Chapter 1207: Chapter 1205: Fate Ladder
Just as the Fate Monument vanished into thin air, an oval-shaped gap split the clouds above, approximately thirty feet long and ten feet wide. A ladder made of white light extended downwards from the gap, resting at the outer ring of the Fate Platform.
The Ladder of Fate!
"According to the rules of the Battle of Fate, only the top twenty experts and the masters of the Nineteen Peaks are eligible to ascend the Ladder of Fate to reach higher grounds,"
The Sun and Moon Emperor shook his head, his face filled with envy.
With his strength, he would easily rank in the top ten in any other competition, or at the very least, the top fifteen. But this time, he didn’t even make it into the top twenty-five, which shows just how fierce the competition was.
The Sun and Moon Emperor vaguely knew that the opportunities at the high regions of the Nineteen Peaks were related to the caliber of the experts in each competition. The more experts there were, the more abundant the opportunities tended to be.
Given the level of this competition, the opportunities would surely far exceed those of the past. If he could climb the ladder, perhaps he could break through his potential limits and advance even further.
It wasn’t just the Sun and Moon Emperor who was green with envy; every expert who lacked the qualifications to participate in the battle, and even the masters of the Nineteen Peaks, wished they could ascend the Ladder of Fate to take a look, if only just a glimpse.
While everyone was lost in their thoughts, twenty-six experts approached the front of the Ladder of Fate. This time, there were six peak masters who hadn’t ranked within the top twenty, including Fu Shuijing prominently among them.
He inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. After all, there were others besides him who had chosen their peaks haphazardly, driven only by the aspiration to climb higher, and a few of them were exceptionally strong.
It was fortunate that he had previously absorbed the essence blood of many experts, and with the timely perfection of the "Blood Essence Secret Scripture," Fu Shuijing narrowly defeated one of them and took their place.
"Young Hero Shi, please go ahead. You are, after all, the Master of Fate. If you do not ascend, the rest of us can only watch,"
The White Cloud Emperor said with a smile, looking at Shi Xiaole.
Shi Xiaole paused, unaware of this matter. He was about to suggest that others go first but, upon hearing this, opted not to be pretentious. He made his way through the crowd and was the first to step onto the Ladder of Fate.
As if an invisible prohibition had been lifted, the others began to follow suit and step onto the ladder.
"What a profound aura!"
The moment he stepped onto the Ladder of Fate, Shi Xiaole felt waves of bizarre, yet deeply mysterious, mixed auras washing over him. They contained the auras of the five elements, as well as those of wind, rain, lightning, and thunder, and auras of light and darkness, speed and slowness, attraction and repulsion—there was nothing you couldn’t find here.
However, the realms of these auras weren’t very high, and they were fleeting, only detectable with careful attunement.
Walking up the ladder, it wasn’t long before the twenty-six experts vanished into the mists, and the Ladder of Fate disappeared along with them. The gap closed up, making it seem as if nothing had happened.
Those experts left behind could only sigh and, with eyes closed, begin to perceive and comprehend from their respective positions.
If we must be frank, they couldn’t compare to Shi Xiaole and the others, but the favorable environment here was more than enough to surpass countless perilous places outside. They would remain here until the Domain of Fate closed.
...
The higher the Ladder of Fate went, the fewer the types of auras. At a height of three hundred meters, Shi Xiaole could sense only tens of thousands of martial auras.
Correspondingly, these martial auras, at their worst, were at the early stages of eighty percent completion, with the highest reaching the mid-stage of one hundred percent completion.
Without pausing, the twenty-six individuals continued their ascent.
When they reached six hundred meters, there were less than a thousand types of martial auras left, all of them top-tier, with the weakest being at the early stage of one hundred and ten percent completion.
At eight hundred meters,
They found a platform about a hundred meters in length and width, where just over three hundred types of martial auras remained, all uniformly peaking at one hundred and twenty percent completion of top-tier martial arts.
According to the rumors in the Martial World, top-tier martial arts could never attain one hundred thirty percent completion, which implied that this platform held the ultimate top-tier martial arts known to humanity!
As the others continued upwards, Shi Xiaole stopped.
Ignoring the Life-or-Death Martial Way and the Demon Martial Way, his Wind Sword Way was a semi-Supreme Martial Art, having reached the peak of one hundred ten percent completion. The Illusion Martial Way was a top-tier martial art, even higher at one hundred percent completion.
Yet, here Shi Xiaole distinctly captured the aura of the Wind Sword Way at the peak of twelve percent completion, as well as the Illusion Martial Way at the same level. If he could comprehend these for a while, wouldn’t that significantly advance his martial arts?
It made no sense to pass up the opportunity, so Shi Xiaole immediately sat down cross-legged on the platform and began to quietly perceive.
The other twenty-five experts, sharp as they were, quickly noticed Shi Xiaole’s actions and their eyes revealed a variety of emotions.
Apart from Shi Xiaole, they were comprehending Supreme Martial Arts, which meant they found little use for this platform and had to reach even higher. But strangely, they had let someone who mastered a semi-Supreme Martial Art and a top-tier martial art become the Master of Fate, an almost unbelievable fact.
Only Xuanyuan Di’s eyes flickered brightly, but he did not say much more.
Only after the other twenty-five had vanished from sight did Shi Xiaole truly relax his vigilance and began to fully comprehend the Wind Sword Way.
Time ticked away.
Finally, Shi Xiaole understood why so many coveted the Domain of Fate.
The martial auras in this place were simply too pure, too intense. For any average person stuck at a bottleneck, perceiving here could improve their efficiency nearly tenfold, and with Shi Xiaole’s aptitude, that efficiency could be multiplied several times and then by ten again, achieving hundreds of times greater efficiency.
