Will entered the banquet hall. He was pretty sure the test would be soon. It was really exciting.

But he was responsible, and just because he was excited didn't mean he would make mistakes. He mentally checked over everything to make sure he wasn't missing anything. As he thought about it, he remembered his dantians. Not just the amount he'd increased them to, but what was in them. And the one that was auto-cultivating. They would probably notice that, wouldn't they?

Could he make it stop doing that? He could just stop letting the spiritual energy in, but that would just make it bunch up around the dantian, not stop it from coming towards him. Could he stop the suction, maybe?

He tried to shut out the suction. It took a bit of fnaggling, but he managed to get it working after a few tries. Hopefully they wouldn't investigate him if there wasn't anything outwardly suspicious like that.

He had some suspicious stuff in his storage rings, but he wasn't sure they'd check that, and if they did he could probably explain it away pretty easily. The only thing left was Sarah.

The women from earlier hadn't asked, but he couldn't be sure there wouldn't be a repeat of the Dragon Flame Clan incident.

<>

Now he had pretty much all his bases covered. All that was left was to wait. Which was the worst, but whatever. He decided to look around at his competition. Or not competition. He didn't know whether they were competing or just taking the test at the same time or what.

While he was definitely the youngest, he wasn't the only one who looked way too young to be here. If he was going by his age in the other world, then there were definitely a good few under it.

He didn't see anyone who looked old in the crowd. Actually, some definitely looked somewhat old, but they didn't look like they were old. He got the impression they just looked older than they were.

Most people seemed to be female, or at least looked like they were. But there was still a lot of variation in the crowd. There was one girl barely taller than he was carrying a sword bigger than a grown adult, a regular-sized teenage girl carrying an axe the same size as the other girl's sword, there was even some woman holding an orb. Was that her weapon? He wondered whether it was some spellcasting thing or if she just hucked it at people.

There were actually multiple people with orbs. Not many, but more than just her. The orbs all looked slightly different from each other, so maybe some were for spellcasting and some for hucking. He couldn't say.

He also noticed some people that didn't look quite human. Like, one guy had rocks on his face. Some seemed like the results of practicing a technique, but others seemed like they were some kind of mutation. Bloodlines maybe? There were also some that he was pretty sure just weren't human. Like one girl who was covered in blue scales and had webbed fingers. Maybe a fish-person? Sea-person? Something like that. He also saw a few people with animal ears, as well.

Of course, them not being humans was just conjecture. He didn't know how they classified humanity here. Nor did he know much about the people in question other than what they looked like.

There weren't many of them, but it was interesting to see the variation. It also made him a bit less worried about his dantians being seen. He knew what he had going on was way weirder than any of these people, obviously, but the diversity on display at least meant he probably wouldn't get the witch treatment over it.

It also made him a bit worried.

Will honestly wasn't particularly strong right now. Even with those kidnappers he killed, he only won because he kept using tricks. When they had been fighting fair and square, he had barely damaged them. And if Sarah had been right back then, they were only beginner qi gathering. That meant he was capable of beating eight early qi gathering, as long as none of them had any idea what the fuck was going on. In other words, all it took was a slightly above beginner qi gathering cultivator who took him at all seriously and he'd be done for. He'd gotten stronger since then, sure, but it wasn't by leaps and bounds. At most he'd be about three times as strong, which was a decent bit, sure, but not nearly enough to make him not suck.

If any of these trials was about combat, he'd probably be done for. Though there were probably some types of combat trials that he could handle.

He turned his attention back to the outside world as he heard someone yelling something. Listening closer, they seemed to be doing something before the trials started.

Apparently, the Brightrose Sect cared a lot about fairness in this test. Particularly in regards to wealth. Any items stored in a test-taker's storage ring was not to be taken out during the trials. Only things placed in the ring during the trials could be taken out during the trials. To make sure this rule was followed, they were doing something to the rings that would let them know when someone broke the rule and how. They were also offering temporary storage rings to anyone who didn't have a storage ring already.

