There was no solid ground beneath her feet, just an empty void.
The sea of clouds, the horizon, and all those faces, some familiar and some hazy, faded and peeled away.
The world before her eyes changed once again.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer on the Asking Dao Ladder. Instead, she was back in Qingxu Temple, where she had spent three years, standing on the bluestone plaza of the Outer Sect that required daily sweeping of fallen leaves.
The air was filled with the damp scent of grass and trees. A familiar footstep sounded in her ears, drawing closer and closer.
"What a pity. Such a nice girl, and the only Four-Element Pseudo Spirit Root in our Qingxu Temple. Her family spent a fortune to get her here. Now it's all likely going to be for nothing."
"Isn't it? At least she's a tiny bit better than those pure mortals with No Spiritual Root at all."
"But... sigh, all that money wasted."
"With talent like that, she'll probably never even make it into the Inner Sect. She's better off leaving the mountain now than wasting her life away in the Outer Sect."
"Yeah, I heard she got stuck after reaching the third level of Qi Refining and hasn't made any progress since."
"Sect Leader Xuanyuan only suggested she leave the mountain and marry because he saw how diligent and capable she was in the Outer Sect. It's a viable path for her. After all, she's still a third-level Qi Refining Cultivator. As long as she's not too picky, she can marry into a good family."
The voices came from a series of blurry faces.
The Senior Brother who said that had once helped her lift a water bucket when she was too weak. The Inner Sect Senior Sister had given her extra copper coins when sending her on errands.
There was no malice in their voices, only pity.
But their condescending attitude was suffocating.
Of course, it wasn't just pity. There was also plenty of unconcealed ridicule from the Inner Sect Disciples.
"Miss Su, you haven't even filled the water buckets yet, and you're already slacking off and daydreaming again?"
"Someone with a Pseudo Spirit Root like you wants to reach Foundation Establishment? You're daydreaming!"
"Look at you. If you won't leave the mountain, then you're destined to spend your life doing chores for us Inner Sect senior brothers and sisters!"
In the illusion, she tried to guide Spiritual Qi into her body over and over, but it rampaged through her meridians, refusing to obey her.
Her progress remained as slow as a crawling turtle. A sense of powerlessness washed over her from all directions, threatening to drown her.
'Why?'
'Just because their Spirit Roots are better than mine, they get to have a smooth path to success?'
'Why?!'
'I've worked so hard, so why is it still not enough?!'
Then, the indifferent face of Qingxu Temple's Sect Leader appeared before her.
"No matter what method you use, find out the truth about their Cultivation Technique, gather irrefutable proof that they are Evil Cultivators, and report all your intelligence to me."
"After you succeed, I will not only make an exception and take you as my Direct Disciple, but I will also personally perform a Marrow Washing to reshape your very bones!"
"In the future, forget Core Formation—at the very least, Foundation Establishment will be within your grasp."
Su Ling'er knew exactly why she had been chosen.
Because she was just an insignificant pawn.
'If I'm lost, it's no great loss.'
Just a chore-running Outer Sect Disciple.
But at the same time, only someone as hardworking, willing, and yearning for the righteous path of Cultivation as her would faithfully carry out this life-or-death mission.
This was her only chance as an Outer Sect Disciple to climb higher.
She was both lucky and unlucky.
As for the true future of the sect, how could they possibly be sent on such a dangerous mission?
They were precious jade, while she was nothing more than a stubborn stone by the roadside.
But her heart was still filled with unwillingness.
'On what grounds?!'
'Just because I was born with a worthless Spirit Root, am I destined to be trampled underfoot?'
'Just because of my poor birth, am I destined to accept others' pity and endure their ridicule?'
She wanted to be a player, not a pawn.
The undercover mission was a poison, but it was also her only antidote.
In the Outer Sect of Qingxu Temple, countless other "stubborn stones" like her never even got the chance to become pawns, fated only to exhaust their lifespans in despair.
But she, Su Ling'er, had been chosen.
Even if a mountain of knives and a sea of fire lay ahead, even if it was a bottomless abyss, at the end of the road were the two words "Foundation Establishment."
It was the first true sight on the path to immortality!
'Better to die on the path than to rot where I stand!'
A single thought cut through the noise in her mind.
'Can someone with a Pseudo Spirit Root truly not become an immortal?'
She would see.
She was determined to see the view from the summit!
