Almost Late - Ascension.

It had been nearly three hours since Shu He had arrived in the waiting room, for Shu He who had already grown accustomed to longer sessions of meditation this wasn't too bad, he simply enjoyed the peace and quiet in this beautifully yet simply decorated room and the gentle wind running in to the room from the mountain slope ahead.

The same could be said for a lot of the other participants as well, there were many well disciplined people that were exactly like Shu He, sat still without a movement or a peep with no fuss, however it didn't apply to everyone, while none of them outright got fed up or started complaining there were plenty that couldn't sit still and began to fidget, whisper to the people near them in an attempt to create conversation or agitatedly looked around and at the door they had all came from, clearly becoming impatient.

It was mostly the younger participants like this though, the few older men and women were perfectly fine, they all sat patiently with a heavy aura that screamed their determination to pass this test.

'I wonder if this is also some form of test' Shu He thought, watching the room with his sight even though his eyes were closed, but he held back a chuckle.

'Heh, I'm definitely overthinking it'.

Though he didn't doubt that if someone really tried to pull something, they could lose their qualifications to participate.

'But really, where is he? It's almost at the time limit, he won't fail due to non-attendance right?' Shu He thought as a drip of sweat grew on his brow from his worrying.

Just as he though that, he heard a slight sound in the distance, it was coming from behind him at the entrance to the room, he knew it well since he had heard it many times since he arrived, it was the sound of the stair passageway sliding open.

He turned his head towards the entranceway and opened his eyes, as did many others that were eager for the last participants to arrive.

"Se- i-s t—t si---e"

Shu He raised his brow, he heard a muffled voice under the sound of grating stones, one that he wasn't too familiar with.

'Is it not him?'

"Hahaha it's amazing that you managed to find that thing!"

A second voice boomed through the passageway causing Shu He's shoulders to drop a millimetre in relief.

'Yeah, that's him, finally'.

"Hmph, of course, if I can't do that I'd be a disappointment." A slightly haughty voice, clearly happy with the praise, replied to the other.

'Wait… is that…' Shu He felt like he suddenly remembered where he heard that voice before.

A pompously dressed young boy was pictured in his mind, now standing next to his bald friend.

'What a pair…' He felt exasperated as he awaited their arrival.

"But I couldn't find it? I thought for sure it was one of those barriers that we had to break through…"

"Don't feel bad, everyone has their strengths! Those ears of yours are great, I couldn't even hear that wind when I tried!"

Shu He felt slightly embarrassed listening to the two casually walking their way up having a chat, everyone else ascended feeling the pressure of the exam yet these two are having a leisurely stroll! Do they not realise they're almost late?! And everyone is listening!

"Thanks! Even my parents used to say I was like a wild boar".

'That's not a compliment dude…' Shu He wanted to slap himself in the face already.

"A wild boar huh… then I must be the intelligent Turtle!"

'God help me, and them' Shu He decided to stop listening.

After a few more minutes of blocking out their chatter, the two finally arrived at the room.

"Oh right, what's your name?"

"Forgive me, I haven't told you yet have I? I'm the son of the city lord, Wei Yu!" He emphasised the 'Son of the city lord' when he spoke as he was proud of the title.

"Oh, ok, I'm Gang Bo! Nice to meet you."

"Huh? Oh… Yes, nice to meet you".

It sounded like the two were shaking hands, and that Wei Yu was slightly disappointed by Gang Bo's reaction.

"Look! There's an opening ahead!" Wei Yu spoke with joy as his footsteps audibly picked up pace.

"I see it!" Gang Bo's heavier feet followed along, and after a few tens of seconds the two exited into the room, greeted by the entire group staring knives at them.

"Ah- Uh- Hi?" Wei Yu swallowed his words as he felt the social pressure descend on him, he clearly realised he was late immediately.

On the other hand-

"Oh, there's so many people already! Let's see…" Gang Bo scanned the crowd with his eyes, completely ignoring everyone else before he locked on to Shu He's figure.

"Ah, Shu He, you're here already?!" He sounded genuinely surprised.

"Already? I'm pretty sure you're the last ones here!" Shu He couldn't help but retort.

"Oh? Really? I must have lost track of time ahahahaha" Gang Bo laughed while scratching his chin with a hint of embarrassment.

