Chapter 137: PAST AND TOWER

CHAPTER

137

PAST AND TOWER

Jieyuan

—∞—

Anren knelt down, picked up Gleaming End. Then she walked over to Daojue—whom she’d just dropped to the ground with her last attack—and extended a hand.

Jieyuan watched in awe as Daojue took it and Anren pulled him to his feet.

They were all standing at the middle of the platform—far away from the abyss lines, which were much more of a threat nowadays than they used to be in the beginning. They weren’t taking any risks.

“That was better,” Anren said, handing the crystal spear back to Daojue. “I think I’ve figured it out. Your form’s too stiff. No, I know it’s the Tianzijun style. But you’re taking it too far. Your teacher—I’m guessing they were in their twilight years? Or couldn’t move much for some reason?”

“He was,” Daojue answered, promptly.

Jieyuan might have claimed he’d never seen Daojue so talkative—but that would’ve been a lie. It’d become a common sight, if anything, as of late. Ever since they'd entered the Absolute Sword Trialworld and met Anren.

Jieyuan was pretty sure it wasn’t the change in scenery that was the reason.

“I figured,” Anren said. “I’m not saying he taught you wrong, but you picked up some bad habits from him. Loosen up a little. Let’s see…”

She crossed her arms, tipped her head back. Daojue just stared at her, utterly intent.

They were midway through their third week in the Absolute Trial World, closing on the fourth.

“Pick the three most distinct forms you know,” Anren said. “Practice switching between them, but don’t use the standard transitions. Come up with your own. And each time you cycle through them, change your transitions. That should loosen you up some.”

Daojue didn’t need to be told twice; he immediately dropped to a lower stance, falling into a form that had his spear arcing downwards.

There was a pause, and then he was spinning around, sweeping the spear upwards.

Another pause, before Daojue advanced, stabbing Gleaming End forward.

Anren watched. Jieyuan watched, too—both Anren and Daojue. Just about whatever Anren told Daojue to do, Daojue did. No hesitation. No pause.

Jieyuan could only think of one explanation, but he still found it absurd. He had tried to come up with other theories, but nothing fit.

He doubted this was just Violetsoul worship, even more so considering Daojue’s mysterious knowledge about Violetsouls themselves. It had to be Anren herself that had Daojue acting this way, not her realm.

Jieyuan would only know for sure once they met other cultivators and he could see how Daojue behaved around them, but he was pretty much sure of it already.

“A shard for your thoughts?” Anren had walked over. Jieyuan hadn't been standing that far away to begin with. They didn’t want to risk a sword fiend incursion by accident.

“Just…” Jieyuan wondered what to say, how to put it. “Just amazed at how good a handle you’ve got on Daojue.”

“Hmmm.” Anren smirked, but then her look turned thoughtful. “That’s right. You don’t know much about the Tianzijun clan, right?”

“Pretty much only what you’ve told me,” Jieyuan said.

“Then I should probably fill you in some more,” Anren said. “We’re getting closer to a full month here. Even if we don’t come across any other cultivators in the plains, the second phase’s coming up, and everyone’s gathering together then.”

She looked off into the distance, towards the Sword Tower. It seemed larger now than before—no longer just a slit, now he could see the vague outline of a sword very far into the distance, half-sunken into the ground.

She turned back to him. “And just about everyone we’ll meet on the next second phase should recognize a Tianzijun on sight.”

“They’re really that recognizable?”

Anren had figured out Daojue was a Tianzijun pretty much on the spot, but Jieyuan hadn’t thought everyone would be like that.

“That famous, too?” he asked.

“By the Absolute, you’re really sheltered, aren’t you?” Anren laughed. “And the Tianzijun are not famous; they’re infamous. But I’ll get to that later.”

Daojue was still practicing, snapping between forms, but Jieyuan caught his eyes flicking their way.

“Is it the eyes?” Jieyuan asked.

“That’s a big part of it,” Anren said. “Their statue-perfect looks are another, but it’s mostly the eyes, yes. There are other bloodrights with violet eyes, but they’re very rare and minor. And none with the chromal shades of violet.”

Daojue’s movements slowed. He was paying more attention, now. His eyes fixed on them—and Jieyuan took note of their exact shade. Dark-ish. Fourth-shade violet. A chromal shade of violet, like Anren had just pointed out.

