Chapter 424: Trial Of Skill
Because the same wind that carried Bai Xiaochun to the exit was like a heavenly tempest filling the entire trial by fire, everyone else who was still inside anxiously teleported out as soon as they could.
As they reappeared one by one outside of the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Superstars trial, not a single trace of fury could be seen on their faces. Instead, they wore expressions of incredulity and shock.
“What technique does this Bai Xiaochun cultivate? That stone golem actually took the initiative to send him to the exit!”
“How is that possible…?”
“In the red trial by fire, he swam through the sea of lava. In the orange one, the stone golem helped him. Where does this guy come from?!”
As the clamor rose up from the audience, Bai Xiaochun’s star climbed from the orange section of the rainbow into the yellow one, to join the several thousand other stars there!
That indicated that Bai Xiaochun was now in the top 5,000!
Considering the momentous event which was playing out, more and more audience members were personally paying merit points to be able to observe Bai Xiaochun as he made his way through the trials by fire.
Meanwhile, as soon as Bai Xiaochun appeared within the yellow trial by fire, he sensed intense, frigid coldness somewhere nearby, and could also tell that the ground was trembling.
There was still some of bewilderment in his eyes; the events which had played out in the orange trial by fire were still a bit hard to reconcile. His heart even trembled with a trace of residual fear. Plus, there was the sensation he had experienced when the stone golem reached out to grab him in the end. All of it left him gasping in astonishment.
“There are way too many secrets in this Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect. Those stone golems were obviously some race of creatures, locked away within the trial by fire. How come these Starry Sky Dao Polarity Superstar trials all seem like prisons!?” He was both trembling with fear and shaking in excitement. After all, he had taken a significant step with his cultivation of the Living Mountain Incantation, making progress far beyond anything he had before.
“All I need to do is get into the top 1,000 so I get the seven-colored mistysea grass. Then I can concoct that medicinal pill, and be strong enough to fully cultivate the Living Mountain Incantation!” With that, he looked around excitedly at the yellow trial by fire. Despite what he had experienced so far in the red and orange trials by fire, what he saw around him left him profoundly shaken, and deeply moved by the methods of the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect.
The dimension he was in now was a single room. Standing in the middle of the room was a burly man with a red rope tied around his head. He held a pair of iron tongs in one hand, which he used to hold a red-hot sword in place below him!
Further down, below the red-hot sword, was a channel filled with black liquid that seemed cold beyond description, and emanated a frigid aura.
The burly man held an iron hammer in his other hand, which he used to hit the sword with all the force he could muster.
The resulting booms which rang out were completely deafening.
Clearly, this burly man was a blacksmith, and this room was an ironworks! Furthermore, Bai Xiaochun had apparently been shrunk down to a size much smaller than before, and was now standing on the iron tongs!!
Or perhaps Bai Xiaochun hadn’t been shrunk down, and this place was just enormous, with the blacksmith being a giant! Considering the proportions, if that were true, then the blacksmith was no smaller than the stone golems from the last trial.
Every time the iron hammer smashed down, the entire dimension shook!
Bai Xiaochun’s face was completely ashen, and his mind was spinning from the frightening nature of the scenario. Shivering, he looked up at the gigantic blacksmith and his huge hammer, then at the red-hot sword being held by the tongs, and then down at the channel below….
From his perspective, that body of water might as well have been a sea.
After a long moment of indecision, Bai Xiaochun finally gritted his teeth and charged forward, leaping up onto the red-hot sword. Almost immediately, he could sense the heat rising up into his feet, so he rotated his cultivation base to fight back, and proceeded forward.
As he ran along pell-mell, he felt tears welling up in his eyes. This place was simply too hot, and he couldn’t help but let out yelps of pain and even leap up into the air. He would have flown if he could have, but flight was restricted in this dimension.
Not only was there the heat to deal with, but there was also the enormous iron hammer. It was like an enormous falling star smashing onto the sword, and if he wasn’t careful and got struck, Bai Xiaochun knew that his powerful fleshly body would do nothing to protect him, and he would be crushed out of existence.
“I’m gonna get myself killed! Killed!
