The wait lasted exactly one week.

  For seven days the makeshift town surrounding the massive crater in the Whispering Wastes was a boiling cauldron of anticipation and paranoia. Rival demonic sects glared at one another across the muddy thoroughfares. Rogue cultivators nervously sharpened their blades while merchants made an absolute fortune selling dubious maps to an inheritance ground that no one had actually entered yet.

  Beneath the canopy of their modest travel pavilion, Li Yu and Demon Lord Malos passed the time with ease. Li Yu used the quiet moments to mentally process his newly awakened Devouring Abyssal Leviathan Physique. He kept his aura firmly clamped down at the Core Formation realm.

  Malos, meanwhile, had fully embraced his role as an ordinary traveler. He was genuinely fascinated by the unfiltered experiences of the encampment. He spent his days wandering the chaotic markets, observing how desperation and hope dictated the value of goods.

  He successfully traded several more of his painted river stones for a cracked jade flute, a tarnished brass bracer and a completely mundane wooden spoon that he claimed possessed excellent structural resonance. He relished the simple satisfaction of a successful barter, something he had never experienced when sitting on his throne of foresight.

  On the morning of the seventh day, the howling winds of the wasteland suddenly died. An eerie and suffocating silence fell over the encampment of tens of thousands of cultivators. Every head turned toward the center of the crater.

  The swirling vortex of blood red Qi that sealed the massive and jagged stone gates of the Gore Forged Clan began to boil. The thick crimson energy thinned out and pulsed like a dying heartbeat. Then, with a sound like a mountain cracking in half, the red vortex shattered into a million dissipating shards of light.

  The ancient bronze doors that were rusted shut for what seemed like epochs, slowly groaned open. A stale and heavy wind carrying the scent of ancient earth washed over the crater.

  A momentary pause gripped the massive crowd. In ancient ruins of this scale, there were usually severe restrictions. Formations that barred anyone above a certain age, or repelled anyone lacking a specific bloodline or cultivators whose realms were too high or too low. Everyone was waiting for someone else to test the waters.

  A brave and desperate rogue cultivator at the Foundation Establishment realm screamed a war cry and threw himself forward. He sprinted directly through the open gates. Nothing happened. He simply crossed the threshold and vanished into the darkness within.

  Then, a heavily armored warlord at the Nascent Soul realm roared. His colossal winged tiger mount leaped across the crater and plunged into the entrance.

  Again, nothing happened. It seemed like there were no restrictions whatsoever.

  "It's completely open!" Someone screamed from the front of the crowd. "The inheritance belongs to whoever grabs it first!"

  Total pandemonium erupted whether it was true or not. Tens of thousands of cultivators, demons, beasts and rogues surged forward like a tidal wave. Tents were trampled, rivalries were momentarily forgotten and the entire encampment poured into the gaping maw of the ancient ruin.

  "The doors are open," Malos said. He dusted off his gray robes and picked up his burlap sack. His eyes were wide with genuine eagerness to explore. "Let us go, Li Yu. I want to experience what trials these ancients left behind. It has been a very long time since I walked into the unknown for a trail like this."

  "Let's see what the Gore Forged Clan prepared for us," Li Yu agreed as he stepped out of the pavilion. Li Yu didn’t think he would obtain the inheritance. The memory of thinking he was chosen only for it to actually be Jian Xuan was fresh in his memories. Moreover, this was a demonic inheritance and he didn’t know if he even wanted it. However, he did want to see what was inside.

  They didn't rush though. They joined the tail end of the massive horde and casually walked down the steep banks of the crater before passing through the towering bronze gates.

  The moment they crossed the threshold, the spatial environment shifted violently. Li Yu and Malos found themselves standing at the beginning of a massively wide and seemingly endless pathway paved with crimson stones. The path floated in the middle of a vast and starless void.

  All around them, the cultivators who had entered were also deposited onto this sprawling road. Before anyone could take a step, a booming and disembodied voice echoed from the void above. It sounded like grinding stones and clashing iron.

  "Welcome, seekers of the Gore Forged Path," the voice announced. It carried the weight of ancient law. "The clan has fallen but our legacy endures. To claim the supreme inheritance, you must walk the Path of the Founder. You may walk this path with your companions but the trials of the path measure the individual. Those who pass shall proceed. Those who fail shall not face death. Instead, they shall be removed to the Heavens of Observation to bear witness to their betters. Begin."

  High above the floating pathway a massive and translucent platform materialized in the void. It was currently empty and filled only with rows of stone benches.

  "A rather merciful ruin," Malos noted while looking up at the viewing gallery. "Usually, these ancient demonic inheritance grounds just melt you into a puddle of blood if you fail."

  "The Gore Forged Clan was brutal but they were also pragmatists," Malos continued as he looked around the floating path. "A dead failure is just fertilizer. A living failure can be put to work in the mines or used for manual labor. Or in this case, placed in the stands to reflect on their inadequacies. Come, let us face the first trial. I am very excited."

  The massive horde of cultivators began to move forward along the crimson path. Since there were no open treasures, the excitement died down quickly. Trails had to be passed so there was no longer any rush. It didn't take long for them to reach the first obstacle though.

