Alex arrived at the foot of a nearly 5-kilometer-tall mountain. It was one of the smaller mountains in the surrounding mountain range.

There was a small open archway at the foot of the mountain, that made way to a wide stairway that seemed to go directly to the top of the mountain.

Alex couldn’t even count how many stairs there had to be here. 20 thousand? Considering that the slope was easily 7 kilometers long, and every 3 steps took a full meter of length, there was a long way to go to the top.

Alex had arrived here via a teleportation formation, along with 15 other candidates who had passed the preliminary test to enter the Blue Silk sect. The white-haired old man who had taken their test 2 weeks back was the one that had brought him here.

The mountain they were standing in front of belonged to the Blue Silk sect, but it was not the one where the headquarters of the sect was located.

That was further south. This mountain was called the First Mountain, and it was the very first thing a person had to climb to try and become a disciple of the sect.

They were not the only ones gathered here. There were over 300 people in total gathered at the foot of the mountain, brought by many other Divine realm elders of the sect who had taken their preliminary exams.

There were about 20 different locations throughout the Blue Silk continent where the tests were taken and from them, only these 300 people were selected.

And Alex had somehow managed to become one of the 300. 300 out of hundreds of Billions of people.

Alex looked around, realizing that a lot of the people who had come were not as strong as he would’ve thought they would be. Most of them were in the Immortal Origin realm or the Immortal Transcendent realm.

Very few were in the Immortal Spirit realm. Those that were had to be younger in age than their colleagues or had something special about them that the Blue Silk sect would afford to accept and still make them a successful cultivator.

Alex tried searching for Immortal Ascendant cultivators and saw only 8 other than him. All but one of them were at least Immortal Ascendant 5th realm or higher. The last one was a young man in the 3rd realm.

He wasn’t as strong as the others, but he was still stronger than Alex as far as cultivation base went.

He was truly the only one with the lowest cultivation base among the entire group of candidates.

Heads turned as everyone sensed someone approaching. The person was freely letting their aura be felt, making every single person feel fear in their heart at the strength of this person.

The one who arrived was in the Divine realm, that much was certain. But sensing the aura, many began realizing that they may be stronger than most of the other Divine realm cultivators they were surrounded by.

An elderly woman landed before everyone, her face full of wrinkles, but her hair was silky black which could make a young woman jealous. She wore a deep blue robe made of blue silk grass and held herself with authority even before the other divine realm cultivators.

The many judges that had come alone bowed toward the woman, and the rest of the people quickly followed.

The woman nodded slightly and began looking through the group of individuals. Her eyes landed on the young man with the Immortal Ascendant 3rd realm cultivation base and a small look of surprise flashed through her that no one managed to see.

When that same eye did land on Alex, her surprise was big enough that people recognized it.

“Well, it seems we have a diverse group of participants for this year’s entrance test,” the woman said. “This should be fun.”

The woman turned toward the judges and said, “Your work is done here. You may return to your tasks.”

“Yes, Elder Shang!” the many responded and walked away from the place.

Now, only the many participants and the lone elder Shang remained in front of the tall mountain.

The old woman reached into her Soul Space and took out something from inside of it. Everyone looked at what it was and noticed that it was an hourglass of some sort.

The woman turned the hourglass around and placed it on the ground.

“This is an hourglass that will empty in exactly a day,” she said. “Your tests will take place tomorrow. If you are not at the peak of the mountain by the time this hourglass is empty, you will be disqualified from taking the entrance test. Do not be late.”

The woman then turned around and flew back to the mountain.

Many of the people that had come were stunned by how quickly the woman had left. And the test was tomorrow? Why had they come today then?

Alex wondered what was going on here. Something didn’t feel right.

Just as he thought that he saw a small group of people make a run for it. They ran through the archway and up the stairs to the top of the mountain.

‘Why are they running?’ Alex wondered for just a moment before a possibility struck his mind. Without thinking, he ran as well, and so did many of the others.

The ones that had run first had to be people who were taking the test again. They knew what was going on and were trying to be the ones that accomplished it.

Had the test already begun? Was there a reward for the person who arrived at the peak first? Many possibilities ran across Alex’s mind. However, none of what he thought could have possibly prepared him for what happened next.

Someone slammed onto the ground before him, falling from the sky where they had tried to fly up the mountain. They slowly got up, grunting in pain.

Alex looked up and realized that there had to be some sort of aura that stopped one from flying here. The stairs were meant to be climbed one step at a time.

As he took those steps, a slight feeling of heaviness settled onto him. The weight that was added to his steps was negligible at best at the moment, but he had also taken no more than 10 steps.

He looked up the mountain at the 20 thousand steps that waited for him. He then looked at the people who were beginning to slow down at the steps up ahead of him.

‘So this is a test,’ Alex realized. They were testing their capability to walk through the stairs while carrying an imaginary weight on their back.

Alex took a few more steps and just as he expected, the weight became heavier. Still, it was nowhere close to being able to stop him.

Everyone was fine for now, with the weight they felt being nothing to them. The ones with higher cultivation base obviously had it easier for now, but Alex wondered if it would be the same very soon.

After all, the sect was testing their potential and not their cultivation base.