203. The Culling

By the time the trial began, Alistair’s general region had plummeted a hundred feet, whereas most of his surrounding zones had risen.

His attacker leaped from the new mountain top, intending to kill Alistair from behind before he even knew what had happened.

Naturally, that failed.

There wasn’t much to explain. In every area of cultivation, Alistair was his attacker’s superior.

The slim man wielding a poisoned dagger took the combined momentum of his admittedly impressive speed against a full-power Tier 4 [Force Fist].

The Agility-based cultivator was found unqualified in Constitution, the spectral coral fist crushing his skull. The principle that an attack outside one’s perception landed harder applied outside mere fisticuffs. The poor man had never seen Alistair coming.

Alistair even tried a new trick, using the Dao of the Fist to remove all blowback from his attack, essentially creating a reverse fajin. His fajins caused their targets to move much more than they should have for how strong the blow was, while his new reverse fajin kept its target right where he punched them.

So this is how Dao energy feels like, Alistair thought. As an Adept, Dao energy sat inside his Domain, and unleashing it through his Mana felt far more natural. It didn’t feel like adding a separate energy to his attacks, but like making them heavier.

Despite having his face crushed, the lithe assassin was still alive. Adepts were sturdy creatures. Within a thousandth of a second of the punch landing, Alistair opened his hand and grabbed the man’s face.

It was the liberty of the strong that he exercised.

The assassin had attacked him with the intent to kill, but Alistair was strong enough to merely incapacitate the man. If he were weaker, he would have been forced to use a more lethal option out of fear for his own life.

This man did not make him fear for his life.

Using his newfound freehand Mana shaping as an Adept, he attacked the nearly unconscious man with blood Mana. Under normal circumstances, without [Blood Hand], the probe would not have been strong enough, but the would-be assassin’s willpower was severely diminished.

Alistair absorbed life force from the man, bringing him to the very brink of death. Stolen blood essence flowed through his veins. He rejected any stolen memories, and the microscopic flickers of abilities he received were less than useless. At least he could finally absorb blood again, bringing his bloodline to 500/1000, halfway to evolving to [Peasant].

Five seconds after Alistair had finished his bloodsucking, the man’s body disappeared into motes of light. Someone could have killed him before he vanished. Looks like safety isn’t one of their highest priorities.

Over the next ten minutes, three candidates tried attacking him, all one at a time.

The first was a burly man with the thickest plate armor Alistair had ever seen, covered in First Script sigils copied over a hundred times, even more than those in the Holy Ravine. His Strength was enormous, a single blow from his warhammer enough to rock the floor for hundreds of feet, but he was too slow. Black Impermanence plus [Frozen Claw] sealed the candidate in a block of ice, and he too disappeared in light.

The second attacker was a tall woman wielding a spear engraved with air runes that extended and retracted with deadly precision. Her stabs were faster than Kadeus’s bullets, and she moved like the wind itself, synergizing with her weapon, which had to be Legendary rarity or higher. Alistair simply smiled and weaved through her attacks. He didn’t need it, but [Adaptive Kinesthesia] helped him learn her patterns of attack in less than two seconds.

Alistair put {Crimson Bones} to good use, wrapping the sharpened ends in 150% efficient blood affinity Mana with [Blood Hand]. He embarrassed her by copying her very technique and spearing her through the stomach despite the reach disadvantage, draining just enough life force to leave her with a flicker of life.

The final challenger was a calculating mage who attempted to trap Alistair in a complex binding array, only for him to flash forward with [Mindshift]. Despite being a mage and therefore utilizing nue, she still couldn’t tell apart the psychic shadow from the real deal, and [Frozen Claw] took care of her Mana, continuously freezing spells until he speared her with a {Crimson Bone}, absorbing more life force.

[Frozen Claw] upgraded to Tier 4 at last, the final of his core four elemental Skills to do so. This upgrade allowed him to swipe his hand and throw hundreds of tiny ice needles at a time, faster than speeding bullets. The needles disrupted the meridians, causing blockages of Dao energy and Mana that made Skills more difficult to use.

After those four challengers failed, candidates started giving him a wide berth. He could feel them out there with [Reality Sense], but no one dared to attack him. It was a good thing, as Alistair’s Stamina was still close to zero from Stilldrop Basin. Hiding his exhaustion had worked like a charm.

