Chapter 10 – The Trial of Ash Steps

The outer gates of the Xuandao Sect loomed like a broken crown above the hills.

Not grand. Not gleaming. Just old — stone etched with forgotten runes, weathered by centuries of rain and footsteps. No guards. No banners. Only the silence of judgment.

Hundreds had gathered in the valley beneath.

Boys in clan robes. Girls with spirit beasts. Wanderers with scarred bodies and hungry eyes. Some looked confident. Others whispered prayers. All of them stood facing the wide staircase of black ashstone that led up the mountain.

At the top: the real gate. Sealed. Silent.

"That's the trial?" Wei Lian asked.

Shen Beijun stood beside him, arms folded.

"The first of three."

"Looks easy."

"It's not."

Lian studied the stairs. They rose in a perfect line — smooth, wide, steep — no traps, no vines, no beast lurking in shadow. Just a path.

"You walk it," Shen said. "That's all. But no Qi. No techniques. You step on the Ash Steps with spirit energy and the staircase rejects you. Throws you down. Hard."

"So…?"

"So you climb with nothing but flesh. Will. Breath."

"And at the top?"

"At the top, you kneel. And if they accept you, the gate opens."

"And if not?"

"You crawl back down and disappear."

A gong sounded.

Low. Deep. Final.

The crowd surged forward.

One by one, names were called. Contestants stepped onto the Ash Steps. Some climbed halfway before collapsing. Others made it close to the top, only to be hurled back as if the mountain itself had rejected them.

A girl from the Jin Clan wept as her robes caught fire the moment she tried to cheat with a Qi burst.

"Told you," Shen muttered.

"This is the lowest realm," Wei Lian said. "And they already play like gods."

"Then you'll need to play like a devil."

Hours passed.

Blood dotted the stairs.

Three had made it. Dozens had fallen. Most simply gave up.

The announcer's voice rang out again:

"Next: Wei Lian."

Whispers spread through the crowd.

"Who?"

"No clan."

"Look at his robes."

"He's nothing."

Wei Lian stepped forward, silent.

He looked up the Ash Steps.

Felt nothing.

Not fear.

Not pain.

Only focus.

His first foot touched the stone — and it bit him.

The heat was sudden, like coals under skin.

He took another step. Then another.

Each one sent burning shocks through his legs.

His breath tightened. His chest ached.

By the tenth step, his vision swam.

By the fifteenth, the air thinned.

By the twentieth, his knees buckled.

But he didn't fall.

"He'll collapse," someone said. "He's not even a cultivator."

"He's still climbing," another whispered.

Lian gritted his teeth.

Not because I can…

But because I must.

He reached step thirty.

Blood leaked from his nose. His feet were torn open. His hands trembled.

The staircase whispered now — not in words, but in pressure. In refusal. In weight.

It hated the weak.

And he had been weak his entire life.

"Not anymore," he growled.

He crawled the last five steps.

Collapsed at the top.

And knelt.

The silence stretched.

Then — the gate opened.

Just a crack.

Just enough for one.

He looked back once.

Shen Beijun was watching. Unsmiling. But nodding.

Then the crowd below… quieted.

Because the boy with no Qi, no root, no name—

Had passed.