Time seemed to be meaningless under the dim and lonely starry sky.
Su Li frowned tightly, and a faint annoyance flickered in her eyes. She had been stuck here for too long. Every minute and every second became incredibly long for her.
Besides the first three steps, the next twenty-three steps seemed to be gratis serendipity to give away, and they were all affordable.
The twenty-seventh step was clearly a tough one.
“Black Lotus clearly said that there are at most eighteen steps in the first attempt to Chuangxing Path, which is a multiple of nine. I have reached the twenty-sixth step, and there is no end in sight. Twenty-seven, which is also a multiple of nine, is most likely the last step, but why does no step appear after the twenty-sixth?”
There were so many questions in her mind, but unfortunately, no one could answer them for her. After a few attempts, she was sure that there was no place where she could land. How could she change the situation?
She looked at the dim stars that seemed to be within reach in the distance, and the endless darkness almost swallowed the stone steps completely. With such a sad sight, even those strong-minded practitioners would go insane after they stayed long enough.
Taking a deep breath, Su Li forced herself to calm down and suppress the dysphoric feeling inside.
Precisely at the moment like this, she couldn’t lose her mind, or she would possibly get lost in this starry sky like Black Lotus had warned.
“Which part went wrong exactly?”
Su Li thought back in detail.
Starting with the first stone step, three footsteps as a cycle had tested her physical body, strength, and mind. There might be some tests of academic circle mixed in those other tests, which she had passed unsurprisingly. After eight cycles, her physical body and soul were improved to a limit. From the twenty-fifth step, no more gift of Chuangxing Path could be absorbed, so there was no improvement to her.
It shouldn’t be like this.
If the test of Chuangxing Path was so tedious, it would not be enough to become the most terrifying practicing method in the ancient cultivation circle. She must’ve overlooked something.
After a while of contemplation, Su Li suddenly gazed fixedly, and she came up with a terrifying idea.
Yes, the tedious cycle!
If she couldn’t bring an end to Chuangxing Path, it meant that she was in danger right now. What type of trap would emerge repeatedly?
The answer spoke for itself!
Determination flickered in her eyes. Su Li turned around and stepped to the darkness without hesitation.
Right after she took this step, the darkness around her shattered like a piece of glass, and the original starry sky of Chuangxing Path appeared.
“It is a double illusion…”
Su Li exhaled slowly and found herself still stuck on the third stone step, a deep scruple appearing in her eyes.
As it turned out, the twenty-six steps she had broken through before were all an illusion, and if she couldn’t keep a clear head to figure that out, the consequence would be dire.
“The third stone step is much more difficult than the second; it’s absurd that I was even complacent about breaking through the first illusion before.”
Su Li mocked herself, and her eyes became bright again. No matter how much time she had spent, she finally got through this test after all.
“Hm? Another gift of Chuangxing Path…”
A warm and mysterious pneuma from the stone step beneath her feet merged into her body and disappeared, and Su Li only felt the benefit of the pneuma, but what the benefit was precisely, she couldn’t tell.
“My realm and experience are too poor… for the mysterious Chungxing Path.” Sighing secretly, Su Li sat down and began to absorb the pneuma quietly.
This time, the warm pneuma stopped emerging, not after long.
Based on the difficulty of the third stone step, the duration of the gift should be longer than before, but the time passed only less than a tenth of the time at the second stone step, according to Su Li’s estimation.
“So, this warm pneuma should be very precious.”
As this thought flashed through her mind, and Su Li was about to get up, she suddenly saw the nothingness in front of her began to vibrate. A few moments later, a mysterious ancient text came out from the nothingness; although she had never seen such a script before, she understood the meaning with a glance.
“The third person ever since to break through the realm!”
Su Li was shocked severely. Did Chuangxing Path have its own consciousness? Otherwise, where did the text come from?
1200 times breathing? Did this mean the time she took to get through the third step?
And what was the meaning of the third person ever since? She didn’t think her talent could be ranked to the third.
“Black Lotus…”
Su Li was silent, and she was afraid that even Black Lotus might not be able to explain the strange vision in front of her this time.
Whoosh!
At this moment, the ancient text flickered for a while, and the words faded out, while another image like a list emerged with only two lines of texts. The rest was blank.
Su Li stared at it, and the meaning of the two lines of ancient text emerged in her mind.
“Star-Lord Nimo, Duan Hongchen!”
“Star-Lord Kuiyu, Lin Chen!”
Star-Lord Kuiyu?
Kuiyu Palace?!
Su Li’s face turned pale. Even with her mind of two lives, she couldn’t help but be horrified at the moment.
She still remembered that the holy practicing method Black Lotus had mentioned was stolen from Kuiyu Palace. Could it possible that Star-Lord Kuiyu on the second place of the list was the same person as the Great Lord of Kuiyu Palace?
As to the number one on the list, Duan Hongchen, needless to say, he must be more terrifying than the Great Lord of Kuiyu Palace. The realm of those ancient ancestors was simply beyond her imagination.
