Will had a decision to make. He could either try his luck on the bonus stairs, or he could stay here and wait. The bonus stairs would put his life at constant risk, while staying here might be boring.

What he really wanted to do was get the life-threatening danger sealed up and then go up the bonus stairs, but there was no one around to talk to about that at the moment.

Honestly, there wasn't really much of a choice here. He was going for the bonus stairs. He was one of the first people up here, so he'd probably have to wait for a long time, and he really did not want to do that.

The gravity on the stairs was also pretty good for practice. Whenever he messed up at all he got good realtime feedback through the weight he felt.

He did a big u-turn and headed up the bonus steps. It seemed he was the first one on them. The first and second place people seemed to be taking a bit to breathe right now.

The bonus steps seemed the same as the regular ones. He ran up them with relative ease. The fiftieth bonus step had an illusion as well, another scene from his past. He escaped it with ease.

The next illusion bonus step was similarly easy. This time it was a scene from his two year old self's past, which he could tell was fake because he was thinking like a twelve year old even though he was supposed to be a one year old.

The next illusion was pretty interesting, actually. He was in a situation where he had to make a choice between a girl's life and a pill that would help his cultivation. He obviously saved the girl. The pill wouldn't even be useful for him. Pills like that were for normal people. People who couldn't upgrade their cultivation speed for free with just spiritual energy.

He continued up the steps. The gravity was actually pretty bad now. It kind of hurt when he messed up the footwork. Even with the footwork, it was still pretty heavy. Only in those moments where he did the footwork really well did it not feel heavy.

The next illusion step put him in the role of a young master type of character who had someone bump into them by mistake. Said someone was now begging to be spared. Will spared him. He thought the individual should've bumped into him harder. Maybe with a fist. It was a very weird feeling honestly.

His instinctual anger at wealthy people was still there, even though he was supposed to be one. It kind of ruined the immersion.

The next illusion step was one where he was a young mistress. Someone had flirted with someone his character had a crush on and was now trying to beg for forgiveness about it. Honestly, it didn't even really feel like he was the character he was supposed to be anymore. It was more like a visual novel at this point.

He obviously spared the girl, since he didn't really care about the fictional crush.

The next illusion step had him play the role of a disciple given the offer of cultivation resources if he shared sect secrets with an enemy of the sect. He gave them a bunch of gibberish and said it was an encoded message. They said he wouldn't get the reward until they decoded it, he said that was fine, and it ended.

The gravity was actually becoming a pretty big issue now. Even when he did the footwork right, it was still really heavy. But he continued on. Mostly because he couldn't use his footwork standing still.

If nothing else, being up this high was good for his map at least. Though he couldn't copy what was below the stairs, he could copy a good bit of what was in the distance. It wasn't perfect, since he was far away and couldn't see under trees and stuff, but it was a lot less empty space at least.

The next four illusions were about the same. He found himself in a story with a moral choice, he picked the option that wasn't stupid and evil, and it ended. It was honestly a bit repetitive.

The gravity was actually getting a bit unbearable, he was actually taking damage from it. The damage was healing up instantly because of the life stuff in his first dantian, so it actually seemed like it was good exercise. He hadn't been making mistakes with his footwork recently either. It was probably because of the pain he felt when he did.

Six more illusions and he made it to the thousandth step. The gravity was even worse than before. He seemed to be faring way better than everyone else, though. The closest person to him was around bonus step five hundred, and they acted like they were climbing a mountain with every step. Not to mention the amount of people stuck in the illusions.

It made the gravity not feel so bad, honestly. He passed four more illusions before the trial ended. He knew it ended because he found himself back in the mountain. It seemed like he teleported.

He was a bit terrified for a bit. The teleportation he'd heard of the most was one where someone got ripped apart and remade somewhere else. Which wasn't really teleportation. That was murder and cloning.

But that would be instant death. If that was the case there would be another Will still on the steps, who he'd be a clone of. There were also various other reasons it was implausible, so he calmed down. It must've been some spatial manipulation or something.

The same person who had introduced the first trial was here. They were standing between four big boards on the right wall.