Of course, the rules for weapons were a bit different. They were basically taking the weapons and temporarily sealing them so that they all were about equivalent. As for weapons that were too weak, they were temporarily reinforcing them. So whether someone had a high-rank spirit sword or a rusty dagger, neither would have much advantage. They also had a whole bunch of weapons to borrow, as well.

Clothing and armor would also be sealed, and there was a bunch available to borrow. The exception was if they had an effect integral to the owner's fighting style, in which case it would be dealt with on a case by case basis.

As for trinkets and whatnot, if they weren't an integral part of the owner's fighting style, they were to be stored. Except for life-saving treasures. They were also giving one to test-takers for the duration of the test in case something went wrong.

Overall, Will approved of the whole thing. It gave him a good feeling about the sect's character and morality. Like he wouldn't be forced into a random duel and then have his gaping sword wounds treated with regular bandages and nothing else.

But more than morality, it showed that the people in charge of this sect weren't stupid idiots. If one person goes in with a sword that kills everything, and another person goes in with a rusty kitchen knife, the time it takes them to beat something is mostly just indicative equipment and that's it. There's no way to accurately measure much of anything like that. And yet Will got the feeling a lot of sects probably did it like that.

But it seemed like not everyone felt the same as Will about the policy. Particularly the rich people who had expensive stuff were all very upset about it. One guy in an outfit lined in gold with a clearly expensive sword was absolutely furious. So furious he was screaming at his maid about it.

Of course, there were some more reasonable complaints too. People who made their own equipment themselves, people who weren't rich who got their super powerful sword by making it through a challenging inheritance site, along with many others. The majority of people stayed quiet about it, of course, whether because they didn't care or simply didn't dare to voice their complaints.

Will was obviously not an exception to the rules. Though he was a special case.

The people in charge of doing all the sealing and giving out stuff and whatnot were stationed at a spot next to the entrance hallway. Currently, one of those people was walking towards him.

The person in question was a cheerful looking woman with short hair. She had short hair, a slight tan, and was wearing what looked like a two piece workout outfit, with her midriff exposed. Will felt she was the spitting image of a tomboy in a manga. She reached him pretty quickly. Everyone around had turned their attention to the scene by now. Will hadn't really been the center of attention like the center of attention like this before. It was pretty cool.

“Heya! You're the one with the talking sword, right?”

Her voice was full of energy. It was honestly a bit impressive how enthusiastic she was. Will nodded.

“Yes.”

The woman seemed even cheerier somehow.

“Great! Come with me and I'll get you sorted!”

Will followed the woman to a little setup next to the spot where the others were stationed. Once they arrived, she turned around and started talking.

“Okay! Could you tell me the name of your sword, please?"

“Sarah.”

The woman thought for a bit, then turned to the side and pulled out a book from a shelf there. She flipped through it for a while before closing it and putting it back. She looked at Will, seeming a little stumped.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Alright, I don't have anything about a sword named Sai Re, so I'm gonna need to ask some stuff to figure out how to handle this.”

She pulled out a thin book from the same shelf as the last one. She opened it up to the first page before turning back to Will.

“First of all, can you call it back to you at will?”

“Umm, I don't know. I can't wet go of it to check. It's stuck to my hand.”

The woman looked at him with a face full of confusion and doubt.

“Huh? It's stuck to your hand? What dp you mean?”

Will held his hand out, palm down. He opened his hand, Sarah's handle not moving an inch. He tried pulling it with his other hand to really drive home his point.

“Have you tried telling it to stop sticking to your hand, maybe?”

He already knew that wouldn't work. Even if it did, there was still the whole constant stream of storm qi thing. Still, he'd try it for demonstration purposes, at least. He looked at Sarah in his still outstretched hand and spoke.

“Stop sticking to my hand, pwease.”

Sarah obviously couldn't do that, but she understood the situation well enough to respond.

“I can't.”

The woman was a bit excited about hearing a talking sword, but it was quickly overshadowed by how stumped she was. She decided to just move on.