Keeping up the bluff, he sat down and meditated. The ambient Mana in the arena was very high, so he started his breathing and cycling exercises, expanding his soulcore 0.00005% every minute.

There was no need for him to go after anyone. When those in this 1,250 foot radius sphere were in danger, he acted, but other than that, he waited.

These weren’t innocents. Cultivators on the level of candidacy for the Clear Water Sect knew what they were getting into. They knew that struggle was the only way, and he guessed over 90% were willing to make the first move and strike to kill without provocation, like the four who had come after him.

It also gave him assurance for Evangeline. If that was the level of the candidates, she would be fine. He had considered going to help her, but she wouldn’t approve of that.

Five hours passed—now that he wasn’t being assaulted by Stilldrop Basin, his near-perfect internal clock was functional.

Another challenger emerged, causing Alistair to open his eyes for the first time in a while. Technically, he didn’t need to, but his real vision did improve [Reality Sense], which still relied on conglomerating his senses into one reality.

“You’re arrogant,” a female voice called out. “To just sit here, while others struggle for their lives. It’s rude and unbecoming of a cultivator.”

Alistair turned to face the woman. She had a resplendent umber complexion with a certain luminescence that accentuated her high and prominent cheekbones. Her perfect bone structure carried hints of the Dao, equaling the beauty of Gu Fuhao.

If the singer he had met during Cosmic Blood was a jade beauty, this woman was an onyx radiance. Her eyes were captivating—a rare mixing of amber and indigo that seemed to shift between the two colors depending on how the light struck them, framed by naturally long lashes. Her hair was styled in an intricate pattern of thin braids that framed her face.

She wore a loose-fitting cultivator’s garb that muted her beauty, a drab gray meant to take away from her striking appearance. Around her neck hung a simple pendant of some diaphanous mineral that occasionally caught the light with flashes of blue-green.

“I've found that patience is one of the greatest virtues,” Alistair replied evenly. “Would you prefer I charge about blindly, hunting for opponents?”

Her expression hardened, those dual-colored eyes narrowing. “I caught you from afar. When someone tries to kill another around you, you intervene, but then you return to your spot. Who knows how many have died from your inaction?”

Alistair was shocked—this was the first time any cultivator was challenging his morals by saying he wasn’t doing enough. Well, he couldn’t be surprised people similar to him existed.

“My charge is against true evildoers,” Alistair said, “not those willing to put their lives on the line. That is the meaning of a warrior.”

“And what of their families?” the woman asked. “Will you tell that to a mother who has lost a son or a brother whose sister perished?”

This approach was not something that he had ever encountered before. He doubted that this woman was intentionally trying to attack him, but her concerns echoed within his Dao Heart. Was she correct?

The tiniest of heart demons formed and was subsequently squashed. Mourning and grief were tragic inevitabilities of the current, but that was not the primary reason Alistair despised death. The individual was the one most harmed by their own end.

In the current multiverse, while he would never abide the slaughter of innocents, if a true cultivator wanted to defy the Heavens, it was not his right to tell them otherwise.

“That’s right,” Dev'rox said. “I’d risk everything all over again to have a single chance at eternity.”

That was the present and past. In the future, his paradise would be different. But now was not the future, and now was not the past. He felt all three of his Dao Nodes stir. It wasn’t enough for a full breakthrough, but he had progressed in his understanding thanks to this woman.

“Thank you,” Alistair said, the woman looking very confused. “What’s your name?”

“W-what? Excuse me?” she said. “You may call me Pristine Evolutionary, but that wasn’t an answer to my question.”

“I don’t think you have any right to judge me,” Alistair replied. “I felt you as well. Your path will never be complete as long as I walk the same road. My Dao will always win.”

“You’re not qualified to speak of my path,” she spat back. “What’s your name?”

“Alistair Tan of Earth. Remember it. You’ll be hearing more about me in the future.”

Pristine snorted and teleported outside the range [Reality Sense].

“I like her already,” Dev'rox said. “Will she be your mate?”

“What! Shut your demonic mouth. Where on Earth did you ever get that idea?”

“All those books you’ve gotten me always have that kind of back-and-forth tension between two lovers to start things off. That was a perfect example.”

“You’re an idiot,” Alistair said. “Don’t demons asexually reproduce or whatever? You’re born from the spiritual ether? How in the hells does that work?”

