Chapter 14: The Emperor's Question
The violence of the day finally began to ebb, replaced by a suffocating silence as night fell over the Stellaris Academy.
The surviving students—a mere fraction of the fifty thousand who had started at dawn—were herded onto a massive teleportation circle. With a flash of dizzying blue light, we were transported from the dusty training grounds to the highest point of the Academy: The Central Floating Island.
This place was different. The air here was thin, crisp, and saturated with such dense spiritual energy that breathing felt like drinking rich wine. Above us, the stars looked close enough to touch. Below us, the clouds formed a silver ocean, illuminated by the twin moons of this world.
In the center of a sprawling plaza paved with white jade stood a solitary object.
It was a stone tablet, roughly three meters tall. It looked ancient, its edges weathered by time, covered in moss and cracks. It seemed utterly ordinary, like a rock one might find on a roadside, except for one detail.
A single, deep sword slash cut diagonally across its surface.
"Welcome to the final test."
The voice didn't come from a Proctor or a Vice-Principal. It seemed to come from the wind itself.
A figure descended from the sky, stepping down from the air as if invisible stairs lay beneath his feet. He wore simple white robes that shimmered with a faint, starlight luminescence. His hair was long and white, tied loosely behind his back, and his face was unlined, bearing the ageless beauty of someone who had transcended mortality.
The exhausted students gasped. Even the arrogant Prince Valerian fell to one knee, bowing his head.
"Headmaster Altair!"
This was Emperor Altair. A Peak Emperor Realm expert. One of the Three Great Pillars of the Empire. A man who could shatter a continent with a thought.
He landed softly next to the stone tablet. His eyes, which held the depth of a nebula, scanned the ragged group of students. When his gaze passed over me, it paused for a fraction of a second—barely noticeable—before moving on.
"You have proven your bodies in the Stairway," Altair said, his voice soft but resonating in our bones. "You have proven your survival instincts in the Forest. You have proven your combat potential in the Corridor."
He placed a hand on the stone tablet.
"But a cultivator is more than muscle and Qi. A true expert must possess a Soul capable of understanding the Great Dao."
He tapped the stone.
"Three thousand years ago, during the Era of War, the legendary Sword Emperor stood on this very spot. In a moment of enlightenment, he delivered a single strike to this stone. He left behind a trace of his Will—his Dao."
Altair stepped back.
"Your task is simple. Sit. Observe the slash. Comprehend the Intent hidden within. Tell me what you feel."
A ripple of nervous energy went through the crowd. This sounded easy. Just look at a rock? After fighting bears and golems, this seemed like a vacation.
"Begin," Altair commanded.
The students sat down in a lotus position, forming a semi-circle around the tablet. I stayed at the back, leaning against a marble pillar. Anya was already asleep in Ria's arms, exhausted from the day's excitement. Ria stood like a sentinel, her eyes fixed on the Headmaster, analyzing his threat level.
I looked at the tablet.
The moment the students focused their minds on the slash, the atmosphere changed.
"ARGH!"
A scream shattered the silence. A student from the front row clutched his chest, falling backward. Foam leaked from his mouth.
"My eyes! It burns!" another shouted, covering his face.
Chaos erupted. Students began to vomit blood. Some fainted instantly. Others scrambled backward, crab-walking away from the tablet in sheer terror.
To them, the tablet wasn't a rock. In their spiritual vision, the slash had transformed into a gaping maw of death. They saw oceans of blood. They saw severed heads. They felt a blade pressing against their jugular veins, promising immediate execution.
This was Killing Intent. Pure, unfiltered, Emperor-level Killing Intent.
I watched them drop like flies. Even the talented ones were shaking.
Prince Valerian was sweating profusely. His face was pale, his teeth chattering. He was trying to force his mind to endure the pressure, hoping to impress the Headmaster.
"I see... I see a mountain of corpses," Valerian wheezed, blood trickling from his nose. "I see... a god of war... destroying the world."
Headmaster Altair nodded solemnly. "Correct. The Sword Emperor was a being of absolute slaughter. His path was the Dao of Destruction. To look upon his work is to look into the abyss. Enduring this for even one minute proves you have the mental fortitude of a genius."
I sighed audibly.
The sound cut through the groans of the students.
I pushed off the pillar and began to walk forward. I walked past the fainting students. I walked past the trembling Valerian.
"Student 999," Headmaster Altair warned, his brow furrowing. "Do not approach too closely. The closer you are, the stronger the Intent. You will shatter your mind."
I ignored him. I stopped three feet away from the tablet.
To everyone else, this was a holy relic. To me? It was a cringe-worthy reminder of my rebellious phase.
'My 6th Life,' I thought, looking at the slash with a critical eye. 'I remember this day. I had just wiped out the Demon Sect of the North. I was angry. I was arrogant. I thought the only purpose of a sword was to kill.'
