Chapter 862: First Echelon Ten minutes passed quickly while the Star Lords discussed. The golden light surfaced on the score monument again, erasing the previous rankings and replacing them with new ones. This time, the young man who carried a wooden sword ranked first! He was on the 28th floor of the monument! Dragon Emperor ranked second, he was currently on the 24th floor. However, his points were only slightly fewer than those of the young man who carried a wooden sword thanks to the coefficient of the dragon-class monument. The difficulty of the dragon-class monument lowered his speed. He reached the 16th floor in the first ten minutes, but he only advanced eight more floors ten minutes after; that was within the Star Lords’ expectation. The young man carrying a wooden sword was more astonishing; he was only slightly slower than before since he had still been able to climb twelve additional floors in ten minutes. He was soaring! “I heard that he’s a disciple of the North Sea’s Sword God. Seems to be a good seed!” “Judging from his speed, he has probably finished the battles on every floor in five rounds. A normal person in the Fate State would have been defeated in the range between the third and fifth floors. He’s so much stronger than them!” “His sword techniques aren’t really suppressing the sword-class monument. I think he chose that monument to hone his techniques.” “... Is that kid polishing himself and rising to the top of the rank as he goes?” The Star Lords looked at each other; they then realized who the best genius of the five academes was. The young man would probably be a star in the following phases of the contest. After all, most people on that stage had powerful backgrounds. “Holy King ranks third. He’s challenging the element-class monument and his points are increasing fast; it seems that he didn’t go all out earlier on.” “Oasis Dragon King ranks fourth. Not bad.” “The one who is challenging the all-class monument is stuck on the eighteenth floor. That’s the most difficult monument; if you’re unlucky, you may run into a random enemy that you’re vulnerable to.” “He’s obviously slowed down. He shouldn’t have been so confident!” the Star Lord of the Dragon Tomb Academy sneered; he had seen too many arrogant geniuses of the like, and none of them had ended well. “Humph!” The instructor snorted and ignored him; he was more concerned and anxious about Oasis Dragon King’s ranking. He had expected him to compete with Dragon Emperor, if not with Sword God’s heir. And yet, even Holy King had surpassed him, which was beyond the instructor’s expectation. ... On the nineteenth floor of the all-class monument— Su Ping was flying in a desert while chased by ten gargantuan beasts that were raising a sandstorm; they were rock beasts that were adapted to deserts. There’s indeed a boundary in this illusionary world. I wonder what lies beyond... Su Ping suddenly stopped. The vast desert stretched to the horizon in his eyes, but he could sense a barrier that blocked his senses hundreds of meters ahead of him. Whoosh! He raised his hand and threw a stone. The stone struck the invisible barrier he had detected, which then fell apart upon impact. At the same time, the ten rock beasts roared and charged at him. Su Ping didn’t look back; he merely waved his hand, causing a series of explosions. The ten beasts exploded one after the other. Su Ping seized the last one remaining with a hand made of astral power and then observed the barricade in his way; he tried punching it by gathering the power of thirty laws. The punch was so powerful that the sand in his way was knocked away; the nearby space and soil collapsed, and the place turned into a purely dark area. Bang! The horrifying punch disappeared after a dull noise was heard, and yet the barricade remained intact. The aftershock was spread out, blowing back the sand in a range of thousands of meters and producing a huge pit. Su Ping moved his fist back and took a deep breath; the barricade was truly impenetrable. Although he didn’t try his best, the barricade was still absolutely undamaged; he probably wouldn’t have shaken it even if he would have tried his best. Maybe I can break free from the monument if I destroy the barricade. That way I’ll be able to observe the monument from another dimension, Su Ping thought. Unfortunately, he couldn’t confirm that speculation. Maybe the barricade had been built by the Ascendant State owner, or maybe it was part of the whole. He had tested multiple barricades as he moved along, but he hadn’t found any flaw yet. Never mind. I should just stack up more points. It’ll be for the best if I can exchange them for materials needed for the fourth level of the Solar Bulwark. Su Ping shook his head and squeezed with the astral power hand, making the struggling beast explode. Very soon, Su Ping set foot on the twentieth floor. The twentieth floor was a beautiful mountain; however, a human being in green clothes suddenly jumped out. The human was a girl who approached Su Ping with a marvelous body movement technique. She drew her sword and slashed at him. Su Ping calmly raised his fist. Bang! The woman’s body exploded; she was killed before she could even unleash her sword techniques. There’s even a swordsman here. Indeed, you can meet any sort of enemy here; it’s unpredictable, Su Ping thought and then found himself on the 21st floor. Bang! Su Ping punched again and blew up the enemy. No longer probing the monument’s boundaries, Su Ping dashed even faster and passed every floor with one punch. ... Ten minutes had passed in the outside world. The golden light surfaced on the score monument again. The instructor from the Sword Deity Academy looked at the top of the rank again with glittering eyes. Then, the light in his eyes was gone; he was completely shocked. The young man who carried a wooden sword was no longer there, nor was Dragon Emperor. Instead, it was an unknown person. The little guy who challenged the all-class monument? The other Star Lords saw this too and were rather stunned. “What’s going on? The Sword God’s heir has been pushed to second place?” “Damn, look, is he on the 42nd floor?” “...” “Well...” All seven Star Lords were stunned. The number forty-two was extremely obvious next to Su Ping’s name, and the points that followed were even more unbelievable. His points were 50% more than those of the young man with the wooden sword, thanks to the coefficient of the all-class monument! He was only on the 18th floor and was