Against The Heavens 95 Rank-Up Test.

Li Yang sat in his room and quietly focused on his cultivation, his mind sinking deep into his own body, into the depths of his dantian. He started to draw out Qi from his Ascending Foundation, the platform that had been created when all 36 of his runes formed a circle and connected to each other.

He drew out four different strands of Qo, one for each of his elements, and had them float in front of him. He first manipulated the pitch black strand of Qi that came from his law of destruction, using it to form a rune that resembled a black hole. He then slowly integrated his law of fire, his law of ice, and his law of lightning. Since his law of destruction would try to swallow and destroy them the moment they got too close, integrating them was the easy part, making sure that his law of destruction didn't actually destroy the other laws was a tad bit harder.

This was his first time attempting to form the runes needed for the Myriad Monarch technique, the Monarch Runes, so he failed in his first five attempts. Part of the reason behind his failure was his inexperience with the rune crafting process, but the main reason was the fact that his control over the law of destruction was still lacking. It was fine if he was just going to use a tiny sliver to wound an enemy or to block an attack, but now that he was using a slightly larger amount than usual, and even had to control it rather delicately, he ended up failing.

But on his sixth attempt, his efforts were rewarded, a fully formed Monarch Rune appearing in front of him. The cultivation manual said that the Monarch Runes would take on an appearance that signified all the laws used to create it, but the Monarch Rune in front of Li Yang looked just like his destruction runes, a pitch black hole that swallowed up everything else.

Now that he had formed the rune, the next step of cultivating the Myriad Monarch technique was to fuse this rune into his bone marrow, allowing it to completely alter his bone marrow. Li Yang gave himself a short moment to restore himself to peak condition, restoring the small amount of energy he had wasted during his first five failures.

He then controlled the Monarch Rune and had it travel through his veins until it reached the pinky finger of his left hand, arriving at the very tip of his finger. He then had the rune slowly sink into the bone, having it enter his bone marrow. Now came the hardest part of the cultivation technique, altering his bone marrow and turning it into this black hole Monarch Rune.

At first, everything went well, the Monarch Rune sank into his bone marrow and started to fuse with it, slowly taking it over and multiplying. But his control over the fusing process lapsed for a split second, causing the Monarch Rune to go amok and turn unstable, imploding in on itself and dissipating.

With the rune collapsing, Li Yang could only let out a sigh and start over from the beginning. He was a bit more familiar with the rune crafting process now, so he didn't fail as he drew up the new one, quickly transporting it to the tip of his left pinky finger. He once again had the Monarch Rune sink into his finger and start merging with his bone marrow, this time making sure that his concentration was fully focused on the rune and the fusing process.

Before long, the Monarch Rune had merged with all the bone marrow in his left pinky, resulting in the bone marrow of that finger turning into a pitch black type of energy, a collection of several tiny black holes. This was a sign that he had succeeded in altering his bone marrow using his Monarch Rune, turning it stronger and more resilient.

Li Yang didn't immediately continue creating Monarch Runes and fusing them into his bone marrow, studying this new bone marrow for a short while, making sure that there were no problems with it. When one was dealing with something as unorthodox as the law of destruction, one had to make sure to always keep a close eye on it after doing something new.

Luckily it didn't seem like there would be any anomalies, his new bone marrow acting the same as his old one. Only once he was certain that there wouldn't be any unexpected situations did Li Yang start crafting more Monarch Runes, beginning to fuse them into the rest of his bone marrow, slowly changing all of it into tiny black holes.

But even if the process became simpler after succeeding once, it was still very time consuming, especially since he had to keep a close eye on the runes as he fused them into his bone marrow. Due to this, once the rank-up test to become an inner disciple rolled around, he had only managed to turn around 70% of the bone marrow into his body into Monarch Runes.

But even though he had yet to finish the first stage of body cultivation, he still felt a slight increase in his strength. Thanks to Jinwu and Shenlong's blood, Li Yang had become a humanoid Divine beast, his body strong enough to crush someone at the late stage of the Xiantian Rune realm using sheer brute force. Now that he had this body cultivation technique to back him up, his already strong body became even stronger, even if he hadn't fully completed the first stage. If he were to guess, he would say that his body was strong enough to allow him to combat someone at the early stage of the Ascending Heaven realm using just his physical strength.

Li Yang was going to partic.i.p.ate in this rank up test, so even though he was a bit reluctant to leave his body cultivation incomplete, he still stopped his cultivation and opened his eyes. He stood up from his bed and stretched his body, enjoying the popping sounds that his joints produced after not moving for four months.

He felt somewhat hungry, so he took out something quick to eat from his interspatial ring and started eating while preparing a bath for himself, creating and melting some ice in a large wooden tub. Once it was ready, he took a quick bath to clean himself and then changed into a fresh yellow robe that bore the mark of the Yuan clan, a wolf howling at a distant moon. After making sure that he had prepared everything, he stepped out of his house.

