Ascending the weathered stone stairs, Ji Wuye's footsteps echoed with a light, measured cadence against the aged steps.

The stairwell was narrow but well-lit by the flickering torchlight. Though the distance was short—only a few steep staircases—his breath came a little quicker with anticipation.

At the top landing, he emerged into another cavernous floor lined with towering bookshelves that groaned under the weight of countless leather-bound tomes.

At first glance, the second floor appeared much the same as the first, with that distinct aroma of aged parchment and wood polish hanging heavy in the air.

‘So this is the second floor,’ Ji Wuye muttered under his breath, a hint of eager expectation glinting in his crimson gaze.

Even in the previous timeline, he had never been granted admission to ascend so high, having never attained the coveted ranks of an Official Disciple nor received such privileged treatment.

And yet, as he stepped out from the stairwell onto the hushed second floor, Ji Wuye's finely-tuned senses immediately alerted him to another presence.

His attention snapped to the side, where an elderly figure sat hunched behind a polished oak counter, deftly adjusting his wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the bridge of his hawkish nose.

"An Outer Disciple? Why did a scruffy brat like you find your way up here?" the old man grumbled, his tone carrying a hint of displeasure as he squinted in Ji Wuye's direction.

Instantly snapping back to his senses, Ji Wuye felt a bead of sweat prickling at his brow as his heart thudded in his chest.

Schooling his features, his momentarily stunned gaze narrowed as he lowered his head, cupping his hands in a deferential salute towards the elder.

"Greetings, Elder. This humble disciple—" His practiced words of polite greeting halted abruptly as Ji Wuye's eyes went wide, hand instinctively dropping to grasp at something hanging from his waist.

In that same instant, a translucent warning screen flashed across his vision:

image [https://i.ibb.co/GnFmxsy/Notif-1.webp]

"Hooh, so bratt like you has been granted certain...privileges, hmm?" The seated elder's reedy voice seemed to issue forth from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Like a phantasmic apparition, the stooped figure who had been leaning against the counter simply vanished, only to rematerialize beside Ji Wuye in the blink of an eye.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Interesting..." he mused, his sudden proximity causing Ji Wuye to stiffen as the wizened elder leaned in, scrutinizing Ji Wuye momentarily before brushing past him.

The elderly man's flowing martial robe, adorned with dark golden stripes, billowed behind him as he moved with a surprising, understated grace for one so wizened—even outstripping the towering stature of the formidable Elder Qiao.

From the martial robe he wore, as expected, Ji Wuye's assumption turned out to be true: this elderly man was indeed an Elder of the sect. Luckily, Ji Wuye greeted him with his proper title.

With deft movements belying his apparent age, the Elder plucked the emblem from Ji Wuye's waist, holding it up to inspect the sigil as the robe's fabric whispered around his ankles.

"Very well, you may enter," he dismissively waved Ji Wuye onwards, already reseated behind the polished counter with spectacles perched once more upon his hawkish nose, attention buried in some ancient leatherbound tome.

Ji Wuye cupped his hands and dipped his head in another respectful bow before turning on his heel, striding towards the nearest bookshelf amidst the cavernous stacks.

Even now, his gaze flicked towards his still-trembling hand—not born of fear, but from the sheer effort of restraining his body's instinctive reactions. 'Once again, my skill has failed me,' he inwardly lamented with a soft sigh.

This towering, wizened Elder was clearly no mere imposter like the mysterious figure from the first floor landing.

Ji Wuye had certainly never encountered this formidable oldster before in either this life or his previous life.

A profound sense of unsettled confusion furrowed his brow as he glanced askance at the inscrutable Elder from the corners of his eyes. 'Did he meet his end in the Tower, or...?'

His minds spun with tumultuous thoughts and faint recollections as he ostensibly studied the martial arts manuals before him while stealing surreptitious glances towards the silent sentinel.

The decreasing numbers of disciples he'd encountered, that oddly suspicious Elder from earlier, and now this entirely unfamiliar apex-ranked master...all seemed to culminate in an unmistakable harbinger that ‘That’ incident would surely be occurring soon.

'Forget it,' Ji Wuye shook his head, determinedly banishing such preoccupied ponderings as he refocused on the present with a steadying breath.

Even if his assumptions proved accurate, in his current state of limited strength, he wasn't even remotely strong enough to face the enemy's leader directly, let alone its elite vanguard.

His wandering gaze settled once more upon the very tome his hand had unconsciously grasped as a prop for deflecting the Elder's scrutiny—an martial arts he had been fervently seeking.

'The Ascendance of Unity...' Ji Wuye's eyes widened in recognition as he pulled the dusty leather tome from the shelf.

This was the same vaunted inner arts manual his Seniors had cryptically alluded to back then, but adamantly refused to divulge its profound contents. The very teachings he had spurned after becoming overly reliant on his hard-won skills that he brought from the Tower.

'So here you were hiding all along.' A satisfied smile played across his lips as he cradled the ancient book almost reverently. Without further hesitation, Ji Wuye turned on his heel, unhesitatingly heading back towards the narrow stairwell's descent.

His footsteps halted as the wizened Elder's reedy voice cut through the musty silence like a rapier. "Just what do you think you're doing, brat? None of these precious tomes can be removed from this pavilion!"

The venerable master had risen from his seated alcove, those hawkish eyes narrowing with clear disapproval behind the wiry spectacles perched upon his angular nose.

…

The brilliant rays of the noonday sun had long since waned into oblong shadows and fiery oranges by the time he finally resurfaced, blinking owlishly as if re-acclimating to the waking world.

Time seemed to have taken wing and flow away in a blur of concentration as Ji Wuye remained utterly entranced, poring over the profound inner arts that had enabled countless disciples before him to break through to the lofty 4th Realm.

'Once more, time is my cruelest enemy...' he inwardly lamented with a weary sigh as Ji Wuye at last hefted the now-familiar texts, reluctantly retracing his steps back towards his abandoned courtyard abode.

Unbeknownst to him until too late, the esoteric pavilion strictly closed its oaken doors to visitors each day at the sun's zenith, necessitating him to hastily return the cherished 'Ascendance of Unity' along with the other supplementary books he had procured earlier.

image [https://i.ibb.co/J7g9wXJ/Notif-2.webp]

This cryptic and tantalizing clue was the driving factor that had insisted Ji Wuye press on to the hallowed pavilion, despite having already secured a profoundly esoteric shortcut for breaking through to the vaunted 4th Realm.

'Who knows from whence such an arbitrary requirement arose,' he mused, already harboring suspicions as to why this purportedly "cheating" martial art ranked a mere C-tier technique rather than an exalted A-rank discipline.