Something else struck him as odd. Not the shade of Daojue’s eyes, but Daojue’s interest in the topic. If there was something Daojue should have already known about, it was the Tianzijun Clan. Even more so considering how he already knew about those Violetsoul sects.

Jieyuan hadn’t had the chance to ask Daojue about all this knowledge he had no business having. But he had a feeling that even if he managed to ask, chances were Daojue would pull his usual act and remain as silent and still as the statue he so often pretended to be.

“Anyway, violet eyes are the hallmark of the Tianzijun, and nobody wants to get mistaken for one,” Anren was saying. “Trust me on this, the only people out there who want to be Tianzijun are the Tianzijun themselves.”

She paused, turned to Daojue.

“In fact, it’d be much easier on us—on everyone, really—if you were to just turn your eyes mundane, Daojue. You know, suppress your bloodright’s reflection.”

Daojue gave up on his forms practice, going still.

Jieyuan waited. For once, he wasn’t sure what would happen. If anyone else had asked that of Daojue, there wouldn’t have been any doubt. Daojue would’ve ignored it.

But it was Anren who’d asked.

Seconds passed, though, and Daojue didn’t reply, didn’t do anything. His eyes didn’t turn back, either.

It seemed like not even Anren’s unusual sway over Daojue was enough to make him back down on that point.

“Really?” Anren asked. “I mean, you must be suppressing it already—unless you’ve really only got fourth-order bloodtalent?”

It took Jieyuan just a moment to make the connection. Fourth-shade violet eyes, fourth-order bloodtalent. Bloodtalent—bloodright strength? Was it like the Liangshibai, then, where eye color varied according to bloodright strength, except in the Tianzijun’s case it was shades of violet?

He recalled the lesson Meiyao had given him on bloodright strength, how it was tied to heavenly affinity. Daojue’s eye shade would indicate he only had fourth-order heavenly affinity, then. Which was true, as far as Jieyuan knew. But this would make Daojue’s presence here even more suspicious to Anren.

Daojue still didn’t reply. Still didn’t do anything.

Anren rolled her eyes, then mouthed Tianzijun to Jieyuan.

Jieyuan couldn’t help but notice how her eyes were dark, too. Mundane, even though she had a bloodright. Did that mean that hers didn’t come with fancy eyes, or was she suppressing it right now?

“Well, it was worth a stab,” Anren said, turning back to Daojue. “Have it your way. Keep your eyes that shade, then. It should at least confuse others a bit. Anyway. Infamy.”

She nodded to Jieyuan. “See, the Tianzijun Clan was originally based in the Center, but they had a falling out with—well, pretty much everyone and were almost destroyed. The Absolute Sword Sect took them under its protection, brought them to the East.”

Though they’d been together for over three weeks now, most of their time had been spent on practicing and whatnot. Still, Jieyuan had tried to strike up conversations some time, subtly prodding, and had managed to learn some things.

The Center Anren was talking about was one of the five continents of the plane they were in. The Chromajie was divided into two planes, apparently, which appeared to be like parallel worlds.

He hadn’t managed to figure out what the difference between them was, though. He also wasn’t sure where smaller worlds like this trialworld fit into the picture, but Anren had referred to it as a voidworld more than once.

The plane they were on was divided into five regions, those being the four cardinal directions plus the Center. Each region had three things: a continent, a collection of islands, and a ruling sect.

The Absolute Sword Sect was the ruler of the East; Jieyuan hadn’t managed to learn much of the other regions.

“Taking in the Tianzijun was not a decision the other sects of the East approved of,” Anren continued. “But it was supposedly something determined by the Absolute, or so the legends say. This is ancient history, anyway. Back when the Plane was young, as the saying goes.”

The Absolute was something else Jieyuan had gotten a better idea of these last few weeks. Anren brought it up often enough, but it’d taken him a while to understand it was a person. An immortal cultivator who founded the Absolute Sword Sect and secretly rules it to this day.

As far as he could tell, the Absolute was some kind of mythological existence. Anren had mentioned once how there’s never really been a confirmed sighting of him.