I shook my head. 'It's sloppy. The angle of entry is off by four degrees. The intent leaks everywhere—it's wasteful. It's like a child screaming in a library.'
It annoyed me. It annoyed me that this "imperfect" scribble was being worshipped as the pinnacle of swordsmanship. It was like seeing a typo in a published book. I couldn't unsee it.
I reached into the pocket of my robe. I didn't pull out a sword. I pulled out a piece of charcoal I had used to mark the map in the forest.
"What is he doing?" Valerian whispered, wiping blood from his chin. "Is he insane? He's standing right in front of the Kill Zone!"
"He's holding... charcoal?" another student gasped. "Is he going to vandalize a National Treasure?"
Headmaster Altair took a step forward, his pressure rising. "Boy, stop. That is a relic of the Sword Emperor. To deface it is a capital crime."
"The Sword Emperor was an idiot," I said calmly.
The silence that followed was heavier than the gravity test.
Altair froze. Valerian looked like his eyes were about to pop out.
"He... he insulted the Sword Emperor?"
"Strike him down! That's heresy!"
I ignored the ants. I focused on the stone. The Killing Intent roared at me. It tried to stab into my mind, to make me kneel in fear.
'Sit. Down,' I commanded internally.
I didn't use Qi. I used the Soul Resonance of the 10th Life. My soul recognized its own signature.
The red aura radiating from the stone froze. It recognized me. It recognized the Master.
The roaring beast turned into a whimpering puppy.
I raised the charcoal.
"A sword is not just for killing," I muttered, my voice low but audible in the deadly silence. "If you only destroy, you leave nothing behind. True swordsmanship is not about the cut. It is about what remains after the cut."
I pressed the charcoal against the ancient, weathered stone.
I didn't make a new slash. I didn't try to overpower the old one.
I simply added a small, curved stroke to the end of the existing slash. A tiny hook. A finishing flourish.
In calligraphy, this is called the 'Hui Feng'—the Returning Wind. It turns a sharp, aggressive line into a flowing, cyclical one.
HUMMM.
A sound resonated through the entire Floating Island. It wasn't a screech of metal; it was the sound of a bell ringing in a deep valley.
The change was instantaneous.
The red, oppressive blood-mist that filled the plaza evaporated.
The feeling of a blade at the throat vanished.
In its place, a soft, white breeze began to blow. It smelled of spring rain and blooming lotuses. The energy radiating from the tablet was no longer sharp; it was warm. It felt like a protective embrace.
The students who were vomiting blood suddenly felt their pain vanish. The terror in their hearts was replaced by a profound sense of peace.
"What... what happened?" Valerian stammered, looking at his hands. "The pain... it's gone. I feel... safe."
"The intent changed," another student whispered, staring at the tablet with awe. "It's not Destruction anymore. It's... Life."
I stepped back, dusting the charcoal off my fingers. I looked at my handywork. The slash was no longer a jagged scar; with my addition, it looked like a leaf floating on the wind.
"Better," I judged. "Now the grammar is correct."
I turned around to leave.
I found myself face-to-face with Headmaster Altair.
The Emperor of the Stellaris Academy was standing two feet away from me. His usually calm, starlike eyes were wide open, trembling with an emotion that looked suspiciously like fear—or perhaps, reverence.
He looked at the tablet. Then he looked at me.
"You..." Altair's voice was hoarse. "You altered the Dao."
"I corrected it," I corrected him.
"That intent has remained immutable for three millennia," Altair whispered, his composure cracking. "Generations of Saints and Emperors have tried to add their will to this stone, and the Sword Emperor's intent destroyed them all. How... how did a freshman with charcoal..."
He stopped. He looked deep into my eyes. He was looking for the C-Rank trash from the mirror test. He didn't find him.
Instead, he saw a deep, dark ocean. An abyss that looked back at him.
"Who are you?" Altair asked, his voice dropping so only I could hear.
I looked at him. I saw a man who genuinely cared about the Dao, a man who had spent his life seeking answers.
"Just a student," I replied, giving him a faint, enigmatic smile. "Who hates bad handwriting."
I sidestepped him.
"Come, Ria. Wake up Anya. I'm tired of tests. I want to go home."
"Yes, Master," Ria said, scooping up the sleeping Anya.
We walked away across the white jade plaza. The thousands of students parted for us like the Red Sea. They didn't mock me anymore. They didn't laugh at my black robes or my maid. They stared at my back with a mixture of confusion and terror.
They didn't understand what I had done. They just knew that the Headmaster was staring at me like I was a ghost.
As we reached the teleportation circle, I felt Altair's gaze still burning into my back.
'He knows,' I thought. 'He doesn't know who I am, but he knows I am not mortal. Good. I need him to be curious. Curiosity leads to alliances.'
I stepped onto the circle.
The last thing I saw before the blue light swallowed us was Headmaster Altair, reaching out with a trembling hand to touch the charcoal mark I had left on the stone.
The Entrance Exam was over.
But the real game had just begun.