1010 City of Xian

'Hmm? Wait a second… I learned how to do arrays when I was inside the Stairway to Heaven. Maybe I can learn some new techniques while I am the lord of this city!' Yuan mumbled to himself as he got this genius idea.

As the City Lord, surely, he should have some decent techniques stored away.

Unfortunately, he did not have the time to look for these techniques, as there was an army heading towards his city.

"Let's go. We're going to do the same thing we did for the last intruder, but we're going to bring more soldiers this time."

"Yes!"

The general left to gather the soldiers.

Sometime later, they left the city and started flying towards the direction of the intruders.

Once they could see the enemies, Yuan repeated what he did to the previous intruders— surprising them with a fully powered Heaven Splitting Sword Strike that changed the landscape and instantly killed thousands of intruders.

But alas, even though he'd managed to cut the intruders' numbers by 70 percent, the intruders still outnumbered them immensely.

After taking some time to recover his spiritual energy, Yuan joined the battle with the Empyrean Overlord in his grasp and the Starry Abyss by his side.

[Ten Thousand Ghost Blades!]

He cloned the Starry Abyss ten thousand times and used them to assist the other soldiers.

The blood of his enemies and allies rained from the sky as the battle raged for many minutes.

Half an hour later, Yuan fell to his knees and started gasping for air.

Fortunately, the battle had already ended and they were victorious, so he didn't have to worry about the enemies and rested.

"Are you okay, City Lord?!"

His soldiers approached him with worried looks on their faces when they noticed how many injuries were on his body.

Even though the intruders were all Spirit Lords and Spirit Kings, they were much stronger than the cultivators in the Nine Heavens that have the same cultivation base. Even with his Invisible Dragon Cloak, he had sustained injuries.

"I am fine. These all are superficial injuries. They will heal in an instant." Yuan said to them.

And sure enough, his regeneration ability kicked in the following moment, healing his wounds fast enough for the soldiers to witness it with their bare eyes.

'If it were not for the Invisible Dragon Cloak weakening most of the damage, that would've been very dangerous…' He sighed inwardly.

"What about you guys? Are you fine? What about the casualties?" He asked them a moment later.

"It's not good. We lost around 300 men." The general shook his head with a pained expression on his face.

'300… That's almost a third of the amount of soldiers I brought with me… This is bad. And I still have to survive for over half a day. There will definitely be another invasion or two left. If I don't do something, I just might fail the first trial!' Yuan was beginning to feel the pressure of the trials.

Compared to the last time he challenged the Stairway to Heaven, the difficulty has truly increased by leaps and bounds.

Yuan began regretting his decision to purposefully increase the difficulty of the Stairway to Heaven by letting Li Jinxi and the others follow him even though he could've simply challenged the Stairway to Heaven by himself. After all, the Stairway to Heaven opened for all of the players when he cleared it the last time.

However, it was also true that he didn't want to risk the Stairway to Heaven not opening for everyone after he cleared it.

After returning to the city, Yuan immediately started to cultivate to recover his exhausted spiritual energy.

Once he recovered enough spiritual energy, he started looking around the pagoda to see if there were any hidden techniques or treasures inside.

He started from the highest floor of the pagoda, slowly making his way down.

However, even after searching the entire pagoda, he was unable to find any secret rooms or techniques.

"Nothing, huh?" Yuan sighed as he returned to the peak of the pagoda and stared outside the city.

After staring at the city for several minutes, Yuan started getting the feeling that he has been to this place before.

'Why am I suddenly feeling nostalgic? It's not like I have been here… Actually, I have, but that was during the last trial. I barely looked at the city at that time and rushed straight to this place to challenge the City Lord, so it wouldn't make sense that I am feeling nostalgia from that time…'

After pondering for some time, Yuan could only come to one conclusion.

'This city… I have definitely been here before— in my past life.'

'The location of this trial… It's not random, is it? Perhaps this place was reconstructed with the memories of my past life? This actually makes a lot of sense…' 

'If this is really the case— that this place is from my memories and I am feeling nostalgia, then I should be able to remember it if I dig deep enough like the last time…'

Sometime later, Yuan took a seat in the lotus position and closed his eyes.

Once he returned to the deepest parts of his subconsciousness, he started searching through his memories.

Although he's only accepted the Divine Paragon's memories at this moment, his other memories would occasionally leak, so he could see bits and pieces of memories from his other identities. 

Many minutes later, after going through many memories, he eventually found what he was looking for.

"City of Xian…" He muttered the name of the city that he was currently residing in.

Once he found what he was looking for, Yuan opened his eyes and flew outside the window.

He flew towards the east side of the city until he landed in front of a small but clean building.

When he looked at this small building, he couldn't help but feel emotional and shed some tears, even though he didn't know why.

After taking a deep breath and calming down a little, he approached it.