Chapter 169: Thirty Thousand Heaven-Ascending Ladder

In response to Sylas Sawyer’s question, Perry Yates didn’t keep him in suspense. Although she didn’t take out the card itself, she did provide a document with information about it.

After taking the document, Sylas Sawyer quickly read every word. As he did, his eyes grew wider and wider.

After he finished reading everything, Sylas Sawyer was stunned for a long time. He then slowly raised his head, looked at Perry Yates, and asked, "Boss, is this for real? Can this card truly grant any wish?"

"Theoretically, yes," Perry Yates said after a moment of thought.

"Theoretically?" Sylas Sawyer looked at Perry Yates, his expression full of confusion.

Seeing his expression, Perry Yates explained, "The card can grant one wish to whoever reaches the summit. So, theoretically, yes. However, if the wish is too outrageous, some unpredictable things might happen in the process of fulfilling it.

Also, as the card’s owner, any wish related to me is invalid. Or rather, it will only take effect with my permission. That’s the gist of it. So you’d better screen anyone you let climb the Heavenly Ascension Ladder. Don’t just send anyone up there, lest you cause an irreversible incident."

This was also the reason why Perry Yates chose to lease this card to the Survival Game Administration.

"But you shouldn’t have to worry too much. After all, not just anyone can climb thirty thousand steps. It requires incredible perseverance, a strong will, and a bit of luck."

After receiving a definitive answer from Perry Yates, Sylas Sawyer immediately relayed the news back to the Survival Game Administration.

Upon hearing that a wish-granting card had surfaced, the Survival Game Administration appeared before Perry Yates in less than ten minutes, people and contract in tow.

Perry Yates, for her part, had already prepared a lease agreement.

The Survival Game Administration was extremely generous this time, leasing it for ten years and paying the full amount upfront.

"So decisive. Did you guys strike it rich recently?" Perry Yates teased with a smile.

The person responsible for the signing simply smiled without a word, offering no denial. It seemed Perry had guessed correctly.

What Perry Yates didn’t know was that in the few days she had been in the game, Drakonia had used the five-star items leased from her to deal a heavy blow to other nations, making a fortune off them in the process.

They were now wealthier than ever before.

Although their card reserves had shrunk considerably after paying for the ten-year lease, the price was entirely worth it.

After all, this was a card that could grant wishes.

Once the time was right, all they had to do was leak a bit of information. Other countries would come flocking like sharks to blood. At that point, they could easily earn back a hundred, even a thousand times the value of the cards they had paid today.

For them, this deal was a surefire win.

After signing the contract, Perry Yates said, "Oh, by the way, to use this card, it’s best to find a mountain to act as its host. A small hill will do, but a proper mountain is best."

Upon hearing this, the representative nodded solemnly. "Don’t worry, Boss. We’ll be sure to take good care of this card."

Originally, Perry Yates thought they wouldn’t announce the news so quickly after they left. But by the third day, news about the Thirty Thousand Heaven-Ascending Ladder was already everywhere. The trending topics list was completely filled with news about it.

#TheGreatestCard, #TheMostPowerfulFiveStarCard, and so on.

The moment Perry Yates opened her phone, she was bombarded by all kinds of notifications.

’They actually chose Mount Gralath as the card’s host.’

Upon seeing the news, Perry Yates was both shocked and unsurprised. After all, it was the foremost of the Five Pinnacles.

However, at this time, the authorities had only released the news. They had not yet opened Mount Gralath—now the Thirty Thousand Heaven-Ascending Ladder—to the public.

The entire mountain was now heavily guarded; not even a fly could get near.

But even though no one could get close, the authorities had set up a live stream dedicated to broadcasting people climbing the Heavenly Ascension Ladder.

There were more than ten such live stream channels in total.

Perry Yates clicked into one of the streams and saw that the viewer count had already broken a hundred million. The flood of comments scrolling across the screen was so dense it completely obscured the video.

So, Perry Yates disabled the comment overlay. Only then could she see a person struggling to ascend a flight of bluestone steps.

The surroundings were bare—a vast, white emptiness. They were just ordinary steps, yet every move the climber made seemed agonizingly difficult. Beads of sweat dripped from their pale face, their eyes were vacant, and their body trembled slightly. It looked as if they were trapped in an Illusion Realm.

The stream had started twelve hours ago. As the card’s owner, Perry Yates only needed to sense it for a moment to know that the person on the stream was currently around the one-hundredth step.

For the first hundred steps of the Heavenly Ascension Ladder, only a Gravity Array was active. You could pass this stage as long as you could withstand the crushing Gravity.

After the hundredth step, the climbers were met with the Illusion Array. The array forced a person to see their deepest fears. Only by conquering those fears could one pass and proceed to the two-hundredth step.

Judging by the person’s expression on the stream, conquering one’s inner fears was no simple task. And this was just the obstacle at the hundredth step. There were still tens of thousands of steps left to go.

’Sigh... you poor soul. Your real suffering is still to come.’

Perry considered the trials awaiting on the levels to come and offered a moment of silence for those currently climbing the Heavenly Ascension Ladder.

’Climbing the Heavenly Ascension Ladder wasn’t just a matter of climbing stairs. Though the challenges weren’t real, they were more than enough to leave significant psychological scars on anyone not mentally strong enough to handle them.’

After closing the live stream, Perry Yates turned to other matters.

She first went to the fifth floor to handle today’s orders, and then she checked on the Card Furnace.

At this moment, the Card Furnace had finished its work. Perry Yates looked at the single card lying quietly inside and sighed.

’It failed.’

Although Perry Yates had long anticipated this result, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed when she actually saw it.

’Perhaps it’s because things have always gone so smoothly for me that a single failure feels so disappointing.’

Fortunately, Perry was only disappointed for a moment before she pulled herself together. ’It’s just one failure,’ she thought. ’If I try a few more times, I’m bound to succeed eventually.’

With this thought in mind, Perry Yates picked up the card from the Card Furnace to inspect it.