Chapter 775: The Powerful Path to Heaven (I)

On the Path to Heaven, at a point more than three thousand six hundred meters up. After nearly three months, Lin Zheyu had finally climbed this far. It was much farther than he had originally expected to reach.

The formation shattered like a bubble, dissolving into a sky full of sparkling spirit power. Unlike in the first-tier formation region, however, these motes of spirit power did not dissipate into the air. Instead, they drifted toward Lin Zheyu. The starlight formed from the shattered formation seeped into his body.

Immediately afterward, a profound and indescribable realization washed over him. Insights into the mysteries of the Formation Dao contained within the formation he had just broken welled up from deep within his heart like a bubbling spring. This wondrous sensation vanished almost as soon as it appeared, lasting for less than two breaths. Yet that was enough for Lin Zheyu to comprehend the formation and grasp all of its mysteries fully.

"Mm, what a marvelous feeling... No wonder the sisters Pan Xinyu and Pan Xinwen come to take part in the Path to Heaven trial at Forbidden Mountain almost every time the Ascension Assembly is held. If it were me, I'd come too," Lin Zheyu murmured in admiration.

Only by experiencing it firsthand could one truly appreciate how extraordinary Forbidden Mountain was and understand just how terrifying its master must be. Back in the first-tier formation region, breaking a formation had not produced any similar starlight containing formation insights. Presumably, first-tier formations were merely the most basic ordinary formations, so there was no need for such a reward.

Once he entered the second-tier formation region, however, every formation he broke would shatter into mysterious starlight that could help cultivators comprehend the formation. This was the true reason so many Formation Dao cultivators flocked to the Path to Heaven.

"This place is practically paradise for me," Lin Zheyu could not help exclaiming.

With his spiritual Heavenly Eye, seeing through the mysteries contained within a formation and breaking it was almost effortless. Normally, even after seeing through a formation, identifying its flaws, and finding a way to break it, there would still be quite some distance left before one could truly master the formation. The formation starlight released after its destruction greatly shortened that process.

Combined with the formation mysteries Lin Zheyu perceived through his spiritual Heavenly Eye, this meant that almost every time he broke a formation, he could completely master it after absorbing the insights contained within the starlight.

Thus, Lin Zheyu truly felt that this place was a paradise for cultivating the Formation Dao. All he had to do was break a formation, and he would receive wondrous starlight containing insights into it. It was simply marvelous.

Even now, Lin Zheyu had only climbed to around three thousand six hundred meters. This was purely because only Formation Dao methods could be used while breaking the formations. Even though he, as a martial artist, could condense true origin, using it to form restriction runes and arrange them into formations was still extremely inconvenient. Even so, Forbidden Mountain remained a treasured land for him to study and comprehend formations.

Lin Zheyu breathed out softly, rested for a moment, then threw himself back into breaking formations. "There are still two days left. I should be able to break a few more formations. Let's continue..."

The Path to Heaven was open for only a limited period, a mere three months. It really was far too short.

***

Similar to Lin Zheyu, the other cultivators on the Path to Heaven displayed all manner of expressions. Some were flushed with success, some looked deeply disappointed, while others appeared utterly dejected. Most of those wearing dejected expressions were cultivators who had reached beyond the four thousand-meter mark.

In three months, they had managed to break only a handful of formations. Some had not even managed to break a single one. The farther one progressed along the Path to Heaven, the greater the difficulty became, and both the formations encountered and the restriction runes that composed them grew increasingly complex.

A middle-aged man shook his head dejectedly and gave up on studying the formation before him. "Sigh, I only managed to break two formations this time. I feel like my attainment in the Formation Dao is nearly at its limit."

He had already spent an entire month studying this formation and still had no idea how to proceed. There was no hope of breaking it in the remaining two days, so he decided to give up.

The middle-aged man let out a soft breath and finally had the leisure to observe the other cultivators on the Path to Heaven. The Path to Heaven was a miraculous trial road. Although all the cultivators who stepped onto it appeared to be traveling along the same path, they did not actually occupy the same space and time.

