Yu Anle was still babbling on, introducing the Heavenly Ladder.
“Generally, for people in our academy, those qualified to ascend the Heavenly Ladder can reach anywhere between a dozen to over twenty levels.
“The number of levels on the Heavenly Ladder roughly corresponds to the level of one’s disposition.
“Above level ten is Qi Refining, above twenty is Foundation Establishment, above thirty is Golden Core… and so on.
“For example, the last time I climbed the Heavenly Ladder, I reached twenty-three levels. Before Foundation Establishment, I wasn’t easily hindered by disposition issues in my cultivation.
“Yun Xian, you’ll definitely surpass me by a wide margin.
“After all, from seeing Li Yunxian, a freshman who reached Qi Refining seventh level in less than a year, it’s obvious her cultivation is pure and outstanding.
“Even Shen Bofeng, with his special constitution, didn’t advance so fast.
“That’s because Shen Bofeng has a disposition threshold.
“The closer you get to that threshold, the harder it becomes to cultivate, and naturally, your speed slows down.
“Every ten levels on the Heavenly Ladder there’s a major hurdle. The smaller steps before it you can grit your teeth and push through with willpower, but forcing a breakthrough at a major hurdle risks damaging your Spiritual Root, making your cultivation stagnate forever.
“Don’t force it!” Yu Anle warned after finishing.
Then, she winked at Li Yunxian and said, “But if it’s not a forced breakthrough, you must pass the tenth level—there’s good stuff there.
“When I reached level twenty, I felt a burst of energy rise from that platform, drifting into my body, making me feel much lighter.
“There used to be rumors that some senior who reached the fiftieth level of the Heavenly Ladder instantly established Foundation Establishment on the spot, and when they fell from the Heavenly Ladder, they were already in mid-Foundation Establishment.”
Yu Anle’s voice was filled with yearning as she spoke.
For her, the biggest goal now was to successfully establish Foundation Establishment and graduate within the remaining year and a half.
Then, Yu Anle heard Li Yunxian’s casual words.
“That’s troublesome. I don’t want to establish Foundation Establishment so soon,” Li Yunxian said with a troubled expression.
Foundation Establishment meant graduation, and she’d only been following her teacher for half a year.
Her teacher taught her with ease, clearly seeing that there was still much she hadn’t learned.
Moreover, her credits at Tiantong Academy were barely over a hundred.
She had to accumulate five hundred before graduation and, like other seniors, enter the Blood Pool before handling graduation procedures to gain a big boost.
Back when Li Yunxian had limited resources, she thought her cultivation speed wasn’t fast enough and used auxiliary methods to reach her goals.
Now that she had ample resources and could force Foundation Establishment by consuming pills, she didn’t do that.
She was now calculating her time, cultivating steadily.
Resources could be saved for when she was about to establish Foundation Establishment and break through to Golden Core.
Hearing Li Yunxian’s subtly boastful words, Yu Anle thought:
This one even mentioned Pei Dongyuan!
When it came to talking back, Li Yunxian was no worse at all!
Yu Anle expressionlessly slapped Li Yunxian on the back and pushed her hard.
“Hurry up and climb.”
Li Yunxian obediently headed toward the Heavenly Ladder.
Tiantong’s staff checked her pass and, after confirming everything was in order, allowed her through.
The surroundings were indeed as Yu Anle had said—there was no one else.
Li Yunxian walked to the base of the Heavenly Ladder, staring at it.
***
Since this Heavenly Ladder was a Heavenly Treasure, there shouldn’t be any crowding issues, right?
Li Yunxian recalled how Yu Anle and Pei Dongyuan had been inexplicably enthusiastic these past two days, and she shook her head slightly.
The people from Wenwu always overthink things; Li Yunxian was too lazy to guess.
She directly lifted her foot and stepped onto the stairs.
Just one step in, Li Yunxian suddenly felt the entire ladder sway as if bearing a great weight.
The sway wasn’t large, but she immediately sensed several cultivators at the Divided Spirit Consolidation stage focusing their gazes on the ladder.
