Extreme Spirit Chaos Technique

Chapter 271: Puppet Dao.

After flying for nearly two minutes and feeling he had gotten the hang of it, Mu Chen finally descended. He performed Introspection and was surprised to find that he had barely consumed any of the Primordial Power in his body.

’I seem to have made a mistake just now.’

Seeing he still had some time, Mu Chen slowly sat down. As he circulated the Extreme Spirit Chaos Technique, the Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi within the tower rapidly gathered around him. After his Spiritual Power broke through to the Late Stage of the Kan Realm, Mu Chen’s thoughts also calmed down. Thinking it over, he realized he had indeed made a huge mistake. He had actually chosen to fight those Guardian Illusions head-on. He was here to clear the floors, not to have a contest. Even if it were a contest, what was there to gain from competing with mindless Guardian Illusions? It was nothing more than a test of brute force that offered no real improvement.

Cursing himself for being so stupid, Mu Chen decided that from the next floor onward, he would unleash his strongest Combat Skills right from the start and aim for an instant kill. Otherwise, the longer things dragged on, the more disadvantageous it would be for him. Besides, his Primordial Power was always fully restored after clearing a floor thanks to the absorption of the Golden Elemental Power. He didn’t have to worry about failing the next floor due to a lack of Primordial Power.

Realizing this, Mu Chen felt that using his last drop of the Emperor’s Heart Returning Lotus had been a complete waste. He didn’t know how many more floors he could clear or what other surprises awaited him. If something went wrong, he would have no safety net at all. In any case, the first thing he would do after getting out was to find some Seventh Grade or higher Healing Herbs. Otherwise, given how often he got injured, he felt completely unprepared.

The Teleportation Array to the eleventh floor was already open. Mu Chen shouldered the Profound Jade Box, took a step forward, and disappeared from the tenth floor’s space with a sensation of weightlessness.

「Outside」

When everyone saw the eleventh floor of the Tower of Calamity also light up with a blue glow, they all swallowed hard. Lingyun’s expression was a little dazed. Back then, she and Di Cang had only mentioned challenging Amoluo’s record to Mu Chen, but that was a task he just had to complete before the age of twenty. They never imagined that Mu Chen, on his very first attempt at the Tower of Calamity, would surpass the record that the academy’s genius, Amoluo, had taken twenty years to achieve.

"What else are you hiding?" Lingyun couldn’t help but murmur.

Mu Chen was like an enigma; the more one learned about him, the more one felt he was anything but simple, only more complex. Di Cang was in no better state than Lingyun, feeling completely dizzy. "We’ve struck gold. We’ve really struck gold."

"Could this kid really obtain the ancient inheritance, just like in the legends?" Wu Kui’s mouth fell open as he said this, as if talking to himself.

Wu Changqing sighed with emotion. "I don’t know. But he’s already achieved ten perfect clears. Leaving aside that illusory ancient inheritance, just based on predicting potential... what height will his Martial Artist Realm reach?"

"..."

In an instant, everyone present realized their focus had been misplaced. They had forgotten something so important: the Tower of Calamity’s primary purpose was never the ancient inheritance. Its greatest ability was predicting potential.

"Ten perfect clears... Heavens! One perfect clear predicts a Martial King. What does ten predict? That’s far beyond a Martial Emperor, isn’t it? But Martial Emperors haven’t existed for thirty thousand years. Could the Tower of Calamity’s predictions be wrong?" Xuan Yin exclaimed.

Wu Kui was stunned. "That can’t be right. Are the predictions recorded in the Ancient Literature also fake?"

Di Cang shook his head firmly. "No, the records in the Ancient Literature are all real. Have you forgotten the great deeds of those few Saints? They themselves once said that the Tower of Calamity’s predictions could not be wrong. In that case, there is only one possible explanation for this situation..."

"What is it?"

"His potential is outside the Tower of Calamity’s predictive scope... or rather, the magnitude of his potential has transcended the Tower of Calamity’s predictive ability!"

Di Cang’s words silenced everyone. ’Transcending the Tower of Calamity’s predictive ability... is such a thing even possible?’

Di Cang seemed to read their minds and said with a smile, "Is it possible for a Sixth-Ring Martial Master to defeat a Three-Ring Martial Spirit? Is it possible for a Sixth-Ring Martial Artist to achieve Walking on Air and use Elemental Power Materialization?"

Those two questions left everyone dazed and bewildered. Indeed, in tens of thousands of years, a prodigy like Mu Chen had never appeared. His existence completely shattered the rules of this world. If he were given time to continue growing, he would surely stand at the pinnacle of this continent. At least, that was what Di Cang and Lingyun believed, and they were utterly convinced of it!

"The eleventh floor... Is Amoluo’s record about to be broken?"

At that moment, all the students of the Holy Hall were in disbelief. Even though the reality was right before their eyes, they were still unwilling to accept it as true. ’Is the Tower of Calamity’s challenge really this simple? Is getting a perfect clear really so easy? Or is the Tower of Calamity we’re challenging not on the same difficulty level?’ None of them knew the answers.

However, they were right about one thing: the Tower of Calamity they were challenging was, in fact, not on the same level of difficulty.

