NOVPUBThe mural was beautifully made.
The phoenix, wings outstretched in defiance, carried the broken carcass of the dragon.
Blood streamed from a wound in its own chest, yet it soared steadily toward a distant altar carved into the clouds.
There was no triumph in its gaze despite the victory, only sorrow and duty.
And then the mural ended, the story unfinished, leaving behind a silence that seemed to hum with ancient meaning.
Ace's eyes lingered on it for a moment longer before turning back to the room.
It was strange, no one was moving and they simply looked like as if they were waiting.
The cultivators stood scattered, eyes alert and cautious, some watching the floor, others observing the walls, everyone appeared to be tense, but none daring to take the first step forward into the floor.
Ace narrowed his eyes.
"Why isn't anyone moving ahead yet?" he muttered under his breath.
Without hesitation, he took his first step forward.
And as soon as he did,
the people who had been watching him as soon as he ascended sneered.
"And here I thought he'd be wiser, considering how old he looks," one of the cultivators sneered, a mocking grin on his face.
Another chuckled. "Let him go. He'll trigger the traps for us. Pray he sets off everything before he dies."
Their laughter echoed off the stone walls, carefree and cruel.
Ace, however, was only growing more confused.
Could they not see it?
Most of the traps here were unarmed or had long since lost their function.
He won't have stepped forward recklessly if that had not been the case.
And bonus, the Divine Library had shown him a path, quiet markings, faint energy lines, subtle clues that revealed where it was safe to walk.
"It's been recently triggered," Ace muttered under his breath, eyes scanning the floor as he crossed another trap.
He walked onward at a slow, measured pace, calm and almost lazy to the untrained eye.
"Splendid work, whoever it was," he whispered with a faint smirk. "Forget triggering the traps… they destroyed them as they passed through. Some good news, finally, buried beneath all the bad."
Behind him, the others were beginning to stir with confusion.
"What's going on?"
"Why aren't any of the traps going off for him?"
Murmurs swelled like a tide of doubt and envy until one bold girl, dressed in a green accented robe, stepped forward with narrowed eyes.
"He's bluffing," she snapped. "The traps are no longer working and we can just cross this trial easily. "
Without another word, she dashed ahead, her feet barely touching the ground as she tried to overtake Ace.
Then it happened.
A soft click beneath her step, followed by a
shimmer in the wall.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of razor-thin needles burst from hidden slits.
They tore through her body, starting from the eyes, throat, chest, gut, every needles piercing her clean through before she even had a chance to scream.
She collapsed, twitching once, then lay still—blood pooling like ink on the stone floor.
A gold-rank genius, gone in an instant.
The chamber fell silent.
Now, no one dared to even think or attempt the second trial.
They weren't watching a reckless fool stroll blindly through danger. They were watching someone trace a path of invisible threads, sidestepping death with each deliberate step.
One by one, the crowd began to lean forward, their eyes fixed on Ace's feet—memorizing every motion, every pause, every shift of weight.
"Wow... so that's what happened," Ace muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
From what he could get from the system..
The girl, that unlucky girl,
she stepped on the trap that worked.
While majority had been dismantled or destroyed.
Some, and when he meant some, it was only a handful left that was working.
Whoever had passed through here before him wasn't just strong, they were a genius at dismantling traps.
Ace's gaze lingered on faint scorch marks and broken mechanisms hidden in the stonework.
"Impressive," he thought, adjusting his footing. "They didn't just avoid the traps… they actually took the time to erased them."
As Ace moved on, the signs became clearer.
Whoever dismantled the traps hadn't done so with finesse you would expect from a master. No,
they had used the primitive method, pure brute force.
The evidee was everywhere...
pressure plates weren't just disabled; they looked like they bad exploded from overwhelming weight.
Another pitfall on the right had its iron spikes bent and twisted at odd angles, while the pit itself seemed unnaturally widened, like something larger than it was designed for had crashed through.
"…No way something bigger than the pit did all this… right? Surely not a sentient beast.. That's scary." Ace muttered, squinting at the ruined mechanism with growing confusion.
While Ace walked the edge of death below, two floors above, a far cozier scene unfolded….
Liu Mei and Shan Yifeng were curled up peacefully, nestled in the center, Little Aoki snored softly, his tyrant-bear form reduced to a twitching, fuzzy ball surrounded by fur.
His huge paws twitching in contentment as one tail gently wrapped around him like a blanket.
At the center of it all, the majestic eight-tailed fox lay stretched out, her eyes half-lidded, ears flicking softly.
She looked less like a divine beast and more like a doting mother of three, her tails rising and falling like clouds cradling her adopted brood.
The eight-tailed fox's voice drifted lazily through the floorboards. "Master… are you going to ascend or not?".
Liu Mei stirred, her face squished against one of the soft, pillowy tails. Her eyes barely opened, her lips parting in a sleepy mumble.
"Uuhh… yuu'v know… lemme shleep… they won' gib mwe my dress anyway…"
Her words slurred together, muffled by fur and fatigue. She let out a soft yawn, nuzzling deeper into the fluff as her hand flopped over Shan Yifeng's chest.
Even the fox blinked slowly, letting out a low, amused huff.
Just then, a deep, resonant voice echoed across the chamber, ancient and solemn, as if it had been waiting for eons to speak.
[Humans… You are the first I have ever met who did not give in to temptation.]
Liu Mei blinked, her brows furrowing in confusion. "Huh…?"
She looked around groggily, eyes heavy with sleep, completely baffled by the sudden proclamation.
The voice appeared out of nowhere, left and right yet she couldn't find the source of the voice itself.
Unable to make sense of it, she turned and gave Shan Yifeng a firm shake. "Hey… wake up."
Shan Yifeng's eyes snapped open.
He stared at her, utterly betrayed, his face a tragic blend of heartbreak and frustration, like a man torn from the best dream of his life. His lips quivered in disbelief..
"I was just about to marry her…" His voice wobbled. He blinked rapidly, as if refusing to cry, then flopped back into the fur with the sigh of a man who had lost everything.
Liu Mei blinked again, still half-asleep. "Wha—who?"
"Can you shut up?", Shan Yifeng groaned and covered his face, collapsing back into the white fur of the eight-tailed fox's tail with a defeated sigh.
Even the fox gave a faint chuckle, clearly entertained.
