With four hundred arrows flying towards me… I must have shocked them with my badass skills.

Well, considering that even the kids across the way stared at me with open mouths and bulging eyes, I must have shocked everyone. Sometimes I even shocked myself.

Fuck, with what I was facing I better shock myself.

These arrows came from all directions and weren’t shot at the same time. But what was really tricky about them was that they weren’t aiming at simple areas. For example, some of the arrows coming from behind me were aimed toward a space many steps in front of me. An arrow that had originated from a place to my right was aimed at where my head would be if I kept going at the same speed. And those were just two examples.

I had 400 of these fuckers coming toward me.

This meant that I needed to extrapolate where all these arrows would land and at what time — then figure out which arrows to obliterate in order to create a doable escape.

With my experience, this took a fraction of a second.

Not to disappoint my watching elders, I used Hundred Cuts again. This time I aimed for the arrows behind me and to the right.

When reduced to only the second layer of Qi Condensation, Hundred Cuts wasn’t very powerful. Each slice had enough energy to break one of these strong arrows and hinder its momentum.

It was best used against enemies that were all in a certain direction. With all these tricky arrows? Well, using it this time wastefully destroyed only a few dozen.

I used Hundred Cuts again to my left.

The black cloud thinned. I’d successfully hit the arrows I’d planned to.

With a grin, I stepped off the rope.

Then I hooked my free arm around it. It dipped with my weight taking me out of the way of the first few arrows. Then I used a significant portion of my Qi to strengthen my legs, briefly wrapped my feet around the rope and pushed myself backward. I’d used so much strength that I probably looked like a kite with its string cut... only one that was sliding down a rope for some reason. Whatever.

The mass of arrows collided above and in front of me. One even came dangerously close to my hair bun.

If I hadn’t lowered myself to this point I would have been stabbed by at least a dozen arrows already.

At this point, debris rained down from the arrows that smashed against each other. Just as I’d calculated, most of it missed me. Of course, not all arrows became debris. Some passed each other, flying back into the fog and a few more rebounded in different directions.

From where I hugged the rope a few pieces of debris and a couple of wobbly arrows that lost most of their momentum rushed towards me. I used my sword like a fly swatter and batted them away from me.

Once the debris settled, leaving the rope in front of me littered with arrows and shards of wood, I swung back onto the top of the thick rope and stood up.

Very calmly, I made my way up the rope once again. I even used my sword to clear away the wood shards to give myself a path of retreat in case whoever or whatever controlling this test decided to be a little ass.

There were still about 30 arrows left, after all. I’d been counting.

As if thinking about it summoned it, one appeared in the fog.

It hovered in mid-air exactly the way an arrow shouldn’t — almost as if it was waiting for something.

Then another showed up, and another until all of the remaining arrows were just hovering innocuously in the clouds.

Those arrows merged into one, becoming smaller and thinner. It turned, tracking me for a second before shooting forward at a speed that my little Qi Condensation body would not be able to dodge. Nor did I have enough speed to bring my sword up and behind me to block it.

Still, that didn’t mean I couldn’t do anything. I threw myself down and forward. My weak-ass talisman blocked a significant portion of the arrow’s energy. But it wasn’t enough.

Pain shot into the back of my shoulder and weighed me down. I coughed up a mouthful of blood, just before I landed on the rope. I tightly hugged it with my good arm to prevent myself from falling off.

Fuck. The arrow was still stuck in my shoulder.

If, before I started this trial, I hadn’t added that protective talisman — weak as it was — it would have dug a deep hole in my back.

Frankly, this injury was light. I’d had deadlier wounds from friendly sparring sessions.

But I still had to wonder, was someone here trying to kill me, or were they just too shocked at how awesome I was and decided to test me further? Well, I doubted the latter.

Regardless, someone fucking owed me an explanation. I was not about to let this shit go.

Very slowly, I pushed myself up with my good side and forced myself to walk. Huh, body cultivation made moving after taking injuries far easier than I realized.

I looked up at the bridge’s end. Little Spring waited for me looking like he was about to break some rules and walk over to me. I waved him back.

Instead of following my vague order, his face hardened and he waited right at the end of the rope.

I sighed.

This kid...

Several other people crowded around including the young master and McTraitorFace.

I grimaced but kept walking toward my little brother.

He must have expected me to collapse into his arms or something because, when I made it to the end, he held out his hands like he was ready to catch me. I chuckled and patted his head. I also pushed his shoulder and guided him to move back.

The kid scowled up at me as I stepped off the bridge.

“Be good and watch my back while I take care of this injury.”

“At least let me help you! You just... After making it through all that!”

“I know, I know. Then come and help your older sister with this arrow.”

I took a few steps forward and immediately sat on the dirty grassy ground. Right now my need to get this arrow out outweighed my desire to stay clean. I mean, it wasn’t like this world had the concept of sanitized operating rooms... At least not at this point. I would introduce that later if only for my own sake.

“Okay, what you’re going to want to do with a puncture wound like this is have the patient wrap the arrow in their spiritual energy. If they are unable to for some reason, such as unconsciousness or too much pain, then wrap it in your own. Keep in mind that you need to control your energy so it doesn’t enter the patient. Remember, different energies war with each other. The last thing your patient needs is to deal with spiritual energy poisoning on top of being wounded.”

Little Spring swallowed and nodded. I enveloped the arrow with my own energy. This would make it so it could easily slide out of my body without leaving any bits and pieces inside.

“Okay. Now you’ll want to hand them a medicinal pill, or have them take their own if they have it.” I brought out one of my ‘Lin’s Super Awesome Repair Dan’ and put it in my mouth. It melted on contact with my tongue. Healing energy started to run through me. “Now! Pull it out!”

