Tiger brother, Hu Chenchen, looked like a kid of 12 with the muscles of an 18 year old gym bro. He carried himself like he could take on the world.

Even I thought that he had a good chance of smacking a stone statue… except that this child decided that he wanted a challenge. He walked past all the Qi Condensation cultivators and went straight to one that was at the bottom of Foundation Establishment.

This would be my second time seeing this happen in reality and for the first time in a long while, I felt like eating popcorn.

The statue he picked out was a familiar one.

It held the soul of a particularly vindictive demonic cultivator who killed off a very small country of mortals. From what one of my senior’s told me, he had stayed at an inn there for a few weeks. One day he found a hair on his pillow...

Considering that the demonic cultivator was bald... Well, overkill was too tame of a word to use for what he did.

Hu Chenchen slowly approached. From his cautious movements and the sweat soaking through the back of his robes, I could tell that the statue’s demonic aura was giving the kid a hard time.

A spectral arm extended from behind the massive head looking like a translucent sparkly hand. It wasn’t made of spiritual energy.

This was actually considered a mental attack. The souls in these statues couldn’t hurt anyone. Not physically.

What their stone prison allowed the souls to do was give a mental slap to anyone who approached them.

This would not kill the person.

But that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t hurt like a bitch. And possibly make someone pass out for several hours.

So, when I saw the hand fly toward the face of Tiger Brother Chenchen, I knew he would survive.

There was an audible smack as the hand struck.

The Tiger Brother spun toward the crowd then fell to the ground. A little foam appeared at the edges of his mouth.

“Chenchen! No!”

The two remaining brothers ran up to Hu Chenchen and pulled him back to the safe area between the statues.

I gotta say, it was nice to see people in this shitty world have each other's back like this.

Tiger Brother Bolin, the one who fell down the chasm during the rope bridge test, ran up to Soft Storm. “Senior! What happened to him?”

Senior Soft Storm looked kindly at the stressed out brothers. “Oh? Did I forget to mention that?”

Yes. Yes he did.

“Forget to mention what?” Hu Bolin asked, while worriedly glancing back at his brother.

“That if you get near a statue but don’t slap it in time…” He paused for way longer than necessary making all the kids around him look like they wanted to shake him, “…it will slap you.”

Everyone in the crowd grew silent.

“Don’t worry. That one was only a Foundation Establishment statue. This junior brother will be better within a few hours. Unfortunately, he likely won’t have the chance to try again before you all move onto the last trial.”

Everyone became silent. They were probably contemplating the real risks involved.

Fortunately, another brave soul stepped up.

This was someone I hadn’t seen for awhile, Icy Tsundere Fairy.

She, having seen the failure that was Hu Chenchen, quickly darted up to one of the Qi Condensation equivalent statues. Before the spectral arm could completely form, the girl slapped the stone head right on it’s left cheek. The arm that had been forming collapsed. The little fairy — probably scared of whatever else Senior Soft Storm left out — had already dashed away.

Well, she had been one of the smarter young disciples in the sect before she was dumb enough to fall in love with Bloodsword and die for him.

And that was when I heard the fateful words coming out of Little Springs mouth. “If we win, then you have to get on your knees and apologize to my sister!”

Oh shit! Were we still childishly arguing about that? I thought I’d already ended this conversation.

“You dare ask me to get on my knees?” Young Master Zhang said.

“You dared to insult my sister.”

I turned to see Little Spring glaring at Young Master Zhang like he was one step away from punching the shit out of him.

Well, the little brat had accused me of cheating. Me!

First of all, I would never get caught cheating! If I dared to cheat then I would be so good at it that even an Immortal Ascension Stage practitioner wouldn’t notice let alone some brat in the Qi Condensation stage.

Not that I had cheated (aside from using my divine sense). Whatever.

I preferred to earn things through hard work or intelligence. Besides, cheating often made winning feel hollow. However, being so proficient that everyone, including those that cheated, lost to my skills... Now that felt good.

