Old Principal was delighted by his friends' praise and waved his hand.
Seeing the cultivators from the other cities gathered around, Old Principal hurriedly cupped his hands in greeting, then led Bai Yi and the others back to the giant leaf vein beside the plaza.
"Your growth over this past month has already exceeded my expectations."
"However, the assessment ahead is the most important part."
"These Four Academies and Ten Palaces are far more important than you understand."
"Don't be fooled by the fact that this is only a Preliminary Exam Assessment. Once you pass, even if you fail the entrance exam later, you can still choose a First-Rate Academy as a specially admitted student without taking the exam."
Old Principal glanced at Bai Yi and sighed, speaking earnestly.
The saying that beneath the Ten Palaces, there was no hope of reaching Golden Core wasn't just a simple rumor...
Ignoring the condition that passing the Preliminary Exam let him enter a First-Rate Academy without an exam, Bai Yi glanced at the densely packed plaza.
From the very beginning, his goal had never been the Ten Palaces.
Solar Radiance Migration
After more than three hundred cities and over a thousand Dao Studies students had gathered for half a day,
a warship appeared on the distant horizon. It was shaped like a blade, painted silver and black, with numerous gun ports faintly visible beneath its armor.
"They're here!"
Everyone's heart jolted, and their gazes converged upward.
As the warship hovered above the plaza, its hatch slowly opened. A white-haired, youthful-looking figure stepped into the air and appeared in the center of the plaza in an instant, as if walking on level ground.
Immediately afterward, dozens of young figures wearing Dao Robes from the Four Academies and Ten Palaces appeared, gliding through the air and landing behind him.
"Take out your Dao Studies Tokens."
The white-haired man's lips moved slightly. Though his words seemed casual, they rang in everyone's ears like a bell.
At his words, the many Dao Studies principals hurriedly took from their pockets jade tokens that shimmered with verification patterns.
In an instant, Bai Yi felt a tremendous force, like a crashing landslide, erupt from the White-Haired Youth. That terrifying pressure merely brushed past him, yet it made his entire body tremble uncontrollably.
A Golden Core True Person!
Bai Yi was shocked. He tried desperately to raise his head, but the pressure bore down on him, leaving him unable to move.
The Golden Core True Person's vast Divine Sense swept over the Dao Studies Tokens in the principals' hands. After verifying them, the White-Haired Youth nodded.
In an instant, the terrifying pressure that had frozen the surrounding air abruptly dissipated. Everyone felt their bodies loosen, and quite a few Dao Students with weaker cultivation even staggered and fell.
"That's the might of a Golden Core True Person. If he wanted, I'm afraid he could crush us to death with a single thought."
Bai Yi clenched his fist slightly and looked straight at the White-Haired Youth, but it was as if clouds and mist separated them. He could only make out a vague silhouette.
"I am the principal of Skywave Academy and the chief examiner at the Qunlan City test site."
"This year's Four Academies and Ten Palaces Preliminary Exam Assessment will be the Immortal Ascension Stairway."
The White-Haired Youth's figure slowly rose into the air. After looking down over the crowd, an Immortal Ascension Staircase appeared in his palm, its entire body as smooth and lustrous as white jade, with fourteen Baiyu statues carved into its top.
He turned his palm over. An overwhelming blast of air, blotting out the sky and sun, plunged down like a comet.
The Immortal Ascension Stairway fell through the air, expanding continuously under the support of the Golden Core True Person's True Essence. It grew until it was as large as several football fields, then slammed down onto the plaza like a Baiyu staircase reaching straight into the clouds.
Boom!
Under the terrifying impact, the enormous leaves that formed the plaza trembled back and forth beneath everyone's feet.
As the heavens seemed to collapse and the earth split open, the White-Haired Youth in midair slowly lowered his hand. Ten miles of cloud sea churned and gathered, then transformed with his movement into a cloud palm stretching over ten kilometers. It caught the leaves and steadied them.
"Anyone who climbs fifty steps in this assessment will pass."