Li Yunxian realized the problem instantly and didn’t hesitate to withdraw all her usually scattered divine sense back into her body.
Sure enough, she felt the ground beneath her stabilize.
This Heavenly Ladder could actually sense the divine soul undergoing tribulation?
Li Yunxian’s gaze was a little strange, but her steps never stopped as she quickly climbed upward.
Wenwu wasn’t Tiantong after all; she didn’t want to argue with anyone about how she was just using it normally.
She timed the shaking of the ladder to quickly avoid overlapping with her stepping on it.
By the time those Divided Spirit Consolidation experts looked up, Li Yunxian was already on the tenth level.
As Yu Anle said, every ten levels on the Heavenly Ladder gave a certain reward.
On the tenth level, Li Yunxian felt a medium-sized cluster of pure spiritual energy appear around her.
Without needing to absorb or refine it, wisps of it seeped into her body.
Her previously half-opened two hundred twenty-third acupoint was instantly unblocked.
Li Yunxian thought:
When I wanted to advance quickly, I was stuck trying to open acupoints.
Now that I don’t want to rush, the acupoints open faster and faster.
Does that make sense?
Li Yunxian silently adjusted the spiritual power inside her body and immediately felt those experts’ gazes sweep over her again.
A normal Qi Refining cultivator shouldn’t be able to sense being noticed by Divided Spirit Consolidation cultivators.
So Li Yunxian simply ignored it.
After settling her spiritual power, she stepped onto the eleventh level.
The Wenwu experts, scanning everywhere but finding no problem, grew puzzled.
Their voices eventually reached the ears of Wang Laoshi, standing at the front of the entire Heavenly Ladder.
An earthquake.
“Wang Laoshi, what was that shaking just now? Did you feel it?” they asked.
Ten or so voices exploded in his ears one after another, giving Wang Laoshi a headache.
He was utterly speechless.
“Do I look like I didn’t feel it?” Wang Laoshi’s temple veins bulged.
The slight shaking caused by Li Yunxian’s step transmitted all the way up to the fifty-first level where Wang Laoshi was standing.
It was no less than a level seven earthquake.
His face went pale.
His first thought was: could the Heavenly Ladder be about to break?
“Has it been a long time since the Heavenly Ladder was inspected?” Wang Laoshi asked directly.
There was silence among the others.
The Heavenly Ladder at Wenwu Academy was different from those at the other three academies; it was a Heavenly Treasure, completely beyond the forged artifacts created later.
Heard only maintenance was required for a Heavenly Treasure, not inspections or repairs.
“Maybe it’s not a problem with the Heavenly Ladder,” the Wenwu Principal calmly said. “Describe your feelings.”
“Feelings?” Wang Laoshi thought for a moment, then tried to describe it accurately, “It felt like I was walking on a suspension bridge when a rude elephant suddenly stomped on it, shook the bridge, then ran away.”
The more Wang Laoshi described, the more accurate it seemed.
He then asked the others, “Has anyone new just come onto the Heavenly Ladder?”
Everyone was silent for a moment, then all glanced over the cultivators on the ladder again, puzzled.
“The newest is a little fellow at Qi Refining seventh level.”
“No other strong auras have appeared?”
“Surely the Heavenly Ladder must have a problem?”
“Should we arrange to temporarily close the ladder’s entrance and do a full inspection after everyone inside comes out?”
While everyone was talking excitedly, the crowd paying attention to the ladder noticed Li Yunxian’s unusually fast pace.
“This little Qi Refining seventh level fellow is moving fast. She was just absorbing spiritual energy on the tenth level and now, within about ten seconds, she’s almost at the twentieth level,” someone exclaimed, then became curious, “Whose student is she? I’ve never heard of or seen her.”
“Not anyone’s student—she’s mine,” someone immediately said.
Someone else was displeased: “You already have students and are still stealing mine? I don’t have any yet!”
Wenwu cultivators always favored those with excellent disposition.