ranked ninth before, but then he soared to the top and reached the 42nd floor? Didn’t that mean that he had passed twenty-four floors in only ten minutes? That was unreasonable; the higher the floors were, the more difficult they would be. The enemies after the thirtieth floor would be Fate State illusions that had a preliminarily control of laws; it would be the same as fighting enemies in the Star State! The illusions would already be familiar with laws from the fortieth floor and above. Even so, Su Ping was still charging at a high speed under such circumstances? “Did something go wrong?” “Twenty-four floors in ten minutes? It feels like he’s been jumping. How’s it possible?” “Even if he’s as strong as a Star State warrior, his resolve will wear out as he fights inside the monument. He would weaken once his resolve wears out; I’ve only seen two men who were able to pass forty floors in half an hour.” “So have I. They’re both geniuses from other galaxies and became Star Lords when they were very young; they are very likely to reach the Ascendant State.” All the Star Lords were shocked, not knowing what to do. The situation was too weird. He had moved the twelfth floor to the eighteenth in ten minutes earlier on, but then he rose to the 42nd floor in the same amount of time. That was abnormal! Was he not serious in the beginning? The Star Lords preferred to believe that something had gone wrong with the monument. A Star Lord manager realized what was going on and changed his expression. He left a remark and quickly ran off. “I’ll ask the lord to take a look.” The instructors from the five academies looked at each other in bewilderment, not knowing what was going on. However, it seemed that the monument had most likely malfunctioned. “The Sword God’s heir is still the second. He’s slowing down, considering his rise from the 28th floor to the 26th, but his speed is still astonishing.” “Indeed. He’ll surely appear above the fortieth floor on the next refresh!” “Dragon Emperor is also giving chase. He’s on the 33rd floor; the dragon-class monument is indeed very difficult.” “Oasis Dragon King has surpassed Holy King. It seems that this Oasis Gray is indeed something. He deserves to be a Gray!” Taking Su Ping aside, who was shockingly at the top, the other people on the ranking were mostly the same; their rankings were occasionally swapped, but then there were times when they swapped back. Generally speaking, their rankings were already fixed. The young man with the wooden sword and Dragon Emperor had hope of rising to the top. Then, there was the second echelon, which included Oasis Dragon King, Holy King, Queen of the Seas, Thousand Leaves Holy Lady, etc. All of them had claimed seats on the hilltop. Although their rankings weren’t the same, their points were quite close. There were other geniuses trailing behind them; the gap between them and those at the top wasn’t too big either. After all, the ground floors were relatively easy to pass. Their difference wouldn’t be highlighted until they reached higher floors. The Star Lord who had bolted earlier returned with a complicated expression; he looked at the projection on the top of the rank in shock. The instructor from the Sword Deity Academy asked angrily, “What did he say?” He knew that something had gone wrong, but it was rather uncomfortable to have the top spot stolen. Everybody else was also looking curious. For many years, the monuments had never failed; they could only wonder about what was amiss. “The lord said that everything is in order,” said Star Lord with complicated feelings. What the Ascendant State lord had said still echoed in his head: There is nothing wrong with the monuments, nothing whatsoever. Everything is real. I did notice the little guy; he’s interesting. The Star Lord was left in shock when he heard that. He knew that his lord always trained in seclusion and meditated without having the slightest interest in the challengers. Many geniuses with remarkable performances had entered the mysterious realm in the past, but none had ever attracted his attention. After all, Ascendants were solely interested in the great goal of reaching the Celestial State. Geniuses meant nothing to them, unless they were on the lookout for heirs. Even if those geniuses were to grow up, they would only rise to the Ascendant State at best, and there was no need for such experts to curry their favor. “Everything is normal?” Everybody was stupefied after hearing that response. You call rising from the 18th level to the 42nd in ten minutes normal? All of them felt muddleheaded. However, it could only be true ince the Ascendant expert had said it. Nobody would dare to question such a powerhouse! “Well, if it’s true... Isn’t he too much of a genius?” “Does it mean that he’s been fooling around this whole time?” “...” The Star Lords were completely shocked, not knowing what to do. “Genius” and “monster” were apt terms to describe the young man who carried a wooden sword and Dragon Emperor. But that guy was completely on another level. He was alone in the first echelon! “It’s probably a breeze for him to rise to the 50th floor, and he’s in the all-class monument...” said a Star Lord with twitching lips. He had previously attempted to teach the guy’s pet a lesson, but he didn’t expect that the latter would be a genius of such caliber, who easily dwarfed the Sword God’s heir. Not for a second did he believe that such a guy didn’t have an Ascendant State backer. No matter how talented a man was, he couldn’t go far without resources or a good teacher! Otherwise, why would the major families accumulate vast resources for numerous generations to come? “It seems that the guy only asked his pet to attack not because he’s a pure controller, but because Dragon Devil didn’t deserve his attacks!” “He couldn’t have reached the 42nd floor that easily if he were only counting on his pet.” The Star Lords realized the core of the matter and looked at each other. The instructor from the Amir Royal Academy, however, glowed with excitement. Su Ping was participating in the contest thanks to the Amir Royal Academy’s recommendation. If he became famous, so would the academy! Taking into account his performance thus far, he would definitely distinguish himself in the next phases of the contest! He was like a treasure that had fallen from the sky, right in front of his academy! A female Star Lord from the Holy Oriole Academy narrowed her eyes and remarked, “Look, the rank was refreshed again.”