There was no solid feeling beneath her feet. Each step felt empty.
The sea of clouds and the horizon before her, along with all those familiar or indistinct faces, were fading and peeling away before her eyes.
The world changed again before her.
When she opened her eyes, the scene before her was no longer the Dao Seeking Ladder. She was back at Qing Xu Temple, where she had spent three years since joining the sect, on the outer courtyard's blue-stone plaza, where she had to sweep the fallen leaves every day.
The air was filled with the damp scent of grass and trees. Familiar footsteps sounded nearby, drawing closer.
"What a pity. Such a lovely girl, and the only one in Qing Xu Temple with a four-element Pseudo Spiritual Root. Her family spent a fortune to send her up the mountain. Looks like it'll all be for nothing now."
"Isn't that the truth? She's still a tiny bit better than those ordinary mortals with no spiritual roots at all.
"But... sigh. So much money wasted.
"With talent like hers, she probably won't even make it into the inner sect. She'd be better off going down the mountain early than wasting away in the outer sect."
"Yeah. I heard she got stuck at Qi Refining Level 3 and hasn't made any progress since.
"Even Sect Master Xuan Yuan only advised her to go down the mountain and marry because she's usually so hardworking in the outer sect. At least that would give her a way forward.
"She's a Qi Refining Level 3 cultivator, after all. As long as she isn't too picky, she could still marry into a good family."
The voices came from a blur of faces.
The senior brother speaking had once lent her a hand when she couldn't lift a bucket of water.
The inner-sect senior sister had once given her extra coins when sending her out to run errands.
There was no malice in their voices, only pity. But their condescending attitude was suffocating.
Of course, pity wasn't all she received. Many inner-sect disciples had openly mocked her, too.
"Junior Sister Su, you haven't even finished hauling the water, and you're slacking off here again?"
"You have a Pseudo Spiritual Root and you still think you can establish your Foundation? Keep dreaming!"
"Look at you. Since you refuse to go down the mountain, you're destined to spend your whole life running errands for us inner-sect senior brothers and sisters!"
In the illusion, she tried again and again to draw qi into her body, but the spiritual energy ran wild through her meridians, refusing to obey her.
Her progress was still slower than a tortoise's crawl. Helplessness surged in from all sides, threatening to drown her.
Why?
Just because their spiritual roots are better than mine, they get to rise smoothly through the ranks?
Why?!
I've worked so hard. Why can't I do it?!
Then the indifferent face of Qing Xu Temple's Sect Master appeared before her.
"Use whatever means necessary to uncover the truth about their cultivation techniques, find conclusive proof that they are Evil Cultivators, and report everything to me.
"When you succeed, I will not only make an exception and take you as my personal disciple, but personally perform Bone Cleansing Marrow Washing on you and rebuild your constitution!
"You may not necessarily reach the Core Formation stage, but establishing your Foundation will certainly be within your grasp."
Su Ling'er knew perfectly well why she had been chosen.
Because she was an insignificant pawn.
One they wouldn't mind losing.
She was nothing more than an outer-sect disciple who ran errands.
But at the same time, only someone as hardworking as her, someone who yearned for the Righteous Path and cultivation, would faithfully carry out this near-suicidal mission.
It was her only chance to climb higher as an outer-sect disciple.
She was lucky, and unlucky.
How could the sect's true future prospects ever be sent on such a dangerous mission?
They were precious jade, while she was no more than a rough stone by the roadside.
But her heart was still unwilling to accept it.
Why?!
Just because her spiritual roots were poor from birth, was she destined to be trampled underfoot?
Just because she was born into a poor family, was she destined to accept other people's pity and endure their mockery?
She wanted to become a player, not a pawn anymore.
The Undercover Mission was poison, but it was also the only cure available to her.
There were countless rough stones like her in Qing Xu Temple's outer sect. They never even got the chance to become pawns, and could only spend their lives in despair until their lifespans ran out.
But she, Su Ling'er, had been chosen.
Even if the path ahead was lined with blades or plunged into an abyss, at its end lay the words "Foundation Establishment."
It was the first true sight along the road to immortality!
It was better to die on the road than rot where she stood!
A single thought cut through the noise in her mind.
Could someone with a Pseudo Spiritual Root really not become an immortal?
She wanted to find out.