Jieyuan had his doubts. He recalled quite distinctly how the Plunderer—who reminded him of a sword—had referred to the Absolute Sword Trial as his trial.

“Anyway,” Anren said, “the Tianzijun’s bad reputation is in part because of what they did in the past, in part because of how they actually are in present. You know about the factions, right? I mentioned them to you before. The Juechenist Faction and the Fangxuanist Faction. Juechenism and Fangxuanism. They’re philosophies, in a way.”

A quick glance at Daojue revealed the taller man was wholly intent on Anren, even more than usual.

“They’re based on two individuals. Tianzijun Juechen, the founder of the clan. And Tianzijun Fangxuan, the first sovereign protector of the clan after the relocation to the East. Now, Tianzijun are always Firesouls or Metalsouls. Their bloodright enforces their alignment. History has it that Juechen was a Firesoul. Fangxuan, a Metalsoul. And that’s important, because there’s also the Tianzijun Pride… Wait.”

Anren looked over to Jieyuan. “I’m guessing you don’t know about that, either.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Right. So, the Tianzijun Pride. The Tianzijun have this bloodskill called Sovereign Indomitable Will. It’s easily the most famous bloodskill in existence. Willpower isn’t something you can normally augment; Sovereign Indomitable Will breaks that rule. I’m sure you can see how big of a deal that is—the Tianzijun are known as the Soulburner Clan because of it.”

Jieyuan couldn’t, actually, see how big of a deal that was—though it’d have definitely come in handy for him, who had Absolute Will Command. And it did explain Daojue’s insane level of willpower he’d felt that one time he’d tried to use it on him, back in Viridian Death City.

Also, soulburner? That sounded like something Jieyuan wanted to know more about. But there’d be time to look into that later. Anren had already grown used to the many supposed gaps in his education, but despite everything she seemed to think this was something he’d know.

Still, it seemed like Anren expected some kind of reaction to what she’d just said, so Jieyuan put on a slightly stunned look (eyes a bit wide, lips just slightly parted) and hoped that’d do the trick.

It did, apparently; Anren nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Anyway, Sovereign Indomitable Will comes with one major drawback—it increases the user’s pride. Their impulsiveness, too, but mostly their pride. Now, the Tianzijun of old saw no problem with that. If anything, they were all about feeding that pride.”

Jieyuan had his attention split between Daojue and Anren. He caught how Daojue’s expression darkened, just a fraction.

“But then came along Fangxuan, who claimed their pride was at fault for their downfall, and proposed controlling it. She came up with her own set of principles for the Tianzijun to follow, which became the basis for Fangxuanism. They mostly revolved around honor, duty, and discipline, and the main goal of it all was to keep the Tianzijun Pride under control.”

Was knowledge of the Tianzijun this widespread, or was Anren just especially well read on them? Jieyuan wasn’t sure, but either way, she knew a lot about the clan.

She even looked a bit distant, like she was remembering something. Her own lessons on the subject, he imagined. Or maybe texts she’d read. Even the way she was speaking was slightly more formal now. More deliberate.

“However, many Tianzijun disagreed and believed that ruthlessness and the pursuit of power no matter the cost was the true expression of the Tianzijun spirit, so they formed their own philosophy, one that upholds the original Tianzijun values, and called it Juechenism. After the legendary founder of the clan, Tianzijun Juechen.”

Something bitter slipped into her tone at the end. She still seemed stuck in remembrance. Jieyuan had a feeling she hadn’t had good experiences with Juechenists.

She shook her head slightly, focused back on him. “So, Fangxuanism? Honor, duty, discipline. Juechenism? Pride, ambition, glory. Nowadays, the clan’s about evenly split between the two factions. Firesoul Tianzijun tend to be Juechenists; Metalsoul ones, Fangxuanists. But that’s not a sure thing; there are exceptions.”

She shot Daojue a meaningful look. “Count your blessings Daojue here is a Metalsoul Fangxuanist, as opposed to any of the other three Tianzijun combinations.”

Oh, Jieyuan was counting his blessings, all right. If Daojue was a Tianzijun playing nice and making an effort to keep it down, he shuddered to think of what the Tianzijun combinations (as Anren had put it) were like. Particularly Firesoul Juechenists.