“I assume you can communicate telepathically with your sword?”

Will nodded.

“Yes.”

“Okay, so, don't do that in the trials.”

Will nodded. He'd already expected this from what he'd heard earlier. He probably had a better excuse for not having it sealed since Sarah was inseparable from his body, but he wasn't going to complain or anything. It would be a bit lonely, but he'd be fine. The woman smiled, glad she didn't have to deal with a bunch of complaining and arguing.

“Great! Thank you! Then next could you tell me about what your sword can do?”

Will thought about it. What could Sarah do? She could do that beam thing they used against the Sick Freak, but he couldn't do that on command since he wasn't a real swordsman. She probably had other abilities too, right?

<>

“She can do a wot of things.”

The woman looked like she was expecting more.

“Like what?”

“She shot a beam one time. She can dull her bl

Wade. She can cut weally well. She can teach martial arts… She can call herself a genius…”

The woman seemed a bit confused about the last part, but decided to just ignore it.

“Okay! Could you unsheath your sword and put it on the table here, please?”

There was a step-stool next to the table, so Will was able to do as she asked, while the woman grabbed something from the shelf. She turned back to him and spoke again.

“Okay, so, I'm gonna be putting on the seal, alright?”

She handed him the thing she grabbed. It seemed like a little slip of paper with some symbols on it. From what he could understand through his Automatic Universal Linguistic Knowledge Database Accessor, he could tell that it was probably used to unseal his sword.

“The seal will go away on its own in time, but yu can use this to remove it as well. The people running the test will know if the seal comes off, though, so only do it in an emergency.”

After she spoke, she grabbed another slip from the shelf and put it on the flat of Sarah's blade. It stuck to it like a sticker before fading away.

“Oh, and they'll also know if you communicate telepathically as well. They won't know what was said, though. Just that it happened.”

Will nodded. The woman spoke once again.

“Next is storage rings. This will notify them if you bring out anything that wasn't stored during the test. They won't be able to see into your ring. Can I see the hand your storage ring is on?”

Will complied and held up his other hand. The woman didn't seem surprised that he had two rings. She placed two fingers on one of the rings, closed her eyes for a few moments, before opening them again, then did the same with the other ring. Once she was done she took a trinket out of her storage ring and handed it to Will.

“This is a life-saving treasure. It will block one fatal attack before breaking. You'll have to return it at the end of the test. Unless you use it, of course, but there shouldn't be any situations where you'll need to use it.”

Will suddenly realized something. This wasn't that useful with his Instant Death Immunity. Well, fatal didn't mean it killed instantly, so it wasn't totally useless.

“Alright! You're all set, then! Good luck in the trials!”

Will smiled and wandered off. After a few moments he realized something.

The hole in his hand was closing up. There was no storm qi coming through. That really worked? Wasn't this supposed to be capable of killing immortals? How was it being sealed like this?

He got his answer in the form of pain. The storm qi came back. Well, he'd expected as much.

The real issue is whether they'd know and disqualify him or something. The rest of the seal seemed fine as far as he could tell, so he wasn't sure. He decided to leave it be and deal with it if it came up.

He decided to look at his rings too, while he was on the topic of looking at things. They felt a bit different, actually. Like he could tell what was okay to bring out and what wasn't. He was curious how they did that.

He'd done pretty much all he could as far as entertainment was concerned, so he decided to just play on his phone until the test started.

It didn't take long. Before he'd even run out of Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy, the preparations were complete, and everyone was brought out to the place where the test was taking place.

It was a pretty short walk. Probably because it would be annoying to drag a bunch of mortals and qi gatherers to somewhere far away. The place where they were taken appeared to be a big staircase. It led up and up until it finally reached an entrance on the side of a big mountain. But it didn't stop there. The entrance it connected to had another staircase leading up in the opposite direction. After a few moments, the person leading them clapped her hands and spoke.

