Stairs of Sinking

Time passed quickly, and two days vanished in the blink of an eye.

Inside the Quiet Room.

Lu Yan'an slowly opened his eyes, a sharp glint flashing through them before vanishing. Immediately, his aura settled into stillness. Today was the day Lu Yan'an and Lord Shen had agreed to begin his training as an Illusionist. However, judging by Lord Shen's recent behavior, this training was certainly not going to be simple.

Recalling the clearly gloating expression on Lord Shen's face, a wave of panic rose in Lu Yan'an's heart. But how could he, Lu Yan'an, be a coward? He was just being cautious! After giving himself a mental pep talk, he slowly stood up and walked toward the door of the Quiet Room with a tragic gait.

Outside the door, Lord Shen had already been waiting for a long time...

Hearing the movement at the door, its eyes lit up, and then the corners of its mouth curled slightly upward, forming a somewhat playful smile.

"Yo, finally out! You really kept me waiting." Seeing Lu Yan'an walk out of the Quiet Room, Lord Shen began its performance.

"Lord Shen, just give it to me straight! How exactly does one train as an Illusionist? If I'm going to die, at least let me die knowing why, right?" Lu Yan'an said to Lord Shen with a bitter expression.

"No rush, no rush. It wouldn't be fun if I just told you. But I can tell you about the projects you need to train on for the next period of time." Lord Shen remained in its enigmatic state, wearing an inscrutable smile as it continued.

"Have you ever heard of the Stairs of Sinking?"

"Stairs of Sinking?" Lu Yan'an began to search his memory of the original story, only to find that these four words had never appeared, and he couldn't help but feel a bit puzzled.

Seeing the confused look on Lu Yan'an's face, Lord Shen didn't continue to play coy and said bluntly:

"If the Killing Space is a place suitable for Fighters and Spirit Readers to train and live, then the Stairs of Sinking is the most suitable place for Illusionists to train!"

"But not every Illusionist is fortunate enough to go to the Stairs of Sinking for advanced training! Only genius Illusionists are allowed to enter, and one must meet a certain status threshold just to know of its existence."

Lord Shen explained.

"Then what is the point of this place existing? Genius Illusionists? And a status threshold? Is it trying to avoid people going there entirely?" Lu Yan'an scratched his hair, finding these standards very strange.

When ordinary factions want to absorb fresh blood, they are desperate to advertise to everyone. They try to recruit the most talented individuals from the largest possible audience. The Peak Genius Tournament (Star Level) and the Strongest Tournament (Universe Level) held by the "Five Great Sages" of the human race follow this path.

But this place, the Stairs of Sinking, is quite strange, or rather, it doesn't follow the beaten path at all! They only recruit from places that have connections; not only is the target audience small, but it is also extremely prone to generational gaps.

"It seems you have some misunderstandings about the Illusionist group!" Lord Shen replied calmly after a moment of silence upon hearing Lu Yan'an's question.

"Illusionists have a threshold; it is completely different from the mainstream paths of Fighters and Controllers. In the universe, Fighters and Spirit Readers make up over 99.9 percent of the population, with all other professions occupying the final 0.1 percent."

"Within this final 0.1 percent, Illusionists and Pharmacists are considered mainstream. But they share a common characteristic: they require a master-disciple lineage!"

Hearing this, Lu Yan'an suddenly realized! Every Illusionist has a master, which basically prevents the appearance of "wild" Illusionists. No wonder the Land of Sinking never recruited from the universe at large—or rather, it wasn't that they didn't recruit, but that there were simply no self-taught Illusionists in the universe! And as long as one is an Illusionist with a teacher, their background cannot be small, and they would definitely have heard of the Land of Sinking.

This was what you called targeted recruitment! Lu Yan'an finally understood why he had never heard of the Land of Sinking in the original story. The trio from Earth all followed the paths of Fighters and Spirit Readers, which had nothing to do with Illusionists, so it was no wonder they had never heard of this place.