「High in the sky, ten thousand meters up」

The old man from the Library Pavilion sighed with emotion. "He’s passed the ten floors of the Phantom Dao. Next should be the Puppet Dao. But given the difficulty of these perfect clear floors, the little fellow will probably have to stop here..." 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

「Inside the Tower」

With a WHOOSH, Mu Chen’s figure appeared in the challenge space of the eleventh floor. As he stepped in, the space finally began to change slightly.

PLINK...

As his foot landed, ripples spread out from beneath it. Mu Chen activated his Purple Sky Demon Pupils and scanned his surroundings. It was a world of blue. As far as the eye could see, the entire world was filled with countless mirrors, each reflecting his image from every angle, creating a disorienting sight.

The surface felt solid under his feet, but it looked like a calm lake. The lake’s surface was like a vast mirror, perfectly reflecting the scene above. Thanks to this reflection, Mu Chen could easily see that the ceiling was identical to the floor. In fact, if the world were flipped upside down, the environment wouldn’t change at all.

It was dead silent. Mu Chen stood calmly in this space, his reflections filling nearly the entire world of mirrors.

"Welcome to the Puppet Dao. I am the guardian of the eleventh floor of the Tower of Calamity—the Mirror Puppet."

Suddenly, a strange, grating voice echoed through the quiet world. It was unpleasant to the ear, but Mu Chen showed no surprise. Ever since he entered the Tower of Calamity, he knew the trials he faced were completely different from everyone else’s, so he wouldn’t be surprised by anything that happened next.

Seeing that Mu Chen was ignoring it, the Mirror Puppet didn’t seem to mind and continued in its grating tone, "I finally get to see another challenger. This is truly a joyous occasion. Let me think, who was the last challenger I met... Hmm~, oh! Right! I think it was a fellow named Shen Jianxin. Tsk, tsk, that kid was really strong. I didn’t even last three minutes against him."

"Puppet Dao? What’s that?" Mu Chen finally spoke, but only because the only part he understood was the name Shen Jianxin. The rest was all a blur.

The Mirror Puppet exclaimed, "Oh~ I completely forgot! As the guardian of the eleventh floor, my mission is not as simple as just guarding this floor and sending challengers away. Alright, allow this Puppet to explain to you what the Puppet Dao is."

"The place you are in is called the Tower of Calamity, and it has a total of thirty-three floors. The top three floors are the Saint Dao, the bottom ten floors are the Phantom Dao, and the middle twenty floors are the Puppet Dao and the Beast Spirit Dao. Once you pass the tenth floor, you enter the Puppet Dao. As the names suggest, the guardians of the Phantom Dao are all illusions, while the guardians of the Puppet Dao are all puppets. And I," the Mirror Puppet said, sounding rather proud, "am one of the guardians of the Puppet Dao."

"You’re saying that besides Shen Jianxin, I’m the first challenger you’ve met?" Mu Chen was skeptical. He remembered that Amoluo had also cleared the tenth floor. If the Mirror Puppet was the guardian of the eleventh floor, it should have met him as well.

"Of course! You see, this Puppet was originally the Guardian Puppet of the sixteenth floor. It’s because you accumulated ten perfect clears that this Puppet had to lower its status to guard the eleventh floor. Oh! Right. This Puppet’s Martial Artist Realm is... a Three-Ring Martial King! And if you want to clear this floor, you have to meet two conditions."

"A Three-Ring Martial King! And two conditions?" Mu Chen’s expression finally changed. A Three-Ring Martial King was a full Great Realm higher than him, and on top of that, there were two conditions to pass.

"But of course. The trials of the Puppet Dao won’t let you pass so easily. The first condition to clear this floor is, HEHE, to find this Puppet. The second condition is to defeat this Puppet. Once you meet both conditions, this Puppet will naturally let you pass," the Mirror Puppet cackled in its strange, grating way.

Mu Chen sneered, "So I just have to find and defeat you, is that it?"

With that, Mu Chen’s formidable Spiritual Power instantly spread out, blanketing the entire space in a moment. However, when his Spiritual Power hit the mirrors, it was all deflected to the side as if hitting a barrier. Instantly, the Spiritual Power he had released became utterly chaotic, and the feedback he received turned into a blur.

To prevent a Spiritual Power backlash, Mu Chen hastily withdrew his Spiritual Detection. He was utterly horrified. In a low voice, he muttered, "How can this be?"

The Mirror Puppet chuckled. "Surprising, isn’t it? Your trusty Spiritual Detection is completely useless. HEHE, how could this Puppet’s Reversal Array not even be able to defend against Spiritual Power? Without your Spiritual Detection, this Puppet would love to see how you’re going to find it! HAHAHAHA..."

Hearing the piercing taunts, Mu Chen snorted coldly. "Do you really think I can’t kill you just because I can’t find you? I’ll just kill you directly. That should count as clearing the floor, right?"

The moment he finished speaking, a pure blue light flashed within Mu Chen’s purple eyes. With a single thought, the Ice Attribute Primordial Qi around him began to fluctuate violently. In just an instant, three sturdy Profound Ice Walls formed, tightly encasing his body...