Chapter 191: Qingyun Sect Examination (Part 1)
Time flew by like a blade drawn and sheathed before the eye could follow. Three days passed in a flash.
Deep within the Ironveil Forge, Su Tianhao slowly stirred from the most peaceful sleep he'd had in days.
Despite having just woken up, he was already well dressed. Clad in his signature azure robes, his long black hair tied into a sleek ponytail, sword-like brows framing his handsome face. His eyes—twin golden orbs—were sharp and piercing. Nothing like a man who had just woken from sleep. The eyes of a predator stirring from slumber.
On his right wrist rested an intricate black runic tattoo that seemed to pulse with restrained power—a spiral of interlocking runic scales, each edged in the faintest trace of gold, like a dragon's eye compressed to the size of his palm, watching the world from his wrist. The distinctive mark of the Soulbound Summoning Rune.
He turned to the window—the single window that served as the room's only source of natural light. Morning sunlight filtered through the curtains, casting golden rays across his face, as if the world itself was acknowledging his existence.
Today was the day of the Qingyun Sect Examination.
The day that a dragon—hidden in plain sight—would finally begin to show his claws.
His golden eyes drifted across the room and landed on Dark Nether, resting five metres away in its obsidian black scabbard. The dragon scale patterns along its surface seemed to flicker subtly in the light.
Su Tianhao extended his hand toward the sword. The Soulbound mark glowed bright gold, and Dark Nether immediately flew into his palm—drawn by an invisible, irresistible pull.
Kach.
This was the effect of the Soulbound Summoning Rune. With his current soul power, Su Tianhao could summon Dark Nether from up to fifty metres away, a range that would only expand as his soul power continued to grow.
Shin!
A sharp, piercing sound—like the cry of a distant dragon—resonated through the air as Su Tianhao unsheathed Dark Nether, revealing the blade in all its glory.
A pitch-black blade like void given form. A terrifyingly sharp edge of crimson-gold. Violent vein patterns that pulsed with living light. Just before the majestic dragon-head hilt sat a distinctive runic symbol—the same mark resting on Su Tianhao's wrist. The Soulbound mark. And running down the centre of the blade was a single line, drawn as though heavenly tribulation had been given form—the symbol of the Heavenly Surge Rune.
A satisfied smile played on his lips as he sheathed the sword and strapped it firmly to his waist. His footsteps creaked softly against the wooden floor as he crossed the room toward the door.
Upon opening it, he was immediately met with an unexpected face.
"Master Shen Bao?"
He raised an eyebrow. The old craftsman stood before him with barely concealed anticipation, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"What are you doing here?" Su Tianhao asked, surprise evident in his voice. It was still very early in the morning. The only way Master Shen Bao would be standing here at this hour was if he had waited the entire night.
Master Shen Bao smiled awkwardly, running a rough hand through his half-bald head. "I had to see you before you left, Young Master."
Su Tianhao nodded slowly, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "What do you want?"
Master Shen Bao took a deep breath—then bowed deeply.
"Please take me as your disciple."
"Eh?"
Su Tianhao facepalmed. "What are you saying, Master Shen Bao? You're my senior."
Master Shen Bao didn't raise his head. "I might be your senior in cultivation—but in the weapon dao, I don't come close. Please. I have much to learn from you."
His voice carried genuine sincerity and an almost grim seriousness.
"Please raise your head, Master Shen Bao, you can't—"
"Don't call me Master," the old craftsman cut in before he could finish. "Just call me Shen. Or Brother Shen."
Su Tianhao smiled wryly. "Raise your head first."
Master Shen Bao hesitated but still complied. His dark eyes met Su Tianhao's golden ones, pleading.
Su Tianhao cleared his throat. "Look—I'm not looking to take in disciples."
"What about an apprentice?" Master Shen Bao cut in with desperate enthusiasm. "Let me be your apprentice!"
The distinction was meaningful. A disciple was a successor—someone taken in with the intimacy and expectation of a family bond, a legacy passed from Master to inheritor. An apprentice was different—a student, formally taught, with no such weight of legacy or expectation attached. But Master Shen Bao didn't care about the difference. He simply wanted to form a genuine relationship with this mysterious young man.
"Allow me to finish," Su Tianhao said, expression turning serious. "I'm not looking for a disciple, and I'm not looking for an apprentice. Besides—the weapon dao is only a side path for me. My main path is the sword dao."
Master Shen Bao fell quiet. He could see the conviction in those golden eyes and knew his words wouldn't change anything. But he couldn't help lamenting inwardly at what he'd just heard.
'Tch. What a waste of heaven-sent talent.'
