Wang Yang met the eyes of the boy eating his fellow human. However, he couldn't say anything, he couldn't shout at the young boy, nor could he hit him. Because the pain that he could cause this boy with physical or verbal abuse would only be a fraction of the suffering in the boy's eyes in that passing moment.

Above all, his own mouth started to salivate as hunger started to rise.

"I-I don't wanna die…" The words welled up from the boy's choking throat. "My mother died feeding me… my brother never came back after searching for food…"

"I won't die… I won't die…" The boy, still crying, turned to the body of the girl.

Wang Yang slumped against the rough bark of the dead tree, the coarse grain scraping his back brought him out of the terrible thoughts that dominated his mind.

Did I really think of eating a human? Just because I am hungry? He sat down on the earth that felt colder than before, with a moonlight even harsher.

This may be a trial made up of illusions for us… but this was someone's life. Wang Yang looked at the hunched young boy, his neck as thin as a twig; he could even count the bones on his bare back.

Wang Yang wondered what the boy, back when this happened, must have felt. Did he survive? Was he ever able to forgive himself after this? Was he able to live a normal life?

The questions kept piling up in his mind.

The night slipped away, the sun rose and sank again, but Wang Yang couldn't answer that, nor could he sleep. He couldn't answer because he had never felt a desperation of that scale. Whether it be in his village or in the sect, he had never gone a night on an empty stomach or without comfort. If anything, he had everything in abundance.

These trials aren't for the disciples to compete against one another; it was for us to look inside and ask the questions. If things come down to it, what are we willing to do? As disciples in a prosperous era, where just having a spiritual root could guarantee a good and stable life, he hadn't faced any real discomfort.

After two days, Wang Yang found his answer.

"I can't do it…" he muttered, lying under the shadow of a tree.

The rations had decreased to half a fish and a mouthful of water now. The old man, who used to roar with fury, now only spoke a handful of words, too tired to even swing his whip. Wang Yang had seen him tying rocks to his stomach for the past two days.

Each day he woke up, the number of bones on the mountain seemed to increase, or maybe that was his mind playing tricks.

The scent of iron started to get stronger, too; it permeated the earth and the flesh of those who made their choices.

Wang Yang looked ahead; the scrawny backs he used to see had started to become fuller. The thin arms had bulked up, and the sunken eyes had turned red.

That night, Wang Yang felt calm. A lot calmer than ever before. His stomach no longer rumbled, his body didn't ache, and his bones didn't creak. He felt as light as a feather.

"I can't survive like this." Wang Yang muttered to himself, his throat no longer parched. He had made his choice, too.

A little further from him, beneath the shadows of the trees, red eyes glared at him. They could sense it, his dying breath.

[You have died on day 12. You have failed the trial.]

Wang Yang looked at the words formed in the moonlight and stood up. He walked a few steps and looked back, feeling lighter than ever. There was the body of a young man slumped against the tree. Its cracked skin and hollow cheeks made the face unrecognizable as the greying, sparse hair fell to his narrowed, poking shoulders. However, the young man's dry, pale lips had a smile.

[You've realized the wish of the last leader of Bone Mountain, Xi. 5000 Trail Points are awarded.]

Darkness soon swallowed Wang Yang. A string tugged on him, bringing him in front of the monolith. He looked around; other disciples stood rooted in place just like him. Their expression twisted with disgust or despair; however, no one said a word.

In that silence, Muchen's voice rang loud and clear.

"2000 years ago, in the now fallen Xia Empire, the Sun Cult sacrificed 2 million of their followers for a ritual. A ritual that summoned a Demonic Dragon who turned 80% of the Eastern Continent's land infertile. It affected both the common people and the cultivators, both starving for decades."

The disciples looked up at Muchen, listening to the information buried deep in history books they never bothered to open.

"A great famine that lasted a century killed so many that people stopped counting. However, cultivators rose again and killed the dragon, restoring the continent. One of them was the Last Leader of Bone Mountain, Xi. You all witnessed that era through the memory he shared before he exiled himself to repent." Muchen ended his explanation.

"Now, here are the rankings."

Rankings – Bone Mountain

1] Wei Long, Hundred Sect Alliance – Day 26

2] Hou Mei, Frozen Flower Holyland – Day 24

3] Chen Liang, Azure Sky Sect – Day 22

.

.

.

