Limitless Ascension: Strength Amid Adversity – Chapter 163

The crowd was stunned, staring at the numerous glowing energy bodies ahead, each about three meters wide and resembling sticks, speculating about the content of this trial stage.

“What’s the point of making them so big if you can’t even fit in?” a curvy, lightly dressed female cultivator muttered.

The moment she finished speaking, countless fiery gazes turned towards her.

Realizing her slip of the tongue, the female cultivator’s face flushed red.

Just then, a booming voice echoed through the heavens and earth, clearly resonating in everyone’s minds:

“Testers, please enter each projection space in order. The longer you survive inside, the greater your chances of winning. Note that only one hundred slots are available this round; the remaining testers will be eliminated!”

At this announcement, both men and women present were thrown into an uproar.

Only one hundred people allowed to succeed in this round? Everyone else would be kicked out!

And it sounded like the environment was going to be pretty brutal!

“I get the reasoning, but why make it in this shape? It’s a bit misleading,” Li Wujie scratched his head.

Ye Junlin shook his head, “Well, the designer’s aesthetic sense is limited; we need to be more understanding.”

Liu Huangshu, with ears everywhere, nearly exploded and rushed out to argue. Even as a spirit body, he had his temper!

“You ignorant junior, do you even know what aesthetic means?”

“The projection spaces I created look so big and thick; isn’t that a symbol of the highest aesthetics of man?”

Liu Huangshu pointed at the young man reflected in the water, his voice filled with emotion as he scolded.

At that moment, everyone orderly entered their respective projection spaces.

According to the rules, they had to strive to survive in the projection map, with the more days survived being better.

Anyone outside the hundred would be directly eliminated!

When Li Wujie opened his eyes, he found himself on a strange mountain, dense with vegetation and numerous bushes. The sun above was scorching, and he felt warm all over.

“Wait, where’s my sword?”

Li Wujie instinctively reached for the sword at his waist, only to find nothing there. He cursed inwardly.

He tried to move around a bit, realizing his physical fitness was quite poor, far from the energetic feeling he had before.

“Hold on, this isn’t my body!”

Li Wujie widened his eyes, raising his hands before his face. Looking at the spots of age on his arms, he realized he was in the body of an old man who had no cultivation at all.

At that moment, a few lines of prompt text appeared before him: “Hello, Tester. You will play the role of an ordinary old man, surviving in this beast-infested mountain until an unexpected death occurs.”

“You gotta be kidding me…”

Li Wujie was furious, thinking this trial was making it way too difficult!

This body was old and frail, comparable to a mortal who would die at a hundred years, which was like being over seventy years old.

With such a weak and old body, how could he survive in a mountain filled with beasts?

Was this a joke to Li the Grandmaster?!

In an emotional outburst, Li Wujie pressed his hand against his painful chest, trying to steady his breathing so his expression wouldn’t look so awful.

Goodness, he almost up and died right there!

With this kind of body, how could he survive in the mountains while avoiding threats from various beasts, as well as dangers from hunger and illness?

No wonder the rules counted survival days; in this condition, an ordinary person might be lucky to last two or three days.

Li Wujie shook his head, as if trying to shake off his worries.

Regaining his composure, he struggled to break off a branch to use as a walking stick, then cautiously moved forward.

The pressing priority was to find food and water; he needed to hold out as long as possible.

On the first day, Li Wujie’s luck turned around. He gathered many edible fruits and found a small stream to quench his thirst. Nearby, he even set up a small tent with branches and leaves and lit a fire outside.

That night, Li Wujie tried to sense the Qi within himself, hoping to leverage his identity as a cultivator for this old body to embark on the path of cultivation. Yet, he ultimately gave up, realizing this body was too trashy and lacked any conditions for cultivation.

He had to settle for using basic breathing techniques to slowly improve his body. Although the effects were minimal, it was better than nothing, especially since in such harsh conditions, a stronger physique meant a better chance of survival.

The cold night wind was biting, and Li Wujie huddled by the fire, struggling through the long, dreary night.

On the second day, Li Wujie started looking for food again and sharpening tools. Using his rich skills, he managed to catch fish from the water and enjoyed a roasted fish meal. During this time, he suspected he would encounter beasts but, thanks to his keen instinct as a sword cultivator, he managed to avoid them from a distance.

Days passed—third, fourth, fifth, sixth…

Throughout the process, Li Wujie barely managed to survive, steadily improving his physical state thanks to his continued activity and the breathing techniques. He believed that as long as nothing unexpected happened, he would be fine.

