Chapter 202: Wing Sect
"You are so calm."
The old man sensed Jiang Tianya’s placid inner state.
He frowned slightly.
"You don’t have a shred of fighting spirit. Why do you continue to persist? And how could you ever defy the heavens?"
Jiang Tianya didn’t know how to answer.
Trying too hard was wrong.
Not trying was also wrong.
So what was he supposed to do?
’Have I really grown too content with the status quo?’
For a rare moment, Jiang Tianya found himself questioning his life choices.
But he was fundamentally here to play a game, even if he knew this game wasn’t exactly normal.
It’s hard for someone to risk their life when they have a safety net.
Besides, this was just a trial within a Secret Realm.
Before, Jiang Tianya was motivated by the reward, but now he was so tormented that he’d given up on it entirely.
His priority now was to escape this Secret Realm smoothly and ensure nothing happened to his account.
Thinking of this, Jiang Tianya took a deep breath, cupped his hands, and said, "Senior, what is it that you wish for me to do?"
The old man’s eyes narrowed, and he suddenly flew into a rage. "Young people have no patience whatsoever! No wonder you’re content with the status quo—you’re worthless!"
Jiang Tianya was speechless.
In his real life, he had fought hard for his future and never lagged behind in his studies.
He used to have other goals he was pursuing, but ever since he started playing the game Broken Sect—he had admittedly become a bit degenerate.
’I guess he’s not wrong.’
Seeing Jiang Tianya remain silent, the old man grew even more furious. "When you were climbing the cliff with your bare hands, you never gave up, even when covered in blood, right until you fell. When you crossed the fiery abyss, your expression never changed, even when burned to the bone. Why have you given up now? Don’t you think those previous failures held more value?"
Jiang Tianya opened his mouth, but nothing came out. "..."
He couldn’t very well say that the system blocked most of the pain, so he hadn’t really felt much of the agony.
It was just the fear of death that felt all too real.
’You can’t expect a game to be a true test of one’s iron will, can you?’
As expected, the system chimed in sardonically, "Was that you persevering? Or was it just that you couldn’t feel anything?"
Jiang Tianya was speechless.
He lowered his head and said respectfully, "This junior knows his mistake."
Having scolded him this much, the old man saw Jiang Tianya’s unchangingly placid expression and found he couldn’t muster any more anger.
He simply waved his hand. "Forget it. For the sake of your earlier persistence, we’ll call it a half-pass, not a full one."
"You have no destiny with my Wing Sect. I see your fortune is decent enough. Take this. If one day a bird cries out to you, feed this to it."
After saying this, the old man turned around.
A thick fog gradually rolled in, blurring everything.
Jiang Tianya felt something being pressed into his hand. He lifted it to take a look.
It was a piece of bone, as smooth and lustrous as jade.
It was small and exquisite, about the size of a thumb. It had been handled so much it no longer looked like bone, but more like a piece of jewelry.
Jiang Tianya found it strange and subconsciously asked the system, "What is this?"
’Did I get the reward after all?’
’But that doesn’t seem right.’
The old man said he hadn’t passed the Wing Sect’s trial, which meant he shouldn’t have cleared this world.
System: "..."
Before he could get a reply, Jiang Tianya was suddenly hit by that familiar, world-spinning sensation again.
His vision blurred, and he suddenly saw a familiar back in front of him, a flame flickering in their palm.
The person seemed to sense movement behind them. They spun around, and the first thing they did was hurl a Palm Thunder right at Jiang Tianya.
Jiang Tianya’s brow twitched as he channeled his Spiritual Energy to defend himself.
The shield formed by his Spiritual Energy was transparent and fragile; the single strike from the Palm Thunder was enough to make Jiang Tianya’s entire body go numb.
This proved the other person’s strength was no less than his own.
Finding the person somewhat familiar, Jiang Tianya immediately called out to test the waters, "I’m Jiang Tianya!"
The person turned, saw his face, and froze for a moment.
The person before him was a female cultivator, but her face was unfamiliar and, frankly, an offense to society.
Jiang Tianya’s lip twitched. He was sure this was the Sect Master’s handiwork.
The other person’s eyes widened in a daze. "It’s you? How did you get here? I’m Mu Qiu!"
The person before him was actually Mu Qiu.
Since they had all switched bodies upon entering, one could still instantly recognize those who were abstractly ugly.
Jiang Tianya looked around. They were in a narrow corridor with walls of bronze-colored stone, and nothing else.
"So this place of yours is the legendary Demon Cultivator kingdom, the Ten Thousand Seas Abyss?"
Jiang Tianya touched the stone wall. "You haven’t cleared the trial yet?"
"That’s right. I’m still stuck running in circles here," Mu Qiu nodded. "How did you get here? No one else has been teleported out. Did you clear your world?"
Jiang Tianya was a bit puzzled. "Not really. I don’t think I passed. My world was a trial for something called the Wing Sect. Passing the test would grant entry into the Wing Sect, and I guess there was a reward inside, but I didn’t get it. An old man appeared, saw that I was stuck, gave me something, and sent me out. When I opened my eyes, I was right behind you."
"The Wing Sect?"
Unexpectedly, Mu Qiu seemed taken aback. "Which Wing Sect?"
Jiang Tianya replied, "The ’Wing’ as in, the things that let birds fly."
He had seen the character on the mountain gate during the trial.
Come to think of it, most Sects on the Yunzhou Continent had two-character names; the players hadn’t seen a Sect with a single-character name before.
"The Wing Sect? I think I’ve seen some information on the Wing Sect here."
For Mu Qiu to say something like that surprised Jiang Tianya. "You’ve seen it?"
Mu Qiu nodded. "But I only caught a glimpse. Every time I try to read more, I get teleported to the edge of a plaza, nearly falling into an abyss. There’s even a young Jiao in that abyss."
Jiang Tianya’s spirits lifted. "Is that the top-tier demon beast you mentioned in the Sect channel before?"
Players currently attempting the Secret Realm weren’t sharing information in the world chat at all times.
This was mainly because they were anxious about not being able to pass and would occasionally log off to look up information.
So, Mu Qiu hadn’t mentioned what happened next.
For the past few days, she had repeatedly returned to this corridor. After walking a certain distance, she would enter a woman’s boudoir, decorated predominantly in crimson.
After discovering there was no information in the rest of the room, she had made a beeline for the bookshelf.
The books on the shelf could actually be touched, but only for a limited time.
She discovered that the time she could spend in the boudoir was limited. If she was a step too slow, she would reappear at the edge of the plaza.
A gentle breeze would blow, and the Jiao Long would be right there before her eyes.
The first time, it was terrifying, but after a few more times, she actually got used to it.
Its golden eyes would always stare at her coldly, but it never actually did anything to her.
Perhaps it was like the other players said.
’It’s so small it’s not even worth my time.’
Or perhaps it had been here for so long that having a living person around made things more interesting?
Because of this, she couldn’t see much information in the books each time, only managing to hastily flip through a few pages to get the main points.
One of the pages had an introduction.
The No Emperor Sect had a subordinate sect called the Wing Sect.
The No Emperor Sect had once sent people to be stationed at the Wing Sect, but that was the only sentence; there was no more information.