CHAPTER 239: The Mountain of Heavy Will

The wind off the high ridge carried the sharp scent of ozone and cold pine, snapping the long hem of Shaurya's black-and-gold coat against his boots. Below the terrace, where the valley opened into the dusty border roads, the sea of heads moved like an endless, dark tide. Hundreds of thousands of faces—pale, wind-chapped, and hollow-eyed—stared upward at the white jade precipice, their collective breathing rising as a low, anxious murmur.

Shaurya leaned his hip casually against the carved balustrade, resting one arm over the polished stone. A faint, easy smile touched his lips as he looked out over the vast expanse of the mortal realm stretching into the haze.

"Well," Shaurya murmured, his voice rich with quiet amusement, "it'd be a shame to make them walk up mud paths after coming all this way."

He didn't reach for a spell seal. He didn't draw a talisman. He simply brought his right hand out from his coat pocket, lifted his thumb to his middle finger, and flicked his wrist.

Snap.

A quiet, golden chime chimed directly behind his ears.

[Dharma Points Expended: -5,000]

[Purchasing: Grand Sovereign Jade Staircase (Level 8 High-Grade Architecture)]

[System Congratulates Host on a Most Lavish and Awe-Inspiring Purchase. May your candidates' kneecaps endure.]

Shaurya's smile broadened just a fraction. Money well spent.

Down at the base of the sheer cliff, the earth didn't just shake—it groaned.

A deep, subterranean thud vibrated up through the soles of every boot in the valley, rattling the teeth of the front ranks. The dirt road violently buckled, splitting open in a three-hundred-foot jagged seam. Dust erupted like a geyser, rising fifty feet into the air.

Then came the jade.

Massive, square blocks of pale blue stone, each four times the height of a man and carved with intricate dragon motifs that seemed to breathe beneath the dirt, shot out of the fracturing soil. They thundered upward in a rapid, rhythmic sequence—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—locking together with mechanical, terrifying precision.

One step. Ten steps. A hundred steps.

The blue jade surged up the sheer rock face, eating through three thousand feet of vertical cliff in less than five heartbeats. When the final slab slammed into the lip of the outer plaza terrace, it released a heavy, metallic ring that swept across the entire valley, blowing away the dust in a single, clean shockwave.

Silence crashed over the lowlands.

The hundreds of thousands of applicants stood completely frozen. A young cultivator near the front dropped his iron canteen; it hit the dirt with a hollow clatter, but no one looked down. Every pair of eyes was glued to the pristine, gleaming, three-thousand-foot staircase that hadn't existed three seconds ago.

"Now that," Shaurya said softly, resting his chin on his palm as he looked down at the wide-eyed crowd, "looks like a proper entrance."

He straightened his posture, stepping up to the very edge of the terrace overhang. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his right hand into the open sky, his fingers splaying wide.

Deep within his meridians, golden spiritual energy surged, tinged with a dark, violet-black hue that crackled around his knuckles like threads of living lightning. The air around his right arm twisted violently, distorting the sunlight into rippling heat-waves.

Shaurya looked down at the base of the stairs, his golden eyes narrowing with a sharp, dangerous glint.

"Let's see how much grit you all actually brought with you," Shaurya said, his voice carrying softly into the wind.

He turned his palm toward the earth and pressed his hand downward.

THOOM.

The air above the blue jade staircase didn't just change—it caved in.

A massive, transparent column of sheer, crushing weight slammed down over every single step from the top terrace to the dirt below. The atmosphere over the blue stone instantly turned thick as molten iron. The air visible through the steps rippled wildly, bending the light so severely that the dragon carvings on the stone appeared to twist like squirming snakes.

Down at the front of the crowd, a group of young men wearing embroidered, golden-threaded silk robes had already pushed their way to the front, laughing arrogantly as they shoved an old, bandaged rogue cultivator out of their path.

"Out of the way, trash!" the lead youth sneered, his fan snapping shut as he raised his boot to take the very first step. "A grand path like this is meant for the true clans—"

His boot touched the blue jade.

CRACK.

The sound was sharp, loud, and sickening, like a dry branch snapping in two.

The youth's right knee joint bent entirely backward. His smug expression didn't even have time to change before the sheer, invisible downward force smashed his face directly into the jade floorboards.

