When everyone arrived at Heart-Questioning Mountain, most felt nothing out of the ordinary. Only Man Gu distinctly felt his strength waning, all his physical metrics dropping to align with the rest of the crowd.
The boiling Ancient Barbarian blood inside him settled into stillness, no longer supplying him with an endless fountain of power.
The others exchanged glances, their eyes finally settling on the burliest among them, Man Gu.
"I'll go first." Seeing everyone looking his way, Man Gu wasted no time on pleasantries and stepped forward to be the first.
One step, two steps, three steps... ten steps.
Man Gu took the first ten steps with ease. From the eleventh onward, however, the pressure began to manifest. He felt as though he were carrying a stone slab on his back; the higher he climbed, the heavier it became.
It was still within bearable limits, though.
Keep climbing.
Man Gu took a couple of breaths to steady himself, then pushed on toward the twentieth step.
By the time he reached the twentieth step, his pace had turned grueling, his footing slowing with each stair.
On the twenty-ninth step, sweat had already soaked through the back of his clothes. He was forced to halt, gasping for air as he sat on the stairs to rest.
*Even sitting down, the pressure doesn't let up,* Man Gu gritted his teeth and muttered inwardly, too exhausted to speak aloud. All he had done was switch from carrying a stone stele standing up to carrying it sitting down; his strength was recovering at an agonizingly sluggish pace.
Seeing how hard Man Gu was struggling, the onlookers knew this mountain would not be easily conquered, their hearts sinking.
Someone said in a low, somber voice, "I heard clan elders speak of places like this. This Heart-Questioning Mountain tests one's heart for the Dao. The simpler a person's heart, the firmer their resolve, and the purer their devotion to the Dao. Man Gu hails from the Ancient Barbarian race and is famous for being simple-minded and stubborn. If even he struggles this much, I'm afraid it will only be harder for the rest of us!"
"Calming incantations settle the mind. Could that work?" another suggested.
The third trial only required reaching the fiftieth step without limiting the number of qualifiers, meaning they were not currently in direct competition with each other.
Nods went around the group. Everyone thought it was a sound idea; their elders had all taught them similar chants for cultivating character and steadying the mind.
Lu Yang parted his lips, but stayed silent. He didn't know any calming incantations.
"Want me to teach you a calming chant?" Meng Jingzhou asked.
Lu Yang shook his head. "Not for now. Let me think of another way."
Seeing this, Meng Jingzhou didn't press the matter.
...
When Meng Jingzhou emerged from meditation, his mind felt more tranquil than ever before.
The calming incantation worked!
Meng Jingzhou's meditation had lasted longer than most. By the time he awoke, the others were already at the twentieth or thirtieth steps, drenched in sweat, requiring immense willpower just to advance another pace.
Large drops of sweat rolled down their faces, and they lacked even the strength to wipe them away.
Someone had tried taking an alternate route, figuring the pressure only existed on the stairs, and attempted to skirt around along the hillside toward the fiftieth step. But once he stepped onto the adjacent slope, he realized the shortcut was useless—across the entirety of Heart-Questioning Mountain, the pressure increased with altitude.
Others tried using magical treasures, only to discover their artifacts had lost all power. No matter how miraculous the treasures were, they couldn't even be activated, reduced to heaps of scrap metal.
No wonder Dai Bufan hadn't been worried about them using magical treasures.
Lu Yang lagged behind everyone, standing out the most.
Barefoot on one foot, he squatted on the tenth step, deep in thought, observing who knew what.
"What are you doing? Everyone else has already climbed so far ahead," Meng Jingzhou asked curiously.
Lu Yang didn't answer, holding a shoe in his hand.
Lu Yang tossed the shoe, and it landed on the eleventh step. "Pick it up and see."
Meng Jingzhou didn't grasp Lu Yang's intention, but he complied nonetheless. To his surprise, he found the shoe was heavier than usual, as if something underneath were dragging it down.