“Actually, now that we’re on the subject,” Anren said. “I mentioned this before, but the Tianzijun aren’t supposed to advance past Bluesoul. That was one of the conditions for their relocation to the East—that limit was written into their bloodright.”

Written into their bloodright. Jieyuan was interested in just about everything Anren had to say, but he was particularly interested in bloodrights. Where they came from, whether there was a way to get your hands on one besides being born with it. And if Jieyuan had understood Anren correctly, then bloodrights were malleable. That was promising.

Anren turned fully to Daojue now. Her gaze was suddenly as deep and intense as Daojue’s own.

“And I’ve been thinking it over and over,” she said, “but I just can’t see why any sect would send someone stuck at Bluesoul over here. Care to polish the blade on that, Daojue?”

Daojue said nothing. But he did do something: he walked away, putting some distance between them. Then he got into a stance, Gleaming End held parallel to his body, before flowing into another; and then again and again, resuming the training he had been doing earlier.

Training. There wasn’t much else to do here besides that. Cultivation wasn’t an option, not with Anren around. She’d said there was ambient chroma in this place, even if they couldn’t sense it, so cultivation should’ve been possible; she had even mentioned as much.

But Anren was currently under the impression that they had no need for cultivation, that they were already at the peak of their realm. She’d also be able to tell that they were chanting Redsoul imbuing hymns; higher-realm ones were supposed to be longer.

Not that Jieyuan would have bothered cultivating even if he’d had the option, though. He and Daojue were much better off training. You couldn’t get tired here, and Anren was the best teacher you could ask for.

Anren was staring at Daojue with narrowed eyes. But then she stepped closer to Jieyuan.

“There’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask you, too,” she said, quietly, gaze still on Daojue. “You’re both from the Metal Heart Sect, but you don’t know much about your friend over there—or about much at all, really.”

Anren raised her hand to silence him before he could explain.

“Look, I can accept you’re sheltered, that you’ve got some eccentric master. I’ve seen stranger things. But there’s more to it than that.”

She looked away from Daojue, focused on Jieyuan.

Jieyuan did his best to keep steady.

“You and Daojue, you appeared very close to each other, right? That’s something else that’s been bothering me, because supposedly something like that’s never happened in the history of the Trials.”

Jieyuan shrugged, affected nonchalance. “It’s even more of a mystery to me.”

Which was very much true.

“And you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the Trial being brought forward?”

“Brought forward?” This was actually something he’d been wondering for a while now.

He’d had a couple of theories. One was that by sheer (and absurd) coincidence, the Absolute Sword Trial had started around the same time he and Daojue and Meiyao had met the Viridian.

Another was that significant time had passed between the Plunderer taking them and their arrival in the trialworld. That had been a possibility he had sure hoped wasn’t true, for obvious reasons.

What he’d thought was likeliest was there was just some temporal warping or something like that at play here.

But the trial being brought forward? That was one thing that hadn’t really occurred to him.

Because it would mean that the Plunderer had started the Absolute Sword Trial early because of him and Daojue.

Which meant he and Daojue mattered far more to the Plunderer than Jieyuan had assumed—more than the man had pretended before Muyeshen.

“You didn’t know?” Anren asked. “The trial happens every century or so, give or take a few years. But this time, it was brought forward by more than three decades. That’s never happened before.”

Jieyuan summoned up his best rueful look. The dry smile, the helpless eyes. “I’m afraid that’s something else my master forgot to mention.”

“Hmmm.” She looked him over, then sighed. “Well, I don’t know much about you, but I think it’s all related. Daojue’s presence here, the trial being brought forward—even you two appearing close to each other.”

It was related, all right. Very much so.

“Look, I think Daojue over there is involved in something big and that you got caught up in it. I… I’d be careful, if I were you. I’m not sure what’s going on, and clearly you know even less. You’re treading dangerous ground right now.”

Again, Anren probably had no idea how right she was.

“Not just that,” she said. “I have to say I’m rather afraid, myself.”

This time, Jieyuan didn’t have to fake his surprise. “What?”

A violetsoul—afraid?

“I met you two on the first day,” Anren said. “We didn’t appear right next to each other like you and Daojue did, but a meeting so early on is still unheard of, as far as I know. Most contestants pass the first phase entirely on their own, only encountering others in the final days.”

