In the present time, at the Celestial Ascent Path, Virtual World:
In the sky, Fealon looked down at the people below as he reminisced.
“You should know about Celestial Ascent Path,” Fealan said as he calmed down.
The people below looked silent as if they already knew the rules.
“You need to climb to the 1,000th step to become a seeker and you can stay in Origin Arcana Intiture indefinitely until you die or ascend to Tier 7,” Fealan explained carefully.
“You have 100 days to ascend your way to the 1000th step.”
“After you become a seeker, you can choose to climb up to the 100,000th step and become an official student.”
“Without further ado, you may begin,” Fealan said as he disappeared, making the black-colored sky turn back to white.
…
“Let’s go!” Maximus said to his wives as he noticed others heading towards the stairs.
“Hmm,” They nodded
As they walked toward the stairway, others also followed.
“This stair is so huge,” his wife, Erica said.
The Stair looks like it was made for giants, as it has a towering height of at least 10 meters.
Despite the number of participants, there was still plenty of space to stand, as the length of the stairway seem endless.
“This is just a simulation of the Real Celestial Ascent Path. I don’t know how grand the real thing is,” Maximus said in wonder.
“It is said that this virtual celestial ascent path can only simulate up to 100,000 steps,” Griffin on the side nodded.
“Then let me try this thing,” Maximus said as he jumped toward the first stair.
As he landed, an unknown force suddenly descended on his spirit, attempting to crush it.
Thankfully, with his powerful soul, he quickly adapted.
“Come up and try,” Maximus said below.
As they jumped, they also struggled for a few seconds before coming back to normal.
“How is it?” Maximus asked them.
“Hahaha, it’s easy. Passing this trial is a sure thing,” Griffin bragged.
“It’s only the first step; the difficulty will be multiplied as you go up,” Fawn said beside him.
“Uh, anyway, I will try to pass, whatever it takes,” Griffin said forcefully.
“Then let’s continue,” Maximus said.
As they went up, the pressure increased.
On the first step, it only took them a few seconds.
On the second, it took a minute.
On the tenth, an hour.
…
On the 101th step:
“How is it? Can you still go on?” Maximus asked his wives, concerned.
As for Griffin and his friends, they had already gone ahead.
They were battle-hardened and had already experienced the trial once or twice.
As for Griffin, he had Tier 8 Supreme Battle Aptitude.
When he saw this earlier he was greatly shocked.
“It’s alright, husband. Maybe it’s time to take the illusion test to hasten our progress,” Erica explained.
At their current pace, they were not going to pass the trial on time if they only relied on themselves to adapt to the spiritual pressure.
“Are you sure?” Maximus asked, he looked at the one by one to confirm.
“Don’t worry, we know our limits,”
“Then just try it here,” Maximus compromised, as he let them try the illusion trial.
“Alright.”
They then began to radiate their spiritual consciousness as they accepted the trial.
As they began the illusion trial, a prompt came from his system.
[Spiritual interference detected!]
This startled him a little; he didn’t know that the system still had this function.
After inspecting, he came to know that after the consummation of their marriage, the system bound his wives’ souls to him.
This facilitated the collection of life points and slightly influenced his wives.
More importantly, it could protect and detect any danger towards their souls.
After a few minutes of inspecting the system, his wives woke up one by one.
“How is it?” Maximus asked.
“It’s amazing. A few weeks passed in the illusion, yet only a few minutes passed here,” Erica reacted as she noticed the surrounding.
“What happened?”
“It’s about completing missions. For me, it’s to earn a thousand gold,” Erica said.
Fortunately, Erica had learned spiritual cooking and had experience setting up a restaurant, so earning a thousand gold was quite easy.
“For me, it’s becoming a little official,” Hazel said.
She was a farmer in the past, and becoming a little official was a new experience for her.
“For me, it’s killing a whole bandit den,” Luna said.
The others also shared their experiences one by one, and more or less, it would take a genius mortal to finish each task.
“Then let’s get going,” Maximus said as he used 1 life point to completely adapt to the 11th step.
…
A day later, at the 100th step:
“How is it?” Maximus asked them.
“You should go ahead, husband,” Erica said, looking at Maximus, who didn’t have any sign of fatigue.