"AAAGH—!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

His four companions behind him didn't even get to land a foot. The edge of the twenty-times gravity domain caught them mid-stride, flattening them sideways against the first three steps like flies swatted by a giant palm. Their expensive silk robes tore instantly under the pressure. Their ribs groaned, the air exploding out of their lungs in a single, choked gasp as their cheeks were pinned flat against the stone, their faces turning a dark, mottled purple in less than two seconds.

The laughter down in the lowlands died instantly.

A wave of pure, cold terror rippled backward through the front three rows. Hundreds of applicants instinctively scrambled backward into the dirt, their boots kicking up dust as they stared in absolute horror at the five noble youths groaning and twitching under the invisible, crushing weight.

Up on the high terrace, Shaurya leaned his forearm back onto the balustrade, looking down at the frozen sea of humanity with a calm, effortless grin that carried over the howling wind.

"If you want to wear the orange of Sanatan, climb," Shaurya's voice drifted down, clear, smooth, and echoing off the mountain walls as if he were sitting right beside every single one of them. "Reach the top, sign your name, and you belong to this mountain."

The heavy silence hanging over the lowlands stretched long and taut, broken only by the whistling mountain gale.

For three agonising heartbeats, the vast sea of applicants remained frozen in the dirt, their eyes wide as they stared at the crushed noble youths groaning under the blue stone. The twenty-times gravity domain rippled through the air like invisible, molten glass, an absolute wall standing between them and the soaring white peaks above.

Then, a movement broke the paralysis.

Near the front row, a youth with dirty, blood-stained linen wrapped around his calves shuffled forward. His worn leather boots hovered over the threshold for a fraction of a second before slamming down onto the first step.

THUD.

His knees buckled instantly, his joints popping with a dry, harsh sound. His spine bent into a sharp, painful arc, his chin forced down toward his chest as the invisible weight crashed onto his shoulders. A guttural gasp tore from his throat, his teeth grinding together so violently that thin streams of dark blood seeped past his lips and dripped onto the pale jade.

He didn't collapse.

His left hand, white-knuckled and raw, tightened around the hilt of a chipped wooden practice sword. He drove the wooden tip into the seam between two jade slabs, using it like a iron stake to anchor his body. His chest heaved, every breath a ragged fight against crushed lungs, but his trembling right leg slowly lifted.

Clang.

He dragged himself onto the second step.

The crowd behind him let out a collective, breathless gasp. The sight of a battered, nameless boy defying the crushing domain ignited something primal in the dust.

"If he can do it..." someone muttered in the third row, their knuckles turning white around an old iron spear.

"Move! Don't let the noble trash block the way!"

The dam broke. The sea of humanity surged forward in a roaring, chaotic wave, flooding onto the grand staircase.

Massive, heavy thuds echoed continuously up the cliff as thousands of boots struck the blue jade. Within seconds, the lower steps became a war of attrition. Muscle strained against bone, sweat and crimson droplets splattered across the dragon carvings, and those whose willpower wavered were instantly flattened onto the stone, gasping like fish pulled from water.

Farther up the mountain, where the jade steps cut past the mid-way pavilion, the atmosphere was a bizarre mix of absolute discipline and casual indifference.

Xiao Rui was casually leaning back against a carved, red-lacquered pillar, balancing his broom on the very tip of his index finger. His eyes tracked the crawling masses down below with a relaxed, amused smirk.

"Look at them go," Xiao Rui chuckled, shifting his weight slightly to keep the broom perfectly vertical. "Reminds me of when Sheng Lu tried to challenge the second floor of the Gravitational Chamber without taking off his heavy boots first."

"I was testing the structural integrity of the stone, you broom-twirling idiot!" Sheng Lu growled from a few paces away.

He slammed down a massive, iron-bound wooden crate onto a long table, the impact rattling dozens of inkwells and stacks of blank, heavy paper forms. He wiped a thick layer of sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm and leaned over the stone railing, his voice thundering down the mountain paths.

"Form a single file! Keep your feet moving! If your legs give out, my boys will drag you to the grass on the side! Do not stop in the middle of the steps or you'll get stepped on!"

Beside the long registration tables, the Disciplinary Hall stood like an immovable wall.

