First Immortal of the Sword

The ninth and heaviest tripod was far heavier than the first eight put together. Over the years, even the few who’d managed to lift it huffed and puffed just getting off the ground!

“If he lifts the ninth cauldron too, he’ll have set a new record and surpassed all who came before him!”

“Unlikely!”

“That’d be practically impossible!”

But before long, something astonishing came to pass.

Su Yi didn’t even pause to catch his breath before placing the ninth cauldron on top of the others.

And he still seemed relaxed, as if it had taken no effort at all.

Every last onlooker was dumbstruck and rooted to the spot.

Within the second tower, Su Yi shook his shoulders, and all nine bronze tripod cauldrons flew into the air and landed back in their original positions.

The entire hall rumbled and boomed. Dao Light fell like rain, enveloping Su Yi completely.

The rain was manifested of the purest energies of the Grand Dao, and it was unbelievably, wondrously useful for refining the physique.

Before long, everything returned to stillness, and Su Yi turned and left.

The old men watching in secret exchanged glances. All of them were completely dazed.

“Has an unprecedented monster come to Blue Cliff Academy?”

“In the first tower, eighteen flowers bloomed at the tip of his brush. In the second tower, he lifted all nine tripod cauldrons onto his shoulders with ease. In both trials, he established an entirely unprecedented record! No trial-taker in history can compare!”

“This is no mere ‘absolute genius.’ He’s unquestionably a heaven-defying monster! You can’t judge him with common sense!”

“Did you notice? During the first two towers, he was not even close to full strength…”

“Let’s keep watching!”

…All of these secret observers were old monsters of Blue Cliff Academy. They’d gone into seclusion in the academy a long time ago. If not for Su Yi causing such an enormous disturbance in the first trial, he could never have drawn their attention.

But now that Su Yi had set records in two trials in a row, the old monsters could no longer remain calm. They were completely freaking out.

The third tower contained an illusory world. As soon as Su Yi arrived, he found himself in a vast ocean.

It was boundlessly enormous, with fierce, coursing waves.

They called this trial “The Soul Is a Fish Hook.” Numerous soul stars were scattered across the ocean floor.

The “soul stars” were, in fact, chunks of meteorite imbued with soul power.

Trial-takers’ goal was to use the power of their soul as a fish hook to fish the soul stars out of the seabed. Nine soul stars were required to pass.

The more you reeled in, the higher your score.

The hardest part of this trial was that the ocean could disrupt the soul’s focus, and the soul stars were scattered throughout the seabed.

Using your soul to search for them was like trying to fish a needle out of the ocean.

Furthermore, trial-takers had to stave off the impact of the ocean’s power.

Despite the passage of countless years, no one had ever fished up more than nineteen soul stars!

As soon as Su Yi arrived, he got to work, wasting no time at all.

Whoosh!

His soul power spread out, transforming into a seemingly endless net that blanketed the entire seabed.

As his soul power sank ever downward, the seawater assailed it on all sides, but it couldn’t budge it in the slightest!

It seemed like an unshakeable cage of heaven and earth, and it reached the seabed in a flash.

After calming his heart and sensing momentarily, Su Yi exerted his will, and the power of his soul burst forth.

Boom!

The entire soul ocean churned. Waves crashed into the sky.

And the net manifested of Su Yi’s soul was laden with glittering soul stars, as if he’d cast his net into the starry sky!

The countless stars melted into a rain of light, which Su Yi’s soul absorbed completely. It didn’t leave even a single drop behind.

Su Y’s soul felt light and airy, as if he were floating, but at the same time, he could tell that it had somehow solidified.

Without any further delays, Su Yi strode off.

And the old monsters watching in secret were too shocked to even speak.

There was no doubt about it. He’d set yet another record!

……

Each of the Blue Cliff Twelve Towers contained its own trial.

The first three trials tested the cultivation base, the physique, and the soul.

Trials four through six tested Universe Realm Immortal’s powers of comprehension, attainments in the Grand Dao, and powers of divination.

The vast majority of trial-takers washed out here. It wasn’t hard to understand why; the second set of trials was far stricter and more difficult than the first.

Everyone who made it through the second set was a rare and miraculous genius!

But a trial like this meant nothing to Su Yi. He was like a tourist enjoying the scenery, unhurriedly stopping to see the mysteries on display in the various trials.

Once he’d seen through them, he passed them with ease and continued up the mountain.

The fourth tower tested his powers of comprehension. He was required to sense one of the mysteries of the Grand Dao in an ancient chaos stone tablet and inscribe it into a Dao Marking.

After a single glance, Su Yi perceived all thirty-three mysteries of the Grand Dao within the stone tablet. Then, with a wave of his hand, he carved a single enormous Dao Marking encompassing them all.

