Inside the sealed chamber, there was no sunrise, no moonrise — only the monotonous circulation of Primeval Essence and the soft, constant hiss of Primeval Stones crumbling to ash.
Days spent in cultivation were always tedious, yet always swift.
Without noticing, the bone-biting cold of winter had quietly receded outside, and life had returned in full to the mountains and valleys.
And within that dim, lavishly appointed underground chamber, Lin Mu's cultivation had surged like spring bamboo breaking through the soil — unstoppable, joint by joint.
"Hah..."
Lin Mu slowly exhaled a breath thick with Primeval Energy, and his tightly shut eyes snapped open. A flash of light crossed his pupils.
Under the ceaseless day-and-night nourishment of the extravagant Gathering Primeval Gu, combined with the Four-Flavor Liquor Worm's uninterrupted output of Rank 2 peak Primeval Essence washing over and tempering his Aperture walls — Lin Mu's foundation had not grown hollow from the speed of his advancement.
On the contrary, it had been honed to something rock-solid and overwhelmingly robust.
Feeling the churning sea of Primeval Essence within his Aperture, a fierce confidence flickered in Lin Mu's eyes.
At this rate...
He quietly clenched his fist.
Four months at most. I will have every confidence to formally assault Rank 3.
The price of that speed, however, was equally staggering.
Between purchasing Gu worms and the relentless consumption required to sustain the Gathering Primeval Gu over these past months, the reserves he had painstakingly accumulated had dwindled to roughly six thousand Primeval Stones.
Money exists to be spent. As long as it converts into power, no amount is too much.
Lin Mu rose to his feet and stretched his stiff limbs. His joints cracked in a rapid, popping sequence.
I've been in seclusion long enough. Time to get some air.
He deactivated the Gathering Primeval Gu and slowly pushed open the heavy stone door of the chamber.
The moment he stepped out into the courtyard, however, Lin Mu immediately sensed that something was different today.
The entirety of Black Blood Stockade was unusually alive with noise and commotion. A fervent energy saturated the air.
Today is... the Aperture Opening Ceremony?
Lin Mu paused briefly, then understood.
The annual Aperture Opening Ceremony had come around again.
Every year at this time, for every youth of eligible age in Black Blood Stockade, this was the most exhilarating and most dreaded moment of their lives.
It was a brutal gamble that decided fate in the truest sense of the word.
Heaven and hell, separated by a single step.
Awaken an A-grade or B-grade aptitude — possess the potential to become a top-tier Gu Master, and ascend from this day forward on a path of glory.
Or find your Aperture sealed shut, your aptitude nonexistent — and plunge in an instant into a bottomless abyss, condemned for the rest of your life to be ground down and exploited at the very bottom of the world.
Every person's fate was decided today, in the span of a few steps.
Lin Mu stood on an elevated bluestone slope and watched in silence as the crowd surged like a tide toward the distant plaza.
Looking at those young faces — fear and fervor intertwined — something stirred quietly within him.
There had been a time when Lin Mu himself was one of those trembling figures in that vast crowd, his Aperture freshly opened, just setting foot on this brutal path of cultivation.
And now, in the span of barely a year — he stood no more than a single step away from Rank 3.
Might as well go watch.
Lin Mu followed the flow of people at an unhurried pace toward the main hall.
By the time he arrived, the area behind the clan's great hall was already packed three layers deep with onlookers, not a gap to be found.
He stood at the outer edge of the crowd.
The legend from The Legends of Ren Zu drifted through his mind — how Ren Zu had placed the Hope Gu within humanity, granting them the possibility of opening their Apertures and walking the path of cultivation.
But unlike the underground river method used at Guyue Manor, Black Blood Stockade's Vital Gu was the Iron Leaf Gu. Their method of testing naturally carried the clan's own distinct character.
Behind the great hall stood a unique place — the Iron Leaf Dense Forest.
The trees growing within that forest had branches and leaves as hard as iron.
During the test, the youths were required to part those dense iron branches with their bare hands and press forward against an unseen resistance.
On the surface, it looked as crude and simple as a commoner hacking through undergrowth with a woodcutter's blade.
In reality, what permeated that Iron Leaf Forest was an invisible resistance woven from Hope Gu energy, drawn forth by a grand formation.
The worse one's aptitude, the greater the resistance felt.
When the potential within one's body was fully exhausted — when the Aperture had reached the absolute limit of what it could hold — one would find themselves unable to squeeze out even a fraction of strength to part so much as a single branch ahead.
They could only stand rooted in place, powerless.
And the number of steps taken before stopping — that was the absolute measure of aptitude.
Below ten steps: no aptitude. A commoner.
Ten to twenty steps: D-grade aptitude.
Twenty to thirty steps: C-grade aptitude.
Thirty to forty steps: B-grade aptitude.
Lin Mu remembered clearly — he had bitten through the pain in that forest and forced its way to thirty-nine steps, falling just one step short of the A-grade threshold.
As for forty to fifty steps — that was A-grade. A once-in-ten-thousand genius, rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.
"Look! Young Master Lin Feng is over there!"
A ripple of hushed exclamations passed through the crowd nearby.