A warm little hand touched my shoulder. A pulling sensation followed by pain shot through me. The extreme healing energy of the pill washed over my wounds and left me without a scar.

I loved this pill.

I just needed to get back to Fairy Lake to take care of the leftover impurities and I’d be all good. Too bad we were still waiting for his damn space to be upgraded!

***

Fairy Far Reaching Feather flew down from the sky and landed in front of us. She looked toward me, wary.

Well, yeah. She should fucking be wary of me! I had a lot of complaints.

Also, whoever set up this test wasn’t expecting anyone to make it through all those arrows. By doing so I had shown everyone that I was an epic badass — beyond anything they’d ever seen. So, it was doubly logical to treat me with wariness.

Now they had to reward me with a massive 878 contribution points. I bet the sect’s finance department elder (who had to fork these out) was coughing up blood right now.

With a grin, I practically yelled, “Senior, I told you, 888 is a lucky number.”

She coughed and turned her head as if she didn’t know me. Whatever.

“Congratulations! Everyone here has passed the second trial! For those who defeated more than ten arrows, here are your contribution points.” She elegantly waved her sleeve towards the crowd. Jade tokens flew to a few prospective disciples.

No token came near to me.

“Take them and use them wisely. You have all done well!”

She turned to me. “Disciple Lin... That display just now was the most impressive thing I’d ever seen from a disciple in Qi Condensation. At first I believed that you wouldn’t last beyond a few dozen arrows — but you impressively overcame each and every arrow shot at you... aside from that last one.”

“Considering how irrationally strong they were, I can understand how you and the other seniors watching this test would believe that.”

Her face froze. “I’m not sure that I understand.”

“Senior, the arrows used against me may have flown at the same speed as everyone else’s but they were much stronger. I think someone may be breaking the rules Senior Verdant Bamboo and I set for our bet.”

Far Reaching Feather stared down at me like I’d insulted her family. “I’m not sure how that could be possible. This test was controlled by a spirit. If it raised the difficulty of your testing arrows, then that can only mean that it believed you could handle it.”

“You’re saying, even with my reduced cultivation and even with me facing such a high number of arrows... the spirit still thought I was so skillful that it had no other choice than to shoot more powerful arrows at me?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Junior Lin. You survived 888 of them with barely a scratch.”

Bitch. Who the fuck was she? Fairy Verdant Bamboo’s illegitimate daughter? Fuck, whatever.

In much the same way laws didn’t mean much if you were rich enough to break them, people rich in cultivation broke the rules as they wanted. I wasn’t going to win the bet by calling foul without significant evidence.

Of course, I went into this knowing that.

It also didn’t help that I was so good, I made things look easy.

With a nod, I said, “I did survive, Senior.”

She smiled gently at me then handed me a gold token. “This has 888 contribution points. Ten more than you were expecting just to round things out. At this point, as long as you survive, I’m certain that you’ll be able to enter the sect as a disciple to one of the Peak Masters. When that happens, you’ll find that this can help smooth things over. Just do yourself a favor and don’t be so arrogant to your elders. You’re still only in Qi Condensation. You have a long way to go.”

Fucker. As If I didn’t know that! I was once an Immortal Ascension realm cultivator! Which she couldn’t possibly know...

Right. She thought I was an arrogant but talented child.

“Thank you, senior. I’ll keep your advice in mind.” I could tell that she wanted to end this conversation... but I wasn’t letting this event go that easily. “However, that last arrow had the strength of thirty and it was aimed to kill me. If I had died, the sect would be out a very valuable, absolute genius of a disciple. It seems to me that this needs to be investigated... It may also have nothing to do with Senior Verdant Bamboo and our bet.”

Her eyes trembled. “Let me see that arrow.”

Ah, she finally realized that I wasn’t complaining just to get a leg up on the bet.

Little Spring handed the black arrow to her. She looked it over carefully. Her expression turned dark.

“I’ll look into this. An arrow this strong should have never appeared in this trial.”

“Senior, can you let me speak to the spirit controlling this test? If it’s intelligent enough then it will remember who coerced it into attempted murder.”

I’d never had a disciple and I only ever taught skills like weapon forging and alchemy. This meant that I’d never had to come here after I reached Foundation Establishment in my last life. Basically, unlike with Senior Auspicious Paifang, I didn’t know what I needed to do to communicate with it.

Fairy Far Reaching shook her head. “Even I don't have the ability to speak with this spirit. Either I’ll have to contact my master or you’ll have to ask a sect elder.”

“Then, for now, I’ll have to ask Senior Far Reaching Feather for your master’s help.” Of course, I wouldn’t believe she would handle this. I didn’t know her at all. Considering that she was just the host of one of the tests here, her master was probably one of the many sect elders. And not even an important one.

I would have to get in contact with someone higher up to discuss this situation with them.

Far Reaching Feather nodded and handed the arrow back to me. She then helpfully addressed various children, giving them pointers on how they could have done better.

Looking at the thin black arrow, I began to ponder over this whole weird-ass situation.

A spirit designed to test children would never throw so many murder arrows at a prospective disciple. Not without being ordered to by someone. And that someone would have to be high up in the sect.

I sighed deeply. Solving this mystery would take time and authority. If things didn’t go well, I might have to wait until I actually became Immortal Zhenren’s disciple before I had the right status. Fuck.

Little Spring covered my shoulders with an older but clean robe.

Right! My clothes had a hole in them! The weak silk also had various stains and tears everywhere. Also, my back was definitely dyed in blood.

I needed to get clean and changed! Now!