Desolate Devouring Art-Chapter 1599 - Myriad Profound Pagoda

The disciples rubbed their palms together, excitement radiating from their eyes. They had waited far too long for this day. After all, only a tiny number of disciples with truly exceptional performance could climb from the bottom and enter the outer sect.

Sima An's voice echoed across the martial field, "I'll now send all of you to the assessment ground. Whoever can reach the highest floor of the Myriad Profound Pagoda first would take first place. We'll promote the top 100 to elite disciples, and those ranked 101-1,000 to inner disciples. As for the specific reward, they will be announced separately."

He deliberately withheld information about the rewards, indicating they wouldn't be small. For ordinary disciples, that kind of temptation was simply irresistible.

Liu Wuxie had already reached the eighth-level Earth Immortal Realm, and he had no interest in treasures. His goal was to split them apart from the inside.

Sima An formed seals with both hands, and a mysterious portal opened, leading straight to the assessment ground.

"You may all enter now," Sima An announced.

The disciples rushed into the gate in a massive wave, almost trampling one another in a stampede. The elders hovering in midair shook their heads, knowing that most of these people didn't lack talent, only the right mentality.

Liu Wuxie slipped in with the crowd and stepped into the mysterious gate. He intended to fracture the Immortal Slaughter Palace in three months, and his first step had just begun.

After passing through the spatial gate, everyone stepped out into a barren wilderness.

"The spiritual arrays here are similar to the Heavenly Dragon Sect's Primordial Pagoda. I was transported into the mountain range there and was nearly killed by the Flesh-Eating Worms," Liu Wuxie recalled after he arrived.

The spiritual array had transported them into a distant mountain range, which meant they could return the same way.

The ordinary disciples couldn't comprehend what had happened at all. The moment Liu Wuxie stabilized himself, he spotted a towering pagoda in the distance, and it had to be the Myriad Profound Pagoda that Sima An mentioned.

Whoever reached the top floor first would claim first place and receive the sect's nurturing. But nothing about this would be as simple as it looked. The pagoda stood in plain sight, yet reaching it wouldn't be easy, or the assessment would become a joke.

Sure enough, a swarm of strange yellow wasps blotted out the sky and dived at everyone. The wasps would not kill, but they would paralyze their victims long enough for the sect to retrieve them.

After Sima An and the other elders finished their arrangements, they returned to the main hall, where hundreds of elders already waited. Even though many elders had died in the explosion, the Immortal Slaughter Palace still retained over two hundred elders, each with formidable cultivation.

Each wore different expressions, especially those with cracked dantians. They felt the most desperate need to find a disciple to inherit their legacy.

With time, those cracks would widen until their cultivation collapsed, and they would become ordinary people. But if they could take in a powerful disciple, they could still rely on that disciple even after falling into mortal weakness.

Most cultivators devoted their youth to the pursuit of cultivation. Yet by the time they reached accomplishment, the weight of years and responsibilities had already settled upon them, hindering further advancement.

In the end, their only choice was to accept disciples and let their legacy live on through others.

A ripple appeared above the hall, forming a screen displaying the assessment ground. The assessment had only begun, yet many disciples had already been stung by wasps and lay wailing in pain.

Many elders shook their heads in disappointment because miscellaneous disciples differed from ordinary disciples in mentality and adaptability.

"The quality of these seedlings is too poor."

The scene made their eyes ache, but they still forced themselves to watch. "Let's keep watching. Perhaps a miracle might appear."

Liu Wuxie blended into the crowd and dropped into a crouch as the wasps swept over him, letting the swarm pass without incident. His cultivation only appeared to be at the Transcendent Realm, and if he killed the wasps outright, he would expose himself immediately.

The moment the swarm slid past, Liu Wuxie sprang up and executed his movement technique, surging forward in a clean burst.

In the blink of an eye, he shook off a large group of competitors and caught the first batch of disciples. With his current showing, he already qualified as a monstrous prodigy. These people ahead had to be outer disciples, because the miscellaneous disciples' performance rarely rose beyond average.

Liu Wuxie didn't rush; he held a steady pace and conserved stamina. After all, he had already sealed his Earth Immortal Realm's laws and immortal energy. He could only circulate ordinary true essence now. Even after sealing his cultivation, he still retained the Ghost Pupil, which let him read the terrain around him with ease.

All of a sudden, Liu Wuxie veered right and began to diverge from the main crowd.

The sudden change instantly caught the attention of several elders in the main hall.

"This kid is interesting!"

"Did he sense the danger ahead?"

The elders themselves had arranged the assessment ground, so they naturally knew where danger waited and where safety lay.

"It should be a coincidence." After all, mere cultivators at the Transcendent Realm couldn't possibly predict danger with certainty.

Liu Wuxie slipped beneath a tree and relieved himself. Not long after he left, a massive herd of astral beasts burst forth, charging into the disciples and scattering them in all directions.

They didn't die, but many instantly lost their qualifications and were transported out.

"This..." The elders in the main hall fell into stunned silence.

With his back turned, a faint smile tugged at his lips. He murmured, "Playing games with me? You people are novices."

After finishing, Liu Wuxie circled the astral beasts and continued forward without slowing.

"This kid has pretty good luck. His cultivation might be a little low, but with luck like that, how could he possibly fail to grow?" someone said. If someone asked what mattered in cultivation, most would answer that luck came first, and talent came second.