“Congratulations on passing the first trial. Each of you will be given a card with your scores on it. Behind me are four scoreboards you can use to see how you compare to everyone else. The ones on the right include only the people who took the trial with you today while the ones on the right include people from past tests. Feel free to relax and take a break until the next trial.”

Two people came out from a door Will hadn't seen earlier and started handing out cards. Will was one of the first to get one.

He looked at his card. It was just three points values, so he could really learn anything from them without a reference point. Of course, since he was in the top of the rankings, he didn't even have to go up to the scoreboard to check.

He already knew how well he did in this group. Third in time, first in distance. He was there. The all time rankings were a bit of a surprise, though. He didn't seem to be anything special when it came to time. But in distance, he was first. First of all time. It was pretty shocking. It was by a pretty good bit as well. He was at 1,212, while the second best was at 1,009. The third best actually seemed to be the person he'd seen earlier, since their score was 736.

He hadn't expected to be so good at this. He wanted to see the look on the second best's face when they found out they were beaten by a little baby. They were probably some big shot too, which made it even funnier.

But he had more important manners. He ran up to the person who had been guiding them, surprising himself a bit with his speed. It had improved substantially. Those steps were really good training. He focused on the task and hand and started talking.

“Excuse me, the seal you guys put on my sword bwoke and I awmost died from it.”

The woman was already a bit thrown off by the tiny child blitzing up to her, so she was entirely unprepared for the almost-murder accusation.

She stammered for a few seconds, none of her attempts getting close to a suitable first word of a response. She eventually stopped, closed her eyes, breathed, and spoke.

“I'll go get someone to fix it.”

She turned around and walked through the same door the people handing out cards had come out from. After less than a minute, she came back, an old wizened look man rushing out past her. The old man looked down at him through his round old man glasses.

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“You're the one with the broken seal?”

Will nodded.

“How?”

The old man looked at the sword and noticed something peculiar. The seal was intact on the blade. Usually it should be the blade that got unsealed. How was the handle unsealed? What kind of backwards-ass sword has enough power to break the seal only on the handle?

The seal breaking wasn't an unprecedented phenomenon. It usually happened when someone experienced in using a spiritual weapon tried to fire off some special attack through muscle memory. Of course, the seal was strong enough to handle that most of the time, but with some particularly powerful swords, it could end up not being enough. A scenario like this was something they expected when they heard there was someone with a talking sword taking the trial.

What wasn't expected was for specifically the part of the seal on the handle to break.

Will responded by explaining the situation as best he could without making everyone scared again.

“Basicawwy, my sword is cursed. The handwe attacks my hand constantwy.”

The old man stroked his beard thoughtfully. That would certainly explain how it broke like that.

“If you're able to withstand it, then it shouldn't be a problem.”

Will shook his head.

“I can't withstand it without constant attention. If there are any mowe iwwusions, I could die if I don't escape in time.”

The old man stroked his beard for a second before he froze. Wasn't the first trial full of a whole bunch of illusions? Shouldn't this child be dead in that case?

“How did you manage to get through the first trial then?”

“I escaped in time.”

“Alright, then. Let me see your sword for a moment, then. I'll put a better seal on the handle that'll last a bit longer.”

Will smiled and held up his hand to give the man access to the handle. The old man did some things to it and the storm qi was halted once again. The old man nodded, satisfied with his handiwork, and looked towards Will.

“That should about do it for now. I'll come and check up on it after the next trial.”

“Thank you!”

The old man smiled and nodded before heading back through the door he came from.

After that was out of the way, it was about time to start the next trial. The guide woman clapped her hands twice to get everyone's attention and started speaking.

“We will now be beginning the second trial. Behind me is the entrance to a maze. Your goal will be to traverse said maze and reach the end as quickly as possible. Within the maze, you'll find numerous puzzles and other challenges that you will need to complete, as formations have been set up that will make traversing the maze without doing so nearly impossible. Good luck!”

