Alex got off the boat along with the other hundred disciples and grouped up next to the many girls.

The other disciples from the various sects looked at him, mostly with envy, but some understood the situation and pitied him.

After all, it was not like he could steal the hearts of those that were frozen.

-.ᴄᴏm To his surprise, Alex felt about 20 different spiritual senses pass through him.

From what he could sense, they belonged to disciples of the Frozen Heart sect and the Nether Poison sect that were next to him.

Alex spread his own spiritual sense out and noticed many more that simply couldn’t reach up to him.

Now that he was sensing them, he realized that every 5th person in the group had a spiritual sense.

‘Hmm, is Spirit Cleansing Lily that prevalent in the Northern Continent?’ he thought. Given that even the Luminance Empire had a few, he wouldn’t doubt that to be true.

He saw the many disciples with his senses, but not many stood out to him. So, he took the senses back and let Whisker look around the land for him.

The Dao mountain stood to their right about a kilometer away, and even this far, Alex could see faint hints of a gate being there.

‘Right, where are the nearly 2000 different Saint realm experts? Are they not here yet?’ Alex wondered.

“Listen up!” one of the elders wearing a purple and white robe started speaking.

“We will begin the selection process. For you that are doing this for the first time, make sure to listen properly. The process is simple.”

“We have 7 different stages set up for you to fight in. Each turn, one of you will go up there on your own and start fighting. If you can fight 5 different people in a row without being defeated or stand on the stage for 5 whole minutes without any challengers, you will be eligible to enter the Dao mountain.”

“However, if you lose a single time, you will not get a second chance, so choose wisely,” the elder said.

He brought out a stack of paper and suddenly threw it toward everyone. The paper spread out systematically into 5 groups and gently floated down onto the disciples that were bunched up.

“Spread that amongst yourself however you like,” the elder said and disciples started spreading the paper.

Alex got one and it was numbered 216. There was nothing else written on it.

“Anyone wants to be the first to start?” the elder asked.

A few hands rose up and the elder picked 7 disciples based on whose hands went up first.

They were all sent up to one of the stages each with an elder already waiting there.

“You may start challenging whoever you want,” the elder said and began the competition.

Alex stood by the side and tried to make sense of the rules. He looked at the 7 people on the stage and thought, ‘I need to challenge them and beat 4 successive people to pass?’

He realized that one couldn’t just challenge just anyone as losing even once was bad for you.

‘Who should I challenge then?’ Alex looked towards the 7 disciples who were already starting to fight someone else.

Alex couldn’t hear the sound, but he could see the space distort around each of the fighter’s clashes.

They were all True Emperor 9th realm from what he could see that was a shocking sight to imagine.

There was one other thing that surprised Alex here, that he hadn’t expected to see at all. Some of the disciples of these sects were old people.

Unlike back in Western Continent where only disciples under a certain age were allowed to participate in anything, here however they didn’t seem to care about age.

Anyone that was capable could take part.

Alex wondered how old some of these people were, and was certain that some of them were surely in their hundreds.

He checked to see how challenging worked exactly. From what he could see, a group of disciples had lined up to fight the person on the stage.

Alex decided to line up as well.

Each of the 7 stages had a different line, so Alex randomly chose one to line up. The line he was on had about 20 different people already, while the rest were either in the other lines or still contemplating which one to choose.

On one of the stages, Alex noticed that the battle was over, and the challenger had won, sending the previous victor out of the stage with a sad look on her face.

The new victor seemed to be someone of power, and that seemed to have deterred a few people that stayed in the line.

As such, a few of them left the line. They either went to the back of the line to wait for someone else to deal with that person or simply joined another line elsewhere.

Alex noticed that the match on his own stage had ended, and about 7 people from the front of the line moved away and they didn’t want to fight the person that stood on the stage.

Suddenly, Alex went from being the 21st person in the line to the 14th.

The middle-aged man on the stage defeated 2 more people with his excellent sword skill, deterring a few other people to move away.

Despite having fought 3 battles, the middle-aged-looking man was doing quite great. He didn’t seem tired at all.

A few more people were deterred and Alex ended up in the 4th position on the line, as one girl went up the stage to fight a man.

Alex watched the fight from up close and noticed the fight more clearly. The man was using Sword Qi, on top of just being a very good fighter, and was winning the fights rather easily.

On top of that, he seemed to be stronger than the others in general. His True Emperor 9th realm Qi was stronger than the other people’s.

The man enjoyed his fight thoroughly, to the point that his opponent was humiliated. Only then did he finally end it.

The loser left the stage with a sad face after realizing that she had lost the opportunity to enter the mountain.

The old man raised his hands in victory and beckoned the next fighter, as this 5th match of his would be what would grant him entry to the Dao mountain.

Unfortunately for him, the 3 disciples in front of Alex left the line after realizing they would lose, and Alex was now at the front and the next in line for battle.

Alex handed over his paper to the elder in front of him and walked up to the stage. As soon as he did, he could finally use his spiritual sense to view everything around him.

Now that he didn’t need Whisker at all, he sent him back.

“Get ready,” the elder told the two of them.

The old man saw Alex and his cultivation base, and couldn’t be any happier to see that his final hurdle was someone that wasn’t even at the peak of the True realm yet.

“Hahaha! Come,” he shouted as he readied his sparkling sword.

Alex brought out his Saint whip to fight against that.

The elder noticed that they were both ready and started the fight.

The man instantly sent out a slash as Alex, filled with both Saint Qi and Sword Qi.

Alex swung his whip and accurately hit the slash, destroying it. He then pulled back the whip and sent his Qi through it as he swung it again.

The man swung his Saint ranked sword at the Whip to block it, but to his surprise, the whip hit very hard. Flame exploded from the tip, sending the man’s sword backward.

His arms pained from the rebound he suffered from his own sword, and his eyes went wide.

“How?” he couldn’t help but ask.

Alex sent his whip flying again but hit nothing. This time, instead of facing the attack directly, the man used his movement technique and dodged to come near Alex.

He pulled his sword up and slashed down at Alex. Even as he did, the sword grew nearly 3 times the normal amount, becoming a massive piece of metal that fell onto Alex.

Alex jumped up suddenly and kicked the incoming sword on its side so hard that the sword went flying sideways along with its holder.

The man managed to stop himself in time before he was out of bounds, but Alex was already next to him.

He swung his whip from up close and the whip moved forward while building up fire along the way.

The man feared for his life and sent out a slash toward Alex. However, the whip was already too close, so even as the whip and the slash clashed together, the man felt the force of the clash from close range.

He was sent flying even further and slammed against the barrier that was the boundary for this battle.

The man tried to stand up quickly and fight back, but when the elder appeared before him to stop him, he realized what had happened.

“I… lost?” the man asked, and the elder nodded.

A complicated look appeared in the man’s eyes. He was so close to winning, and yet…

He shook his head in frustration and walked away.

Alex went back to the middle of the stage, barely feeling anything for his opponent, and waited for the next person to challenge him.