Dev'rox subtly acknowledged that Alistair was eliding the original topic, but the imp was just joking anyway. “Pure, untruthed Dao energy is more commonly referred to as spiritual energy or the spiritual ether. Or more accurately, it’s the other way around, and spiritual energy that has acquired meaning is called Dao energy. The concentrations are way higher in the Heavens or Hells or even the multiversal core, and in most cases, someone in the Exalted realm or greater can use their willpower to concentrate said ether into nascent life. It’s more miraculous and majestic than your way of making children, that’s for sure.”

“So spawnlords are more like parents than I realized,” Alistair said. “I should have asked earlier, but… I was too afraid. To learn something I shouldn’t, if you catch my drift.”

“Fleshy beings are disgusting.”

Ten more hours passed. Alistair cultivated deeply, and time held no meaning to him. When he next opened his eyes again, it was because he could physically perceive the edge of the arena. It was still miles away, but it had to be strong enough to hold against trillions of pounds of pressure.

The arena had shrunk.

Two more had challenged him in those ten hours, both suffering catastrophic losses. They both required a bit more attention than the first four, lasting a second each before falling.

Alistair remained seated, cultivating in silence. His breathing was controlled, his posture relaxed but ready.

As the arena shrank, desperation bloomed.

Cultivators began approaching—first cautiously, then hungrily. Many had seen how he had fought, and many knew better. But many did not know of the mediating man at the center of the arena, and many were greedy enough to try even if they had seen him.

The first came screaming, his robes torn, eyes wide with exhaustion. Alistair didn’t even move at first—he was gone before the man crossed half the distance. A blur across the arena.

When the cultivator tried again with a flurry of ranged spells, Alistair dodged with contemptuous ease, each movement minimal but precise, barely disturbing the air.

He didn’t even counterattack.

Another tried to ambush him from a blind spot in a narrow section of the terrain. The mountains had shifted much over the day, and there was a tiny hiding spot that someone had been sitting in for an indeterminate amount of time, cloaking his presence so well that even Alistair didn’t realize there was someone there.

[Mindshift] activated, shifting him to a mountain top a mile away as though he had never been there.

A duo even attempted to corner him with coordinated pressure, launching spiritual chains and flame torrents from opposing directions. Alistair flashed between their attacks like a ghost between raindrops. Their Skills missed entirely, and their crossfire nearly ended them.

He said nothing. Made no gesture. The message was clear.

More tried—some reckless, some clever—but none succeeded. His speed, his timing, and his massive Mana pool were too much. Every effort to force him into a confrontation failed.

Alistair even allowed attacks to come as close to hitting him as possible, training [Monk Motionlessness], which was on the verge of reaching Tier 6.

A couple of times, he looked for Evangeline, just in case. She was fine. Her Domain made her perfect for a trial like this one.

The arena continued to shrink, more and more falling, until silence reigned again.

And then, it happened.

A shift in pressure. An invisible weight lifted.

“Enough,” a familiar voice boomed through the field. A Dao Command of binding power.

The battlefield stilled.

Alistair looked down, an old habit despite [Reality Sense]. No signs of battle marred his body, no blood clung to his fists. The only new strikes he had thrown were a couple of [Frozen Claws] to save people about to die.

“The testing is complete. Five hundred remain.”

Elder Yan sent ten images to everyone at once. The top of their yearly class of outer disciples. There was a ranking attached to each one, a rating of their performance during the trial.

#9,501: Yan Zheng

#9,502: Helena Kladen

#9,503: Berengar Sturmklinge

#9,504: Valessa Di Skoro

#9,505: Riyord Fen

#9,506: Ka Zhongting

#9,507: Pristine Evolutionary

#9,508: Gu Fuhao

#9,509: Red Harmonia

#9,510: Alistair Tan

“From this moment, you are Initiates of the Clear Water Sect. Stand tall. You have endured what most cannot.”

Alistair exhaled once, feeling the weight of everything that had happened post-initiation settle into his bones. From the moment the Clear Water Sect had scouted him out on his homeworld, this was going to be his final destination.

Not final final, mind you, as he knew the Clear Water Sect was just a stepping stone in the long run, but it would be home for a while.

Home for a while, Alistair thought. I like the sound of that.

His body dispersed into motes of energy, and the arena faded.