Chapter 132: Stairs - 132
After Jack and the old man finished talking, Jack decided to try and climb the stairs to the floating palace. He didn't think he would be able to reach the top, but he wanted to see how far he could make it.
At first, Jack was a bit frightened to do so, but the old man explained to him that severe injuries on the stairs were uncommon, while deaths were one in a thousand. And out of those who get killed, 99% were weak idiots.
Therefore, Jack didn't see a problem in trying to climb the stairs. Jack started walking towards the south of the town and quickly found the path that led to the floating palace.
The path was completely empty and even birds couldn't be seen. Jack walked through it pretty quickly and made it to the floating palace.
The first thing he noticed, besides the stairs and the palace themselves, was the abandoned buildings near them. Although none of them looked like houses, there were plenty that looked like shops or stalls.
Jack guessed that at one point in time, the floating palace was a good tourist attraction. However, it seemed that as time passed nobody was interested in it.
It was likely that people realized that only the strongest people in the Zhou World had a chance to reach the top, but even they barely got halfway when they tried to climb it many thousands of years ago.
Since there was nothing else to look at around the floating palace, Jack walked up to the stairs. They seemed to be floating in the air without any assistance and they were a transparent light blue.
Despite them being called stairs, they were just flat rectangles that you stepped on. After seeing that there was nothing else on the stairs, Jack stepped on the first step.
A pressure instantly washed over him, but it was so weak that a 7th level core formation cultivator could handle it.
It was right before he took his first step that Zhou Fan lowered the pressure needed to reach the top. Instead of strength at the 5th level of the space shattering realm, the stairs could now be cleared by someone at the first level of void traversing.
Even so, Jack would have to struggle immensely to reach the top. As someone at the 9th level of soul formation, reaching the strength of a first level void traversing was nearly impossible. Zhou Fan, however, believed that Jack could do it. His talent was too big for him to fail such a challenge.
As Jack took his second step, the pressure once again increased. Looking ahead, he could see that there were 998 more steps to go.
After his twentieth step, Jack felt the pressure become strong enough to knock off a 8th level core formation cultivator. Jack didn't waver as he continued up. After the hundreth step, the pressure was enough to knock off a 2nd level nascent soul realm cultivator. Once again, Jack shrugged it off and kept walking up.
At the 500th step, Jack felt the pressure become strong enough to knock off a 4th level soul formation cultivator. He was starting to feel suspicious after seeing that he could reach a height that the oldest cultivators had been unable to, but the pressure was starting to burden him and he had to focus.
At the 900th step, Jack felt the pressure reach a level that could knock off someone at the 9th level of soul formation. For the first time since he started climbing, he had to use 100% of his strength.
After another fifty steps, Jack felt the pressure become strong enough to knock off a tenth level soul formation cultivator. He was now under so much pressure that he couldn't even look up. Every step he took exhausted all of his strength.
It took 10 hours for Jack to reach the 990th step. By then, he was nearly dead from the immense pressure, yet it increased one again. Jack almost instantly fell off, but he pulled his trident from his back and attacked towards the palace in a desperate attempt to decrease the pressure.
Unfortunately, the old man had forgotten to tell him what happened to the last group that attacked the palace.
To Jack's surprise, the pressure pushing on him instantly disappeared. After he comprehended that it stopped, he happily ran up the next nine steps, before an aura of death covered his entire body.
In the next second, a lightning dragon appeared above his head. Before he could process what was happening, he was already attacking it with the trident as it shot forwards with the power of a full power strike from a first level void traversing cultivator.
Instinctually, Jack covered his trident with every type of Qi he had an affinity to. First was Gold Qi, then Water Qi, then Light Qi, then metal Qi, and finally, Space Qi covered the trident as it shot forward towards the lightning dragon at an incredible speed.
From the forming of the lightning dragon to the throwing of the trident, not even a second had passed, but their attacks reached each other.
BOOM!
A loud boom, followed by a large shockwave shot out. The sound reached the edges of the beast lands, while the shockwave seemed to not even leave the confines of the floating palace's stairs.
The lightning dragon, instantly dispersed at the point of collision, while the trident was sent flying off in an unknown direction.
As for Jack, the shockwave hit his body so hard that he didn't even get pushed back. Instead, his skin was instantly ripped off and in some sections, his bones were visible.
Jack fell forward and landed on the small flat platform in front of the giant golden door of the floating palace.
His blood instantly poured onto the floor, and Jack didn't move an inch. He stayed like that for 5 minutes, his lifeforce slowly depleting.