“Hold on,” I interjected before they could start really getting into it. “If you’re betting about me then I should be involved.”

Young Master Zhang looked at me like I was trash and snorted.

Oh, well before, I was willing to let it go with a slap to the wrist because beating up kids was beneath me, but now I would take his most precious spiritual tool.

With a grin, I said, “Come on. Let’s discuss the challenge and the terms.”

The little snot casually gestured to the stone heads. “Simple. Whoever can touch the head with the highest cultivation wins the bet.”

... This kid was just asking to get beaten, right?

“Agreed. But let’s not waste each other's time by trying every head that’s a small realm ahead of the last one. We should be able to see who will win within three chances each.”

“Fine. What are the terms?”

Little Spring spoke up, “If we win then you need to apologize to my sister on your knees.”

I glanced at the kid. He seriously looked furious on my behalf. Ah, I did not raise him for the past year in vain... wait. Didn’t I say at one point that I wasn’t raising him? Had I finally accepted that that was what I was doing this whole time?

Nope. I wasn’t really a ‘parent’ type of person. As amazing as I was, I would probably fail a class that taught how to take care of kids. At most I was looking after him to make sure he didn’t become an asshole like Bloodsword. Well, maybe that was all raising a kid really was...

Still, whatever I called what I was doing by taking care of this kid, it was nice to have a little brother take my side. Bloodsword rarely, if ever, had.

But as much as I appreciated Little Spring getting angry on my behalf... I had to wonder if this kid seriously did not know that asking a haughty dumbass like this to kneel was like asking for the impossible?

Probably not. He was still the little protagonist.

And a protagonist had to protag.

Whatever. We’d just add an impossible thing to the list of terms.

If my body wasn’t incredibly healthy due to all my body cultivation, I’d likely experience a headache right now.

Meanwhile, Young Master Zhang, as expected, looked like he was practically going to explode with rage.

“Then if I win I want you and your sister to leave the sect.”

“No,” I said. “I already have a bet with someone about that. I never double down on terms with different people. Choose something else.”

Young Master Zhang smirked. “Then if I win, I want you to spend the rest of the day crawling on all fours.”

This vicious little tit llama.

Well, it could be worse. This one evil bitch in Bloodsword’s harem once asked me to do that for a bet... only naked. I’d forgotten which one since they sometimes blended together in my memory.

Of course, I won that bet along with several spiritual tools that saved my life. Humph!

“Fine.” It wasn’t like I would lose anyway. I glanced down to his gourd pendant. It was the one that could allow him to take a hit from a Nascent Soul. “But your requirements are a little excessive so, if I win, I’ll also take your gord pendant.”

He slapped his jade gord and turned away from me as if I was a klepto ready to steal it at any moment. “Absolutely not.”

“And, in exchange if I lose, I’ll add in my 888 contribution points. While that isn’t enough to buy a protective spiritual tool like yours, when you’re just starting out, several hundred contribution points can set you up well in the inner sect. They can grease some palms to help you enhance your social foundation in a way mere spirit stones can’t.”

His bodyguard leaned in and said something to him.

The little snot nodded. “Fine, I agree to your conditions. However, I have a condition of my own. In the event that we are both only able to touch the same head, then a tie breaker will be necessary. I suggest that whoever, between Zhang Weiwei and your little brother, touches the head with the largest realm wins.”

That was shockingly reasonable coming from someone who was literally a Young Master.

Well, I hoped this kid had some kind of cheat item, or else I would feel bad as I utterly trampled all over him. “Fine.”

“Then, let’s begin.”

Zhang Weiwei glared at my junior brother like he wanted to choke him. His hands tightened into fists.

Well, Little Spring had demanded that Young Master Zhang kneel down and apologize. So, this wasn’t unexpected.

This was also a good chance for the kid to test himself and find his limits. But most of all, he had better beat that guy's ass or I’d feel like the training I put him through for the past several weeks was half wasted.

Little Spring and Zhang Weiwei stared at each other in unspoken viciousness. They both walked over to the head statues at the peak of Qi Condensation. There was already a long line behind each of those so I silently wished my junior brother good luck.