Elder Jian Fan stood directly at the edge of the terrace, his heavy arms folded tightly over his broad chest. His sharp, predatory eyes scanned the climbing crowd, cutting through the swirling dust and heat-waves. He didn't speak, but his fingers twitched with practiced precision.

Down on the eight-hundredth step, a tall youth in iron-plated armor tried to extend his elbow to shove a younger, weaker applicant off the edge to clear space for himself.

Before his arm could connect, Jian Fan's middle finger flicked through the air.

SWISH.

A sharp gust of compressed air shot down the mountain like an invisible whip, catching the armored youth beneath his belt. He was instantly plucked clean off the jade steps, sailing two hundred feet through the sky in a wide, screaming arc before landing with a loud SPLASH into the shallow muddy river at the base of the mountain.

"No sabotage. No dirty tricks," Jian Fan's deep, gravelly voice echoed down the cliffside, cold and absolute. "You fight the mountain. You do not fight each other. Try it again, and you'll be swimming back to your home kingdoms."

High above on the central terrace, Shaurya stood alone near the balustrade, his hands buried deep inside his coat pockets. The wind whipped his dark hair across his brow, his golden pupils calmly observing the chaos unfolding along the three-thousand-foot incline.

He didn't need to guess who was struggling or who was holding back.

System, Shaurya called out internally, his lips barely moving. Bring up the spatial scan. (Show me if any interesting wild dogs managed to survive the initial impact.)

A brilliant, golden window unfolded directly before his vision, its floating script completely invisible to the elders standing nearby.

[Scanning 20x Gravitational Domain...]

[Filtering through 42,890 Active Entities...]

[Detecting Outlier Candidates...]

The system's interface flickered, shifting from standard text to a glowing, three-dimensional tactical overlay.

[Host, as usual, your brute-force entry methods have attracted quite a collection of broken anomalies.]

[Displaying Top Target Profiles...]

Shaurya's eyes narrowed slightly as the first profile expanded, zooming in on the eight-hundredth step.

The youth dragging himself up was battered beyond belief. His right sleeve hung entirely empty, neatly tied off at the shoulder with a frayed black cord, and the exposed skin of his neck and left arm was a roadmap of jagged, purple scar tissue. He wasn't using a steel sword or circulating rich spiritual energy. He clutched a chipped, water-logged wooden practice sword in his left hand, driving the blunt tip into the jade seams to haul his weight upward step by agonizing step.

[Target 1: Lin Xiaobao]

[Origin: Expelled Scion of the Lin Sword Clan]

[Condition: Severed Meridians / Shattered Dantian / Left for Dead in the Northern Ravines]

[System Note: This kid's internal qi channels are completely ruined, yet his soul is radiating a dormant Calamity Sword Core. He isn't fighting the gravity with power; he's cutting through the atmospheric pressure with pure, unyielding sword intent.]

On the eastern balcony overlooking the same section of steps, Elder Feng Yu and Elder An Ning were leaning far over the white marble balustrade.

Both veteran sword masters had completely ignored the rest of the climbing crowd. Their sharp, refined gazes were locked squarely onto the one-armed youth.

"Look at his left wrist," An Ning murmured softly, his hand unconsciously resting on the hilt of his white jade sword. "Every time he plants that wooden stick into the stone, his wrist doesn't absorb the shock. It angle-shifts."

Feng Yu's sharp eyes narrowed into thin slits, a rare spark of genuine fascination dancing in his pupils. "He isn't using a single drop of qi. His meridians are as dry as dead wood, yet the air around his left shoulder is splitting. The atmospheric weight isn't crushing him; he's shaving the pressure down to a fraction of its weight through sheer posture."

An Ning let out a low, appreciative breath. "His body is broken, but his sword heart is pristine. That boy doesn't need medicinal pills to fix his veins, Feng Yu. He needs a real blade."

Shaurya smirked quietly atop his terrace. System, next one.

The golden screen shifted, zooming in toward the twelve-hundredth step.

A short, dirt-streaked girl wearing oversized, ragged grey robes was pacing up the incline. While the candidates around her were crawling on all fours, gasping and spitting blood, she moved in strange, deliberate zigzag patterns.

She didn't march straight up. Her small, worn leather boots tapped specific, faint grain lines embedded inside the pale blue jade. Every time her foot touched down, she stepped precisely where the gravity field's structural stress folded, completely bypassing the heaviest downward pressure.