Su Ling'er's eyes cleared within the illusion.
She lifted her leg and stepped onto the second step.
The third step.
The fourth step.
...
The tenth step.
Behind her, the illusion of Qingxu Temple crumbled, and the voices faded away.
The scene before her changed once more.
This time, she was hit by the searing pain of roaring flames scorching her skin, so real it almost made her scream.
She saw it.
She saw herself being held up by two Guixi Sect disciples and thrown into a massive Alchemy Furnace.
That alchemy fanatic, Lu Wu, was outside the furnace, frantically casting refining arts.
The furnace fire blazed, its bronze walls glowing red-hot, while she tumbled within the cauldron.
She watched her own hands dissolve, from skin to flesh, then to bone, turning to char.
Her flesh and bones were continuously tempered and burned, finally refined into a Living Elixir, its surface constantly showing her own face screaming in agony!
The scene shifted.
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG...
The deafening sound of a hammer rang out, and she found herself tied to a Forging Platform.
A giant hammer, glittering with strange inscriptions, slammed down on her body again and again.
Her bones shattered inch by inch, her flesh was beaten into a pulp, and her body was forcibly twisted and stretched, taking the crude shape of a sword!
Her very soul trembled at the sight!
But she had no chance to breathe. The ground beneath her feet turned to damp earth.
All around was the numb despair of the Spirit Beast Garden.
She would never forget it.
She watched as she became one of them, her eyes numb, her limbs shackled, forced to toil in the fields and pull minecarts.
The moment she paused, a whip would lash her until her skin split open.
And she could only trudge forward, painfully pulling the cart, serving the Guixi Sect disciples who laughed and chatted beside her.
Watching them enjoy the Spirit Stones she had painstakingly hauled and the Spirit Grass she had laboriously grown.
And she could only watch from afar, trapped in this endless labor, walking toward the end of her life.
When her lifespan was exhausted and her soul extinguished, even her fallen body would be dragged back into the sect to be processed into Human Origin Soil.
This was the Guixi Sect!
This was a devil's den so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face!
Su Ling'er's soul trembled uncontrollably. Every part of her body seemed to be screaming at her to run, to give up!
But why pursue the Dao?
'Isn't it for longevity?'
'Isn't it to live as long as the heavens, to roam free between heaven and earth, to witness all the splendors of this world?'
'Isn't it to control my own destiny, to no longer be afraid, to no longer be at the mercy of others?'
She, Su Ling'er, was going to become an immortal!
Even if she only had a Four-Element Pseudo Spirit Root, even if her aptitude and constitution were abysmal.
She still wanted all of it.
She would make it all a reality!
She would trample these fiends who treated human life as a plaything underfoot and make these Evil Cultivators who killed indiscriminately taste this same despair!
Her steps grew heavy. The mental anguish from each step made her body tremble, but she never stopped walking.
The twentieth step!
The thirtieth step!
The fortieth step!
...
「At the foot of the Asking Dao Ladder.」
The crowd was in an uproar. All eyes were fixed on the slender figure steadily climbing upward.
"Am I seeing things?"
"Isn't this the little junior sister's first time? How is she already at the forty-fifth step?!"
"You've got to be kidding me!"
"This new native junior sister... does she have such a high hidden Will stat?"
"Look at her expression. It doesn't look like she's asking the Dao, it looks like she's seeking revenge."
"I'm guessing her Dao Heart or Will stats are frighteningly high."
The others all turned in unison to look at the Artifact Refining Pavilion disciples who had just come down from the ladder.
The disciples who cultivated the Sword Refining Skill.
"When we play on this Asking Dao Ladder, who doesn't have to come down after just ten or twenty steps on their first try?"
"Even those who rolled high Dao Heart and Will stats at the start and cultivated the Sword Refining Skill mostly only made it thirty or forty steps."
"In the end, they were either crushed by the pressure until they couldn't breathe or driven mad by the Heart Demon Illusion Realm."
Lin Qingfeng also dropped his nonchalant expression, a playful look appearing on his face.
'This little junior sister... in her initial data, her talent and constitution were so poor, she had a Pseudo Spirit Root, and she was even a bit of a braindead AI.'
'Could it be that when she was initially generated, all her random attribute points were allocated to Will or Dao Heart?'
'Or maybe... the judgment mechanics of this Asking Dao Ladder are different for native NPCs than for us players?'