The White-Haired Youth's voice rang out once more. Everyone looked up at the Immortal Ascension Stairway, five or six kilometers wide and rising straight into the sea of clouds, standing silently before them.
Runes and profound intent flowed across its steps. It looked like a staircase to the immortal realm, and gazing upon it was enough to draw one in.
"Dao Students, ascend."
As the White-Haired Youth's voice echoed, tens of thousands of Third Year of High School Dao Studies prodigies from hundreds of cities, Bai Yi among them, leaped forward with nervous excitement.
Streams of Dao light, Talismans, and artifacts flew through the air.
Bai Yi glanced around, then descended onto the Immortal Ascension Platform alone, with his sword.
The moment his feet touched the ground, endless clouds and mist instantly enveloped his Divine Sense and field of vision.
Everything went black. When he opened his eyes again, he saw bustling city streets filled with vendors and pedestrians coming and going.
The dazzling metal buildings of advanced technology were gone, replaced by concrete buildings and the sights and sounds of everyday city life.
"So climbing the stairs is Questioning the Heart."
Bai Yi strolled along the street, watching scenes from his previous life unfold one after another. Then he gave a soft laugh. With a single sword cry, everything before his eyes was cut in half and vanished into clouds and mist.
Opening his eyes again, Bai Yi glanced at the densely packed Dao Students still lost in the illusion and rode his Sword Light straight toward the second step.
"Someone made it up!"
"Sword Light?! Is that the Sword Cultivator kid from earlier?!"
"Just what you'd expect from a Sword Cultivator prodigy. It only took him three breaths to see through the illusion in his heart!"
"Those transfer students haven't even woken up yet."
Seeing Bai Yi awaken and continue climbing almost as soon as he had stepped onto the stairway, the many Dao Studies principals watching him couldn't help exclaiming in admiration.
Bai Yi's battle with Lu Zheng at noon had made him something of a celebrity.
Everyone knew that, apart from the more than twenty top-ranked Third-Level City Dao Studies with prodigies comparable to the outstanding Dao Students from First-Level Cities, the twenty or so transfer students were the ones most likely to pass the assessment.
And Bai Yi's record of defeating Lu Zheng with a single sword had already led people to call him a genius Sword Cultivator.
A few breaths after Bai Yi awoke, quite a few Dao Students in the crowd woke up in turn. Seeing the Sword Light climbing upward, they narrowed their eyes, then followed without backing down.
Second Step of the Immortal Ascension Stairway
Bai Yi opened his eyes and returned to his infancy. Two blurry-faced figures happily picked him up, and he went from kindergarten to elementary school, then college, until he grew up and married.
After decades of life's vicissitudes, the blurry figures, their hair streaked white at the temples, caressed his now-rough hands.
"Xiaoyi, don't leave Mom and Dad."
Listening to the somewhat false voice by his ear, Bai Yi gave a soft sigh. The surrounding scenery faded like smoke and clouds.
More than ten years had passed. To him, his past life as an orphan felt more like a dream.
"Awakening from a great dream, I am Bai Yi, and only Bai Yi..."
The last trace of dust deep within Bai Yi's heart vanished. When he opened his eyes again, dozens of Dao Students stood around him with their eyes shut.
Without hesitation, Bai Yi summoned his Sword Light and climbed toward the third step.
The tender bonds of family... birth, aging, sickness, and death... all the way to his parents and older sister in this life...
Sword Light slashed through Bai Yi's heart again and again as he continued upward. Under the astonished gazes of the crowd, he landed directly on the tenth step.
On the empty step, unlike the mist that had turned into an illusion before, endless clouds and mist gathered in front of Bai Yi, forming a fat old man with a gourd on his back and his chest bared.
The old man picked at his nostril with a finger, and the aura of Qi Refining, Sixth Layer faintly radiated from him.
"A Rogue Cultivator from the Dragon Gourd Sect... Let's see how this little fellow fares against an Outer Domain Cultivator."
As the White-Haired Youth closed his eyes to comprehend, a wisp of Divine Sense glanced toward Bai Yi on the tenth step. He smiled faintly, then once more immersed himself in his own Great Dao.
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