Catching a glimmer of understanding, Meng Jingzhou threw the shoe onto the twelfth step. He noticed that its falling speed was the same as on the eleventh, but when picked up, it felt heavier than on the eleventh step.
"Notice a pattern?"
Meng Jingzhou frowned. "As long as an object isn't on the ground, the pressure won't be transferred to it. Only when an object hits the ground and makes contact does it bear the extra pressure?"
"Exactly." Lu Yang punched his palm, thoroughly delighted that someone shared his line of thinking.
Meng Jingzhou pondered, his mind turning rapidly in his tranquil state. "The stairway is sloped, and there are plenty of trees around here. We could build a seven-shaped ladder—plant one end in the ground and have the other extend straight to the fiftieth step."
Lu Yang said with complete conviction, "Right! This third trial has to be testing our wisdom. This is the model answer!"
Understanding Lu Yang's concept, Meng Jingzhou promptly raised another issue: "How do we chop down trees?"
Without axes or saws, how were they to chop down trees and build a ladder?
"Do you have any sharp magical treasures on you?" Lu Yang had anticipated this question long ago.
He had considered teaming up with someone, but unfortunately, no one else had grasped what he was getting at.
Meng Jingzhou produced a dagger. "A clan elder shoved this on me for self-defense. It can be controlled by intent, with speed rivaling the Golden Core stage. But on Heart-Questioning Mountain, it won't fly."
"Doesn't matter, as long as it's sharp," Lu Yang said with a smile. The Meng clan was a major family; even if their forged treasures couldn't be activated with spiritual power, their sharpness far surpassed mortal axes and saws.
Perfect for felling trees.
"Come over and look. While you were meditating, I already drew up the blueprints."
Lu Yang led Meng Jingzhou to a patch of soft sand, where he had sketched out his design—the seven-shaped ladder.
After a brief discussion, the two sprang into action.
The Meng clan dagger was indeed extraordinarily sharp. Sturdy trees were like paper before it, and before long, the pair had sliced them into peculiarly shaped planks.
Within the bounds of Heart-Questioning Mountain, cultivators were no different from mortals; trees capable of growing here were naturally of the ordinary, mundane variety.
Soon, Meng Jingzhou identified another problem.
"How are we going to join these planks together? Leaving aside that we have no nails, even if we did, they wouldn't hold planks this thick."
"Have you ever heard of mortise and tenon joinery?"
"No."
Lu Yang sighed in exasperation. Taking the dagger to carve mortises and tenons at the plank joints, he explained mortal wisdom to Meng Jingzhou.
"This protruding part is called a tenon, and this recessed part is called a mortise. Put together, it's mortise and tenon joinery. Its greatest feature is that pieces can hold together exceptionally firmly without using any nails."
Meng Jingzhou listened attentively. The Meng clan's artifact crafting relied on spiritual energy and weapon refinement arts; they had never had any use for mortise and tenon joinery.
Up on the stairs, the others were pouring sweat, panting for breath, all striving to reach the fiftieth step and become the first to clear the trial.
Perhaps finishing first would win the Dao Seeking Sect's favor, earning them focused cultivation and resources.
They also finally understood why there was no time limit: climbing drained physical stamina so severely that if someone lingered too long, hunger would leave them unable to stand, let alone climb.
Down below the stairs, the two were equally drenched in sweat, gasping for breath. After a long, arduous effort felling swathes of trees and undergoing several rounds of trial and error, they finally finished the ladder.
The ladder had a bizarre shape—thin at the top, thick at the base, and bent at the far end. Rather than a ladder, it looked more like an enormous numeral '7'.
The surrounding ground was stripped bare, as if a gigantic pig demon had taken a massive bite out of it.
Some Dao Seeking Sect disciples stole a glance at Dai Bufan. They well remembered how Senior Brother Dai loved to brag about his lush, verdant Heart-Questioning Mountain.
Dai Bufan's eyelid twitched, his fists clenching involuntarily.
Chapter 5