Her brow was deeply furrowed.

“So I seem to have gotten caught up in this mess too, whatever this is,” she said. “And if I’m right? If this is about a Tianzijun—Daojue—breaking through to Violetsoul?

Her voice went even quieter.

“The Bluesoul limit wasn’t set by the Absolute. In fact, it was a condition imposed on the Absolute by the Tianzijun’s enemies—which at the time were just about the entire world. They weren’t willing to let the Tianzijun go without it.”

All hints of Anren’s usual warmth and cheeriness were gone. She was deadly serious.

“If the rest of the world hears about a Tianzijun violetsoul, they won’t take any chances. It’s been a long time, but if they’re given reason to suspect there’s a new generation of Tianzijun violetsouls coming, the entire plane will come down on the clan at once.”

A chill crept up Jieyuan’s spine. Anren’s look was dark, somber, intent.

“And this time around,” she said, “not even the Absolute will be able to save them from total annihilation. And I doubt those caught up in it can expect a much better fate.”

—∞—

The Shifting Feather cut cleanly through the neck of the remaining sword fiend.

Jieyuan stepped back, absentmindedly splitting his amphis into pair-form. Glancing left and right, Jieyuan saw no new fiends approaching; Daojue and Anren had already finished with theirs.

He returned his gaze to the fading, shadow-like creature, watching as it vanished. He hadn’t really kept track of his kills, but he was pretty sure he’d surpassed a thousand a while back. And, as far as he could tell, today was the thirtieth.

Maybe they’d still face another wave, but he had a feeling this was the last. Almost two dozen fiends, surging at them all at once. The biggest fiend incursion so far.

The moment the fiend finished fading, Jieyuan saw it.

He stepped back instinctively, eyes wide as he took in the sheer size of the structure.

The last time he’d focused on the Sword Tower, just before this attack, it had looked closer, but still far off in the distance—still little more than a line on the horizon.

Now, it was suddenly right there. Just a couple hundred yards away.

Anren hadn’t been kidding about its size. Bigger than you can comprehend, he recalled her saying. That added up about right.

It was a sword, half-burrowed tip-first in the ground. Jieyuan’s view of it was from the side, the flat side of the blade. It was easily a whole mile wide. Maybe two. It filled his entire field of vision.

Jieyuan craned his neck and squinted, but he couldn’t see its end. The massive, wall-like blade just vanished into the gray sky. If the Sword Tower’s ratio of width to length was anything like that of your average sword, that’d put it at well over ten miles long.

The tallest building back on Earth, from what he could recall, hadn’t been anywhere near a single mile tall.

It almost hurt his eyes to take in the sheer size of it. He’d thought the Viridian Cradle in Viridian Death City was huge, but compared to the Sword Tower, it was little more than a mound.

Its ridiculous dimensions aside, the sword wasn’t much to look at; just a plain, utilitarian gray blade. Steel, it looked like.

Near the tower were cultivators. Some in groups, others standing apart. Most of them were just at the base of the tower, but a few were far away. Jieyuan could also see some cultivators farther off and making their way up: new arrivals, like him, Daojue and Anren.

The cultivators here wore robes of all colors and designs. Jieyuan didn’t expect to recognize most of them; they should all be from Violetsoul sects, after all. But he was looking for two colors in the crowd.

One was white, because of Anren. But as he focused on the ones wearing white, he saw that none of their robes were quite like Anren; the patterns and cuts were different. Anren’s robes were form-fitting, trim, and plain, patterned with faint undulating light-gray lines forming ripples.

He found no matches for it.

But the second Jieyuan looked for was silver: the color the Plunderer had worn. And there he got a match. A whole group, in fact; the one closest to the tower. The largest group, too; maybe fifty of them.

They wore silver. Nobody else did.

Absolute Sword Sect. He was sure of it.

Jieyuan glanced at Daojue—and froze.

Daojue turned to look at him, and black eyes met Jieyuan’s own.

Black eyes. Not violet. Black.

Jieyuan stared.

Daojue’s expression wasn’t his usual cold, neutral one. Someone who didn’t know him might have thought otherwise, that he looked the same as always—but Jieyuan could tell: the faint crease of his brow, the tightness, the clenched jaw.