“Agghhh!” he screamed. “Lord Bai is gonna die from this heat!” This heat vastly exceeded the heat from the sea of lava in the red trial by fire, and at the moment Bai Xiaochun wasn’t sure if there was anything special that he could do to pass the trial. However, he did remember that above the yellow portion of the rainbow was the green portion, with only about a thousand stars. That meant that in all of the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect, only about a thousand Core Formation cultivators had passed this trial.
Considering how enormously large the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect was, a thousand was a very small group of people, and from that, it was possible to determine how difficult this trial by fire was!
But Bai Xiaochun was incredibly fast, and also cultivated the Frigid School Will-Evolving Incantation. By focusing all of his frigid qi in his legs and feet, he was able to counteract the heat to some degree. Although it still hurt, he was able to keep speeding along. As of this point, he had made it about thirty percent across the sword.
“Have to go faster….” he thought, fearing that he was going too slow. He was like an ant bustling across a hot kettle, and when the people on the outside saw what he was doing, their eyes went wide.
They had all seen people challenge this trial, and many of them had attempted it themselves. All of them knew that it was very difficult, and that people usually challenged it only with the greatest caution. In fact, most people spent the majority of their time within the trial just observing the surroundings.
After all, this trial was not just about speed, but about the ability to withstand heat. Furthermore, it was necessary to take advantage of the timing of the fall of the hammer. When the hammer hit, the entire sword would shake, and also release some intense heat. By accelerating and decelerating in conjunction with the vibrations caused by the hammer, it was possible to time things perfectly and get across without being burned.
This type of test was especially designed to hone the divine sense of the cultivators who took it. With exceptional control, they could reduce the danger significantly.
Never before in history had anyone attempted the trial in the way Bai Xiaochun was doing, by just recklessly running forward at top speed.
“This Bai Xiaochun, he… he….”
“This guy is definitely a weirdo who doesn’t like to do things the normal way….” Outside, people exchanged wry glances as Bai Xiaochun sped along screaming as loudly as a rabbit with its tail on fire. That was especially true when some of the disciples heard the things Bai Xiaochun was muttering under his breath.
“What kind of crappy trial by fire is this? What is it testing, how well people can get burned? Ah, I’m gonna die from the heat!!
“How did everyone else pass the trial? I bet none of them matched up to me. They probably ran crying through the whole thing, or maybe even crawled!” Bai Xiaochun himself was on the verge of tears as he flew along, accelerating the entire time. After enough time passed for an incense stick to burn, he was about seventy percent across….
“Hmmphhhhh! Bai Xiaochun is the awesomest as usual!” Seeing that he was almost at the end, his spirits rose, and although he continued to shriek in pain every so often, he was still very pleased.
“Now that I think about it, this heat is actually pretty comfortable for my feet.”
Everyone looked on in complete silence, stunned by Bai Xiaochun’s reckless method. From the look of it, he was just about to finish the third trial.
“There’s no way he’s going to pass the trial like this!!” Quite a few people spoke words similar to this as they looked on in envy.
“Dammit. How come he’s going through this third trial so fast!? Aren’t you supposed to get through based on timing out the vibrations…?” More and more people began to comment in such a way, until Bai Xiaochun was about ninety percent of the way across, and closing in on the end.
Bai Xiaochun was feeling very pleased with himself, when, all of a sudden, he realized that something wasn’t right.
“Why is the sword moving?” Even as he looked around in surprise, looks of delight could be seen on the faces of the people observing on the outside.
Apparently, the huge giant working with the sword was happy with the results. Lifting it up with the tongs, he began to stretch it down toward the black liquid in the channel below.
“Hahaha! He’s quenching the iron!”
“Bai Xiaochun sure got unlucky. I can’t believe he’s going to quench the iron!”
“This only happens one time out of ten. Bai Xiaochun just got lucky enough to see it!” As everyone reveled in Bai Xiaochun’s misfortune, he was standing there on the red-hot sword, an agonized shriek escaping his lips.
He could see what was happening, but before he could react at all, the giant was plunging the sword, and Bai Xiaochun along with it, right into the black ocean of frigid qi.
Bai Xiaochun immediately began to scramble backward, but before he could get more than a few paces, and before he had time to pull out his seven-colored jade pendant, the black liquid was rushing up toward him. “No, I don’t wanna–”