In just three two-hour periods, his Wind Sword Way had risen from a peak of one hundred ten percent completion to the threshold of the initial stage of one hundred twenty percent completion. However, at this point, his Wind Sword Way once again reached a bottleneck.
Shi Xiaole had no intention of giving up. After one day and one night, he opened his eyes reluctantly and shook his head.
The Wind Sword Way at a peak of one hundred ten percent completion was equivalent to the peak of one hundred percent completion of a Supreme Martial Art. How could it be so easily broken through? His foundation was, after all, too shallow and could not be rushed.
Realizing this, Shi Xiaole turned to the Illusion Martial Way to perceive.
This time, he only needed one two-hour period.
The Illusion Martial Way began to rise rapidly, from a full tenfold peak to the early stage of elevenfold, followed by the middle stage, late stage, seemingly without any limits...
The Wind Sword Way, after all, was different from the Wind Martial Way, and its level was very high, making it difficult to advance.
But the Illusion Martial Way was different, its level did not exceed the Illusion Martial Way of this place, and its realm was far inferior, making progress much more attainable.
The early stage of twofold.
The middle stage of twofold.
It wasn’t until he had understood the late stage of twelvefold that Shi Xiaole’s speed began to slow down, having passed five 2-hour periods. After some thought, Shi Xiaole still did not get up.
If he wasn’t mistaken, the Supreme Martial Arts should appear above, but most of those Supreme Martial Arts were likely unsuitable for himself.
The Ladder of Fate did not appear without reason, and along the way, Shi Xiaole distinctly felt that both his Wind Sword Way and Illusion Martial Way were also present on the Ladder of Fate.
What did this imply?
Perhaps the martial qi here was formed after countless years of evolution, from the Ladder of Fate absorbing the breaths of past participating experts!
Every martial way contained another martial way, more or less. Therefore, the countless lower-realm martial ways below must have originated from higher-realm martial ways, decreasing step by step.
Martial ways like the Life and Death Martial Way and the Demon Martial Way had never appeared before, so how could one refer to them? Besides, even if the guess was wrong, a delay of a day or two was still manageable, so there was no need to rush.
Having made up his mind, Shi Xiaole’s heart was as calm as water, and he continued to understand, hoping to push the Illusion Martial Way to the twelvefold peak realm in one go.
And so, a day passed.
Whoosh.
An extremely strong hallucinatory aura burst forth from within Shi Xiaole, and from afar, his body seemed to twist into countless sections.
"Finally reached the twelvefold peak."
Shi Xiaole exhaled deeply.
Since early on, the role of the Illusion Martial Way had seemed dispensable, at least compared to the Wind Sword Way, it was far too inferior. But Shi Xiaole would never give up the Illusion Martial Way.
No one knew that in Shi Xiaole’s heart, there had always been a terrifying idea, what if he integrated the Illusion Martial Way into the Wind Sword Way, could he birth Supreme Martial Arts?
After all, the Supreme Martial Arts itself evolved from the half-Supreme Martial Arts, so wouldn’t fusion be another kind of evolution?
Of course, to implement this idea was not an overnight feat, and there were many aspects that Shi Xiaole had not yet fully understood. But he firmly believed that as long as he persisted, there was hope.
He got up and walked towards higher ground.
As expected, on the platform at a height of a thousand meters, the previous twenty-six people were all comprehending the Supreme Martial Arts.
There were a total of sixty-three Supreme Martial Arts here, the weakest being at the tenfold peak, and the strongest at the eleventh-fold middle stage. Shi Xiaole did not care about the others, but the Sword Martial Way caught his eye.
He had actually forgotten that the Sword Martial Way could also enhance the Wind Sword Way, and in terms of effect, it was undoubtedly better than the Wind Martial Way!
Another three days passed like this.
Shi Xiaole’s Wind Sword Way had not improved, but the foundation had increased a lot, accumulating the momentum for a breakthrough.
As for the others, most had regained their composure.
People like the White Cloud Emperor, Master Xuanci, and others had been here in the previous session, and they had already made the advancements they could; their previous comprehensions were just a trial, which proved to be ineffective.
And for people like the Heavenly Martial Emperor and the Thousand Swords Emperor, their potential was already exhausted, and their own martial ways had reached the twelvefold middle stage, so this place could not stimulate them.
But for Liu Ruofei, Fan Shengnan, and even Fu Shuijing, the younger generation, they benefited greatly, each showing signs of breakthroughs.
As for the Xuanyuan Dao and Qi Muchu, although they could not find the most fitting martial way, they could still extract the essence from other martial ways and make it their own.
As time went on, more and more people made their way to higher ground.
On the sixth day that Shi Xiaole arrived at this place, only four people remained.
In the corner of the platform, Liu Ruofei opened her eyes, glanced at Xuanyuan Dao, Qi Muchu, and Shi Xiaole, paused for a moment, then got up and left.
The eighth day.
Qi Muchu finished his understanding. He had gained a lot from the Cloud Strength Martial Way, but other martial ways did not have much effect on him.
The tenth day.
Xuanyuan Di also left. The essence of the Reincarnation Martial Way was too vast and complex, requiring him to experience all the Supreme Martial Arts to gather the essence and discard the dross, which took a lot of time and effort.
"You’ve deceived the whole world."
Before leaving, Xuanyuan Di looked at Shi Xiaole with an extremely complicated expression.
Shi Xiaole, not far away, seemed unaware.
...
The Ladder of Fate was a thousand and one hundred meters high, and at its highest point, it connected to a cliff full of mounds and rocks.
What was most astonishing was that apart from the people of the South Sea Martial World, in the other two directions, there were also two other Ladders of Fate, and when people like the Heavenly Martial Emperor stepped onto the cliff, they saw two other groups of strangers immediately.