Daojue was put off. Uncomfortable.

The Tianzijun Clan hadn’t come up again after Jieyuan’s last talk with Anren, where she’d revealed the extent to which the clan was reviled and just how suspicious Daojue’s presence here was. At the end, when she’d given her warning and shared her fears, Daojue had been some distance away, training.

Up to now, Jieyuan hadn’t been given any reason to think Daojue had heard the things Anren had said at the end. Daojue hadn’t acted differently, and up to moments ago his eyes had been very much violet. But now Jieyuan was pretty sure Daojue had been listening back then, after all.

Jieyuan couldn’t think of anything else that would have made Daojue turn his eyes mundane—nothing else would make him hide his heritage. Daojue had probably just put it off until the very last moment.

Well. At least that was one problem solved. Jieyuan had been about to bring it up, too; Anren might have given up on getting Daojue to lay low, but Jieyuan had wanted to give convincing Daojue another shot.

“Hmmm.” That was Anren.

Jieyuan turned to her, and saw that she was looking at Daojue; she looked a little surprised, too. Surprised, but satisfied. She gave an approving nod.

For once, Daojue ignored her, staring firmly ahead.

“This is it, then,” Jieyuan said, nodding to the Tower.

He eyed the stretch of ground leading to the tower. It was just solid, unbroken rock for miles, like a gigantic platform. No more abyss lines. No more sword fiends. Or so Jieyuan hoped, at least.

The fiends weren’t much trouble anymore. Jieyuan had long since learned all their tells and the best ways to dispatch them, and he’d gotten skilled enough with the amphis to put it all into practice.

By now, they were nothing more than a nuisance. They didn’t even make for good practice anymore.

“This is it,” Anren agreed.

They started walking.

“See any of your sect?” Jieyuan asked.

“Hmmm?” Anren shot him a confused look. “I didn’t tell you? I’m the only one from the Whispering Winds Sect this time around. We received more than one token, but we didn’t have anyone all that promising besides me we could send, so we traded away all the other tokens to other sects.”

Trade. That was more familiar territory to Jieyuan. “I’m guessing you got a good deal for them?”

“Oh, yes, we did,” Anren said. “The Absolute Sword Sect only makes a thousand tokens each time they hold a trial; they keep a hundred and distribute the rest to its vassals. Each one fetches a fortune. From what I hear, there’s usually a lot of competition in the Whispering Winds Sect over who gets to go; we just had some really blunt luck with our disciples the last few decades.”

Anren smirked. “My master likes to joke that I soaked up all the talent.”

Jieyuan could believe that, all right. For all the progress he’d made this last month, he was still far from Anren’s match. Even Daojue still couldn’t hold his own against her; Daojue managed to last just a little longer every time he and Anren sparred, but he hadn’t come close to beating her yet.

Jieyuan was sure Anren could take both him and Daojue together—thanks entirely to her martial arts skill. As far as Jieyuan could tell, Anren was both stronger and faster than he was, but not absurdly so. In terms of raw speed and strength, Jieyuan was pretty sure Anren was actually a little below Daojue’s level.

But everything about the way Anren fought was perfect. Both her movements and decisions were flawless. It was like she had her own form of Fatebloom Intuition.

So he sure hoped Anren was unusually talented in martial arts even for a Violetsoul sect’s standards; because if she was the norm, then he and Daojue would stand no chance whatsoever in the Absolute Sword Trial.

“What about you?” Anren asked. She gestured vaguely with her hands to the cultivators gathered near the tower. “See anybody else you know, from the Metal Heart Sect?”

Schooling his expression, Jieyuan made a show of giving a vague, half-hearted scan of the area.

“Not really,” he said, shrugging. “I’d probably not recognize any, anyway. My master was a recluse; after he recruited me and brought me to the sect, I can count on one hand the number of times he took me out into the sect proper.”

The lie was one Jieyuan had prepared way ahead of time; it had occurred to him pretty early on that Daojue filling in their sect might have led to trouble later on. He just hoped they wouldn’t actually come across anyone from the Metal Heart Sect; he had prepared himself for it—what to say, how to act—but he wasn’t sure it would work if it came to that.

