After a hard day at work with Tang Hua, Qing Shan was just about to leave the Smith's Respite when he remembered something.
"Oh right! I will not be able to come to work tomorrow."
Tang Hua turned around.
"Alright, but could you tell me why? Was I too demanding today?"
"Ah perish the thought! I am taking the entrance trial for the Fallen Sky Guild!"
Tang Hua's face suddenly turned serious. At this moment Qing Shan realized that not a single one of the Smith's Respite's customers had been from the Fallen Sky sect.
"I really don't like those pompous bastards. They act all stuck up and one of them even tried to buy all of my masterpieces. Actually, he wanted all of the pieces that I distinctly stated that I would never sell! I advise you to think again before joining them."
Qing Shan's face suddenly matched the seriousness on Tang Hua's face.
"Trust me, I know what kind of bastards they can be. A few of them already tried to attack me just because I am from a higher layer. However, the only way to face problems like these is to become stronger than them. The only reason I am joining the Fallen Sky sect is to use all of those pompous bastards as stepping stones to increase my strength. Plus, if you think about it, having an apprentice in the sect can also act as a certain protection for your shop!"
Tang Hua stroked his beard, thinking hard. Finally, he raised his head, looking up at Qing Shan with resolve in his eyes.
"Fine then. Show those bastards not to mess with us Runic Forgemasters!"
Qing Shan walked out of the Smith's Respite with a smile on his face and another burden on his shoulders. While there was definitely a challenge in front of him, he knew that the best way to get stronger was to overcome opposition!
Once Qing Shan got back to the Ruined Inn, he grabbed himself a drink. The best fuel before a trial is alcohol!
Qing Shan walked up to his room completely drunk.
"Maybe facing the trial with a hangover isn't a good idea…"
The next day, Qing Shan awoke with a hangover, asper usual. He quickly moved into the primal pocket dimension and jumped into the Spring of Time to heal himself. It was only now that he found out that the Spring of Time served as an amazing hangover cure.
'Damn it! I would be able to make so much money off of this stuff if I could sell it…'
While this was not the first time that Qing Shan had had such thoughts, thinking like this still got him depressed. He had a huge money-making opportunity in front of him, but if he used it he would become a target for a bunch of greedy gods! How frustrating!
Qing Shan spent his time during the walk to the Fallen Sky sect clearing his head. He needed to make sure that he was in top shape before undergoing this entrance trial.
Once Qing Shan arrived in front of the Fallen Sky sect, he saw a large group of people. A large number of them appeared to be from rich families, judging by their expensive looking armor and weapons. However, young hopefuls about Qing Shan's age were the majority. Qing Shan noticed that these people were all at least the 8th level of Formation Soul. Of the about one-hundred people here, seventy people were Peak Formation Soul like Qing Shan. There were even a small number of people that Qing Shan could not see the strength of. While they may have just been rich people who bought expensive gear with Power Concealment runes, there was also a chance that they were in the Origin Soul realm.
'I guess these people are also here to undergo the trial? It is far more popular than I thought it would be.'
After a few more minutes, the gate to the Fallen Sky sect opened, revealing three Elders. The one that looked the oldest was standing in the middle. This man shuffled forward and addressed the crowd.
"Of the one-hundred people gathered here today, all of you will have a chance to enter the Fallen Sky sect. Unfortunately, only the strongest thirty of you will be able to join… I know that this is upsetting to some of you, but we have to maintain our reputation. We will not except weaklings into our guild. The elder to my left will be heading the entrance trial. He will explain everything to you."
The Elder indicated raised his arm.
"I am Elder Kang, and I will be the one responsible for overseeing the trial. Now, if you would all follow me, I will lead you to the location of the trial."
The large group followed Elder Kang into the territory of the Fallen Sky sect. They walked for over an hour, quickly travelling through most of the larger buildings and spent a while walking past some of the smaller pagodas. Now, the group was just walking through the wilderness.
Once the group arrived at the foot of a large hill that was covered up by large tree branches, Elder Kang turned around.
'Just how much land does the Fallen Sky sect own? Is this area even part of the city?'
It was truly remarkable how far the group had come. The city could no longer be seen behind them unless one were to have a vantage point high up in the air. The group had passed all civilized structures and a large amount of grasslands, and entered a large forest. Because of the heat of the third layer, this forest was extra humid, and even Qing Shan had become covered in sweat.
"We are now at the location of the trial."
Elder Kang let people talk among themselves for a few minutes before continuing. People mostly began to guess at what the trial may consist of.
Qing Shan began to notice something strange. None of the rich seemed at all curious about what the was in for them. There were two possibilities for the reason they were not interested.
'Either they just don't care, or they already know what will happen.'
Qing Shan would have liked to continue analyzing the situation, but his thoughts were interrupted by Elder Kang.
"For this trial, everyone here will enter the series of caves behind me. These caves expand underground for five kilometers in every direction besides the north. there are wild beasts inside the caves, and every single one of them has a broken Qi Shard inside of them. Your goal is to collect as many shards as possible. Once you have collected one hundred shards, I will extract you from the cave. Once you gain one hundred shards, you are to remain in your position and are not to collect any more shards. The thirty people with the most shards will be accepted into the sect, and the all of the people who collect one hundred shards will have a chance to enter the inner ring of the sect."