Lin Mu looked up. On the elevated platform with the best view before the forest, Lin Feng stood in white robes, his expression imperious, chatting and laughing with several influential elders as though entirely at ease.
He was now a true personal disciple of a clan elder, and a Rank 2 middle stage cultivator at that. Standing before this crowd of youths, he wore the unmistakable air of a senior looking down upon his juniors.
On the other side, Lin Xue had also broken through to Rank 2. In her black dress, her bearing had grown even colder and more distant.
A large group of younger Medicine Hall disciples clustered behind her — she had become an idol that the younger generation worshipped with fervent admiration.
Watching this scene, a flicker of cold mockery passed through Lin Mu's eyes.
This is the harshest reality of all.
In a resource-starved minor clan like Black Blood Stockade, aptitude has never been the sole deciding factor.
Bloodline and faction — those are the iron laws that come first.
Take Lin Xue and Lin Feng. Even if they had only tested as B-grade back then, they are the trusted kin of clan elders, the children of hall masters. The clan would pour every resource it had into them without hesitation — pile Primeval Stones on them until they were pushed up by sheer force.
But someone like me — an orphan from a branch line...
Lin Mu touched the token at his waist.
Even if I had awakened as peak B-grade back then, without a backer, I would have been nothing but cannon fodder. Without proactively offering a pledge of loyalty, there would have been no path forward. Ever.
While Lin Mu was lost in these quiet reflections, Elder Kuangxu's voice — resonant as a great bell — rang out across the entire plaza from the high platform:
"The auspicious hour has arrived! The Aperture Opening Ceremony officially begins!"
"First — Lin De!"
The youth whose name was called drew a deep breath. His expression was taut, but composed enough. He walked into the Iron Leaf Forest with steady strides.
Every person held their breath.
He pushed through the branches with visible effort.
The first ten steps came relatively easily, but with each step beyond that, his pace grew heavier — as though an invisible mountain had been loaded onto his back.
In the end, when he reached the twenty-fifth step, drenched in sweat, his legs buckled and he could not advance a single inch further.
"Lin De — twenty-five steps — C-grade aptitude!"
The deacon beside him recorded it without expression.
The crowd's reaction was muted. No cheers, no mockery.
For a boy from an ordinary family, a middling C-grade result carried no hope of turning fate on its head — but it at least secured him the right to remain in the stockade as an ordinary Gu Master. He would not be sent to mine ore or till fields.
The ceremony continued.
One youth after another entered the forest. The results, for the most part, were unremarkable.
"Eleven steps — D-grade!"
"Eight steps... no aptitude. Step down!"
"Twenty-eight steps — C-grade!"
The vast majority were either commoners who could not cultivate at all — collapsing on the spot in tears — or a mass of undistinguished C-grade and D-grade results.
The occasional youth who scraped their way to thirty-one or thirty-two steps and earned a B-grade result barely caused a stir, since none of them belonged to any core faction.
Looks like this year is another mediocre one.
Lin Mu had been standing at the outer edge of the crowd for half an hour and was beginning to lose interest. He shook his head. This foregone conclusion of a ceremony held no appeal for him anymore.
He turned around, intending to leave the plaza and return to tempering his Primeval Essence.
But then — the instant Lin Mu turned to go, a strange commotion rippled through the crowd.
"Next — Lin Xingyuan!"
At the deacon's call, a youth emerged slowly from behind the Medicine Hall contingent where Lin Xue stood.
He wore a long robe washed so many times it had faded to white. His expression was utterly indifferent. His frame was even somewhat slight.
He did not take a deep breath like the others. He did not clench his fists with nerves.
He walked as though strolling through his own back garden — unhurried, completely at ease — and stepped into the Iron Leaf Forest that had stopped so many before him.
Lin Mu had not paid him any particular attention. But the sharp intake of breath from the crowd around him made him stop instinctively.
"Hiss — that speed!"
Lin Mu snapped his head back around.
With his Gu worm active, his pupils contracted to their sharpest point in an instant.
The youth named Lin Xingyuan faced the invisible resistance head-on.
The iron-hard branches before him — they might as well have been the softest, most ordinary roadside weeds. He parted them with casual, effortless ease, as though they offered no resistance at all.
One step. Two steps. Ten steps. Twenty steps.
The youth's expression did not change. His pace did not slow in the slightest.
"Thirty steps — and he's still going!"
"Thirty-five! Thirty-eight! He hasn't even broken a sweat!"
The noise of the entire crowd — in that single moment — was snuffed out as though by an invisible hand, plunging into a silence so complete that a falling pin could have been heard.
Up on the high platform — Lin Feng and Lin Xue, who had been exchanging pleasantries over their teacups, and the elders who had been watching with casual disinterest — all of them jolted as though struck by lightning and shot to their feet in unison.
Even Elder Kuangxu's hands were trembling faintly, his gaze locked onto that figure within the forest.
Beneath the stunned, disbelieving stares of thousands of eyes — that slight, unassuming youth crossed the forty-step threshold — the absolute limit of B-grade — with steady, unhurried strides.
And in the end — under the gaze of a crowd whose hearts had nearly stopped — he set his foot down, with complete and utter casualness, at —
Step forty-four.
A-grade.