"Eh?" Yu Bing suddenly released a low, dumbfounded sound. She narrowed her eyes and moved her head a little bit forward as though she was having trouble seeing something or doubting what she was seeing.
"T-T-That… Impossible!" she cried out, startling Senior Yu and the other sect masters.
"Is there something wrong? What's impossible?" Senior Yu asked her.
Yu Bing pointed at the fourth level with trembling hands, and when the sect masters and Senior Yu turned to look at where she pointed, their eyes bulged with shock.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" Senior Yu directly stood up from her seat in the air and cried out loud.
"What?!" the sect masters were so shocked their body froze!
"H-H-He's actually under the age of 21?!" Senior Yu couldn't believe nor did she want to believe it.
"How is that possible?! No matter if you are a Sovereign or a Monarch, if they are above the age of 21, the stairway will kill them without any exceptions!"
When this heavenly stairway was first found in some ancient cave, a Monarch from the Qing Dynasty decided to try it out, but the moment that Monarch stepped onto the stairway… He exploded to death!
A Monarch had directly exploded to death simply by stepping onto the stairway! That accident has been one of the biggest headaches the Qing Dynasty had to experience since then!
"D-Does this mean he is a…"
They all swallowed hard their saliva, none of them daring to believe such an impossibility.
Meng Xiang's talent of having a Spirit Ascension Stage cultivation base at 10 years old had already shocked them to their core, let alone a Monarch that was below the age of 21!
"Ah?!" Yu Bing suddenly cried out again.
"What now?!" they all looked at her.
"That little girl beside him! S-She… She didn't have any cultivation a few days ago when I met them! I am sure of it! B-But she is a Spirit Ascension Stage expert now?!" Yu Bing who had been paying attention to only Tian Yi finally realized Meng Xiang and her cultivation base.
When she met them at the carriage, she was certain that Meng Xiang did not cultivate. Unless she used some sort of cultivation-hiding technique!
"What did you say?!"
"She didn't have a cultivation base a few days ago?!"
However, Senior Yu and the sect masters were already too shocked from Tian Yi's situation to think properly, so they weren't in the right mind to think of the possibility that she might've just hidden her cultivation base in the beginning.
"Bing'er…" Senior Yu looked at her with a serious expression.
Yu Bing nodded. "I am curious, too… So I will go!"
Then, she directly flew towards the starting point of the competition.
She was going to enter the competition, too!
"Hurry up and give me a talisman!" she commanded the middle-aged man who dealt with the signing up in a tone filled with urgency.
"D-Divine Grace— "
"Just give it to me!"
"Y-Yes! Right away!"
The middle-aged man got scared and threw at her a talisman, but Yu Bing was in too much of a hurry to care about his actions and directly went to climbing the stairway.
"Hey, look! There is Divine Grace Yu! She is climbing the stairway, too!"
"Huh? I thought that she wasn't going to climb this year's competition?"
"Huh? Isn't she already past the age of 21?"
"Ah? Now that you mention it... Aren't the top three also above the age of 21? What is going on?"
"As expected of Divine Grace Yu! She's soaring through the steps!"
However, the people did not care about such a small matter and watched with excitement.
Yu Bing was climbing the stairway so fast that she looked as though she was flying up the stairway instead of climbing it!
100 steps, 1,000 steps, 10,000 steps.
In the blink of an eye, she has traveled over 10,000 steps, reaching the 2nd level!
Meanwhile, Tian Yi and Meng Xiang were still climbing at their usual snail pace.
"The fourth level is right ahead of us," Tian Yi said. "You have only a few more steps."
Meng Xiang nodded, dropping her sweat to the floor. Her entire body was soaked in sweat as of this moment; it was something she has never experienced before.
One step, two steps, three steps… After a few more minutes, they have finally stepped onto the fourth level!
However, the moment they stepped onto the fourth level, Meng Xiang felt the weight on her double, nearly causing her to kneel on the floor.
"Are you okay? Do you want to stop now?" Tian Yi asked her.
"W-What about Big Brother?" she asked him with what little breath she had left.
"I will be going to the top— to the peak," he said, dumbfounding her for a moment.
"I-I will follow Big Brother to the top, then," she finally said.
Tian Yi nodded. "Good."
The two continued to climb the stairway, but their speed was cut in half when compared to the 3rd level.
Tian Yi didn't mind their snail-like pace; it was to train Meng Xiang, after all.
Half an hour later, they came to another halt.
"Is this your limit?" he asked her who was kneeling on the floor, gasping for air.
"N-No…" she bit her lips and stood right back up and continued walking without needing Tian Yi to say anything.
Another half an hour passed, and Meng Xiang came to another halt. Her legs were in pain, her breathing was rigid, and she was crying silently.
Tian Yi sighed at her pitiful sight. He knew very well what she was going through. When he first started cultivating, his father would throw at him endless challenges that would make him cry. However, unlike Meng Xiang, he quickly overcame these challenges, so his father had to keep adjusting the difficulty after every training.
It had gotten to the point where his father ran out of ideas, and when that happened, his father simply gave him the 'go cultivate by yourself' sentence.
And just as he was about to say something to her, a shadow appeared beside them.
"Hm?" Tian Yi looked at the veiled figure beside him; it was Yu Bing.
"S-Senior…" Yu Bing opened her mouth, but she did not know what to say to him.
"There is no need to call me senior. I am the younger one here, after all." Tian Yi said, answering her question before she could even ask him.
Her eyes widened in shock. "T-Then you really are under the age of 21?" she asked again just in case.
"I am 18 years old," Tian Yi completely blew away her suspicions with that casual sentence. "Is there something wrong with my age?" he asked her.
"N-No…" Yu Bing said, her legs feeling as though it was going to give up on her from shock.
The main reason why she didn't want to chase after him was simply because of their age gap. While age meant very little to cultivators, she was still a young maiden in her early years. For her to chase after some ancient entity was simply unthinkable for her.
However, now that she found out that he was younger than her all long, her decision began to waver.
"I…" she opened her mouth only to forget what she wanted to say, again.
Tian Yi then said, "Senior, we are still in the middle of the competition. How about we talk after this?"
Yu Bing was dumbfounded at first, but then an idea flashed inside her head.
"That's fine. How about we race each other to the top?" she suddenly asked him.
Tian Yi was surprised at first, but then he smiled. "I will take on your challenge!"
He then turned to Meng Xiang. "You have done an excellent job, Meng Xiang. Go get some rest."
Tian Yi stopped giving her his Spirit Qi, and with no Spirit Qi supporting her empty Dantian, she directly went unconscious and fell into his arms.
Tian Yi tapped on her forehead, and Meng Xiang disappeared from his arms into his Dantian.
Yu Bing's eyes widened from what had just happened. Where did she go? But before she could ask, Tian Yi said to her: "Ready when you are!"
"Uh… Yes… I am ready," she unconsciously answered.
"Good! Then let's race to the top!" Tian Yi smiled, and he took off like an arrow just released from the bow!
Yu Bing's eyes widened upon seeing his climbing speed. However, she did not have time to be shocked, and she too took off like an arrow.