[Target 2: Su Qing]

[Origin: Abandoned Daughter of the Su Merchant Branch]

[Condition: Physically Weak / Zero Elemental Affinity]

[System Note: Born with the Spatial Intuition Eye. Her family threw her out because she couldn't generate fire or ice, failing to realize her mind calculates spiritual array geometry and spatial structural flaws as naturally as breathing.]

Near the archive tables on the terrace, Elder Liya, Lin Shu, and Elder Hang—who was visiting from the capital—were watching the middle steps.

Lin Shu's eyes widened slightly as she tracked the small girl's rhythm. "She isn't struggling at all."

Elder Liya raised a delicate eyebrow, leaning her cheek against her palm with a quiet, surprised hum. "Look at her footwork, Lin Shu. She isn't using physical strength or qi to fight the mountain. She's reading the formation's seams."

Elder Hua adjusted her long sleeves, her eyes sharp as she studied the girl's trajectory. "To instinctively perceive the stress-points of an Emperor-Grade gravity field technique without ever studying array scriptures... That girl sees the world through geometry. What a terrifying natural talent."

Lin Shu smiled softly, quietly making a mental note to ensure the girl received warm food and proper clothes the moment she reached the top.

Shaurya's golden screen flickered again, displaying the third target on the fifteen-hundredth step.

A heavily built, broad-shouldered youth named Meng Huo was practically marching up the cliff. His clothes were torn to shreds, exposing thick, dark-skinned muscles that looked closer to forged iron than human flesh.

Five major regional sects had turned him away, calling his meridians "sluggish, overly thick, and completely useless for fast qi circulation."

Under twenty-times gravity, that "useless" density was an impenetrable fortress. Every time his heavy boots slammed onto the jade, a dull, metallic thud echoed through the air. His dense bones and massive physical mass absorbed the downward force like an ancient stone ox, completely unbothered by the crushing air.

Down beside the registration tables, Sheng Lu stopped mid-bite into his second spirit-fruit bun. His eyes widened as he watched the broad-shouldered youth march past another group of collapsing noble scions.

"Now that guy..." Sheng Lu muttered, his eyes gleaming with deep, visceral respect as he pointed his half-eaten bun at the climbing youth. "That guy knows how to build a real frame! Look at those shoulders! Elder Jian, look at him!"

Elder Jian Fan, standing nearby, didn't turn his head, but a rare, subtle grunt of approval escaped his throat. "Solid footing. Unshakeable center. He doesn't waste energy screaming or panting. A true iron foundation."

Farther back on the highest platform, Wang Tian and Luo Chen stood side by side against a gold-embroidered pillar, looking down at the crawling mountain of applicants with unbothered, absolute detachment.

Wang Tian had his arms folded loosely across his chest, a sharp, dark smirk resting on his lips as his purple pupils flickered with faint traces of residual Ghost Emperor aura. He didn't bother tracking individual names or backgrounds—his gaze simply swept over the thousands gasping in the blue stone dust like an emperor inspecting raw iron.

"A few wild dogs in the pile," Wang Tian noted casually, his voice smooth, deep, and completely devoid of softness. "They're crawling on their ribs, but their eyes haven't turned dull. At least they know how to bleed without crying about it."

Luo Chen leaned back against the pillar, his thumb resting lightly against the guard of his sword. He didn't draw the blade. He simply watched the heavy pressure waves rippling through the crowd below, his sharp eyes measuring the collective balance of the candidates.

"They're stiff," Luo Chen replied flatly, his tone cold and unhurried. "Most of them are fighting the mountain's weight with raw, wasteful force. The moment their legs give out, their dantians will collapse."

Wang Tian let out a short, quiet laugh, leaning his shoulder against the marble. "That's why they're standing down there in the dust while we're standing up here. If they can't figure out how to keep their posture under twenty times gravity, they aren't worth the paper Zong Bu is stamping."

Luo Chen's gaze lingered on the front ranks for a second longer before he closed his eyes, entirely unimpressed. "Let them climb first. If any of them survive to reach the square, we'll see if they have enough substance left to be worth looking at twice."

Up on the terrace overhang, Shaurya watched his core disciples bicker, a quiet, completely satisfied smirk spreading across his face as the golden system window dissolved into glittering light.

