all seven orifices, staining the gray outer-disciple robes into a motley ruin.
Ren Wencai's heart clenched at the sight. On reflex, his hand began to rise to call a halt.
Enough was enough.
This already far exceeded anything he had anticipated. If the boy kept grinding forward, he might do real damage to himself.
"Gu Chengming! That's enough! Come down!"
Ren Wencai's voice was a sharp command, laced with spiritual force, driving toward the young man who had lost himself in single-minded fixation.
But Gu Chengming did not come down.
He slowly raised his head. Those eyes, tinged red with blood, stared through blurred vision at the Sword-Questioning Stone — so close now it was almost within reach.
"I want to live."
"But I don't want to become something else entirely, just for the sake of living."
[...]
The voice in his mind went silent.
Gu Chengming smiled.
"I know you're scared. You're afraid that you're just a foundational sword art. Afraid you can't keep up with me. Afraid that one day I'll toss you in a corner and let you collect dust."
"So even if it means twisting yourself into something you no longer recognize — you wanted to prove to me that you're useful."
As he spoke, he felt every stubborn fiber of his soul igniting.
"But I don't need that...."
"Everything I've managed to do — I didn't get here because of some Flowing Light, Sword Shadows. I got here because of you. The one who stayed by my side, day after day, through a thousand swings of the sword, ten thousand swings of the sword."
"I don't want a perfect tool. I want the Huiyuan Sword Art!"
Something shattered at the very bottom of his soul.
That brilliant, gilded shell called "Flowing Light, Sword Shadows" — in this moment, under the force of Gu Chengming's almost obsessive will, it was stripped away, and crushed to nothing.
[Huiyuan Sword Art: Flowing Light, Sword Shadows (CG Locked)]
The line of text blinked wildly — and then, slowly, the four characters "Flowing Light, Sword Shadows" faded away, reverting to that plain, unadorned name it had always been.
And with it came something unprecedented: an intent so pure it had been stripped of every last impurity.
Before Ren Wencai's eyes, the silhouette that had been on the verge of collapse — moved again.
Not step by step.
But in a sudden, violent burst.
Under a crushing pressure that could grind a First Realm cultivator into dust, he moved as though he had gone mad — crossing ten steps in an instant, exploding forward until he stood directly before the Sword-Questioning Stone.
Blood erupted like a spring. His skin split. His muscles tore. In an instant, he was drenched head to toe in red.
But the wooden sword in his hand was as steady as bedrock.
No dazzling afterimages. No eerie, shifting aura. None of that breathtaking speed.
Gu Chengming gripped the sword with both hands. His eyes held nothing else — only the great stone before him, the stone that bore the glorious marks of countless prodigies.
He thought of that afternoon when he had first entered the sect. He thought of the first time he had ever gripped a wooden sword — how clumsy it had felt.
Gu Chengming poured every last ounce of strength remaining in his body into his arms, and drove that ordinary wooden sword forward with everything he had.
Amid the crisscrossing marks that soared with transcendent sword intent — amid those scars left by supreme prodigies, by cultivators who had glimpsed the highest of Daos — there appeared a new mark.
A tiny, shallow, white dot.
The most foundational, most elementary, most unremarkable strike in all the world.
And the only mark of the Huiyuan Sword Art that the Sword-Questioning Stone had ever borne in its thousands of years of existence.
Gu Chengming held the pose of that thrust, and lost consciousness.
His body went limp, and he crumpled softly to the ground.
And in the instant he fell, the CG image that had remained locked in his mind all this time — as though some binding had finally been broken — slowly brightened into view.
There were no dazzling light effects. No graceful celestial maiden.
Only a tiny silhouette dressed in rough, plain cloth, clutching a wooden sword taller than herself, sitting amid a field of rubble. Her face was streaked with tears — yet she was looking straight into the frame, wearing a smile that was far from perfect, and absolutely radiant.
[Huiyuan Sword Art Affection +10]
[Huiyuan Sword Art Affection: 100 / Bound by Life and Death]
[Bond Quest Complete.]
[CG Unlocked]
..................
____
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