NOVPUBA presence he had only encountered once, somewhere between a dream and an illusion. Perhaps it had been both.
Or maybe… she exists in that liminal space between reality and fate.
She appeared once more, seated gracefully, a porcelain cup in her hand, eyes unreadable.
"You're still too weak," she said, almost absentmindedly, as she took a sip.
Ace's eyes narrowed.
"Weak?" he repeated, his tone calm but cold.
The moment was familiar. Too familiar.
He'd lived this before. Deja Vu indeed.
"And what exactly," he asked, voice low, "would qualify me as not weak?"
As if on cue, she smiled faintly.
"Have you ever heard of the Immortal Realm?"
She didn't wait for a response.
"Oh right, you've unlocked the Divine Market already, haven't you? Holders of the Divine Garden always awaken the library last," she added, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear with elegant grace.
"That's where the real knowledge begins."
She continued speaking, her voice both melodic and absolute, as if reciting cosmic truths from the edge of time itself.
She broke down the known cultivation ranks with clinical ease:
Warrior. Silver. Gold. Dark Gold. Legend.
Then, her tone shifted, slower, heavier, as she spoke of what lay beyond.
The Immortal Realms.
Realms where understanding shaped reality. Where the soul became its own law. Where concepts like time, matter, and even death could bend to one's will.
Ace remained silent throughout, absorbing every word.
Was this a demonstration of raw power?
Or a revelation crafted by the Formation Master of the tower?
A reminder that secrets, no matter how well guarded, were never truly safe?
If this tower can pull such depths from within me, Ace thought, how do I protect what must remain hidden?
Then, slowly, he chuckled to himself.
Didn't Shan Yifeng once speak of creating a technique to block Liu Mei from reading his thoughts? Perhaps I should've expected something like this sooner.
He stepped forward, and with that motion, the illusion fractured—fading like mist in the morning sun.
The corridor returned to silence.
Is this truly the Tower of Aptitude? he mused.
Or a Tower of Reflection? A Tower of Illusions?
Or perhaps… like the artificial intelligence of my past life, it's watching, learning, collecting fragments of each soul that ascend its steps? Was this why we need to clear floor one before heading up?
He inhaled slowly already staring at the 13th step one stride away.
"No matter," he whispered. "First things first… I must clear my mind."
Ace sat cross-legged upon the twelfth step, the cold surface beneath him grounding him in the present.
His fingers formed a simple mudra, one of balance and emptiness, and his breathing slowed into a quiet rhythm, deep, steady, like the tide brushing against a forgotten shore.
He closed his eyes.
Within his mind, the noise of the world began to settle.
The echoes of Rina's voice, the sting of betrayal, the warmth of Red I's presence, the questions of immortality, the Tower's omniscient eye, all of it began to drift away like leaves in the wind.
He didn't force the thoughts to leave. He welcomed them first, acknowledged them, and then let them go.
Let it pass. All things pass.
A lesson learned not through cultivation manuals, but from hardship, from loss, from death itself.
His heartbeat slowed further, syncing with something deeper, an invisible rhythm, the pulse of his soul.
The chaotic churn of emotion dulled into a quiet current beneath his awareness.
And in that current… clarity.
His mind emptied not into silence, but into presence.
No fear of the next illusion. No longing for the past. No pride, no anger, no names, no titles.
Only awareness.
Of breath.
Of body.
Of being.
In this stillness, Ace touched a rare state, it was not suppression of thought, but transcendence of it.
And for a fleeting moment, he was not Ace, the cultivator. Not a holder of the Divine Garden.
Not a man shaped by vengeance, duty, or curiosity.
He was only... existence.
His eyes fluttered open.
The illusion he thought he had broken before—the one with Red I and the fading corridor—dissolved in an instant.
The stone beneath him shimmered, vanishing like fog at sunrise.
A bitter chuckle escaped his lips.
"So that illusion break… was an illusion itself."
He stood, brushing the nonexistent dust from his robes.
"Tricky."
And with that, he placed his foot forward, stepping calmly onto the Thirteenth Step.
The thirteenth step welcomed him as though it were nothing but another stone on the path.
His pace was smooth, unhurried, and effortless.
And then came the fourteenth.
He ascended again, still without pause, still without strain.
Unbeknownst to him, down below, the crowd in the great hall had fallen silent.
Every cultivator from the Xiao family, the Azu Clan, and the Boa Clan stood frozen, eyes locked on the figure slowly climbing the tower.
They had first begun to take notice when he reached the tenth step, the widely acknowledged threshold that marked a cultivator's potential to step into Gold Rank.
It was a show of destiny, the realm where only elites tread.
He had taken a moment there, enough to raise brows, but not concern.
Then came the eleventh step, and his progress had slowed.
He sat still unmoving and unshaken. 𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘱𝘶𝑏.𝘤𝘰𝑚
Some had scoffed.
"Well, at least he made it to the eleventh step."
"Yeah… that's already rare."
But their idle chatter turned to stunned silence the moment Ace stood up again.
Without fanfare, without flourish, he simply stepped forward.
Twelve.
Thirteenth.
A few gasps. A few exchanged looks.
Fourteenth.
Now their hearts began to pound.
"Wait… what?"
And then, he ascended the fifteenth step.
Shock rippled through the hall like a crashing wave.
Years ago, even Xiao Ling, with all his talent, had bled upon taking his fifteenth step. The pressure had nearly crushed him.
But this man had climbed it as if he were strolling through a garden path.
He didn't falter. He didn't pause. He didn't flinch.
He was calm, as if gravity no longer applied to him.
The disbelief was thick in the air. Even the most experienced elders narrowed their eyes, whispering among themselves.
"Is this happening?"
"Who is he really?"
"What kind of monster climbs the fifteenth step like that?"
And then…
Ace took the sixteenth step.
The silence shattered.
Eyes widened.
Hearts skipped.