74] Go Zhu, Hundred Sect Alliance – Day 14

75] Wang Yang, Azure Sky Sect – Day 12

.

.

.

"To those who made it past Day 12, I am sure the choice you made was a difficult one, or not. Because this wasn't your reality." Muchen said. "But I want you to keep that experience in mind moving forward. Because these are the choices you made even after feeling your own heartbeat in that world."

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"Now, let us go to the next trial."

The disciples followed Muchen, with a bitter taste in their mouths after hearing those ending words. As he pointed out, they made the extreme choice knowing that it wasn't real. Even if they could feel the warm blood and their teeth cutting through the flesh, their mind recognized it as an illusion.

Their eyes were on the prizes Muchen had mentioned right before the trial; they wanted to gather the trial points no matter what. However, they still failed the trial.

Wei Long, the one who made it to day 24, had even defeated the old man at the mountain and eaten him. He found the hidden stash of fish and apples and even the grain in the jute sacks, but the hunger never ended, even after he ate everything there.

How can one even complete that trial? Wei Long scoffed.

Other disciples also had similar thoughts; they either killed the old man or died trying. There was no way ahead from there, as they couldn't find anyone else around.

"Here we are," Muchen said, pointing at the new monolith.

It was the same as the last one but with a different name. Pill Creation, Xingqiu City. This time, Muchen didn't say anything to them and allowed the disciples to enter at their leisure.

Wang Yang was one of the first to enter. Although he had a lot of questions, he left them for later. After all, even if time moved faster inside the trials, they only had today to clear these trials.

This trial took place in Xingqiu city, the capital city of a kingdom with the same name. The disciples took on the role of the last alchemist in the royal court. Their task? To concoct 1000 pills in an hour. Because if they didn't, the plague spreading across the city would kill the last of its survivors.

Wang Yang gave up on completing the challenge when he saw the pill formula. It wasn't because of its complexity; it had a good level of difficulty, but only the alchemists had a chance.

As someone who only scratched the surface of the subject, he had no chance to make it through. Even after trying, he couldn't make a single pill and died as burning blisters expanded in his lungs and throat, cutting off his oxygen.

He regained his consciousness in front of the monolith again, his ranking in the trial, dead last. Most disciples were in the same breath as him, as they had no idea about pills beyond consuming them.

But what surprised most was that one person had actually cleared the trial; Ju Ling from Azure Sky Sect's Osmanthus Peak. The second place was 500 pills behind her.

The disciples psyched themselves up after two losses, waiting for trials where they could show their talents. And many got their wishes. The following trials tested the disciples in Formation Laying speed while facing assassins, and Formation Breaking speed. Chen Liang and a few others cleared those with impressive times; however, no one made it to the all-time list.

What followed were even more generalized trials. The fourth trial tested speed under the hail of arrows. The fifth tested their attack's accuracy; they had to cut down a stream of leaves carried by the wind. The sixth tested their knowledge as they identified relics of the past.

Finally, the tenth trial – Grave of Swords, the one Wang Yang had waited for, arrived around noon.

He had maintained his position on the lower end of the list, like all the other disciples of the reserve team from the collection of sects, but he didn't plan to continue that trend.

This was the only trial in which he could show off his power, at least that was what he felt from the name.

And it wasn't just him; other disciples, who focused on martial skills, started to smile. This was the perfect stage to show their talents in front of a cultivator who had reached the all-time list for this trial.

"Are you ready for the trial?" Muchen's words received spirited nods, especially from the disciples of his sect. "Good, I hope that someone from among you can join me on that list."

As the disciples calmed themselves before entering the trial, Kai, cutting through the crowd, closed in on Wang Yang.

"You don't plan to stick to the bottom again, right?" He spat.

"What are you doing here?" Wang Yang hadn't seen Kai since the day they entered the Qingliu Mountains. He had looked for him near the earlier monoliths, too, but he wasn't there.

"That drunk bastard told me that Muchen has a record in this trial. So, I wanted to beat it." Kai said as if it were a matter of fact.

"You… you are a bit obsessed with my master." Wang Yang blinked, wondering if he should feel amazed or creeped out.

"Not me, it's my Master that's obsessed." Kai scoffed. "All he talks about are Li Muchen and his brother, as if they are the only ones who exist. I got sick of hearing it day in and day out, so I came here to check for myself."