The woman stepped aside, letting everyone enter the big entrance behind her. Will rushed forward with his footwork. He was by far the fastest out of everyone here, though none of them were using movement techniques at the moment. Upon entering the maze, he lost sight of everyone at a speed that definitely appeared to be the work of formations.

It didn't take long for Will to run into the first puzzle. There was a waterfall in the middle of an open area, with some strange doodads around it and some other strange things on the wall. As much as he'd love to attempt it, he honestly didn't even know where to start.

He was also pretty sure he didn't need to.

In a move that he was sure disappointed anyone supervising him currently, he ran past the puzzle without sparing it a second glance. He did the same thing when he came across a room with two cages with a statue of a lion and a bird in them respectively. He knew where he was going. He had everything mapped out around him, and he was checking the map at all times.

Even when he found himself re-entering the caged statue room from the left side after he'd turned right, he had it all mapped out. His map wasn't limited to euclidean geometry. Mapping out right turns that lead to the left side was the same as mapping out anything else for him.

When he saw himself swerving off course when he thought he was going straight ahead, he simply corrected course. It didn't matter what happened, he knew where everything was.

He even ran into another person after that, which gave him the impression that it was probably designed so different participants wouldn't meet. He waved at them as he ran along.

After that he came to a hallway with a branching side hallway that looked like a dead end. And yet, the movement of the walls at the back relative to his movement gave it away as a hidden left turn, and so he headed down it.

He found himself in a parkour room after a bit, where it looked like a bunch of pillars were moving around over a pit of lava. But he could tell that they weren't moving, actually moving, they just seemed like it, since his map showed that they were in the same spot relative to everything else at all times. And he knew the lava wasn't real either, since lava was hot enough to burn someone to death from a lot farther away than this “lava” was from him now. Will jumped across on the pillars, bewildering the person who had been in this room before him who had been looking very scared about the lava pit thing.

Will continued like this until the very end. Sometimes he'd loop back around to a place he'd been before in a way that made no sense, sometimes he'd loop around to a place that looked like he'd been there before, but that was slightly off, so he knew he hadn't. There were all sorts of things intended to trip him up and make him lost, and Will got through all of them.

In just about thirty minutes, Will was standing outside the exit of the trial. Interestingly enough, the exit didn't actually lead out to the other side of the mountain. It lead out to what looked like a sunken arena of sorts. He could see a bunch of important looking people in a little viewing area on the other side, up above on ground level. He saw the two ladies who had handled his sign-up earlier sitting next to each other up there.

They all were looking down at him with an assortment of looks on their faces. A few were confused, some seemed like they were also confused but for different reasons, a few were surprised and turned to a different person to ask if they knew anything. Generally, they were all a bit confused. The old man from earlier was there as well. He was currently in the process of standing up and heading down to meet him.

When the old man reached him he looked at him while stroking his beard.

“I'm surprised you made it so fast. Did the seal hold up well for you?”

Will nodded. And the old man smiled lightly.

“I'm glad to hear it. Mind if I take another look before the third trial?”

“Go ahead.”

Will raised his hand up for the old man to do.his thing. After a bit of doing whatever he was doing, he released Will's hand and smiled down at him.

“That should last you for this next one. You can go ahead and relax until it starts, alright?”

Will smiled and nodded while the man headed back to his seat at the viewing area.

Will decided to play on his phone while he waited. It took a while, as his Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy Bar was half empty when it ended.

The one who came to announce the next trial was a different woman this time. A woman with pink hair in long twintails jumped down from the viewing area and struck a cutesy pose. She had a cute youthful face and seemed full of energy.

“Hi guys! I'm the one running the third trial! This one is about combat!”

She did a few punching motions, presumably to enlighten anyone who didn't know what combat was.

“You'll all be put in an illusion, where you'll be facing the most challenging foe of all; yourself!”

She pointed at the audience, presumably to demonstrate who she meant by “yourself”.

“The first round you'll be fighting one clone, in the second you'll be fighting two, and you'll keep going until you lose!”

She counted with her fingers as she spoke, presumably to make sure everyone knew how much one and two were.

“Any damage you take in the illusion won't translate to the real world, so feel free to use anything you have at your disposal!”