  The path widened into a massive square plaza. In the center of the plaza stood a colossal pillar of smooth, black stone. It pulsed with a faint and demanding energy.

  "Test One: The Pillar of Foundation," the ancient voice boomed from the void. "Strike the pillar. Prove your physical vessel is worthy of the Gore Forged arts. Weakness is an insult to the blood."

  The test was incredibly straightforward. There were no complex rankings, no numbers and no glowing lights measuring specific power levels. It was a simple, binary mechanism. Pass or Fail.

  A towering and muscular demon with four arms stepped up to the pillar. He cracked his knuckles, let out a deafening roar and slammed all four fists into the obsidian surface with the force of a falling meteor.

  The pillar absorbed the blow without a single scratch. A moment later, a rune at the base flared a bright and welcoming green. The barrier behind the pillar dissolved for the demon and allowed him to walk further down the path.

  "Ha! Is that all?" The four armed demon laughed and flexed his massive muscles for the crowd. "The Gore Forged Clan knows what truly matters! Raw and unstoppable power!"

  The demonic cultivators roared in approval. This was a test they completely understood. Brute force was the universal language of the chaotic realms. One by one, they stepped up. They unleashed devastating kicks, explosive palm strikes and furious headbutts against the stone.

  Most of the demons passed easily. The pillar glowed green again and again. However, a few of the frailer human rogue cultivators, who relied entirely on techniques and neglected their physical bodies, struck the pillar only for it to flash a harsh red. Before they could even complain, a beam of light engulfed them and teleported them instantly to the viewing gallery high above.

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  Li Yu stepped up to the pillar. He didn't take a martial stance and he didn't roar. He simply raised his hand and tapped the surface with his knuckles. He carefully allowed just a tiny fraction of his Devouring Abyssal Leviathan Physique's base strength to bleed through into the strike.

  The pillar flashed a solid green.

  Malos stepped up next. The Demon Lord didn't even touch the pillar with his hands. He reached into his robes and pulled out one of his painted river stones and casually tossed it at the massive monument. The stone bounced off the surface with a dull clink.

  The pillar hesitated for a fraction of a second. It was as if its ancient array was processing the sheer power of the object that had struck it, before flashing a vibrant green.

  "It appreciates the profound weight of the earth," Malos explained to a nearby warlord who was staring at him with wide and disbelieving eyes. "A supreme artifact recognizes the value of another."

  They passed through the barrier and continued down the crimson path alongside a massive throng of confident and boasting demons. They had all passed the strength test and were feeling invincible. They fully expected the next trial to be a test of combat or perhaps enduring a waterfall.

  Instead, the path led them into a second plaza. This one was entirely different. The crimson stones were replaced by deep, rich and dark brown soil.

  In the center of the dirt plaza hovered a terrifying figure. It was an ethereal spirit forged entirely of swirling and boiling blood. It had glowing red eyes, jagged horns and a terrifying aura that made the air itself taste like iron.

  "I am the Harbinger of the Soil," the blood spirit hissed. Its voice echoed like a thousand dying warriors. "To master the Gore Forged arts, one must understand the foundation of all life. Answer my inquiries or be cast aside into the void of failure!"

  The muscular demons grinned and pounded their chests. "Ask your questions, spirit! Test our knowledge of the martial dao! Ask us how to sever a spine or how to shatter the cores of our enemies!"

  The terrifying blood spirit floated forward and its glowing eyes locked onto the loudest demon.

  "Question one," the Harbinger hissed menacingly. "If the leaves of the Crimson Sun Radish begin to yellow at the edges and the soil is highly acidic, what is the optimal ratio of crushed bone meal to wood ash required to neutralize the rot and ensure a bountiful harvest?"

  Total silence fell over the plaza.

  The muscular demon blinked. He looked at his massive and blood stained hands, then up at the terrifying spirit. "What? Radishes? I don't know anything about that. I just eat them when the servants cook them."

  "Failure!" The blood spirit roared.

  A red beam of light struck the demon and instantly teleported him to the viewing gallery in the sky. Panic rippled through the crowd.

  "Next question," the spirit turned to a heavily armored warlord. "When cultivating the Iron Vein Lotus, how many inches of standing water must be maintained during the germination phase to prevent root suffocation?"

  "I just use my Qi to force it to grow!" The warlord shouted defensively.

  "Incorrect. You have drowned the harvest. Failure!"

  Another red beam flashed. Another mighty warlord was banished to the benches above. The demons began to curse loudly.

  "What kind of joke is this trail?! We are warriors! We are conquerors! Why is the Gore Forged Clan asking us about farming?!"

  Malos shook his head slightly as he watched the mighty warlords fail the agricultural quizzes. "They do not understand the reality of existence. A clan cannot sustain an army of millions on violence alone. Before a warrior can march, he must eat. The Gore Forged Clan were legendary body refiners. That means they required massive amounts of high tier spiritual food to sustain their physiques."

  It was a brilliant and pragmatic reality that the violent demons of the current era had completely forgotten. It also perfectly tracked with what Li Yu had seen in the Night Queen's territory, where vanguard soldiers had blown up an entire field just to kill a few burrowing moles. Demons were catastrophic farmers.

