Chapter 661: First Level Mountain

“Please lend me your sword,” Zhang Ruochen said.

Since Mu Jiji had fought his way through Ancient Gods Mountain last month, he would not go with him this time.

He took a Blue Crystal Sword from his back and handed it to Zhang Ruochen.

“Swoosh!”

The moment Zhang Ruochen drew the sword from its sheath, a beam of blue sword radiance gleamed from the scabbard, along with a sharp fluctuation of sword Qi.

“This is Genuine Martial Arm of the tenth level. This sword will do for my breakthrough.”

Zhang Ruochen slipped the sword back in its sheath and walked forward steadily to the foot of First Level Mountain.

He looked ahead, only to find densely-packed characters engraved on a smooth green stone wall.

Only a person who had reached the Half-Saint Sacred Realm was qualified to engrave a character on First Level Mountain.

Each word contained the idea of the Half-Saint Tao of the sword, which had been integrated into the whole mountain.

And then Zhang Ruochen’s vision fell upon one of the “tao” characters.

“Swoosh!”

The “tao” character soon gleamed white. It peeled from the stone wall and changed into a translucent Taoist priest of middle age. He flew up and then stood in front of Zhang Ruochen.

“Beat me, and you can pass the first stage.”

The middle-aged priest left little time for Zhang Ruochen to deliberate on his words. The priest stretched out his hand into thin air, and a three foot sword condensed in his hand.

The Taoist priest took sixteen consecutive steps, which generated sixteen shadows. They simultaneously stabbed toward the sixteen vital points of Zhang Ruochen’s body.

Zhang Ruochen seemed calm. He closed his eyes, drew the Blue Crystal Sword in a flash, and made a backhand cut at the man. The keen tip of his blade pierced the priest’s heart.

From beginning to end, Zhang Ruochen never moved his feet. His motion was natural and smooth.

The priest’s body suddenly turned into a ray of white light. It flew back to the stone wall and became “tao” character again.

“Is the first stage of First Level Mountain so easy?”

Zhang Runchen smiled, opened his eyes, and found that many Saint’s disciples were still fighting against the translucent shadows.

Most of them were failing.

Only a few were able to defeat the translucent shadows and pass the first stage of First Level Mountain.

Han Qiu and Pang Long passed, while Xun Hualiu failed.

The test at the foot of First Level Mountain determined a Monk’s cultivation of the Tao of the sword. Apparently, Xun Hualiu had a long way to go to match Han Qiu and Pang Long.

Zhang Ruochen climbed a steep road up the mountainside.

Han Qiu had been paying close attention to Zhang Ruochen. When she saw him in the front, she rushed forward to catch up with him. She said,”I didn’t expect that your cultivation of Tao of the sword was so fabulous that you could defeat the gatekeeper with just one move.”

However, Zhang Ruochen was shocked. He stared at her and said, “Nothing special. This is just the first stage of First Level Mountain.”

Han Qiu was a girl of radiant beauty with clear eyes and long, curving eyelashes. She smiled sweetly and said, “It is not your style to speak like that.”

“Oh?” Zhang Ruochen said.

“In the past, you never knew what modesty was. The way you looked at me was not as clear as it is now,” Han Qiu said. Her red lips curled into a beautiful smile.

Zhang Ruochen asked, “What were my eyes like then?”

“You always used to look at me lustfully, as if you were anxious to strip off my clothes,” Han Qiu said with a shameless smile.

Zhang Ruochen had met Han Qiu before. So, he was quite familiar with her character, and he was not surprised that she would speak so bluntly.

“Lin Yue, it feels like you have been possessed by a ghost and become a new man. To me, this man is both familiar and unfamiliar.”

With a flirtatious look on her beautiful face, she kept her bright eyes on Zhang Ruochen’s, wondering if his eyes had changed.

“It is ok to believe I am possessed by a ghost.”

Zhang Ruochen rushed forward, leaving a string of figures on the mountain path.

Han Qiu looked after Lin Yue, pressed her crystal-clear red lips together, and said to herself, “How could two people have such an identical temperament? Or perhaps, it is really necromancy.”

First Level Mountain was at an elevation of 4,000 meters, surrounded by steep cliffs. Even a Monk of the Fish-Dragon Realm would injure himself seriously if he fell.

On the cliff wall, iron pillars as big around as buckets formed a bridge about 100 meters long. They extended horizontally outward, crossing a void.

Zhang Ruochen walked along one iron pillar onto the bridge. He looked down, and the Saint disciples below looked smaller than ants. If he fell, he could imagine how horrible it would be.

At the end of each iron pillar stood a wooden tower with vermillion pillars and golden glazed tiles. The towers looked like fairy pavilions floating in the air.

About half an hour later, a Saint’s disciple of the Fifth Change in the Fish-Dragon Realm stepped out of the tower. He had failed to pass this stage. He let out a sigh and walked down the mountain.

Zhang Ruochen opened the door and entered the tower.

Straight ahead hung a painting on the wall. In it, a girl in a white robe was brandishing a sword.

The girl in the painting was extremely beautiful. She looked fresh and elegant.

Suddenly, the girl in the scroll moved. She took seven consecutive steps and made twelve sword movements.

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But then, the girl came to a sudden halt and became motionless again.

Was it really a painting?