"Ahem" A louder voice filled the room like it was coming through a loudspeaker, catching the attention of everyone including the new arrivals.

The moustached man was getting everyone's attention as he held what looked like a steel tablet in his hands.

"While you two, Boar and Turtle, took a very leisurely stroll and treated us ALL to a pleasant conversation, you DID manage to make it on time, with the two of you we should have all the recorded participants now."

A wave of relief washed over everyone in the room, the wait was over; On the other hand, Wei Yu turned a slightly red hearing that his conversation was overheard, Gang Bo merely smirked like he knew he'd be fine.

The moustached man holding the tablet sighed and then spoke again.

"You should be Wei Yu? And you're Gang Bo?" He asked, the two nodding in response.

"Great, with that we can head on over to the first exam site" He tapped on the metal tablet causing the engravings on it to glow slightly before he stored it In his white robe.

He walked on over to the centre of the large opening, clapping twice.

The other sect members moved to the two sides behind the group like they were shepherd dogs guiding a herd.

"All of you, my name is Su Wen, an elder of our Titanic Steel Sect, I welcome you all today and wish you best in your attempts to avail over our exams and I hope to see you as a fellow sect member in the future!"

Shu He felt goosebumps rise on his skin as a chill flew up his spine.

'This is it!' He was finally here, about to take on a sect exam; He couldn't help but feel both nervous and excited.

It was the same for the others as glimmers of light seemed to appear in the eyes of all the aspirants.

"Now, follow me!" With a flick of his sleeve, he turned and began walking; No one wasted a single moment and began following behind.

…

A few minutes into the walk up the mountain, the participants had already segregated into groups, many friends, others out of interest, yet only small amounts of chatter were taking place since they were marvelling in the scale of the mountain itself and the sight off the side, they were already incredibly high up as they looked on out to the distance.

'Huh, that's odd' Shu He's brows frowned as he stared out into the horizon.

Something was off, he hadn't noticed it until now, maybe because he hadn't ever gotten a clear view like this, or he just was too preoccupied to think about it, but he noticed it now.

"The horizon… it's straight" He mumbled to himself.

'I'm not imagining things right? I'm quite high up and the terrain isn't too mountainous around here… at the very least in the horizon I should see slight curvature…'

He stopped in place, scanning it like he was looking for further proof of his findings.

'Maybe I'm just overthinking it' He thought, yet a seed had been planted in the back of his mind.

"If you don't hurry up you'll be left behind" A voice came from behind him, Wei Yu was standing next to him.

"Oh, right, thanks" Shu He said as he was about to walk off, but then saw Wei Yu staring off into the distance also.

"…What are you doing?" He couldn't help but ask.

"You looked like you saw something interesting, I wanted to see it too".

"Oh" Shu He paused for a second, then decided to ask him out of curiosity "Hey, the horizon should be curved right?"

Wei Yu looked at him in confusion "Huh? What do you mean?"

Shu He frowned slightly 'I thought he would be well taught since he was the city lords son, was I wrong?'

"I mean, the world is a sphere right?"

"Oh, yeah I've been taught that at one point yes, but what does that have to do with it?" Wei Yu cocked his head to the side in confusion.

"Well if it's a sphere, then looking out in the distance at the horizon where the ground meets the sky, you should be able to see a curve even if it's only a slight one, right?" Shu He asked.

"Hmm" Wei Yu's face scrunched as he wracked his brains to search his memory.

"I don't think I've ever heard about that… but it does make sense… how odd." He shook his head much to Shu He's disappointment.

"Then never mind, it's nothing".

"No! My father said that you shouldn't ignore the small things, they could turn out to be incredibly important!" Wei Yu spoke as if he was imitating his father while he puffed up his figure.

"You father sounds like a great person, but it's really nothing important right now" Shu He shrugged.

His words seemed to make Wei Yu a bit happy.

"Hey! What are you two looking at?"

Yet another voiced boomed from behind, Gang Bo yelled at them from the distance as he stopped behind the group to call them.

"We really should get back" Shu He said as he began running to catch up, Wei Yu nodded as he followed behind.

Soon they were walking at the back of the pack, the eyes of the two guardians watching them for some reason.

