The moment his foot landed on the first step, he felt the pressure. But it wasn't an external force. It was a probe, an inquisitive tendril reaching into his Qi, his bones, his very flesh, searching for flaws, for weaknesses, for instability.
Aryan didn't resist it. He let it in. He activated the Supreme Immortal Scripture, but not aggressively. He let it hum harmoniously, calibrating his Qi to match the frequency of the array's pressure.
System Analysis: Spirit Pressure Array confirmed.
Type: Earth-Elemental Foundational Probe.
Host's Foundational Stability: Supreme.
Response Strategy: Passive Harmonization.
From the outside, it looked as if he was struggling. He moved slowly, his face set in a quiet concentration that could easily be mistaken for strain. He was just another anonymous face among the thousands pushing to their limit.
But internally, a miracle was occurring. The pressure of the stairs, which was crushing others, was a whetstone for him. Each step was like a gentle massage, further compressing his Qi, aligning every cell in his body with his stable core. What was a brutal ordeal for others was a spa day for him.
He continued to climb at a steady, unhurried pace. Ten steps. Twenty. Thirty.
At the fortieth step, the pressure had grown significant. Many candidates had already dropped out, panting in a shamed heap at the bottom of the stairs. Others were on their knees, pushing forward on willpower alone.
Sameer Sharma was at the sixtieth step, his face red, his breaths coming in ragged gasps, but he was still pushing, relying on his powerful cultivation. He glanced back for a moment, trying to find Aryan in the crowd, perhaps hoping to see him struggling. A contemptuous sneer crossed his face when he saw Aryan only twenty steps behind.
At the fiftieth step, Aryan noticed a girl beside him. She looked fragile, her clothes clean but plain, and her cultivation was only at the 7th Layer of the Qi Condensation Realm. Her face was pale, and her legs were trembling, but her eyes burned with unbreakable resolve. She would pause after every step, control her breathing, and then push on. Her technique was inefficient, but her willpower was pure steel.
Aryan didn't recognize her, but he recognized her fight. She was battling with no obvious advantages, relying solely on her own inner strength. He sensed she was about to collapse within the next few steps.
As he passed her, he moved just close enough for their shoulders to almost brush. To anyone else, it would have seemed like a simple, slightly clumsy step. But in that single moment, he transferred a nearly imperceptible thread of his own Qi, perfectly harmonized with the array's energy, to her. It wasn't a transfer of power. It was a tuning fork, showing her own struggling Qi for a brief instant how to resonate with the array, not against it.
The girl took a gasping breath, her eyes widening. Suddenly, the crushing weight on her shoulders felt a little lighter. It was still heavy, but it was no longer unbearable. She looked at the boy who had just passed her, his face calm and facing forward, but a seed of gratitude was planted in her mind.
Aryan continued to climb. Sixty steps. Seventy. He passed Sameer Sharma, who was now panting at the eightieth step, his pace slowed to a crawl. Sameer stared at him in disbelief. Aryan's face was still calm, his breathing still even. It was impossible.
At the eightieth step, the pressure was monstrous. It was like carrying a mountain on one's back. Only a few hundred candidates remained.
Ninety steps. Now there were less than a hundred.
Ninety-nine steps. Only a few dozen stood at the top, panting, sweating, barely able to stand.
And then, with one steady, unbothered step, Aryan reached the hundredth step.
He wasn't alone at the top, but he was different. While the others were gasping for air and bent over at their knees, he stood straight, his breathing deep and rhythmic. There wasn't a single bead of sweat on his brow. His Qi was not only not depleted, but it felt calmer and deeper than before. He hadn't passed a test; he had seized an opportunity.
On the dais, most of the Elders were focused on those who had arrived first, noting their strength and speed. But Elder Rajendra's sharp, ancient eyes were not on them. They were fixed on Aryan. He had seen the boy who moved slowly, who feigned struggle, and who arrived at the top completely refreshed. He had seen the subtle aid given to the struggling girl.
He didn't see Aryan's cultivation level. He saw the terrifying, unfathomable depth of his foundation.
A nearly imperceptible smile, the first in decades, touched Elder Rajendra's stern lips. "Interesting," he whispered under his breath.
"Very interesting."
The gong sounded, its deep, resonant toll signaling the end of the first trial. Those still on the stairs collapsed, gasping as the pressure was suddenly released, their failure final. The two hundred or so survivors at the top let out a collective sigh of relief, which quickly turned into murmurs of pride.
They had survived.