Just as he was nearly dead, his hand went up and fell in front of him. He started to drag himself to the golden door of the floating palace almost instinctively.
Just as he was inches from death, he touched the golden door and a golden light covered him.
Chapter 133: Old Man - 133
After an unknown amount of time passed, Jack opened his eyes. He felt like he had just woken up from a nap as he stood up with a groggy look on his face.
The look was quickly wiped away as he looked at the unknown surroundings. He had never seen such a place throughout his entire life.
The walls were white and there was a red carpet leading down a hall to an unknown location.
Jack held his head as he tried to remember how he had gotten there. Eventually, a look of realization came to his face.
He remembered trying to climb the stairs to enter the floating palace, but attacking it after he started to struggle. He then remembered the lightning dragon attacking him and him attacking it. That was the last thing he remembered before he ended up in this place.
Jack spent another ten minutes trying to remember, before he gave up and started to look around the room. Based on its color scheme, Jack felt like he must be inside the floating palace.
As for how he entered, he came to the conclusion that the attack must have knocked him into it.
Since the room he was in was completely empty, Jack started to venture down the hall in front of him after grabbing the trident next to him. He kept walking for what seemed to be a fourth of a mile before he reached a golden door.
He pushed against it, but it didn't budge. He tried to pull it, assuming that it opened the other way, but it remained still.
Getting frustrated, Jack was about to attack the door and try to force it open, but he remembered the lightning dragon and calmed down.
He eventually ran out of ideas and walked up to the door to knock.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Jack knocked three times, not expecting anything.
"Come in." A voice said from behind the door, making Jack flinch in surprise.
As the words were said, a crack appeared in the doors and Jack pushed forward on them. As he pushed forward, a blinding white light seeped through the crack, causing jack to cover his eyes.
When he removed his hand and looked up, he was in a completely different place. A trail led forward, surrounded by trees. Jack was absolutely confused at what had just happened. Shaking his head, he stopped thinking and walked forward.
Zhou Fan watched from far away, sitting on a rock in front of a waterfall. He had done everything he could to make himself seem mysterious, including dressing up as a wise old man. He had long gray hair that piled up below him and a beard that reached his crossed legs.
What he had done to Jack was a new idea he wanted to try out. Ever since he had invented space rings, he started to wonder what else he could do with the power of space. While Jack was climbing the stairs, he had been experimenting with creating a separate space within the floating palace.
Clearly, he had some success. The entire square area, that was about a mile from one end to the other, was a completely separate space. Zhou Fan was glad he had broken into the 8th level of lesser Dao creation, or he would have never been able to sustain such a space.
Even now, he was struggling with all his might to keep it up. At the current rate, he would only last 2 hours before his Qi was gone.
Thankfully, Jack was coming towards him pretty fast.
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After walking past a collection of trees, Jack saw a waterfall in front of him. The mountain it came off of was pretty small compared to the Zhou Worlds mountains, but it was the tallest thing Jack had ever seen.
Slightly in front of the bottom of the waterfall, an old man sat on a flat rock.
"Welcome. Take a seat in front of me child." The old man said to Jack. Although hesitant at first, Jack made up his mind and walked towards the old man. After floating above the water and landing on the rock, Jack imitated the way the man in front of him was sitting.
"Are you the one that brought me here?" Jack asked.
"Yes." The old man said. "I am also the one that saved your life."
"What?" Jack responded. He had no idea what the old man was talking about.
"You don't remember?" The old man said while raising an eyebrow. "Here."
The old man pointed to his left, and Jack turned his head to see a holographic screen. He watched himself climb up the stairs easily, before struggling at the 900th and the 950th.
He then watched himself attack the floating palace, before a lightning dragon appeared. He watched on as he and the lightning dragon collided. That was where his memory ended, but the video kept playing.
Jack saw the shockwave hit him and the skin fly off his body. He then watched himself fall forward and slowly crawl towards the golden door, before touching it and disappearing. He then looked at the old man silently.
"I'm the owner of the floating palace, and the one who let you in and healed you." He said.
Jack was silent for a while before he spoke. "Thank you sir."
It was a weird experience seeing yourself in such a state, and Jack was still shocked by it.
"No need to thank me. I only let you in because of your talent. Since you did reach the top despite me lowering the difficulty, I'll give you a reward." The old man said.
Jack looked up at him and waited for him to continue.
"Pick a number between one and ten. Depending on the number you choose, I'll teach you a martial art."
"One" Jack said.
"I had a feeling you would pick that." The old man said before he pointed a finger at Jack's head.
Before Jack understood what he was doing, a video started playing in his head.
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200+ Power
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