She spread her arms out, presumably to demonstrate what she meant by “anything”.

“But don't fret if you're not a big strong fighter! After this, you can head on over to my good friend over here…”

She pointed to a lady at the bottom of the steps the old man had walked down to meet Will earlier. The lady gave a friendly wave.

“And show off your less deadly skills!”

She turned back to fully face the crowd.

“Now, are you ready to start?”

After everyone headed over and the third trial began. As soon as it started, Will found himself in a black void.

Before he could even process what was happening, even with his super fast thinking speed, the clone of him on the other side had exploded.

There seemed to be no cooldown between rounds, as it didn't even take an instant for two clones of him to have exploded. In under a fraction of a second since he entered, there were already ten clones exploding in front of him.

They didn't even have time to finish exploding. They simply appeared, exploded so fast Will never even got a chance to see them not exploded, and before the exploded bits even moved more than a millimeter away, the next round started and it all repeated.

By the time Will could actually process the situation, there were already hundreds of clones dying at a time. By the time there were five hundred, he finally felt like he might know why this was happening.

It seemed like these clones had neither his Qi Deviation Immunity, nor his Instant Death Immunity. It was actually quite interesting that they wouldn't have it, considering he still did have it even though this him was an illusion as well.

Anyway, since his middle dantian currently had more spiritual energy than could naturally fit inside already, and all of it was in an incredibly chaotic state while bouncing around rapidly, it was no surprise that it would kill someone instantly without the protections he had.

By the time he finished this thought, there were now a whole thousand dying at a time. He wasn't really sure what to do at this point. He couldn't even move right now, since every time they died, he'd get sent back to his starting position, and they died at every time.

He decided to just wait. He could access his mind space in this illusion, so he had a little while to play on his phone before the Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy Bar ran out.

After it did, he was a bit stumped on what to do. He tried reading some of the books he had stolen. Obviously, he read multiple at once. Once he'd finished the three he'd been reading, he went back to his phone for a bit.

After his Inter-Universal Connection Dimensional Energy Bar ran out, Will wasn't really sure what to do. Luckily, he didn't have to worry too much, as the illusion ended shortly after.

The same energetic twintail lady was there, though the rest of the crowd had thinned out. The lady who was taking people to test non-combat skills was gone, so he assumed they'd probably just left by now.

The people who had stayed behind seemed to be just waiting around, talking and relaxing and whatnot. Some would glance at him from time to time. The exception to this was the person from the first trial who'd made third place on the all-time ranking for distance.

They were currently crouched down slightly staring at him. Or at least he assumed as much, since they had turned their head off to the right as soon as he looked at them.

Now that he looked at them again, it seemed clear they were some heaven's chosen main character type. They seemed like a girl around sixteen give or take, with yellow spiky hair. They were wearing an outfit that looked to be some sort of leather armor. They had good looks, with a bit of roguish charm to them. Will decided he should probably consider how he'd interact with them from now on. There was certainly profit to be made, whether through points or through opportunities he could worm his way into. For now though, he didn't bother with her. He looked at the scoreboards off to the side instead.

He certainly didn't do poorly. His score was at the top on both. Doing the math, he had beaten second place by about 3,083,200%. Second place had scored 53, meanwhile, Will had scored 1,634,112.

It wasn't surprising, exactly, but… wow.

What was more surprising was that second place was the spiky yellow hair girl. She'd also won by a good bit, since the third place on the board was only 11. Considering how most people who took the trial would have to actually fight a bunch of clones, it was pretty impressive.

He noticed that the number of people in the viewing area had decreased by now, as well. After a moment, the woman who had been sitting in the fanciest chair in the center of the viewing area flew down to stand in front of Will and the spiky yellow hair girl.

She had a somewhat motherly aura to her, and was dressed in clothes that were definitely expensive. Will guessed she was the sect leader. And that she was probably going to take them in as disciples.

His guesses were proven right as she spoke.

“Hello. I am the sect leader of the Brightrose Sect, and I'd like to invite the both of you to become my disciples.”