Shu He sighed as he looked around him, he hadn't expected to be walking together with Wei Yu at all, but if he were to be frank, he didn't find him that bad; He felt sorry for him slightly since he seemed to be overly proud of his position, yet soon that position would be worthless.

As for Gang Bo…

Their relationship was surprising for him honestly, back in Greengate he had met him by chance with a sour start, but soon after he became a regular customer they got along fine, but it was more of a business relationship more than anything.

It was after the disaster that that relationship changed, he and Old Yun were dragged along to Orefine at Chao Shi's whim along with him and, despite the age gap between them, something akin to a friendship began to form.

A big part was Shu He's mental age being much older than a 9-year-olds at the time of course.

In the 3 months of travel, they had grown close enough to be called so, unfortunately when they arrived at Orefine, Old Yun, or Yun Jiang which was his actual name, was poached straight into the sect without a test, apparently they valued craftsmen greatly and the praise Chao Shi gave him let him put scooped up the moment his feet touched the city soil, so Shu He and Gang Bo were left together.

In the three years a lot happened, other than settling down with their own home they attempted to reopen Shu He's medicine business, unfortunately it was doomed to fail and it did; Orefine was far more developed than the outskirt village he used to live at, and it was had sect at its backdoor, its medicinal distribution, quality and quantity was far higher and greater, Shu He's skills and speed couldn't match what was generally available here so he had to throw that idea out of the window, instead the two settled on cultivation for the entire time.

Yes, Gang Bo had stepped foot on the path of cultivation along with him, the whole reason Chao Shi brought him was because of his potential as a cultivator after all.

Shu He finally reached the second stage of cultivation, Blood Enhancement just over a year ago at this point, whereas Gang Bo was well in to saturating his body with Qi in the first stage, Qi Ignition.

Other than pure cultivation, combat techniques were a core focus with the two being each-other's sparring partners, occasionally Bai Shun would visit them and give them general pointers and basic information about cultivation to fill the gaps in their knowledge.

All in all, they spent the 3 years building their foundations both physically and mentally.

"Alright, everyone please stand on this plate and mind the edges!"

As Shu He was deep in his thoughts, they had arrived before a large white stone plate that was about 20 meters in diameter, to say it was massive would be an understatement.

The whole group slowly gathered near the centre of it, many wondering what was going to happen.

One of the two guards went to a stone pillar that was near the circle and placed his palm on it causing the engravings to glow.

*GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

Beneath their feet a loud grating sound could be heard and the platform they were standing on shifted upwards.

"This massive thing is an elevator?!" Shu He couldn't believe his eyes, the amount of power that would be needed to lift this thing would be huge!

Similar reactions could be soon among the crowd, some more subdued than others, there were the odd few that merely looked at the surprised ones like they were country bumpkins though.

Shu He couldn't help but use his sight to get a better view of the elevator, after it had risen out of the ground he could see that it was nearly 2m thick and it was supported by multiple thick pillars that were raising it out of the ground.

'Amazing'

He felt that the great blast furnace in the centre of Orefine was amazing as well, but he was experiencing this first hand, so I had another level of affect!

Their ride on the elevator wasn't too long, it was moving fairly fast despite its size, and they quickly passed the clouds, allowing everyone to get a peek at the world above.

'It's… like a natural fortress'.

There were many mountain peaks bunched together with a myriad of buildings and open areas strewn between, it was a feat of construction that Shu He felt would have been hard even in his other world.

And he could only see a small portion of it right now.

Suddenly, the lift grinded to a halt and the eyes of every single person locked on to what was ahead.

The examiner, Su Wen's footsteps echoed across the sky as he walked towards what was ahead.

Nearly as far as the eye could see there were steps, seemingly thousands heading all the way up to a paid of grand metal gates in the distance.

With another flick of his sleeve, Su Wen turned to face the participants, his voice driving itself in to the minds of all who listened.

"I WELCOME ALL YOU WHO ASPIRE TO ENTER OUR SECT, OUR FIRST EXAM IS LAID BEFORE YOU"

Realisation dawned in all who were there as their eyes became fixated on the long staircase.

"YOUR OBJECTIVE IS SIMPLE; WALK UP THESE STEPS, ONCE YOU TOUCH THE GATE YOU SHALL HAVE PASSED"

"NOW, MOVE FORWARD"

"THE STEPS OF ASCENSION AWAIT"