Chapter 850: Chapter 850: On To The Next Trial
Time continued to flow as usual, and the deaths of Feng Niu and Mu Tao were long lost in everyone’s minds. No one cared about it anymore.
More survivors continued to come, and some decided to advance while the others decided to stay back.
The monotonous movement of life broke when one day Noah and Yuan Ming went to meet Supervisor Gui.
"What did you say?" Supervisor stood up from the sheer shock he received from Noah’s words. "You want to continue to the next trial?"
"Yes." Noah confirmed his words with a nod.
Supervisor Gui shook his head with a long sigh and asked, "you do realize that there are still two months left before you have to take this trial?"
He also looked at Yuan Ming as if looking for signs of hesitation from him. "Two full months to rest and cultivate. Why would you throw that away?"
Yuan Ming met his gaze steadily. "We are ready, sir. We have already accomplished what we could here. Now it’s time to move on."
Supervisor Gui’s eyes narrowed. "Accomplished what you could? You’ve only been here two months total. The Nine-Slaughter Blood Meridian Technique requires—"
"We have learned the cultivation technique to the perfection level," Noah interrupted calmly. "Both of us. There is no way to advance it further without the next layer of the technique or substantially higher cultivation base."
The supervisor’s jaw actually dropped slightly.
"Perfection?" he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. "Both of you? In less than two years?"
"Well, I perfected it on the first day. I was just trying to create a better version of the technique,’ Noah thought inwardly but decided not to say it openly.
He took a step closer, his spiritual sense washing over them—something he rarely bothered to do with the participants. His eyes widened further.
"Impossible," he muttered. "The technique requires at least five years to reach perfection, even for the most talented... and that’s with proper resources and guidance..."
But even as he spoke, he could sense it. The blood-red aura around both of them was different from the other participants.
The signs of reaching the perfection stage were that a faint layer of blood red energy, as thin as a paper, would surround the body of the practitioner once activated.
And he was seeing that very thing covering both of them.
They had indeed reached perfection.
Supervisor Gui stood in silence for a long moment, processing this information.
Then his scarred face slowly split into a wide grin, his filed teeth gleaming in the torchlight.
"Talented," he said, his voice carrying genuine admiration. "Truly talented. The sect will be pleased with this batch." His eyes gleamed with something approaching pride. "Especially with you two."
He walked around them in a circle, examining them from all angles like a merchant appraising valuable goods.
"Very well," he said finally. "If you’ve truly mastered the technique to perfection, then staying here would indeed be a waste of time. Let me take you to the next level. There is something you need to do before you take the final trail."
"The final trial?" Yuan Ming whispered under his breath, his eyes widening a little.
They were told that everyone had five years to leave the cave, and it had only been two years. So whatever the final trail was, it was difficult enough to take three years for them to prepare.
Supervisor Gui merely smiled and gestured for the two of them to follow him.
He led them deeper into his dwelling, towards a stone wall that looked no different than others.
Supervisor Gui pressed his hand against the stone wall, and formations flickered to life.
Complex patterns that had been completely invisible moments before popped up on the surface of the wall before fading away.
With a grinding sound, a section of the wall slid aside, revealing a hidden passage.
"Every trial you will undergo here will only teach you one thing, how to survive." Gui said, his voice taking on a more serious tone as he led them into the darkness. "Survival is the core principal of our demonic cult. We do whatever it takes to get stronger and survive every battle."
The passage was narrow and steep, angling downward at a sharp incline.
Torches flickered to life as they passed, revealing a spiral staircase carved directly into the living rock.
They descended.
And continued to do so until the stairs ended and they reached a place where their breaths turned foggy.
Yuan Ming lost track of how deep they went. The air grew colder, heavier, pressing down with a weight that had nothing to do with physical pressure.
When the stairs ended, they saw a massive gate before them.
The gate was carved from a single piece of dark stone that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
The surface was covered in intricate engravings. There were scenes of demons locked in eternal battle, of cultivators being torn apart by monstrous beasts, of gods falling from heaven while blood rained from the sky.
The images were so lifelike that Yuan Ming felt he was right there on the battlefield, experiencing the fall of gods.
"The Demonic Library," Supervisor Gui announced, placing both hands against the gates.
Another formation came to life before the restriction on the gates was lifted.
The engravings seemed to writhe and move, demons and gods locked in their eternal struggles, shifting position as the gates slowly began to open.
Heavy groans of the ancient gates echoed within the empty gates. The sound was so imposing that even Supervisor Gui trembled a little.
Light spilled out from the gaps between the gates before the library came to view.
Gui led Noah and Yuan Ming into the library, revealing its grand vastness to them.
Row upon row of massive shelves stretched in every direction, each one carved from the same dark stone as the gates, each one filled with scrolls, manuals, jade slips, and bound texts.
Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Perhaps hundreds of thousands.
Every surface seemed to glow with that cold blue-white light, emanating from formations woven throughout the entire structure.
The light reflected off countless jade slips, making the entire library shimmer like a cavern filled with stars.
"This," Supervisor Gui said softly, his voice carrying a rare note of reverence, "is the accumulated knowledge of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