"Leave the useless things aside, you'd better perform well in this, or I'll kill you." Kai glared at Wang Yang. "I don't want people saying that I had a draw with a weakling."

Faced with the fiery words, Wang Yang nodded.

"Sure. I'll get a good rank if I can."

"What's with you? You're acting weird." Kai said.

But Wang Yang faced the trial he had looked forward to.

***

After the chilling wind passed, Wang Yang opened his eyes inside the trial space. The scent of iron formed a lump in his throat as he steadied himself on the blackened, crumbly dirt that stretched as far as his eyes could see.

His calloused hands held a sword that had seen many clashes. Rough, discolored with blood, yet it had an edge sharp enough to cut air.

Wang Yang looked forward, facing the cold wind blowing through his cotton uniform. Mountains etched into the red horizon seemed to move closer with a cloud of black dust rolling forward.

And, around him was an army of cultivators. Like him, they all had their swords at the ready, their faces stern.

Soon enough, the objective of the trial revealed itself.

[Trial completion: Face 20 waves of enemies from the Forgotten Continent.]

Forgotten Continent? Wang Yang squinted, his eyes catching the creatures in the dust cloud.

In reality, they weren't unknown creatures, but human-like. And much like them, they held weapons too. However, they had inhuman features.

Some had horns bigger than bulls, some had wings like bats, some had the head of a horse, while others had legs like a swan. Like someone had mixed humans and animals together, such was the enemy forces.

[First Wave: 1000 Demonic Humans.]

Wang Yang saw the words formed by the wisps of his cold breath. The first wave was within reach, and a cultivator standing at the forefront turned to face everyone.

"Brave warriors! We are the last force humanity has. We must not fall into this mindless slaughter! We must survive, for the sake of our people behind us, for the sake of our brother who entrusted us with their wills, we must not fall!" The young man with eyes as sharp as swords had scars all over his gentle face; however, his voice was like thunder in that silent plain. "Now, face forward, my fellow warriors, it's time to stomp these demons back where they belong!"

"HO! Charge!"

With a cry from the army of a thousand brandished their swords. They tightened their headband and rushed at the demons three to four times their size with no trace of fear.

Like the wind, swift and decisive, they transversed the blackened earth in leaps.

Wang Yang, right in the middle, got caught up in the flow and ran forward to not get in the way. Even if the initial push was rough, he found his balance with ease; above all, he kept up with the high speed of these cultivators.

This is way beyond my… no, even beyond Senior Gu's speed. Is my cultivation not represented one-to-one in this trial? Wang Yang looked at the ground zipping past below, his feet light as a feather yet bursting with strength.

He could leap a hundred feet in one jump, his eyes could see the grains of sand even a few miles away, and his brain processed it all; in fact, it had become even sharper, giving him an extra edge in control. Not to mention the enormous qi pool in his solidified Dantian.

However, he didn't have much to marvel at them. In a short few seconds, the cultivators had reached the Demons, the scarred leader jumping in the middle of the creatures with a grin.

He crushed an ape's head under his foot like a melon and beheaded a tiger with his great sword on the way down. He moved like water despite his weapon's size, dodging the claws, spears, and even arrows with nimble movement.

"This is nothing, you bastards! Try Harder!" He shouted, cleaving an elephant in half with a large hammer the size of a pagoda.

Before the armies had even clashed, he had disrupted enemy lines. With the enemies in disarray, the fearless cultivators rushed in with their blades.

"Follow Young Master Pei!"

"These demons are nothing!"

They are amazing… all of them. Wang Yang watched, rooted in place in sheer awe.

The thousand cultivators, his allies, were each of them was a genius among geniuses. Their swords had not a single wasted movement; their techniques, perfect. And with individual skills, they covered for one another. Not even the elites that gathered in Eastern Martial Meet could compare to their intensity and polished skills.

And, the Young Master Pei stood in the middle of this all, waving a weapon twice his size with one arm.

The brutal clash that he had expected ended in ten minutes.

When the second wave came, one where they faced 2000 demons, it lasted only half an hour. Wang Yang felt that reaching the 20th wave wasn't a challenge if he just followed from behind.

However, he stood in the back, glancing around; he had killed one demon himself. And that too was an injured one trying to run away.

His grip on the blade tightened.

Is this the right thing to do? Wang Yang clenched his fist as the third wave approached.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.