"If there's nothing else, I'll be on my way," Su Tianhao said, pulling the old craftsman from his thoughts. "Thank you for everything, Brother Shen."
Master Shen Bao's lips curved into a wide smile the moment he heard the word 'brother'. "Take care, Young Master. Good luck with your exam."
Su Tianhao paused mid-step. "How do you know about the exam?"
Master Shen Bao huffed. "Come on—this old man didn't have to guess. There's only one reason an outstanding young man like you would stay in our little city this long. You could have left three days ago."
"Fair point," Su Tianhao said with a shrug.
With one final glance at the old craftsman, he turned and walked away with a casual wave of his hand.
Master Shen Bao's gaze lingered on his solitary figure—the way his silhouette moved through the dim corridor, unhurried and assured, until the darkness swallowed him entirely. Only then did the old man blink himself back to the present.
"Damnit," he muttered. "I didn't even ask for his name!"
---
Su Tianhao moved through the city with purposeful steps. The buzz and noise of life grew louder and wilder the closer he got to the main avenues. Then he stepped out into the open—and paused.
Cloudrise City had been lively before.
But this? This was something else entirely.
The streets had transformed overnight into a living tide of colour, noise, and ambition. Cultivators from every corner of Longzhou Country pressed shoulder to shoulder through the main avenues—robes of every hue, weapons of every shape, accents from cities Su Tianhao had never visited and likely never would. Young prodigies walked with chins raised and eyes sharp, each one carrying the particular confidence of someone who had never yet met their match. Veterans moved differently—quieter, more deliberate, reading the crowd the way experienced hunters read a forest.
The merchants had descended like hawks on fresh prey.
Every available stretch of pavement along the mountain road had been claimed. Stalls hawked stamina tonics, Qi recovery potions, healing elixirs, and talismans of dubious quality whose vendors swore by their effectiveness with the conviction of men who had never tested them. Street vendors called out from every corner, their voices competing in a chaotic symphony of commerce. The smell of sizzling street food mingled with the sharp bite of spiritual herbs, incense smoke, and the faint metallic tang of freshly polished weapons being demonstrated to wide-eyed buyers.
And above it all—rising like a river finding its inevitable destination—a steady, unbroken stream of cultivators moved along the mountain path toward the Mistveil Mountains. Some walked in groups, talking loudly. Others moved in silence, conserving focus. A few rode spirit beasts, their mounts drawing envious stares from those on foot.
The mountain path didn't end the crowd. It focused it. Narrowed it into a single direction, a single purpose.
The Qingyun Sect Examination had begun.
---
Su Tianhao quickened his pace and squeezed through the stream of cultivators making their way toward the mountains. Soon they exited the city entirely, emerging onto a wide road framed by dense bushes and tall grasses on both sides. The open space allowed the crowd to breathe and move more freely, no longer constrained by the city's architecture.
About fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the base of a mountain path.
Carved stone stairs rose from the earth in a single winding ascent—wide enough for ten men to walk abreast, each step worn smooth by the passage of countless cultivators across countless examinations. The path wound upward in slow, deliberate curves, disappearing into a dense curtain of silver-white mist that swallowed the mountain's middle heights entirely. Above that mist, nothing was visible—not the peak, not the structures, not even the outline of what lay above. It was as though the mountain simply ceased to exist beyond a certain point, consumed by clouds that had decided to stay.
Ancient trees flanked both sides of the staircase, their roots gripping the mountain face like gnarled fingers, their trunks so wide that three men with outstretched arms couldn't embrace them. Moss covered every surface. The air grew distinctly cooler here, cleaner, carrying the faint scent of pine and the ever-present spiritual energy that seemed to pulse from the mountain itself—slow, deep, and ancient, like the breathing of something that had been alive long before the sect was built upon it.
This was Qingyun Mountain—the seat of the Qingyun Sect, and one of the most sacred peaks in the Mistveil Mountain Range.
Su Tianhao stared up at the staircase, awe flickering briefly in his golden eyes before his expression darkened as the full length of the climb registered.
"Damnit," he muttered. "Looks like I have no other choice."
Already hundreds of cultivators had begun the ascent above him, with hundreds more pressing in from behind.
However, not everyone was climbing.
Several dozen figures bypassed the stairs entirely—some riding spirit beasts that soared in wide arcs above the crowd, others carried aloft by flying treasures that glinted in the morning light. And a select few flew without any aid at all, their cultivation alone sufficient to carry them and the young men and women flanking them into the sky. These privileged figures gazed down at the climbing masses with expressions of quiet superiority—proud eyes, folded arms, the unhurried bearing of people who had never once been asked to wait in line.