"The wild dogs are climbing," Shaurya whispered into the mountain gale, folding his arms. "Let's see how many of them make it to the top."

By mid-afternoon, the relentless sun reached its peak, casting long, golden shafts of light through the mountain clouds.

The lower steps of the blue jade staircase were littered with discarded boots, torn cloaks, and hundreds of exhausted applicants who had collapsed onto their backs, gasping for air. The Disciplinary Hall disciples moved efficiently among them, guiding those whose bodies had reached their absolute limits safely down to the grassy banks at the mountain's base.

For those who reached the three-thousandth step, however, the heavy, suffocating pressure of the 20x gravity field suddenly vanished.

The moment their boots crossed the threshold of the highest terrace, every candidate felt as if an invisible mountain had been lifted off their backs. Their lungs expanded, drinking in the thick, spiritual mountain air that instantly washed away the burning agony in their muscles and meridians.

And then, they looked up.

A collective, breathless gasp rippled through the hundreds of exhausted youths who had clawed their way to the summit.

Spread out before them was a domain that shattered every expectation they had carried from the mortal world below.

Massive terraces of polished white jade mirrored the bright sky above, stretching out toward grand, multi-tiered halls forged from dark, luminous jade and cold iron. Their white-tiled roofs curved elegantly into the mist, their tips crowned with formation crystals that scattered blue and golden light across the plaza. At the center of the vast square, a circular, layered golden fountain shot clear streams of spiritual water forty feet into the air, cascading around a colossal, radiant golden statue of Shaurya standing in an absolute, majestic posture.

The afternoon sun began its slow descent toward the western horizon, casting long, golden streaks of light across the vast white jade plaza. The initial wave of awe had settled into a quiet, bone-deep exhaustion for the thousands who had survived the harrowing climb up the 20x gravity staircase.

High above the central hall, a broad, deep orange banner bearing the glowing golden Sudarshan Chakra at its center snapped proudly against the high-altitude wind.

"Is this... a heavenly palace?" one ragged youth whispered, his knees trembling as he stared up at the towering white jade structures and the colossal golden T-pose statue standing proudly in the center fountain.

"Move along! Don't stand there gaping!" Zong Bu's calm, rhythmic voice cut through the air.

He stood behind a long wooden table set up near the central fountain, stacks of crisp paper forms and inkwells neatly arranged before him.

Beside him, the rest of the Single Mingle Gang was working with surprisingly high efficiency. Sheng Lu was heaving heavy wooden crates of folded uniforms onto the tables without a single complaint, while Xiao Rui, for once setting his broom aside, was rapidly stamping approval seals onto completed forms with absolute focus.

"Name, age, kingdom," Xiao Rui barked lightly, his hand a blur as he pressed the red iron seal of the Disciplinary Hall onto a parchment. "Next! Don't bunch up, keep the line straight! You made it up the mountain, don't pass out on the desk!"

The new arrivals—noble scions with torn silk robes standing side-by-side with dirt-streaked rogue cultivators—lined up in orderly, quiet rows. They took the wooden brushes, dipped them in black ink, and signed their names, ages, and home territories onto the paper forms.

As each paper was stamped, a disciple handed them a neatly folded set of white-and-orange Sanatan robes and a heavy, metallic 9-Star Weight Bracelet.

No special titles. No VIP treatment. Every single one of them entered the mountain under the exact same status: Outer Disciple.

Once registered, the weary recruits were guided toward the residential sector by Disciplinary Hall members. The sprawling Male and Female Disciples' Quarters opened up to receive them—clean, spacious jade structures lined with comfortable quarters, fresh water, and quiet courtyards.

For the rest of the evening, the new members were given time to bathe, change out of their ruined rags into the crisp white-and-orange uniforms, and recover their drained spiritual energy. Warm, invigorating spirit-rice and herbal broths prepared by the kitchen staff were distributed throughout the dining halls, washing away the lingering agony of the 20x gravity climb.

The next morning, the high-altitude breeze blew crisp and clear over Sanatan Mountain.

The vast central training grounds were packed to capacity. Exactly 6,420 recruits out of the initial forty-two thousand applicants had successfully crested the peak and signed their forms. Dressed in pristine white-and-orange Sanatan robes, the thousands of new Outer Disciples stood alongside the existing members in dense, perfectly aligned ranks, their eyes fixed on the elevated terrace of the Main Hall.

