Chapter 480: Third Level of the God Advent Tower
The light beam shooting down from the sky grew more intense. As the light beam entered the skin on Yi Yun’s arm, the Empyrean Mark slowly began to appear.
One after another beautiful scales like those of a dragon appeared.
These dragon scales condensed and became denser. Yi Yun’s skin began to feel slightly numb and painful, but it felt comfortable.
After the light beam disappeared, Yi Yun made a simple count. Defeating the guardian of the third level had given him 18 Empyrean Marks in one go. Added to the 37 Empyrean Marks from before, Yi Yun now had a total of 55 Empyrean Marks.
Seeing the Empyrean Marks on his arm, Yi Yun sighed.
When he had managed to withstand the attacks of the third level’s guardian, he did not receive a single Empyrean Mark. However, by defeating it, he had obtained 18 Empyrean Marks.
55 Empyrean Marks was a number that left Shen Tu Nantian and company in the dust when they first entered the Great Empress mystic realm. It sounded like a lot, but Yi Yun knew that he had obtained so many because he had completely met the Great Empress’ requirements, whereas Shen Tu Nantian and company were too lacking.
His trials were not all done perfectly. At best, it could be said that he had fulfilled the Great Empress mystic realm’s rules at certain times.
As such, when he finally entered the final treasure vault of the Great Empress mystic realm, the number of Empyrean Marks he had was probably insufficient.
His road ahead was still long.
The God Advent Tower was likely the most important part of these trials. It was also where the opportunities were.
Yi Yun made a decision that he would put in his best effort on this path to attain perfection. Only then could he gain the recognition of the ancient Great Empress.
Yi Yun moved forward slowly on the staircase before reaching the third level of the God Advent Tower.
Yi Yun looked inside through the door to the third level
The third level of the God Advent Tower was a sealed grand hall.
“The first level was a grand hall, the second level was a vast desolate world, while the third level changed back into a grand hall…”
Yi Yun lightly faltered as he stepped through the door.
He surveyed his surroundings, hoping to see Lin Xintong. However, the third level’s grand hall was empty. Lin Xintong was nowhere to be found.
From the circumstances, either Lin Xintong had left the third level or the third level of the God Advent Tower was isolated individually. In here, everyone would only see themselves and not meet each other.
The grand hall of the third level was not as opulent as the first level’s. In contrast, it had a solemn feeling to it.
The grand hall’s floor tiles seemed to be made of the same material as the square outside the tower. The tiles were made from a stone that was black like ink. Stepping upon them made him feel a surge of blood Qi coming towards him.
Yi Yun circled around a few pillars. In the center of the grand hall hung a painting.
This painting was hung on a azure stoned wall. After such a long period of time, the paper had already begun to turn yellow. However, the person in the picture remained clear and distinguishable.
Upon seeing the picture clearly, Yi Yun was stunned, “This is…”
The man in the picture was sitting on the ground, with his back leaning against a tree. One of his legs was straight while the other was arched like a bridge.
His left elbow was placed on the raised knee, and his right hand was holding a wine gourd. He was gulping down wine. Beside him, his sword was stabbed into the ground diagonally. The blade of the sword was even stained with blood.
This picture was drawn roughly. The way the strokes were drawn made it seem like it was by an art master in an unrestrained manner after he was drunk. It was drawn wilfully in one go after dabbing into ink.
Seeing this painting, Yi Yun could not tell what was on his own mind.
The azure-clothed man in the picture was the azure-clothed swordsman who had fought the black-armored warrior in the disk array images he watched previously.
The sword blade was stained with blood, proving that the azure-clothed swordsman had just undergone a huge battle. He was very likely to have killed his enemy.
And following that, he was in no way concerned about the large battle that he had just experienced. Instead, he sat alone on the grass plains leaning against a tree. He watched the wilderness and began drinking, quick to settle grudges.
What sort of unconventional and unrestrained life was this?
Yi Yun stopped before the picture and looked at it for a long while. He had chosen the disk array with the scenes of the azure-clothed swordsman in the first level, and now he had seen the azure-clothed swordsman’s picture on the third level of the God Advent Tower.
Was this a coincidence, or was it due to him choosing the azure-clothed swordsman’s disk array that resulted in seeing this painting?
Yi Yun could not figure it out. The Great Empress mystic realm contained all sorts of mysteries.
Ignoring the ancient Great Empress’s impressive methods, just the way she thought and the planning she put into the mystic realm alarmed him.
“This picture might be useful to my understanding of the sword…”
Yi Yun rubbed his chin. He decided to stop looking at the picture temporarily. He proceeded behind the azure stoned wall and here he saw a row of bookshelves.