"Damnit, those nobles!"
A sharp voice cut through the crowd beside him. "Always thinking they're better than everyone else."
Su Tianhao turned.
The young man standing beside him looked to be seventeen or eighteen, with oily black hair pinned back with an iron clasp. His face was pale and narrow—too sharp to be called handsome, but not unpleasant—and his dark eyes burned with something that sat halfway between thirst and grievance, a specific kind of hunger that Su Tianhao recognised immediately as someone with an old score to settle.
He instinctively glimpsed the young man's cultivation base. '7th Level Martial Disciple,' he noted inwardly.
The young man turned to face him, annoyance plainly written across his features.
"Hey—I'm Liang Chenfei. You think the same, right?"
Su Tianhao said nothing, watching him with a calm, measuring gaze.
Liang Chenfei didn't wait for an answer.
"Those nobles and their privileges—while every one of us has to climb this endless staircase to prove our dedication, they get to bypass all of it and look down at us like we're ants. Just who do they think they are?!" His fists clenched at his sides, righteous fury rising in his voice. "Special privileges don't make you superior! It just means your ancestors did what you couldn't!"
He shook his head with exaggerated sorrow, then turned back to Su Tianhao with open curiosity.
"You hate nobles too, right, brother?"
"..."
Su Tianhao gave him a deadpan look.
'What happened to this one? Why would I hate nobles for enjoying what their ancestors built? Why feel inferior when you can simply strive to surpass them?'
He was about to say as much, when suddenly—
"Brother Tian Hao!"
A voice rang out from above, crisp and melodious as wind chimes caught in a spring breeze, surprisingly pleasing to the ear.
Su Tianhao looked up.
Two figures floated in the sky above the crowd. Even from a distance, that voice was unmistakable.
"Wang Bing?" he called out, brow lifting in genuine surprise.
"Hehe." A soft laugh drifted down. Wang Bing's autumn eyes shimmered with warmth as she looked at him. "Why don't you come with us?"
Beside Su Tianhao, the colour drained from Liang Chenfei's face.
He had been loudly condemning nobles to this young man—this refined, extraordinary-looking young man he had assumed was simply another cultivator on foot. It had never occurred to him, not for a single moment, that he might be acquainted with people who could fly unassisted.
'Martial Grandmaster,' he realised, staring at the elder beside Wang Bing. 'That's a Martial Grandmaster!'
His gaze snapped back to Su Tianhao, and his heart sank further.
'That bearing. That presence. How did I mistake him for an ordinary cultivator?'
'You've really done it this time, Liang Chenfei,' he cried inwardly, eyes darting sideways as he calculated the fastest way to increase the distance between himself and everyone in this situation.
Su Tianhao, entirely unaware of the young man's silent crisis, turned back to the sky with a faint smile.
"If Elder Xuan is willing to have me, I'd be happy to accept."
"Nonsense—of course I'm willing. Don't act like we're strangers," Elder Xuan scoffed, feigning irritation as he descended just enough for the two of them to come into clear view.
Elder Xuan was dressed in traditional black robes with golden dragon engravings, the fabric billowing around him like storm clouds given silk. Wang Bing, by contrast, wore an elegant light blue martial outfit that shimmered softly in the sunlight—clearly built not for display, but for combat. It suited her. She wasn't dressed as a noble today. She was dressed as someone who intended to compete.
"I see you came prepared," Su Tianhao remarked, eyes moving briefly across Wang Bing's outfit.
A faint blush rose on her cheeks. She hid it quickly—but not quickly enough. The sight alone was enough to send the young men nearest them into a daze, their thoughts drifting wild. For Liang Chenfei, it had the opposite effect. His already pale face lost what little colour remained.
'Both of them have that kind of relationship?' he thought, misreading the situation entirely. He wanted to flee, but fear pinned him in place.
"Ahem." Elder Xuan cleared his throat, clearly uninterested in the surrounding chaos. "It's good that we found you here, Tian Hao. Come—I'll explain things on the way."
Su Tianhao gave a brief nod.
Elder Xuan extended his spiritual energy outward—a quiet, practiced movement, like a hand offered to steady someone on uneven ground. It wrapped around Su Tianhao with warmth and precision, lifting him from the mountain path with effortless control. In the same motion, Elder Xuan drew both him and Wang Bing upward, the three of them rising smoothly into the sky as one.
From start to finish, Su Tianhao hadn't spared Liang Chenfei a single glance.
Below, the young man watched their figures grow smaller against the sky, chest heaving.
"Phew..." Liang Chenfei exhaled slowly, pressing a hand over his chest. "Dodged an arrow there. Glad they're gone."