Elder Wu stepped to the front of the platform, his long grey robes fluttering in the wind, his hands folded neatly behind his back.

He looked down at the massive, disciplined sea of white and orange, then turned slightly toward the grand entrance of the Main Hall.

"Welcome, disciples of the Sanatan Flame Sect!" Elder Wu's clear, resonant voice echoed effortlessly across the entire plaza. "Stand firm and greet your Sect Master!"

The heavy wooden doors of the Main Hall swung open.

A sudden, gentle breeze swept over the peak, carrying a shower of radiant, golden-orange lotus petals that drifted down from the sky in elegant, swirling spirals. Sunlight caught the falling petals midair, bathing the terrace in a warm, majestic glow.

Shaurya stepped out from the hall.

He wore his signature tailor-made black-and-gold coat, the dark fabric shifting with subtle, shimmering dragon patterns as he walked. Golden chains clinked softly near his waist, and his dark hair moved casually in the mountain wind. He walked with an effortless, boundless aura—arms resting comfortably in his pockets, carrying the absolute confidence of a man who ruled the heavens.

Behind him, Xiao Rui and Sheng Lu were subtly sweeping the stray petals off the stairs with deadpan expressions, keeping the path clear for his dramatic walk.

Down in the plaza, six thousand new disciples gasped softly, their eyes widening at the sheer, undeniable presence of the man standing at the apex of the mountain.

Shaurya stopped at the very edge of the terrace overhang. He looked down at the six thousand four hundred and twenty disciples.

Inwardly, he felt a small flicker of disappointment—over thirty-five thousand people had failed the climb. But as his golden eyes swept over the massive crowd, the sheer scale of thousands of unified members standing beneath his banner quickly replaced the feeling.

The sect had officially grown from hundreds to thousands.

A confident, sharp grin broke across Shaurya's face.

"Look around you," Shaurya's voice resonated across the plaza, clean, unhurried, and carrying a smooth power that held the entire mountain in complete stillness. "Six thousand four hundred and twenty of you made it to the top. Every single person standing on this jade entered today as an Outer Disciple of the Sanatan Flame Sect. Your past, your noble titles, your family names, and whatever trash sects rejected you before today... none of it exists on this mountain."

In the front rows, Lin Xiaobao held his left hand firmly over the hilt of his wooden sword, his jaw set as he stared up at Shaurya. Nearby, Su Qing smoothed the wide sleeves of her uniform, her spatial eyes observing the grand structure, while Meng Huo stood like an unshakeable iron pillar.

Shaurya folded his arms over his chest, his golden eyes sweeping across every row.

"You have three months," Shaurya announced, his tone sharpening with quiet excitement. "In three months, the Sanatan Flame Sect will hold its first official Intra-Sect Tournament. This trial will formally decide who rises to the Inner Disciple ranks, who commands higher resources, and who stays below."

He gestured casually over his shoulder toward the Core Disciples standing behind him—Wang Tian, Luo Chen, Lu Fang, and the others, standing like an unyielding wall of absolute power.

"The Core Disciples behind me were chosen directly by me. They will not participate in this tournament—they are the standard you aim for. The rest of you... new and old... train, bleed, and use every single second you have. Show me what you can become!"

A silence hung over the plaza for a single heartbeat.

Then, a thundering, earth-shaking roar erupted from the thousands of disciples below. Fists slammed against chests in unison, the collective shout of over six thousand Sanatan members shaking the very clouds above the peak.

Wang Tian leaned back against his pillar, his smirk widening as he watched the roaring crowd below. "Three months, huh? Let's see how many of these wild dogs actually make it to the ring."

Luo Chen's thumb flicked his sword hilt once, his cold gaze resting on the front ranks. "If even one of them reaches our level, it won't be a waste of time."

High above on the terrace, Shaurya turned his gaze toward the western horizon.

The mountain wind whipped his black-and-gold coat, and beneath the calm, sharp grin on his face, his mind calculated the vast regional recruitment now complete, and the distant storms waiting across the continent.

The foundation was set. The mountain was full.

Now, the world would watch them rise.

To Be Continued...