“Yes, dear, we need to rest. Although there are blessings that strengthen our will, the memories in the illusion still need to be digested,” Hazel also said.
They took the illusion trial non-stop, from a few weeks at the start to a few months.
Fortunately, no matter how long the illusion is, it’s only a few minutes in reality.
“Then I’ll go ahead,” Maximus agreed, looking at them.
After all, he needed to get to the 100,000th step in 100 days to become an official student and set a foothold for his family.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t take a potion; otherwise, it would be easier.
…
After saying goodbye to his wives, he jumped towards the 101st step.𝗈𝓋𝐞xt.𝗰𝑀
Feeling the pressure, he used life points.
[+1LP]
[+1LP]
[+1LP]
[+1LP]
Maximus used life points one by one.
After he got used to it, he jumped toward 102th step.
103th…
104th…
105th…
106th…
…
A few hours later, at the 300th step:
Maximus saw Griffin, who had come ahead of them yesterday, resting.
“Hey, Griffin,” Maximus greeted.
“You’re here, Maximus,” Griffin, looking tired, said.
“How is the trial? Is it still easy?” Maximus teased, seeing their somewhat empty eyes.
“It’s a breeze,” Griffin said, even though he looked like a dead man.
“You should take it easy; anyway, there are still more than 98 days,” Maximus consoled.
“Thanks,” Griffin weakly said.
“Then take a rest, I’ll go ahead.”
…
Maximus climbed at the rate of 1 stair per minute.
As he got higher and higher, the number of people decreased, making it less crowded.
…
12 hours later, at the 999th step:
On the last floor before the 1000th step, there was a line of people resting.
Seeing them just sitting there, he got curious and approached a man nearby.
“Excuse me,” Maximus called.
“What?” The man opened his eyes and looked at Maximus with a bit of annoyance.
“What are you doing here? Isn’t the last step above?” Maximus asked.
“You don’t know?” The man asked, puzzled.
“Could it be it’s your first time taking this trial?” The man asked in shock.
You know, they are old-timers, so it only took them more than a day to get to the 999th step.
Seeing a newcomer easily reach here on his first try, made the man envious.
“It’s indeed my first time taking this trial,” Maximus nodded.
“I see, you were asking why we stayed here?” The man became more respectful after knowing Maximus got here in just more than a day.
“Hmm,”
“It’s because the spiritual pressure in the 1000th step is on a different level. We hope to refine our will a bit more and wait for the last day to make sure,” the man explained.
“Oh,” Maximus nodded, understanding.
The life points he needed to get up ranged from a few days to a few weeks.
As for others, they could only get 100 days per 10 years until they were over 100 years old to refine their will.
For him, he only needed to add a few Life Points and he is good to go.
“Then good luck.”
Not interested anymore, he took a step toward the 1000th step.
…
1000th step:
He slowly felt the spiritual pressure to see if it was worthy of its title.
The spiritual pressure was at least 10 times stronger than the 999th step.
“No way others can pass this without a few tries,” Maximus murmured as he shook his head.
“It seems that I will need to help them later…”
Maximus had noticed earlier that when there was spiritual interference towards his wife, he could use his system to send help.
In the illusion trial, he could enter their illusion to assist them in completing their tasks.
“Let’s hope my life points are enough to reach the 100,000th step,” He thought.
…
In the sky, hidden in the virtual world:
“Oh? It looks like another promising seedling,” Fealan said as he saw Maximus easily clearing the 1000th step.
“Hmm, only rank 6 divine aptitude, but a stronger will,” Fealan couldn’t help but nod.
For someone who had lived countless epochs, standing atop the world, aptitude meant nothing.
It’s the will and creativity that matters.
Low mana compatibility?
Low comprehension?
With time, all of it could be disregarded.
Without a strong will, how could you remain sane after countless epochs?
Without creativity, even if you had heaven-defying comprehension, you would just end up copying what your predecessors did.
So, Fealan couldn’t help but nod, seeing Maximus pass the test with ease, proving a strong will.
But he didn’t know that Maximus used a cheat to pass the trial.
After all, even though time can temper will, it’s still too slow.
Unless you can accelerate time as Maximus did.