Wait a second... Zhang WeiWei, Hu ChenChen, Yang ShanShan.

Fuck, I’d forgotten how lazy the original author had been when it came to actual names. At least at the beginning. Probably a fourth of the cultivators I met who didn’t have daoist titles would have ABB names.

Well, at least it made them easier to remember.

Since there was no reason to hang around here and watch them wait in line...

“Should we play rock, paper, scissors to see who goes first? Best two out of three?”

He sniffed disdainfully, “It’s fine. I’ll go first.”

The Young Master started walking down one of the pathways between the heads. It was easy to tell where those were since the stone floor had been worn down over time from hundreds of millions of people traversing the walkways.

With each row we passed, the number of heads grew smaller, even as their size grew larger.

The heads were carved to have a personality to them that showed what the demonic cultivator had been like in life. There were a few particularly interesting looking ones — like the masked lady, who had sucked the ‘life’ out of several hundred cultivators and turned all their bodies into puppets before she was caught.

Then there was the guy with a feathery crown — none of my seniors would talk about what he did... and even the statue’s explanation only had that this monster did something horrible... and that avian spiritual beasts were part of that.

Sometimes, it was best to not think too deeply upon the horrors of this world.

The last interesting looking head was the only one that was smiling.

He had managed to infect entire towns with some kind of demonic disease that forced everyone to grin. Then after a month, it claimed the life of those infected by extracting all of their qi and life force and transferring it to the smiling man.

Seriously, the demonic cultivators of this universe were not good people. Maybe a few of them (or even all of them) had good reasons to start on the demonic path, but it always warped their personality into one more malicious than the average Xianxia Main Character.

Young Master Zhang picked out a head at the peak of Golden Core and stopped in front of it.

This statue had a foot of height above the heads on the previous row. The hair was styled in odd little bubbles. Honestly, it kind of looked like a weird ass hat. But the expression on that face was one of extreme frowning.

It was the most frowny statue here and contained the soul of a diva. According to the text around the base, they had been so unhappy with their life that they wanted to destroy the happiness of others.

While I knew a few people like that throughout both of my past lives, this particular asshole was really nasty. They would find a person who was content, analyze them and then proceed to strip them of each and everything that made them happy. And this wasn’t even part of the horror they committed to fulfill the needs of their cultivation technique.

They just did this for fun!

Young Master Zhang took out a scroll spiritual tool from his spacial ring. He even glanced back at me and smirked.

It was like he wanted me to know that he was using a very powerful and expensive spiritual tool. I assumed that he was waiting for me to tell him that he couldn’t use it, so he could explain to me that I couldn’t do anything about it since no one mentioned tools in the rules of this trial.

Fuck, why were kids so goddamn childish?

Then the arrogant young master used the same movement technique he used while on the bridge to rush up to the statue.

Before he reached it a spectral hand burst out from the back of the head. It quickly swung toward the arrogant kid.

The young master’s tool unrolled and zoomed to a spot a foot from his face.

The hand crashed hard against the paper causing it to bend. But the tool didn’t break! It even pushed the hand back a bit so the boy could pass without having to dunk his head.

I nodded sagely. Young Master Zhang was using a technique I liked to call, slapping a problem with money. It was a very satisfying technique — when I was the one doing it. Not so much, when it was used against me.

The arrogant prick smirked at the hand then casually slapped the statue. The arm dissipated. The head’s already fierce aura intensified. It couldn’t harm anyone but it would feel crushing for any kid caught in it.

The young master walked back toward me with a conceited little grin. It was only by the sweat that beaded at his brow that I could tell that the demonic aura was affecting him at all.

I guessed the Zhang Clan had some decent trainers.

As soon as he entered the safe area next to me, he raised his chin like a haughty brat.

“Do you understand now?” He crossed his arms. “I’ll let you bow out of our bet if you want.”

Fuck, it wasn’t just the statues that needed a slap to the face.