More than a few times, he’d been tempted to just tell Anren the truth. There’d be no more need for lies, then. Besides, if Anren took it well, he’d be able to straight-out ask her about pretty much everything: all the things she’d referenced, all the terms she’d used, and a thousand other things besides.

But what Anren had revealed about the Tianzijun Clan and the significance of Daojue’s presence here kept him from it. The less Anren knew about his and Daojue’s true circumstance, the better, in case she was right and all-out war on the Tianzijun Clan was just around the corner.

“Hmmm.” Anren turned to Daojue. “And you? See anyone you know?”

Daojue did not answer. Didn’t even seem to hear the question.

Sometimes, Daojue’s unique approach to communication could be a good thing. A blessing, even. This was one of those times.

“So, we’re here,” Jieyuan said, steering the conversation away. “The second stage. What’s it like?”

They were halfway over to the Sword Tower now. The disciples there had already noticed their approach, but all that happened was a few glances briefly sent their way. Nobody was paying them any attention.

Daojue’s decision to suppress his incriminating violet eyes was already paying dividends.

“Hmmm. I’d rather not say,” Anren said. “Don’t want to spoil the surprise. You’re probably the only person here who doesn’t know what to expect.”

That wasn’t quite right, Jieyuan reckoned; Daojue shouldn’t know either. Then again, maybe Daojue did know; Jieyuan had no way to tell how far Daojue’s knowledge of Violetsoul matters.

“But don’t worry,” Anren said, “it’s nothing bad. And I’ll give you some advice, once we’re inside.”

Anren had been nothing if not helpful—absurdly helpful—so far. Jieyuan reckoned he’d take her word for it. Not that he had much of a choice in the matter, anyway.

Getting closer to the tower now, Anren slowed her pace, and he and Daojue followed suit; they stopped some ways off from it, near where several smaller groups were gathered.

“So we just wait here?” Jieyuan asked, a bit more quietly now that there were others around. Thankfully the other groups were busy with talks of their own.

“Until the day’s through, for everyone else to arrive,” Anren said. “Probably a couple of hours left.”

Anren was right about that. As the hours passed, fewer and fewer cultivators appeared. Jieyuan took the time to discreetly look over the others.

He was, currently, surrounded by hundreds of violetsouls. Any single one of them in the outside world could’ve probably wiped the entire Incandescent Serenity Island with a snap of their fingers. And that was a low-ball estimate of their power. They might as well have been gods, as far as he was concerned.

And yet they looked normal enough. Human. Most of them were the standard, black-haired, black-eyed fair. Only real difference being height.

Back in Radiant Gold City, among the mundanes, Jieyuan had been considered very tall. In the Gleaming Stone Sect, he’d still been tall, even among the clan-born, but he hadn’t stood out as much. Here, though, his six and a half feet were just about average height for the men. Even Daojue wasn’t the tallest person there.

It made sense: height meant mass, and mass meant strength.

A few stood out in other ways: he noticed brunettes, blonds, redheads, and even a small group with dark blue hair. Eye colors also varied across the entire spectrum and then some, though purple was noticeably absent. The Absolute Sword Sect disciples, he noted, had silver eyes.

But these off-color cultivators were the exception. Jieyuan didn’t know if bloodrights were uncommon even among violetsouls, or if there was a bunch of them suppressing their bloodright traits for one reason or another.

The Absolute Sword Sect disciples were still the largest group. If Jieyuan hadn’t been sure about their identity before, a few hours later he knew it beyond doubt; their numbers rose to exactly a hundred. Anren had said the Absolute Sword Sect kept a hundred tokens for themselves. It looked like they’d all passed the first stage, too.

After an hour without new arrivals, Jieyuan was certain that was it. He’d done a headcount while they waited. Just a little over five hundred made it to the tower. About half of the original thousand (or rather, a thousand and two).

The change in surroundings was instantaneous.

One moment they were standing in the rocky plains, just outside the Sword Tower.

The next, Jieyuan found himself in a massive gray room. Everyone else was there with him. Daojue and Anren and all the other disciples. None of their positions seemed to have changed, at least relative to each other.

“Finally,” Anren murmured. She didn’t look even remotely surprised.

Still a tad disoriented, Jieyuan cast a look around, and noticed that while the other disciples looked more animated now, none of them seemed even particularly shocked or concerned.