  The Harbinger of the Soil turned its terrifying gaze to Malos. "You! Explain the benefits of crop rotation when dealing with spiritual tubers!"

  "Ah, a classic dilemma," Malos said smoothly as he stepped forward. "Spiritual tubers drain the ambient earth Qi at an aggressive rate. If one plants them consecutively in the same plot, the soil becomes barren and leads to Qi starvation in the next yield. One must rotate them with a fixing spiritual legume, such as the Blood Pea. This replenishes the soil's vitality and maintains a sustainable ecosystem for future generations."

  The blood spirit stared at him for a long moment. "Flawless. You may pass."

  The surrounding demons stared at the eccentric scholar in utter disbelief. The spirit then turned to Li Yu.

  "And you. If a spiritual frost approaches during the budding phase of the Moon Whisper Wheat, what is the most efficient and non destructive method to save the crop?"

  Li Yu thought back to what he had learned about farming through his time at the sect and through his travels.

  "You don't use fire Qi, as the sudden temperature shift will shatter the delicate buds," Li Yu answered calmly. "Instead, you create a localized mist array using water Qi just above the crop line. The mist becomes snow and creates an insulating layer of snow around the buds. This protects them from the deeper and killing frost of the ambient air."

  "Good enough. Pass."

  Li Yu and Malos stepped through the plaza. They left behind a chaotic scene of furious demons roaring at the Harbinger of the Soil about how unfair it was to test a warrior on the watering schedules of wheat. By the time they reached the third plaza, the crowd around them had thinned drastically.

  "Test Three: The Illusory Harvest," the ancient voice boomed from the void once more.

  The moment Li Yu stepped onto the plaza, the world dissolved around him. He was no longer on a floating crimson path. He was standing alone in a small and fenced in plot of perfectly tilled dirt. A small wooden table sat beside the plot. It held a watering can, a hoe and a bag of glowing spiritual seeds.

  "To know the theory is only half the battle," the voice echoed. It now originated from the sky of the illusory world. "You have one month to cultivate these seeds into a mature harvest. Time in this illusion has been accelerated. Prove your patience. Prove your care."

  The sun above Li Yu began to streak across the sky. It rose and set in a matter of minutes. Days were passing in the blink of an eye.

  Li Yu picked up the hoe. He could feel the frustration of the demonic cultivators in the separate illusions around him, even if he couldn't see them. The Gore Forged Clan was systematically weeding out the impatient, the arrogant and the overly violent. Or at least thats what it seemed like.

  For most demons, patience was a foreign concept. To stand in the dirt, carefully planting seeds, watering them precisely and simply waiting for nature to take its course was agonizing. Li Yu, however, found it incredibly relaxing. It reminded him of raising his fish. Something he has not had time for in a long time.

  He began to use the hoe. He planted the spiritual seeds at the exact depth that he thought would make sense. When the illusory sun beat down too harshly during the sped up days, he watered them. When illusory spirit weeds sprouted, he got on his knees and pulled them out by the roots.

  He treated the illusion like a genuine and quiet retreat from the chaos of the outside world.

  In the other illusory instances, absolute disaster was unfolding. Cultivators, enraged by the slow growth, were trying to infuse the soil with their chaotic demonic Qi to speed things up. The crops were violently mutated and withered into ash or simply exploded. Some tried to intimidate the plants into growing faster by shouting at them. Others got bored and fell asleep, letting their crops die of illusory drought.

  When Li Yu's illusory month concluded, a healthy and glowing crop of spiritual wheat swayed gently in the wind. The illusion shattered.

  Li Yu found himself standing back on the crimson path. Malos was standing next to him and was carefully brushing some illusory dirt off his gray robes. The Demon Lord looked incredibly pleased with himself. He seemed to have genuinely enjoyed the labor.

  "How did your harvest fare, Malos?" Li Yu asked.

  "I grew a perfectly symmetrical and healthy garden of cabbages," Malos declared proudly. "The act of tending to life from seed to harvest without rushing the outcome... it was a profound experience. The ancient array recognized my dedication and granted me passage."

  Li Yu chuckled and looked around. He knew that Malos would throw his full heart into the task and would have no problems. The vast horde of tens of thousands of cultivators that had charged into the ruins with them had been decimated once again. The path ahead was startlingly empty.

  Li Yu looked up. The translucent viewing gallery floating in the void above was absolutely packed. Roughly seventy percent of the people who had entered the Gore Forged Clan ruins were now sitting on the stone benches. They were looking down at the path in stunned and humiliated silence. Most were just furious that these were the tests.

  The remaining thirty percent standing on the path with Li Yu and Malos were looking around in utter bewilderment. They were fierce warlords, cunning rogues and powerful sect masters and they were all currently having a collective existential crisis.

  "I don't understand," a surviving Nascent Soul demon muttered. He was staring blankly at his calloused hands. "Are we inheriting a supreme bloodline? Or are we interviewing for a position as a groundskeeper?"

  "A little bit of both, it seems," Li Yu said softly. He stepped forward with Malos to see what the ancient farmers had prepared for the fourth test.