Eventually, because of the chaos at the library, a member of academy management who knew a bit about Li Yunxian said in a complicated tone, “Don’t argue. She’s a student of Li Tianying from Tiantong, here early for an exchange.”
The lively atmosphere around the Heavenly Ladder near the fiftieth level suddenly turned silent.
***
After a while, an angry yet regretful voice spoke up.
“Li Tianying just makes artifacts, can he teach students with such clear minds?”
“What a waste!”
But they only dared to stomp their feet here on the Heavenly Ladder.
In this era, those with skill were remarkable, especially those at Li Tiansuo’s level.
No one could say when they might need to beg at his doorstep.
Li Yunxian, having withdrawn her divine sense, didn’t know a crowd of people were whispering above her.
By now, she had smoothly reached the twentieth level of the Heavenly Ladder.
The twentieth level again gave off a burst of energy.
Li Yunxian, who knew her body far better than Yu Anle and had a broader view, immediately recognized it as medicinal energy.
This was another good thing.
Usually, only when refining Mysterious Rank pills of perfect quality does a wisp of medicinal energy appear.
This small cluster contained at least twenty to thirty wisps.
After taking it in, many Qi Refining cultivators’ internal hidden injuries would be healed, and it would have a washing effect on the tendons and bones similar to the medicinal baths Li Yunxian had taken in the past.
Most of Li Yunxian’s internal injuries had already been healed in the Blood Pool, and her tendon-and-bone washing was thorough, with only a bit left over from the time she self-destructed during Golden Core tribulation in the Xuanwen Secret Realm.
She only used three or four wisps of the medicinal energy.
The remaining medicinal energy merged into Li Yunxian’s meridians and acupoints.
She felt all her meridians and acupoints, whether already opened or not, become a little more supple and moist.
This was truly something on par with the Tiantong Blood Pool.
Ignoring the gazes still fixed on her, Li Yunxian calmly advanced toward the thirtieth level.
She still remembered what Yu Anle told her—that some Qi Refining cultivators had made it all the way to the fiftieth level.
So… Li Yunxian thought that since she had already shown her uniqueness and reached around fifty levels once before, there shouldn’t be much problem.
The silent watchers on the fiftieth level watched Li Yunxian’s steady pace up to the thirtieth step.
Unable to find any problems, none of them left; all silently stared at Li Yunxian.
Walking up thirty levels was no burden, so reaching forty was undoubtedly inevitable.
But what about the fiftieth level…
Their gazes quietly shifted to their Principal.
He was the only Consolidated Body master in their academy.
Also the legend in the Heavenly Ladder stories—the one who reached the fiftieth level during Qi Refining.
Someone couldn’t help but ask, “Do you think… since this person has already reached our Wenwu Academy, maybe she won’t go back?”
“Our Wenwu Academy can afford to support a Qi Refining seventh level and a Divided Spirit stage cultivator,” many were tempted.
Only the Wenwu Principal remained calm.
“If she can reach the fiftieth level, absorb the immortal energy, establish Foundation Establishment on the spot, and graduate, how could we keep her?”
Many had forgotten that Foundation Establishment meant graduation and thus losing her.
Li Yunxian didn’t understand these roundabout thoughts, but she could feel the gazes on her suddenly intensify.
Should she keep climbing?
Li Yunxian hesitated as she looked at the Heavenly Ladder ahead.
But recalling the sword aura she received on the thirtieth level, she lifted her foot again.
The sword aura on the thirtieth level was different from the sword aura she used in combat.
It directly penetrated into her bones.
Li Yunxian felt her skeleton become lighter and sharper.
Riding this change, she sensed the scent of sword bone that had accompanied her throughout the cultivation world.
She was a dual spiritual root cultivator in the cultivation world, a sword bone user—so perhaps her body in this world also possessed sword bone?
This generous gift made even broad-minded Li Yunxian feel deeply moved.
And this was only the thirtieth level.
What about the fortieth, fiftieth, or even higher levels?
Li Yunxian couldn’t help but think this over.
At the thirty-first level of the Heavenly Ladder, Li Yunxian suddenly felt her footsteps grow heavier.
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.