Elder Kang pulled a bag out of the dimensional pouch at his waist. It was Qing Shan's first time seeing such a luxury.
"Each of you will be given one of these low-class dimensional bags. You must store your shards in these bags, and are not to put these bags in any other type of dimensional storage. The bags track how many shards a contestant has, and will also allow me to track each of your locations.
"Each of you come up here one at a time, give me your name, and I will give you a bag. Once everyone has obtained a bag, the trial will start. Keep in mind that this trial will only last a period of fifteen hours."
Qing Shan entered the slowly forming line and obtained a bag. He then joined the crowd of people in front of the cave entrance, which was covered by a wall made of Earth Qi.
"Begin!"
Elder Kang clasped his hands together, and Qing Shan watched in amazement as the wall of Qi collapsed into the ground.
Qing Shan quickly recovered from his shock and burst into the cave, leaving some of the dumbstruck cultivators at the entrance.
Unfortunately, Qing Shan did not have much of an advantage, as many others had had an even faster reaction than himself.
After the entrance to the cave, there was a steep slope downwards for about five meters. At the bottom of the slope there was a room with entrances to at least forty different tunnels. Qing Shan entered one that he had not seen anyone go into. The last thing that he would want in this trial was an unknown variable stealing his kills.
Thinking upon it, the largest difficulty in this trial was the lack of rules. There were a few over-encompassing rules that shaped the competition, but other than that there was nothing forbidding stealing, killing, etc…
It was not long before Qing Shan founded his first beast. It was a Giant Drill Mole, a Peak Formation level beast that lived in caves. It was stronger than a lot of Peak Formation Soul beasts, but it was not really a match for Qing Shan. He quickly killed it in under three minutes.
However, after coming across three more of these moles, Qing Shan had a bad feeling.
'Could it be that all of the beasts in this trial are Peak Formation Soul? If that's the case, how do they expect any of the weaker competitors to survive…? Oh wait. This is the Fallen Sky sect. they definitely don't care about the 'worthless' lives of weaker cultivators.'
An hour later, Qing Shan was satisfied by the number of shards he had collected. He already had the amazing total of seventy-two shards! Qing Shan imagined that he was definitely one of the front-runners in this trial.
In truth, Qing Shan's imagination was correct. He was definitely 'one' of the front runners. However, he was most certainly not the best in the trial. This was because four people had already exited the trial. These young men and women were all adorned in expensive armor, and every one of them had high-quality weapons made by Runic Forgemasters. These four people were the true front-runners of the trial. They had all collected one hundred shards within the first fifteen minutes of the trial. This was to be expected by the four Origin Soul applicants to the Fallen Sky Guild.
However, although Qing Shan was much weaker than these applicants, he was in the lead of the people that remained in the trial. To think that there was such a large difference between the fifth place and fourth place applicants…
Qing Shan continued clearing beasts until he reached the end of his tunnel. Unfortunately, he was still four shards short, and had only managed to collect ninety-six shards in this tunnel.
Qing Shan turned around, unaware of the eight monsters cowering in a large groove inside the wall. Unaware that an easy fifth place was just a few meters behind him, Qing Shan broke into a sprint, heading back toward the entrance to the tunnel.
Despite the fact that there were one hundred people in this trial, Qing Shan did not come across anyone inside his tunnel. In fact, he only saw people once he returned to the entrance of the trial.
Unfortunately, seeing people in this situation was not really a good thing. Qing Shan had just walked directly into a conflict.
There were multiple people lying on the ground, battered, bruised, and bloodied.
These people were all piled up, like someone had tried to build a pyramid from their bodies. Qing Shan could not even tell if these people were alive. However, if they were alive, they were definitely on the verge of death. The last thing Qing Shan noticed was that all of these people were the cultivators that were the weakest in the trial, the people at the 8th and 9th levels of Formation Soul.
Once Qing Shan finally managed to pull his eyes away from the pile of bodies, he angrily whipped his gaze over to the other side of the room.
Qing Shan saw a group of ten people, all at the Peak Formation Soul level like himself, greedily looking at the twenty-something bags piled on the floor. These bags contained the shards of the participants who had been beat up.
Qing Shan felt his heartrate increase, and began to see a red haze around the corners of his vision.
'These bastards dared to beat these people to the edge of life, just for a gods-damn trial.'
Qing Shan's eyes were cold, despite the anger build up within him. What angered him most was that the victims were much weaker than the perpetrators. With the strength difference, most of them would have handed over their bags with just a threat. There was absolutely no need to demolish these people to this level. Another thing was the happily smiling faces of the perpetrators. Qing Shan understood necessary evils. However, committing acts like this to accomplish your own goals, and doing it for pleasure were entirely different things. Qing Shan would not have been able to criticize these people if they had just bullied the weaker applicants into giving up their shards because he was planning to do the same for his last few. However, it absolutely pissed him off that these people had overstepped their bounds to this degree.
Although Qing Shan tried to keep calm after seeing the red at the corner of his vision, he was unable to do so. Qing Shan did not really understand why he was getting angry. All he wanted was strength and revenge, so why did he care about what happened to other people?
Despite Qing Shan's rational thoughts, the red haze covered Qing Shan's vision completely, and he went berserk.