She fell into a deep silence. The sudden appearance of the legendary characters and events gave her a feeling of extreme inauthenticity.
Suddenly, Su Li sensed a hint of her own pneuma being pulled away from her body and merging into the list. The change freaked her out, “Could it be that …”
Boom!!
There came a faint quake from the nothingness, and then the list rippled slightly. Texts began to appear in the third line.
Qingshui Circle, Su Li!
Su Li was startled as she looked at the dazzling list in the nothingness, “It does appear…”
Compared to the previous two names, her name was unknown. But in Chuangxing Path, she could be listed like the other two on the same list. This feeling was indescribably wonderful.
Su Li’s heart was filled with complex feelings. And suddenly, a burst of extremely slight laughter reverberated through the starry sky, reaching her ears in a flash.
“There’s someone else here?!”
Su Li’s pupils crumpled, and she looked around with her body tensed. She spread her psychic awareness to detect but found nothing.
While she searched bitterly to no avail, that laughter sounded again.
“It is interesting that someone finally triggers the mechanism I left many years ago. It looks like you have some connection with me… Junior, practice hard. Maybe we have the chance to meet each other in the future…”
It was hard to tell whether the mysterious voice was male or female, and the voice came and went quickly. Leaving that behind, the laughter faded away and disappeared without a trace.
Su Li was startled as she found a booklet on the step, whose cover was golden. Was it a gift to her by the owner of that voice?
She stretched out her hand, and the booklet fell into her hand. She opened it, and the first line of the general principles came into view. She was familiar with it because it was similar to the Secret Records of Black Lotus but differed from it. After a rough glance, she realized that this practicing method was far more profound than the Secret Records of Black Lotus. In other words, the Secret Records of Black Lotus was a simplified version of this practicing method.
She closed the booklet, and three ancient marks flickered on the cover.
Suiyu Tactics!
“The real name of Secret Records of Black Lotus is Suiyu Tactics, actually. If Black Lotus knew the practicing method he stole is a simplified version, how would he react…”
Su Li shook her head and couldn’t help but smile, and her eyes were extremely bright. She vaguely had a hint of the origin of the voice’s owner, but the guess was so horribly illogical that she had to keep it to herself and wouldn’t even mention it to Black Lotus.
“Does that level of being still live somewhere in the world…?”
After Su Li stowed the booklet and waited until the list from the nothingness disappeared, she calmed down her mind and found that her essence, energy, and spirit were a little different as before.
Whoever experienced so many wondrous adventures in a short period would undergo a transformation of the mind, and his horizon would be tremendously widened.
If Su Li were still in her last life, she would’ve been shocked for a long time by seeing an old ancestor in Huashen Realm, but now… there would be no fluctuation in her heart when she saw someone even in Dujie Realm.
After a slight fluctuation, a mysterious portal appeared in front of Su Li, with a starburst shinning.
“It’s the gate of Chuangxing Path. Does my Chuangxing Path only have three steps at all?”
Su Li looked down and stepped out without hesitation. Something must have varied on her Chuangxing Path, and ordinary rules couldn’t bind it.
Although she had lost six gifts of Chuangxing Path, she didn’t regret it, for a single copy of Suiyu Tactics was more precious than all the gifts of her first attempts to Chuangxing Path.
—
In the cavern, a wave suddenly arose in the quiet lake gathering nimbus. Then, a portal appeared, from which Su Li stepped out.
After taking a deep breath of pure nimbus, a long-lost relaxing look appeared on Su Li’s face.
“I’m out at last!”
Then — boom!
The energy around her increased quickly like a skyrocket, and without any movements, she broke through to the thirteenth hurdle of Lianqi Realm naturally. The water re-gathered around her and flew into her body to fill the empty pubic region.
“Little Su Li, you made it!”
Black Lotus Ring appeared, and a surprised and delighted voice resounded in Su Li’s awareness sea, “Tell me in detail. As a genius, your path must be incomparably difficult. Was the eighteenth step a test of mind?”
Su Li smiled, and she didn’t feel agitated but rather delighted by hearing the chattering of Black Lotus. Not long after she regained her memory, she even threatened Black Lotus to leave her with a suicide, but now, only a few years later, all these changes brought her sighing.
Su Li didn’t reply to Black Lotus’s question but stretched out her hand, and a time-counting magic treasure flew out of the lake, the scale on which had reached the tenth unit.
“Only ten days have passed?”
Su Li was surprised because she felt that she had stayed in the Chuangxing Path for over one hundred days.
“Dumbfounded? The magic of Chuangxing Path is not something you can understand. It’s quite normal that the time flows at different speeds. Those talented practitioners in the ancient times have encountered this situation. The time flew eight times faster for a peerless talent of Ghost Clan with the body of evil ghost. How about that? Was it awesome?”
“You haven’t mentioned what you encountered in Chuangxing Path. Did time pass faster than five times as usual? Oh, no. If it passed five times faster, you just stayed in Chuangxing Path for fifty days. That is terribly short. Even it was your first time, it would take you at least a half-year. What was the damned velocity of time in there?”