Aryan stood quietly to the side, detached from the celebration of the others. He saw the fragile girl who had made it, sitting near the top, her chest heaving but a triumphant light in her eyes. Their gazes met for a moment, and she gave a grateful nod, which he acknowledged with a brief, almost imperceptible dip of his head.
Sameer Sharma was at the top, but his victory felt hollow. He glared at Aryan, confusion and a deepening resentment in his eyes. Every time he thought he had this piece of trash figured out, the puzzle changed.
Elder Rajendra stood up, and the crowd once again fell silent.
"Two hundred and thirty-two of you. Out of ten thousand. Do not be complacent," his voice boomed across the plaza. "The real test begins now."
He gestured to the massive, dragon-carved gates behind him. With a slow, grinding sound that seemed to shake the mountain itself, the hundred-meter-high doors began to swing inward, revealing a vast, swirling tunnel that disappeared into darkness.
"Your second test will be in the Whispering Beast Forest," the Elder announced, sending a ripple of fear and excitement through the crowd. "Through this portal, you will be transported to a safe zone on the outskirts of the forest. You have four days."
A massive, translucent projection screen appeared in the air above the Elders, showing images of various beasts and point values.
"Every Spiritual Beast you slay has a point value, based on its strength and rarity. Your goal is to accumulate as many points as possible within three days. Your rank will be determined by your total points. The top one hundred ranked will enter the Academy."
The screen changed, showing a small, silver badge.
"This is your identity token. It will record the aura of every beast you kill and update your score automatically. It also functions as an emergency beacon. If you break it, you will be ejected from the trial. Using it means you forfeit."
Elders passed out boxes filled with the tokens. As Aryan took his, he felt the metal was cool to the touch and hummed faintly with a complex array.
"One final rule," Elder Rajendra said, his eyes sweeping over every single candidate with a cold, steely glint. "Stealing tokens from other candidates is strictly forbidden. If caught, your cultivation will be crippled, and you will be banned from the Academy for life."
It was a grim warning, but everyone understood the unspoken rule: as long as there was no proof, anything was fair game. The forest would be filled with predators far more dangerous than just beasts.
"Now go," the Elder concluded. "Show us your worth."
The crowd surged forward, filing into the massive portal in an organized stream. Aryan moved with them, his presence quiet and anonymous. Others were already forming teams, whispering strategies, or simply striding ahead on their own, a fierce, competitive light in their eyes.
Aryan was alone. And he wouldn't have it any other way.
As he crossed the threshold of the portal, he felt a momentary disorientation, and then the world shifted. He was no longer on the stone plaza. He was standing in a grassy clearing, surrounded by towering, ancient trees. The air was thick with the familiar scent of moss and damp earth.
The constant, rhythmic whisper of the Whispering Beast Forest greeted him like an old friend.
The other candidates were getting their bearings, shouting directions and consulting their maps. Aryan did none of that. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The air that filled his lungs wasn't just oxygen; it was data. The smell of the damp earth, the faint musk of a nearby beast's lair, and the faint, sweet scent of night-blooming lunar moss these were all familiar signs that told him he was exactly where he needed to be. The world of stone, with its rules of men and artificial pressures, was behind him. This was the jungle. This was real.
Around him, chaos had already begun. The groups that had come through the portal together were immediately bickering. One group, clearly from a wealthy merchant clan, was yelling over their elaborate map, their leader loudly proclaiming the nearest hunting ground was to the east while his lieutenants insisted the west was more promising. Their incompetence was almost comical.
Elsewhere, Sameer Sharma had gathered his followers. "Everyone, listen up!" he boasted, his voice dripping with arrogance. "We're heading north. Don't anyone dare follow us.
Anyone who gets in our way will be crushed!" With no strategy or plan, they crashed into the woods, their noise and bravado certain to scare away every small, easy prey for miles.
Aryan watched them go, his expression like that of a scientist observing the predictable behavior of bacteria in a petri dish. They were noise. They were chaos. And they were the perfect smokescreen.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the rest of the world, and felt the rhythm of the forest. He remembered the lessons learned during his journey, the quiet efficiency of the Silverleaf Rangers. They hadn't charged in. They had become part of the terrain.
He opened his eyes, his objective clear. While everyone else was creating chaos on the forest floor, he would go up. He picked a massive, ancient Ironwood tree at the edge of the clearing, its lowest branches ten meters from the ground, but its rough bark providing ample holds for an experienced climber.
He was home.
This was the laboratory. And this time, he had a whole new layer of data to collect: the behavior of his fellow rats. The game was on.