“Welcome to the first trial. All you have to do is climb this staircase behind me to make it to the location of the next trial. Once you get there, you can either wait there until the trial is finished, or turn around and try the second staircase for extra points. Your score will be determined based on how fast you got to the second trial and how high you climbed. Good luck!”

She stepped to the side, allowing everyone to begin climbing.

The staircase was incredibly wide, so everyone was able to go at about the same time. Will considered his plan. Should he just run up the stairs? That seemed about right.

Will decided to go for pure Wind Dance this time. This wasn't the time for practice. This was the time for results.

He was definitely one of the faster ones in the trial. Not the fastest, there were a lot of people ahead of him, but there were even more behind him.

But the challenge obviously wasn't just to climb a regular staircase. That would be too easy. There was cultivator nonsense at play.

As Will went up the staircase, he noticed that gravity was increasing. It wasn't by much, but it was certainly happening. But that wasn't nearly as big of a deal as what happened on the fiftieth step.

As he stepped onto the fiftieth step, he suddenly found himself in a different place. It seemed like a treasure room. Expensive looking weapons lined the walls. Gold and gems and jewelry lay in piles on the ground. He could smell an herbal scent that he somehow knew was the smell of powerful pills.

He couldn't quite remember how he got here. He assumed it was through the door behind him, but his memory was too blurry to be sure.

Where was this? And why was it such a mess? Whoever owned this place really made him mad. All this expensive stuff and it was just left on the floor. And why were there powerful pills just left out in the open? Where was the pill container? They'd go bad! Did the owner of this room not care?

It irked him to no end. He was furious. He turned around and left. He was going to find whoever owned this place and he was going to make them fix it.

Once he exited the room, he was back. Back on the stairs. It was an illusion. That made a lot of sense. He was still a bit mad, though. It took him reminding himself that it wasn't real a few times to calm his anger.

He continued running up the stairs again as he calmed himself down. There were less people in front of him now. A good few of the people who used to be ahead were still stuck in the illusion.

But it wasn't all good. When he was in the illusion, he hadn't been able to control the storm qi. Which meant if he stayed in an illusion too long…

Wasn't this really bad? He still had the life-saving treasure, but he couldn't be sure it would help. At least it seemed like time moved differently in the illusion than in reality.

Even though he left almost immediately, he was still in there for at least a few seconds. Even just walking to the door took a second or two. After all this time dealing with it, he had a pretty good grasp on how much damage the storm qi dealt. And the damage he'd sustained was not nearly a few seconds worth.

He really should've just told them when the seal broke. They would've been able to at least block it for this trial if they tried really hard, right? But it was too late for that. He'd definitely make sure they did it for the next trial if there were more illusions like this there.

But it was too late now. He was pretty sure he'd be woken up from the illusion if his hand got ripped apart anyway, so it should be fine.

He continued running until he reached the hundredth step.

Will found himself in a nice room. It wasn't opulent to the point of annoyance, just nice. There was a beautiful bed off to the side, big enough for three people to lay on at once. And in the room were three men.

They looked like the capture targets that the protagonist ignored in that one manga he read. The insufferable ones. He hadn't actually finished that manga yet. He'd have to go back to it when he improved his Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy Bar. But that was beside the point.

They were all looking at him. One of them started talking and Will immediately left. He wanted no part in this. He found himself back on the stairs.

He wrote down the name of the manga he was thinking of earlier in a document and embedded it as he continued running. He hadn't gained as big of a lead as he had with the last challenge this time. It also seemed like most of the people still in the illusion behind him were men, oddly enough. Was the illusion different for them?

It didn't matter, he just needed to keep running. The gravity was actually starting to get pretty noticeable now. Thinking about it, wouldn't it be better to mix in Cloud Steps? The lightness effect it had would probably be good for this.

He tried it, and it worked incredibly well. He was actually starting to catch up now. It didn't take him long to hit the next illusion step.

He found himself in a nice room once again. There were three ladies this time. They seemed pretty nice.