“Huh.”

He turned his attention to the room itself. It was circular; the walls were gray, and so was the floor. Metal. All metal. Plain steel.

The room had over five hundred people inside it, and it looked like it could’ve easily fit three times as many. There was nothing there except for them—and the doors. Evenly spaced on the wall, maybe a foot or so apart, were doors. A single, unbroken row with hundreds, maybe thousands of doors, running the full circumference of the room.

He, Anren, and Daojue were near the rim; the Absolute Sword Sect disciples were exactly at the center. Jieyuan eyed the door closest to them. It was plain and metal, just like the room; all that really distinguished it from the wall it was set in was the clear-cut outline of it and its straight handle.

They were, he was pretty sure, inside the Sword Tower.

He doubted this room could actually fit inside the tower, given its size. As massive as the tower was, it was still a sword; even at its thickest, the blade shouldn’t have had enough space to contain a room like this.

But none of that mattered, because Jieyuan was sure violetsouls wouldn’t let something as pesky as dimensional constraints stop them.

Jieyuan looked up, and he had his confirmation. The circular walls seemed to go on forever. He couldn’t see their end; they just disappeared into darkness far above. Except the light also seemed to be coming from above, so that didn’t quite add up. The lighting here was also just as even and uniform as outside.

Anren nudged him, then subtly indicated the center of the room.

Turning in that direction, Jieyuan saw what she was referring to. A gray-robed man was hovering over the heads of the Absolute Sword Sect disciples, a few feet over their heads. His hair caught the eye: it was long, reaching almost to his feet, and the same gray as his robes. Not the gray of age; the gray of steel.

His face was young, though. And awfully similar to the Plunderer’s. The same strong, sharp features. But his eyes were gray, not silver.

“The Heavenly Selection shall begin shortly,” the man announced. His tone was cold, curt, cutting. “Ready yourselves.”

Then he was gone.

Well, that was illuminating.

“Anren?” he asked, quietly, leaning toward her.

“That was the Tower’s ego,” she said.

Ego… As in, ego artifact? Was the tower an artifact? The whole, miles-long tower?

“Right,” Jieyuan said. He looked around; nobody was paying them any attention. Good. “And Heavenly Selection? How am I supposed to prepare for that?”

“The Tower’s got its own version of the Heavens. You’ll see it soon. Don’t worry; it’s nothing bad. You’ll get picked by one or more Concepts; you have to choose one of them. You’ll then pursue it for six days; on the seventh, you’ll be tested in a trial. This will happen seven times—seven stages. I’ll tell you more about that later. For now, what you need to know…”

Anren’s brows furrowed.

“Look, the training is dangerous. Deadly. So is the trial afterward. You either pass or die, actually. This means you—”

“Wait, what?” Jieyuan cut in. “Pass or die?”

“Well, yes. But you’ve got the sword token, so all that happens is you get thrown out of the trialworld. You aren’t at any real risk.”

Of course—assuming you had one of those handy life-saving tokens.

Jieyuan didn’t. Neither did Daojue.

“Anyway,” Anren said, “you have to be careful with your choice. The Heavens here are distinct from the real ones. The Concepts that pick you here don’t necessarily have to do with your actual affinities; the selection also involves potential, recent experiences, and a thousand other things. The real Heavens work in mysterious ways—the Tower’s Heavens are no different.”

Jieyuan was still wrapping his head around the whole pass-or-die business, but he tried to pay attention.

“You may also get different options at different stages. The Concepts you’re least suitable for present themselves in the earlier stages, while the ones that have greater interest in you usually wait to select you in the later stages, to ensure you’ll be properly tested. So you tend to get your weaker matches first.”

“Right,” Jieyuan cut in. That was nice and all, but he had a bigger concern right now. “Let’s assume I want to stack my odds of passing right from this first stage. What’s the best strategy?”

“Hmmm. Later stages are more difficult,” Anren said. “So if you get multiple Concepts you’re confident in pursuing and being tested on, go for the one you’re least confident about first. Concepts usually select you multiple times, so the ones you skip will probably show up again.”

“Right. Pick the worst from the best, then.”

“Exactly,” Anren said. “And—”

The Heavens appeared.