Then, on the eighty-eighth day, disaster struck.

While taking a dump, a thumb-thick poisonous snake buried in the mud sprang out and bit him in the butt. Knowing there was no hope of survival, Li Wujie went mad, grabbing the snake and biting it. In the end, they both perished…

Meanwhile, other testers were also facing trials, with most not lasting beyond thirty days, while a few made it to fifty days. Among them, Xue Wuhen, being a top-tier sword cultivator, had exceptional insight and instinct, repeatedly avoiding calamities and even breaking through the hundred-day mark to continue surviving.

Rain, pouring down.

An old man with white hair beneath a straw hat stood under a large tree, wielding a sharpened, simple wooden sword. His murky eyes flickered with brilliance, and his expression was calm and collected, exuding the aura of a reclusive master.

Xue Wuhen sighed softly, “It’s been one hundred sixty days since I arrived in this world. I wonder if there are any fellow Daoists who have lived longer than me.”

Buzz~!

A poisonous insect flew by, and Xue Wuhen responded promptly, slashing his wooden sword rapidly and instantly killing the insect.

“Hmph, unwise.”

Xue Wuhen stood there proudly with his sword, ready to wait until the rain passed before heading back, as the path would be muddy and slippery, fearing an unexpected change.

After all, this frail body was too weak; a single heavy fall could seriously injure him.

Suddenly, thick clouds gathered, accompanied by a thunderous rumble that sent shivers down his spine.

Boom~!

Lightning flashed across the sky, and gale-force winds howled.

Xue Wuhen’s brow twitched; he had a feeling calamity was approaching.

“This is bad!”

No sooner had those words left his mouth than a bolt of lightning struck down, instantly scorching him to a crispy state and ending his life prematurely.

The moral of this story? Never stand under a large tree during a thunderstorm.

In the courtyard, Liu Huangshu observed each tester’s projection world, watching how they survived as elderly men in the treacherous mountains.

“This round tests adaptability and the most needed instinct for judgment. Even if you had tremendous capabilities before, in here, you can only play as an old man without any cultivation background. Even if you thrash around, you can only be a tad stronger than an ordinary old man.”

Liu Huangshu stroked his beard proudly.

In his opinion, surviving over a hundred days in such harsh conditions meant one was among the elite; those who lasted over one hundred fifty days were exceptional, while hitting two hundred days was remarkable.

What’s more, the beasts in these mountains would grow even stronger and appear with double the frequency after two hundred days—an absolute hell-level challenge!

“Hmm? What about that kid?”

Liu Huangshu recalled something and curiously searched for Ye Junlin’s image, wanting to see how many days he had survived.

Upon checking, he found out that Ye Junlin hadn’t even entered yet!

At that moment, Ye Junlin watched as the glowing pillars gradually dimmed, realizing that the testers had finished.

Many men and women walked out dejectedly, sharing tales of their experiences inside the projections.

“Wow, I only made it ten days! Got bitten by a wolf!”

“You’re lucky, I barely lasted two days—I died from a freak fall!”

“Haha, none of you can top my creativity! I choked to death on a fishbone while eating!”

…

Everyone was excitedly discussing and comparing who died in a more outrageous way.

Ye Junlin saw Li Wujie coming out and pulled him aside, curious, “Tell me, how did you die?”

“Cough, I got poisoned after being bitten by a snake,” Li Wujie deliberately left out the key detail about his unfortunate timing and spoke with a hint of pride, “But before I died, I bit it back! How’s that for impressive?”

“Hardcore,” Ye Junlin patted the middle-aged man’s shoulder.

Next, seeing Xue Wuhen’s figure, Ye Junlin walked up and asked, “How about you? How did you die?”

Xue Wuhen smiled bitterly, “I’m ashamed to say I was struck by lightning.”

“But hey, I lived for one hundred sixty days.”

Saying so, Xue Wuhen straightened his chest, his tone a bit proud.

“One hundred sixty days? Impressive!” Li Wujie gave a thumbs up, genuinely impressed.

“Is that a difficult record?” Ye Junlin asked, confused.

“Master, I swear, it’s unbelievably hard!” Li Wujie replied.

Xue Wuhen chuckled, “Senior Ye, you haven’t entered yet, right? Give it a go, and you’ll see.”

In his heart, he thought, You probably won’t last long, either!

Ye Junlin nodded, “Sounds exciting, I’ll give it a try.”

Then, he stepped into the glowing pillar and began entering the projection world.

Seeing this, Liu Huangshu became even more interested, grinning meaningfully, “Hehe, let’s see how you die in that world next!”