"Alright, your curiosity has been satisfied. Now, log into the Virtual Universe system. I already applied for your entry into the Land of Sinking during the two days you were in seclusion; just log in and accept it!"

Lord Shen urged him to log in while speaking.

Lu Yan'an gritted his teeth, steeled his heart, and clicked to enter the Virtual Universe...

Virtual Universe, Land of Sinking.

At a glance, it was an endless forest. The forest was ancient and primitive, filled with the magic and greatness of natural creation. As far as the eye could see, lakes and seas of flowers were in full view. Lu Yan'an followed Lord Shen as they walked slowly through this primeval forest until they reached the center, where Lord Shen stopped.

Lu Yan'an looked up and discovered a building filled with an ancient aura. It was a massive, towering pyramid-shaped structure! A purple pyramid, thousands of meters high; with Lu Yan'an's eyesight, he could even clearly see tiny human figures on the purple pyramid.

"What kind of training is this Stairs of Sinking, exactly?" Lu Yan'an asked Lord Shen, who was leading the way.

"Do you see those steps?" Lord Shen didn't answer Lu Yan'an's question, but instead pointed to the steps of the purple pyramid ahead.

"Of course, so what is the training?"

This time, Lord Shen didn't change the subject, but instead smiled and said to him: "Those steps are called the Stairs of Sinking, and your training task is to walk up these thousand steps!"

"It shouldn't be that simple, right?" Lu Yan'an asked cautiously.

"Simple? You can go and try it; you'll only know if it's 'simple' after you try!" Lord Shen said, stepping aside to clear the path for him.

Lu Yan'an didn't stand on ceremony. According to the situations in the original story, the usual trope for this kind of stair-climbing test was that walking up would trigger some kind of illusion trial. Generally speaking, as long as one held on, there shouldn't be any major issues! Moreover, Lu Yan'an had previously broken through to the realm of Clear Heart Seeing Nature, which was the reason he had the confidence to break through illusions.

He stepped onto the first level cautiously. The moment he stepped onto the purple stair, a strange mental power swept through his brain, and Lu Yan'an immediately sank into the illusion of the first level...

At the same time, Lu Yan'an's consciousness fell rapidly. When his consciousness cleared again, he was stunned. "Huh?" Lu Yan'an glanced at the computer on his desk, feeling a bit dazed. "A computer? Such a nostalgic thing?" He hadn't seen a computer in over a dozen years!

Then, a flood of memories surged into his mind. "My name is Xu Yuan, an aging programmer. I have a happy family, a gentle wife, a pair of cute children, and both sets of parents are still alive."

"Ring-ring." The phone rang. Lu Yan'an picked up the phone in his pocket. The simple memories instilled in him allowed Lu Yan'an to understand the 30-plus years of 'Xu Yuan's' life quite well.

"Hello Xu Yuan, I'm from HR at XX Tech. Since the company has to send a batch of talent to society every year, congratulations! This year's list..." Before he could finish listening to the person's words, Lu Yan'an roughly understood what he meant. He, an aging programmer, was being laid off!

After hanging up the phone, before he even had time to drink a sip of water, the ringing started again. "Hey, A-Yuan. I just got a call from the hospital; Dad went for a checkup today and was diagnosed with uremia..." His wife's voice was filled with a hint of panic. Just after comforting his wife and hanging up, the phone rang again. "Hello Mr. Xu Yuan, I am from XX Bank, your savings..."

Unemployment, serious illness, the bank manager running away with the money—could it be any more absurd? Was this lightning strike trying to hit him all in one day? Lu Yan'an was speechless; how unlucky could this person be!

At this moment, a piece of illusory text appeared in the air in front of Lu Yan'an: First level of life's predicament. Breaking requirement: Resolve the current predicament. Within one year, make the family harmonious and possess ten million in assets. Failure penalty: Incontinence for one week.

Lu Yan'an now completely understood Lord Shen's strange smile. Damn it! So that's what was waiting for him!