Zhang Ruochen could hear the girl’s voice ring out in the tower. It seemed to come from the painting. The voice said, “Within two hours, you are required to imitate the sword movements, at least to the realm of a small success.”

With an amazed look, Zhang Ruochen stretched out his fingers to the scroll and touched it gently. He said, “Interesting.”

Obviously, Zhang Ruochen did not mean to profane the girl in the painting. He wanted to confirm whether the painting was a Space Treasure.

In fact, it was not.

Zhang Ruochen guessed that a Half-Saint Divine Soul might have melded into the scroll and integrated with the ink, forming this apparition.

The sword techniques that the girl in the scroll had performed were from the Ghost Level Inferior Class.

Zhang Ruochen had to remember the footwork and hand moves, and also analyze the way she had used her Genuine Qi. Most importantly, he had to give a slightly successful demonstration of the sword movements within two hours.

This stage was a test of a Monk’s comprehension ability.

The other monks of the Fish-Dragon Realm were unable to see the girl’s movements clearly, let alone perceive the sword movements and perform them somewhat successfully. For them, it was as difficult as climbing into the sky.

However, for Zhang Ruochen, it was not particularly difficult.

He sat on the ground with his legs crossed. In his mind, he used the Heart of the Sword to imitate the girl’s sword movements and deconstruct her footwork and hand moves. And then he practiced in the Qi Sea.

It only took 15 minutes for Zhang Ruochen to successfully demonstrate all the sword movements to a moderate degree of success.

He performed all the movements. Then, he heard the girl’s voice from the painting say, “Second stage, pass.”

Zhang Ruochen turned around with the intention of stepping out of the tower. But he stopped suddenly.

With a spark in his eyes, he decided to risk a probe.

He clenched the hilt of the Blue Crystal Sword and drew it in a flash. He fully operated his Genuine Qi to fly towards the painting, sword extended.

“How dare you!”

All of a sudden, blazing white brilliance poured from the scroll.

A girl’s figure in a white robe dashed from the scroll like a ghost. She gave a quick stab, and over one hundred Qi swords slammed into Zhang Ruochen.

“Pow!”

Zhang Ruochen was knocked through the tower’s gate, and he flew backwards over the iron bridge. His back crashed into the stone wall, leaving a human-shaped imprint.

And then his body slid down onto the narrow mountain path. Baffled and shocked, he glared at the tower hanging in the air.

The blazing white brilliance quickly disappeared and reentered the scroll.

A cold, feminine voice came from the tower. “I spare you this time, for you are a first offender. If you dare to do this again, you’ll be prosecuted in court immediately.”

Zhang Ruochen looked at his arm. His sleeve had completely split, leaving his arm bare.

“What superb sword technique,” Zhuang Ruochen mumbled to himself.

All the Saint’s disciples on the mountainside were shocked by what had happened.

All the people fixed their eyes on Zhang Ruochen, wondering what he had experienced.

Han Qiu walked to him, glanced at the tower in the air, and asked, “What happened?”

Zhang Ruochen put his sword back into the sheath and appeared quite calm. He said, “I just wanted to test if the painting was aggressive, so I stabbed it. Well, that’s it.”

On the mountainside, all the people were gaping at him, stunned.

Han Qiu was momentarily jolted. And then she chuckled and said, “How dare you aim your sword at the gatekeeper? You really impress me a lot. Due to your disruptive behavior, the gatekeeper will definitely not allow you to pass this stage.”

“But I have passed.”

Zhang Ruochen said and marched along the narrow mountain path to the top without a glance behind.

The Saint’s disciples on the mountainside stared after Zhang Ruochen in wonder, as if they had been turned into stones.

“Did he pass the second stage of First Level Mountain?”

“How could he be so fast? I remember, he was only in the tower for 15 minutes.”

“I didn’t know such a powerful person was in the Yin and Yang Sect.”

Pang Long looked as if he had been hit by lightning and his eyes were bloodshot. He gazed at Zhang Ruochen’s receding figure in disbelief and muttered, “Lin Yue attained his current strength just by good luck and adventures. How is his comprehension ability so high? Impossible…It is impossible…”

Whether others believed it or not, Zhang Ruochen was already on the road to the mountaintop.

“On the mountainside of First Level Mountain stand 216 towers with a restored painting in each. It means there are 216 paintings in total. If there was only one Divine Soul, the scroll could not have such a powerful attacking ability. Every painting must hold a complete Divine Soul.

“After the death of a Half-Saint and the Saint, their Divine Souls dissipate. So how could the Yin and Yang Sect keep their souls?”

Zhang Ruochen raised his head and looked at the top of Ancient Gods Mountain. He could faintly feel an ancient and majestic force pressing down. Like a seven-colored waterfall, the rosy clouds and mist dropped vertically. Everything seemed magnificent and mysterious in the distance.

He sighed and said, “It is the power of Ancient Gods Mountain that makes the Divine Souls of Saints of the past dynasties of the Yin and Yang Sect immortal. Just as my father said, this mountain is mysterious. It hides some deep secrets.”

The higher Zhang Ruochen climbed, the stronger the force became. This powerful force of Ancient Gods Mountain had been impacting Zhang Ruochen’s willpower the whole time.

The force bursting from the Ancient Gods Mountain was as scary as the Holy Aura of a Saint.

The third stage was to test the Monk’s willpower.

Only when Zhang Ruochen had broken through the force of this level and climbed to the peak could he pass the third stage.