The Path to Heaven climbed by each cultivator existed independently of the others. This ensured that a formation broken by a cultivator farther ahead would still appear for those following behind.

At the same time, when cultivators on the Path to Heaven passed through one another and crossed paths, neither could sense the other's presence. Only after stopping and deliberately looking at the other cultivators on the Path to Heaven could they see where each person was located.

Even then, they could see nothing more than the cultivator's position. Only the officials of the Directorate of Celestial Observation who possessed access privileges to Forbidden Mountain could observe how each cultivator was actually performing on the Path to Heaven.

Seeing his old friend's progress, the middle-aged cultivator burst out laughing, his mood improving considerably. "Hahaha, looks like that old bastard Ye Zhou hasn't broken many formations either. He's still behind me."

Despite calling himself an immortal cultivator, the baser side of human nature was on full display in him. The middle-aged cultivator still could not escape that all-too-human mentality; he did not want his friend to suffer, but neither did he want to see his friend doing better than him.

The middle-aged cultivator continued scanning the other cultivators on the Path to Heaven when he spotted Lin Zheyu, his face filled with astonishment.

"Eh? A martial artist actually climbed all the way to three thousand and six hundred meters. Impressive! To reach the mid-second-tier Formation Dao region with the body of a martial cultivator! Remarkable, truly remarkable..."

The martial artists of the Wei Family followed the path of the Divine Martial Guard and would not come to climb the Path to Heaven.

As for the other sects and factions, few encouraged martial cultivation. Even if they had martial artists among their ranks, those people would usually switch to cultivating the Immortal Dao after advancing to the Martial Innate realm.

Thus, any martial artist who appeared here was most likely from the Martial Alliance. As far as the middle-aged cultivator knew, only a handful of martial artists in the Martial Alliance possessed strength beyond the peak of the Shackles realm.

Clearly, the cultivator below was at the Shackles realm level. For a martial artist at the Shackles realm to climb to three thousand and six hundred meters with nothing but a martial artist's body was proof of truly astonishing aptitude. Quite a few cultivators, like the middle-aged man, had noticed Lin Zheyu.

With the Path to Heaven nearing its closing time, many cultivators who felt they had no hope of breaking the next formation simply gave up and descended from the Path to Heaven.

At the foot of Forbidden Mountain, cultivators who had failed the trial, cultivators who had brought their juniors along, and others who had simply come to watch the excitement gathered together. The place was quite lively. None of them were in any hurry to leave. They wanted to see which talented cultivators would catch the Directorate of Celestial Observation's eye.

A young cultivator who had just come down from the Path to Heaven sucked in a sharp breath and exclaimed. "Look! A martial artist actually climbed more than three thousand meters, and he's so young too!"

While he had been on the Path to Heaven, he had paid no attention to the cultivators behind him, focusing only on those ahead. As a result, he had never noticed the anomaly that was Lin Zheyu.

A female cultivator dressed in pale yellow walked over to the young cultivator and spoke with a trace of ruefulness. "Senior Brother, you only just noticed him? I saw him while I was still on the Path to Heaven. That fellow is an absolute freak. At first, he was behind me, crawling upward as slowly as a snail. Then before I knew it, he'd overtaken me. Everyone else slows down the farther they go, yet this fellow is the opposite. He's actually climbing faster and faster!"

The cultivator world of Great Wei was filled with its own hierarchy of contempt. Cultivators from major sects looked down on those from minor sects, while cultivators from great esteemed families looked down on those from ordinary clans. Yet they all had one thing in common: they looked down on the crude martial brutes who practiced martial cultivation.

And now, she had actually been surpassed by one of those crude martial brutes, no less in the Formation Dao she took the greatest pride in. Worse still, he had overtaken her while burdened by the disadvantages of a martial artist's body. The woman's feelings were exceedingly complicated.