When he left his house, he saw that there were still quite a few disciples gathered up in the area in front of his house. He could see a few tents, so it seemed like they had set up a camp, fully determined to become a part of Li Yang's faction. A few of the disciples that were gathered up shrank back a few paces when Li Yang stepped out of his house, clearly remembering how he had viciously punched someone who was right next to him the last time they tried to join his faction.

Li Yang swept them all with a calm gaze, still not interested in any of them, nor in creating his own faction for that matter. He didn't even know how long he was going to stay in this clan, so he saw no point in making a faction. There was also the fact that he wasn't suited for leading others, Fang Ying had always been far more adept at it than he was.

Seeing his calm gaze, the ones that stepped forward to shout out their offers quickly shrank back again, none of them hoping to follow in the footsteps of the girl that had been hit last time. Thanks to this, Li Yang was able to leave without being disturbed, heading for the large mountain that stood at the center of the clan.

Li Yang quickly reached the Ascending Carp Staircase, the staircase that went from the bottom of the mountain to the peak, following it a short distance up the mountain. The place where he had met with the elders was halfway up the mountain, but this time he only had to follow the staircase for a short distance, not even reaching a quarter of the distance up the mountain.

When he stepped away from the staircase, he stepped onto a yellow-bricked winding path that led all the way around the mountain. He only had to follow this path for a short distance until he reached his goal, a square stone stage that was almost five kilometers in each direction. Standing on the stone stage was a small group of 20 disciples who were all between the late stage of the Ascending Heaven realm and the early stage of the Immortal Rebirth realm. It wasn't hard for Li Yang to guess that these were disciples who were here to undertake the same test as him, each of them aiming to become an inner disciple.

None of these disciples were amongst the top five outer disciples, so Li Yang guessed that they were probably from some clan or sect that served under the Yuan clan, brought in specifically to see if they were talented enough to complete this test.

Other than these 20 disciples, there were five disciples who had reached either the late stage of the Immortal Rebirth realm or the early stage of the Primordial Rune realm, most likely inner disciples who were there to oversee the rank-up test. And standing in front of these disciples was a single elder, a graceful woman with hair so golden it seemed to release an otherworldly glow, her pure white eyes made her look like she was blind, but looking at how they were sweeping over the gathered disciples, Li Yang guessed that she most likely wasn't blind.

The eyes of the people that had gathered up landed on Li Yang as he arrived, each of them carefully inspecting him. These disciples were arrogant, but they weren't stupid, they knew how to a.s.sess other cultivators. Li Yang kept most of his energy hidden within his body, taking on a somewhat una.s.suming appearance, but all of these disciples knew of the things he had done within the clan, so none of them dared underestimate him because of his low cultivation. Li Yang joined up with the 20 other disciples, the golden-haired elder nodding her head and opening her mouth to announce the rules of the rank-up test.

"Good, now everyone is here. I am Elder Su and I will be the one in charge of this rank-up test. The rank-up test that I am in charge of is very simple, yet very effective. It consists of two tests, one to check your strength and one to check your head. The test to check your strength will take place first, it will require each of you to fight one of these five inner disciples. You don't have to beat them, you just have to either wound them three times or survive for five minutes, manage either of these things and you pa.s.s the first test."

The first test was very standard, giving the disciple a chance to showcase his combat instincts as well as his strength. It might be a bit troublesome to leave three wounds on someone with much higher cultivation, but it was, in fact, the easier option of the two. Even when it came to people who had similar cultivation, battles could easily end in an instant, one single opening being the only thing necessary for someone to inflict a mortal wound. For a battle to go on for five minutes, both cultivators had to be nearly completely evenly matched in strength. After giving the disciples a quick second to digest the information about the first trial, Elder Su explained the second, and a bit more troublesome, test.

"Those who past the first test will then move on to the second test. Every one of those who pa.s.sed will receive one mission from among the countless team missions that the clan has stored up, and using only the other disciples that are taking the rank-up test, you must complete your mission. The catch is that you yourself are not allowed to take part in the mission, you are only allowed to give orders to the other disciples, delegating them in a manner that will allow you to best clear the mission. That means that each of you will take turns being subordinates and leaders, so this is also a good chance to see how well you deal with having to take orders from others."

The second test was quite a bit more troublesome for these disciples than the first, mainly because there was no way for them to know what mission they would receive. There was also the fact that there was no way of knowing what sort of incidents might appear in the mission, so they had to show that they were good at giving orders during stressful situations. This type of test wasn't Li Yang's forte, but he was still confident that he could do well enough to pa.s.s it. After explaining the two tests, Elder Su didn't waste any more words, stretching out her arm and pointing at a girl standing in the midst of the disciples taking the rank-up test.

"You, step forward and fight him."

The rest of the disciples took the hint, leaving the stone stage and making s.p.a.ce for the girl and the male inner disciple that were pointed at, the first test starting immediately.