After realizing what he has to do, Yuan quickly retrieves the Empyrean Overlord before releasing the Heaven Splitting Sword Strike at the falling temple.
The Heaven Splitting Sword Strike collided with the base of the golden temple in the air, but the temple completely shrugged off the attack as though it was nothing.
Yuan’s eyes widened with shock when there wasn’t even a single scratch on the temple despite being struck by his most powerful attack.
However, he didn’t give up and tried it again, resulting in the same conclusion.
“The temple is indestructible, Master.” Tian’er’s voice suddenly resounded.
“How am I supposed to protect those people at the bottom if I cannot destroy that temple?!” He cried out loud.
“You must use— sacrifice your body to protect the mortals.”
“U-Use my body…?” Yuan swallowed nervously when he realized what Tian’er wanted him to do.
“Why is he just standing there?! He’ll get squashed by the temple if he doesn’t do anything!” Min Li exclaimed in a worried voice.
“Maybe it’s because that is his trial.” Feng Yuxiang said.
“A common trial in the Stairway to Heaven is endurance, which normally requires the challenger to endure a powerful pressure for a certain amount of time. In the Young Master’s case, that golden temple is the ‘pressure’,” she explained.
“That golden temple looks really heavy, though… Is it even possible to endure that?” Chu Liuxiang asked.
“The Young Master has no choice but to endure it, or he will fail the trial…”
Once the golden temple arrived on top of Yuan, he decided to use his body to catch it.
Dong!
Yuan could feel his entire body being pressed towards the ground, and every bone in his muscle was screaming in pain, especially his legs, which were shaking as though there was an earthquake.
“Aaaaah!”
Yuan released a painful scream after catching the golden temple that weighed tens of thousands of tons.
And in just a few moments, Yuan was forced to kneel on the invisible platform.
“Master…”
Tian’er was surprised when she saw Yuan catching the golden temple with nothing but his raw body.
This trial was designed to limit test a cultivator’s spiritual energy. In other words, Yuan was supposed to cover his body in spiritual energy before catching the temple.
However, Yuan had caught the temple without using his spiritual energy, meaning that he’d caught it with his raw strength, which was an amazing feat considering that the temple could easily crush even a peak Spirit King with ease if they didn’t use spiritual energy.
“Master, use your spiritual energy. You will never survive this trial like that.” Tian’er decided to point him in the right direction even though she wasn’t really supposed to do that.
After hearing her words, Yuan promptly activated the spiritual energy in his Dantian.
Spiritual energy quickly began flowing through every vein in Yuan’s body, boosting his strength immensely.
Once his entire body was covered in spiritual energy, Yuan immediately felt the weight on his body lessen by a large amount, allowing him to breath properly.
After catching his breath and getting comfortable with having a huge temple on his back, Yuan stood back up and proceeded to focus on his spiritual energy.
If he doesn’t circulate his spiritual energy wisely, he will run out of spiritual energy before the trial ends, which would be disastrous for him.
Therefore, he must use just enough spiritual energy to make carrying the temple barely endurable for him.
‘I will have to stay like this for 24 hours? I should have taken that one hour break when I had the chance!’ Yuan sighed inwardly, regretting his decision to give up his one hour of peace.
If he knew what he was walking into, he would’ve definitely taken that break to prepare himself.
Not only is the third trial the most tedious trial thus far, it was also the most boring. After all, he could only stand still and do nothing but carry this immensely heavy temple.
About two hours later, Yuan adapted to his situation and could control the flow of his spiritual energy as easily as breathing, allowing him to focus less on himself and more on other things, such as his memories.
He looked at the time.
<Time: 2:10:12>
<Time: 2:10:13>
<Time: 2:10:14>
“It’s only been two hours? I swear it feels much longer than that…” He sighed.
He closed his eyes a moment later and began delving into his memories.
Meanwhile, in the spectators’ room.
“Meixiu, do you have any knowledge on Greek mythology?” Chu Liuxiang suddenly asked her.
“Not really,” she said.
“Well, Yuan’s situation reminds me of a very famous mythology about a titan that was condemned to hold up the heavens for eternity.”
“Holding the heavens… You mean Atlas?” Meixiu remembered hearing about it in school before.
“So you do have some knowledge. That’s right. However, he wasn’t doing it for righteousness or anything like that. He was doing it as a punishment.”
“And seeing Yuan like that… It makes me wonder if he’s being punished.”
Meixiu lifted her brows in a questioning manner, “Why would he be punished? This is just a trial.”
“I know, but I cannot help but have the feeling that the Stairway to Heaven is punishing him. This might even be the hardest trial yet.” Chu Liuxiang sighed.
“How long does he have to carry that golden temple? He’s already been at it for 2 hours.” Min Li suddenly asked.
“It varies from person to person.” Feng Yuxiang said.
Meanwhile, Yuan recalled his memories as an outer court disciple at Immortal’s Monastery.
For every hour he spends in real-time, he has experienced many months, even years in his memories.
And after watching his memories for some time, Yuan eventually came to the conclusion that his previous life as Tian Yang had an ordinary if not less-than-ordinary life as a cultivator.
He was neither talented nor hopeless. He was just an ordinary cultivator that one could find anywhere in the cultivation world.
However, this only made Yuan more puzzled, as the Tian Yang inside his dreams was incredibly powerful.
How did someone who started out so ordinary become so extraordinary? Yuan’s anticipation grew the more he recalled his memories.