But he felt something weird. There was an inexplicable fear in the back of his mind. It was the kind of scared stress that comes from being on a time limit. Whenever he thought about staying, that fear grew a tiny bit stronger.

He didn't really want to stay, anyway, so he decided to listen to it and go. It was better to be safe than sorry, and there was no point taking that risk for no reason. He turned around and left.

He found himself back on the steps again. He felt like he had this in the bag now. It also felt like he was cheating a bit. He felt a bit bad about that. But he put it aside. He had steps to climb.

The majority of the people stuck on this one were women. A lot of the men who left it also had a weird look on their faces.

He reached the two hundredth step quickly, the gravity barely an inconvenience.

Will found himself at a park. His big brother and little brother were with him, and his parents were watching them play in the sandpit.

His big brother was showing them how to build sandcastles, and Will and his little brother were watching with rapt attention. His parents would chuckle from time to time at how focused they were. Something felt wrong.

He'd been here before. This was that day. Any minute now, it would happen. The girl in blue going down the slide. The frog jumping through the grass. The cloud that covered the tree in shade.

And then he'd feel that again. The pain. The sand on his cheek as he fell forward. The cough that made all the pain hundreds of times worse.

The ambulance would come and take him to the hospital. He'd hear his father arguing with the nurse from the other side of the door. The pain would lessen the slightest bit, and he'd fall asleep immediately.

He remembered waking up to his family in the hospital room, all of them worried sick about him. He remembered the way he tried to play it off so they wouldn't be. He remembered the pity in his parents' eyes. He remembered the way they looked back at him as they left.

He remembered the texts they sent the next day. He remembered the visit the day after that. He remembered the fifth visit. The last visit.

He remembered that last get well soon text in the family group chat. He remembered the texts he sent after.

He remembered being forgotten. One year after he entered the hospital, his family had forgotten he existed.

He remembered worrying about them. Worrying that they got hurt or died.

He remembered that damn post. A selfie at a theme park. One month after the last text.

“Out at the theme park with the whole family.”

He remembered laughing. A laugh he forced to stay a laugh. A laugh he refused to let become a cry. He wouldn't cry over people like that. They didn't deserve it.

It was funny. He thought he'd forgotten their faces. But their faces were the clearest things in this park. Even clearer than the sandcastle and the girl and the frog and the grass and the cloud and the tree that he remembered oh so vividly.

A part of him wanted to change this fate. Change the way this day plays out. But he knew. Both in his heart and through reason.

Changing things was the one thing he'd never be able to do.

And then he remembered. He could change things. He had the points to prove it. But he couldn't change what happened that day.

It was time to move on. It was time to stop lying to himself.

It was time to stop forcing himself to forget. It was time to stop pretending he never loved them.

Tears flowed from his eyes. He whispered their names to himself one last time.

“I miss you.”

And he woke up.

He was back. Back at these steps. It was time to keep going. He wiped his tears and ran. There was only a little more to go. There were only a few people ahead of him now.

He reached the two hundred fiftieth step. The second-to-last step.

Will woke up in his hospital bed. It seemed to be nighttime, still. He knew it wasn't real.

Everything he'd been through since he woke up in the hut that day felt blurry, like a dream. He remembered going to sleep “yesterday”. But he already knew.

He was dead in this world. He couldn't go back.

He'd never have to go through that pain again. And he couldn't go back to that life again.

For good and for bad, it was gone. And that was okay.

He had a new world, now. He had a new family. One that wouldn't forget him. Even if that family was a talking sword, even if he'd only know her for a short while, she was the best family he ever had.

And he had friends. Xu Lanhua, Li Yingran, Li Rencai, even Duodibunu Lili somewhat. He had the giant snake as well.

And he was making a difference here. He'd saved people.

He woke up, and stepped up onto the stone floor. He'd made it. And he was in third place, too.

He looked at the plastic looking thing he'd taken from the Dragon Flame Clan in his ring. It really looked just like the bucket they were using to make sandcastles that day.

No wonder it felt so nostalgic.