She was determined to see the view from the mountaintop!
Su Ling'er's eyes cleared in the illusion.
She lifted her leg and stepped onto the second stair.
The third.
The fourth.
The tenth.
Behind her, the illusion of Qing Xu Temple crumbled away, and the voices faded with it.
The scene before her changed once more.
This time, a scorching fire abruptly washed over her, burning her skin with pain so real she almost screamed.
She saw it.
She saw herself being lifted by two Gui Xi Sect disciples and tossed into a massive pill furnace.
The pill fanatic Lu Wu was outside, frantically casting the techniques used to refine pills.
The flames roared, the copper walls glowed red-hot, and she tumbled around inside the furnace.
She watched as her hands, from skin to flesh to bone, slowly melted away and turned to charcoal.
Her flesh and bones were repeatedly tempered and burned, until at last she was refined into a living pill, its surface continuously showing her face as she cried out in agony!
The scene changed.
Clang, clang, clang...
Deafening hammer blows rang out. She had been bound to a forging platform.
A huge hammer etched with strange runes struck her again and again.
Her bones shattered one by one, her flesh was pounded into a bloody mess, and her body was forcibly twisted and stretched into the crude shape of a sword!
Her soul trembled at the sight!
But she had no chance to catch her breath. The ground beneath her feet turned to damp soil.
Around her was the numbing despair of the Spirit Beast Garden.
She would never forget it.
She watched herself become one of them, her gaze numb and shackles fastened to her limbs. Forced to toil in the fields and haul mine carts, she was whipped until her skin split whenever she stopped to rest.
All she could do was drag the cart onward, step by agonizing step, serving the Gui Xi Sect disciples who chatted and laughed nearby.
She watched them enjoy the spirit stones she had carried over with such effort and the Spiritual Grass she had painstakingly grown.
All she could do was gaze at them from afar. Amid this endless toil, she eventually reached the end of her life.
When her lifespan ran out and her soul was destroyed, her fallen body would be dragged into the sect and processed into part of the Human Origin Soil.
This was the Gui Xi Sect!
This was the lightless Demon Den!
Su Ling'er's soul shuddered. Every part of her body seemed to scream at her to run, to give up!
But why did people cultivate the Dao?
Wasn't it for longevity?
Wasn't it to live as long as Heaven, roam freely between Heaven and Earth, and behold all the wonders of this world?
Wasn't it to take control of their own fate, to stop living in fear and being at the mercy of others?
She, Su Ling'er, was going to become an immortal!
Even if she had a four-element Pseudo Spiritual Root, even if her talent and constitution were abysmal,
she still wanted all of this.
She would make it all a reality!
She would trample underfoot every demon who treated human lives as playthings, and make those Evil Cultivators who slaughtered without a care taste the same despair!
Her steps grew heavy. The spiritual agony each one brought made her tremble, but she never stopped.
Twenty stairs!
Thirty!
Forty!
At the foot of the Dao Seeking Ladder,
the crowd erupted in an uproar. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the slender figure steadily climbing upward.
"Am I seeing things?
"Isn't this Junior Sister's first time here?
"She's already made it to the forty-fifth stair?!"
"You've got to be kidding!"
"This new local Junior Sister has such a high Will attribute?"
"Look at her expression. Why does she look like she's seeking revenge, not the Dao?"
"I reckon her Dao Heart or Will attribute must be terrifyingly high."
The others turned in unison toward the Artifact Refining Pavilion disciples who had just come down from the ladder.
The disciples who had practiced the Sword Refining Art.
When everyone tried the Dao Seeking Ladder for the first time, didn't they all have to come down after only a dozen or twenty steps?
Even among those who randomly started with relatively high Dao Heart and Will attributes and had practiced the Sword Refining Art, many had only managed thirty or forty steps.
In the end, they either couldn't breathe under the pressure or were driven half-mad by the demonic illusions.
Lin Qingfeng dropped his usual nonchalant expression, looking amused.
This Junior Sister... Her starting stats for talent and constitution were both terrible, and she even had a Pseudo Spiritual Root. She was practically an artificial idiot.
Could her random starting attributes have all gone into Will or Dao Heart?
Or was the Dao Seeking Ladder's evaluation of local NPCs somehow different from its evaluation of us players?
Before you continue