The ancient wooden bookshelf remained standing after so many years. It seemed to have witnessed the long history of the Great Empress mystic realm.
Yi Yun walked before the bookshelf and saw rows of sealed jade scrolls on the bookshelf.
He randomly choose one and sank his perception into it. Inside the jade scroll were extremely ancient words. The complicated strokes made them seem very obscure.
“Green Water Sutra!”
Yi Yun saw three words the moment he opened the first jade scroll.
Was this a cultivation technique manual?
Yi Yun’s eyes flashed. The Green Water Sutra sounded like a name of a water-elemental based cultivation technique. Could it be that all the jade scrolls on the bookshelf were manuals of cultivation techniques?
Yi Yun picked up a few other jade scrolls.
“Leisure Sword Sutra”!
“Spiritual Invisibility Mystic Book”!
“Star Gathering Manual”!
Every jade scroll had the name of a cultivation technique. Some of them were movement techniques, attacking moves and other sorts of manuals.
The ancient Great Empress had left her cultivation techniques in the third level of the God Advent Tower?
Yi Yun suddenly had such a thought. At this moment, the Great Empress mystic realm’s cold voice echoed once again, “You have four hours to choose any two manuals! After that, the azure stoned walls will be sealed shut!”
Four hours!
Yi Yun was dismayed. It was too short.
It was barely fine with an hour to choose disk arrays. Just by watching the images in the disk arrays, he was able to decide if he could withstand the pressure from the images. He was also able to affirm that the things in the images was something suitable for him to cultivate.
However…for choosing manuals, it was no easy task.
He needed to read at least half of each manual to decide if it was suitable for himself. As for knowing if he could master it, he had to read the second half of the manual to know the difficulty.
And each of these manuals was abstruse. To understand even a single scroll was not easy.
“Just to choose a manual in the Great Empress mystic realm is a form of challenge and test. How is it possible to finish reading so many manuals in four hours?”
Yi Yun frowned. However, as the rules were set by the ancient Great Empress, he had to abide by them.
With only four hours, he quickly picked up the jade scrolls and browsed through their contents.
If the manual contained a clear bias towards a law like the five-elemental laws or creation laws, they were immediately abandoned by Yi Yun.
He cultivated the pure Yang laws. Since the laws were not a match, there was nothing worth reading.
If the weapon was not right, he didn’t read it!
If the cultivation technique itself was not profound enough, he didn’t read it!
If the content was too short, he didn’t read it!
There were too many cultivation techniques, so to increase his selection speed, he could only use such a rough heuristic as a filter. Maybe some cultivation techniques might be short in content, but they were equally profound, however, Yi Yun could not care about that.
He had already used up two hours, yet, he had yet to find a cultivation technique suitable for himself.
Seeing that he still had more than half of the cultivation techniques left, Yi Yun had no choice by to increase his speed further.
This test was indeed tiring.
It tested a cultivator’s eyesight, distinguishing ability, analyzing ability and perceptivity!
A cultivator’s ability to cultivate well could also be seen from being able to speed read a manual.
Yi Yun began to read faster and faster. The abstruse words seemed to flash past Yi Yun’s mind, while he began to choose what was most suitable for himself.
Every manual he saw, be it whether they were suitable or not, or whether Yi Yun decided to choose it or not, its location and rough contents were remembered by Yi Yun.
This made it easy for him to make a choice later. This was also a great test on Yi Yun’s memory.
Another thirty minutes past, as the deadline approached. There was slightly more than an hour left.
Yi Yun’s forehead began to sweat. The Great Empress mystic realm’s collection was too rich. There was almost nothing lacking.
Ever since Yi Yun came to the Tian Yuan world, he had come into contact with some cultivation technique manuals of the Tian Yuan world. He felt that many of the manuals the large factions of the Tian Yuan world used were related to the manuals from ancient times. They were probably even developed from these manuals.
There were some cultivation technique manuals which was much more superior to the copy spreading in Tian Yuan world.
This might have been because after being passed down over so many years, the cultivation technique manuals began to become incomplete or lost.
Upon realizing this, Yi Yun read with greater focus.
Another thirty minutes past, leaving an hour.
Yi Yun did not spend the time to wipe his sweat. He still had a quarter of the manuals he had not read. He had a good grasp of time, so he could probably finish reading all the manuals before the time was all.
And at this moment, when Yi Yun picked up a blood-red jade scroll, his hands suddenly froze.
“Oh? This is…”
Yi Yun was alarmed. This jade scroll did not record a cultivation techniques or a set of moves, but was an Aspect Totem mystic technique. It was a required mystic technique that warriors used to condense their Aspect Totem.
However, there was nothing too alarming about it except its name. It happened to be the “Ten Thousand Beast Totem”!