Those with heaven-defying luck could compensate for poor aptitude. Those with exceptional talent but little luck often achieved little. One could improve aptitude, but couldn't manufacture luck.

That was why so many people fought to take those with heaven-defying fortune as disciples.

Liu Wuxie had displayed his "fortune" perfectly by avoiding the astral beasts' charge. That alone allowed him to dash toward the front as the Myriad Profound Pagoda grew closer with every step.

The disciples behind him sprinted with everything they had, desperate to overtake him.

Streaks of sword aura suddenly ripped through the air as someone finally acted against Liu Wuxie, trying to slow him down.

"Brat, you're just a miscellaneous disciple, and how dare you snatch our spotlight!" The attackers were outer disciples of the Immortal Slaughter Palace, and their cultivation had reached the pinnacle of the Transcendent Realm.

Liu Wuxie sensed the sword aura cutting in from behind and executed his movement technique, slipping away with ease. The movement technique itself was ordinary, yet in his hands it produced extraordinary results.

The elders in the main hall exclaimed again, "That's our Immortal Slaughter Palace's Emerald Moon Seven-Star Steps, and he has cultivated it to this level?!"

The Emerald Moon Seven-Star Steps was an ordinary martial technique that the sect offered to ordinary disciples. If a miscellaneous disciple wanted to learn it, they needed a large amount of resources to exchange for it.

Meng Hong had long copied the Immortal Slaughter Palace's enormous collection of techniques for Liu Wuxie, from low to high levels, and Liu Wuxie had essentially mastered them all.

With the Heavenly Dao Book, Liu Wuxie could grasp a martial technique in a few minutes.

"He has decent talent with strong reflexes. Once he enters the Myriad Profound Pagoda, we can test his soul energy. If his soul energy is proven to be superior, he will be a decent seedling to nurture."

The Immortal Slaughter Palace had already investigated every disciple's background, because they refused to allow anyone suspicious to infiltrate their ranks.

"Elder Niu, you want to take him as your disciple?" someone asked.

The elder who spoke earlier was called Niu Yichang, and the explosion had left cracks in his dantian. One crack had already widened to the thickness of a hair.

The palace lord had treated his injuries and temporarily sealed the crack, so he didn't have to fear true essence leaking out over the next few decades.

Niu Yichang said with a shake of his head, "It's not easy to become my disciple." He could only pick the best among the mediocre, and Liu Wuxie had shown the best performance among the miscellaneous disciples so far. Even so, it still failed to meet his true requirements.

In fact, the idea of elders taking disciples had come from the palace lord himself. If the sect cultivated disciples normally, it would take decades, if not centuries, for them to mature, and the Immortal Slaughter Palace couldn't afford to wait that long. Thus, the best approach was for elders to temper them personally.

After Liu Wuxie evaded the sword aura, the three outer disciples closed the distance, pushing harder.

"Brat, get lost!"

A ferocious sword ray blasted toward Liu Wuxie, displaying the full might of the pinnacle of the Transcendent Realm. At the same time, Liu Wuxie only appeared to be at the fourth-level Transcendent Realm.

The difference between them looked absolute. When the sword ray arrived, Liu Wuxie had no choice but to defend. An ordinary weapon flashed into his hand, and he executed a sword technique that belonged to the Immortal Slaughter Palace. Yet he implemented it to perfection with a single smooth motion.

Liu Wuxie didn't crush the outer disciple outright because that would look too monstrous. Still, he held him off cleanly, and they exchanged several moves while the elders in the main hall watched Liu Wuxie stand his ground.

"Fighting someone with a higher cultivation. This kid isn't simple." Even without killing the outer disciple, Liu Wuxie holding out for so long already counted as fighting someone with higher cultivation.

"Go investigate his background," an expert at the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm ordered.

After all, nobody could explain how such talent had gone undiscovered for so long. Not everyone possessed the ability to fight above their realm.

The report was delivered quickly.

"He's Meng An, Meng Hong's nephew."

Meng Hong held a decent status in the sect, and the sect could guarantee his loyalty. But after he had failed his mission on the True Martial Continent, they had demoted him and assigned him to miscellaneous affairs. It only made sense that Meng Hong would secretly guide his nephew and take care of him.

Liu Wuxie's current identity was Meng Hong's nephew, Meng An.

The elders nodded as understanding settled in. "So that's it. Meng Hong must've guided him in secret."

Even if Meng Hong didn't hold a particularly high status in the Immortal Slaughter Palace, he remained an elder at the Void Realm. Yet his nephew had always been worthless, failing the outer sect assessment every year and remaining a miscellaneous disciple all along.

Not long ago, someone had killed that nephew when he had gone out to buy supplies.

"Immortal Crane Guidance!" Liu Wuxie struck with his sword and cleanly dissolved the outer disciple's attack.

After forcing him back, Liu Wuxie vanished, racing straight toward the Myriad Profound Pagoda.

The pagoda looked close, yet it lay far away, and countless trials still waited between it and the disciples.

Liu Wuxie understood he needed to display monstrous talent, but he also knew he couldn't go too far. If he looked too ordinary, the upper echelons would never notice him, but if he looked too absurd, he would expose himself. That meant Liu Wuxie had to balance every step himself.