The fifth trial tested his attainments in and control of the Grand Dao. He stood within the void, and he needed to use his powers of the Grand Dao to create a world.

The more powers of the Grand Dao this world contained, and the better their quality, the higher his score.

This trial actually intrigued Su Yi. It was as if he’d been given a blank canvas to paint on, except that his "paintbrush" was his power of the Grand Dao.

In the end, Su Yi used his power of the Grand Dao to “paint” a sword.

However, the seemingly simple sword’s interior encompassed mountains, rivers, and creation in all its facets, including moons, suns, and stars. It seemed vast enough to encompass anything and everything.

When its aura spread outward, the entire fifth tower rumbled, boomed, and lit up. A mysterious sound of the Grand Dao echoed through the air for a long time before finally fading away.

The hidden observers saw it all. The old monsters watched one miracle after another play out before their very eyes, and they felt that their minds couldn’t quite keep up.

Setting even one record was a glorious accomplishment. Yet now, this heaven-defying challenger had set records during each and every trial! Not only that, but every time, he surpassed the previous record by a long shot! Who wouldn’t have been astonished?

There had never been a shortage of geniuses.

But these old monsters had lived for a long, long time, and they’d never seen such a perversely powerful monster! Many of them felt as if their perception of the Grand dao had been turned on its head!

In the fourth trial, he discerned thirty-three mysteries of the Grand Dao at a glance! In the fifth trial, he created an entire world within a sword! Is this… really a Universe Realm Immortal?

After a while, one of the old monsters murmured, “I remember that long ago, one of our distinguished elders, the Cloudy Skies Immortal Sovereign, divined all of the sixth trial’s mysteries of the Grand Dao to set an unshakeable, unprecedented record.

“That means that even if this young man achieves the same result in the sixth tower, he’ll at most match the Cloudy Skies Immortal Sovereign’s record. He cannot possibly surpass it.”

The other old monsters’ hearts shook, and all of them nodded. It was true. The Cloudy Skies Immortal Sovereign had achieved the highest possible score in the sixth trial.

“No matter what, this young man… is truly terrifying!” someone sighed.

As they conversed, they watched as Su Yi reached the sixth tower.

The sixth trial would test his ability to divine the Grand Dao. He needed to sort through countless glyphs condensed out of the aura of the Grand Dao to form a complete secret ability.

But the glyphs were scattered and intermixed, and each was emblazoned with a different aura.

It was as if pearls of different sizes, colors, and lusters had been tossed all over the ground. Trial-takers had to sift through them, find the ones that went together, and string them in the right order.

They said that these glyphs manifested of the Grand Dao contained a total of nine secret arts. Anyone who could piece together even one received a passing grade.

But the Cloudy Skies Immortal Sovereign had managed to derive all nine!

This meant he’d set a record in the sixth trial no one could hope to surpass.

When Su Yi arrived, he saw a wave of palm-sized glyphs dancing in the air, each emblazoned with different auras of the Grand dao. It was a splendid sight.

“It’s kind of like those puzzles where they break one large character into smaller characters,” Su Yi said with great interest.

A complete Daoist canon could be split into thousands of characters.

In the sixth trial, it was as if nine different mysterious arts had been dismantled into countless glyphs of the Grand Dao and mixed together.

This was a test of the trial-taker’s ability to divine the Grand Dao.

After a brief examination, Su Yi got to work. He waved his sleeve through the air, and glyphs whooshed forth, forming rows and stanzas. In the end, they transformed into a complete divine ability, “Rivers Returning to the Sea.”

But Su Yi didn’t stop to rest. He went on to piece the other eight abilities back together too.

The secret onlookers watched in amazement, but by now, they weren’t exactly surprised.

After all, they’d watched all of Su Yi’s miraculous performances in the first five trials, and they already saw him as an unprecedented, heaven-defying monster.

They would have been more surprised if Su Yi hadn’t managed this.

“See that? I told you. The Cloudy Skies Immortal Sovereign’s record stands. The boy matched it, but he ultimately couldn’t break it,” someone said softly. For some inexplicable reason, he felt much calmer.

But before his voice had even finished echoing through the air, someone cried out, “No, something’s not right. Look at that!”

Seth's Thoughts

“It’s kind of like those puzzles where they break one large character into smaller characters,” Su Yi said with great interest.

This is a Chinese word game in which you take a complex character and see how many smaller characters you can find in it. You can see an example here.

If you don't feel like clicking the link, the example is of the character 墨 (ink) , which contains the characters 一、二、三、亖、王、土, 黑、口、半、十、工、日、旧, 灬、丄、丅、羔、兰、平、and 干.