"Alright. I'll help you. Leave his portrait behind. I'll contact you if I find him," The Eastern Empress said.

"Alright. Keep in mind that we have limited time. If we can't find him, there will be a war, and it would result in great destruction," The Northern Emperor said. ​​

"If we can't find him, how about we ask help from the Demon Realm? If we're going to war, it would be easier with them on our side," The Eastern Empress said.

"Don't be ignorant. Even if we fight by joining up with the Demon Realm, the battle would still be more harmful to us. It's not beneficial to get involved in the battle of those two, so as far as possible, I want to avoid war," The Northern Emperor said.

"We can try our best as much as we want, but we can't stop it if they want it," The Eastern Empress said.

"That will be our last resort. For now, just focus on finding the boy," the Northern Emperor said before he stood up and left the Palace of Eastern Empress.

****

Xu Ming woke up and went to take a shower. He got ready and left the courtyard.

'I've learned all the things I can, but there's still room for improvement. Most of my skills are from the Heavenly Realm, but I should select some normal skills as well. I haven't used much of my contribution points after all,' Xu Ming thought.

He went to the Skill Hall of the Inner Sect to select a skill. He entered the Skill Hall and found the Elder of the Skill Hall.

"I need to get some skills," he informed the Elder.

"Go to the first floor and select the skill that you want. The Contribution Points needed are written on the skill books. Also, you can't stay there for more than half an hour, get the skill fast, and come back here," the Elder said.

Xu Ming nodded his head and walked to the first floor.

There were lines of shelves there with thousands of books.

"It's impossible to find a suitable book in such a short time," Xu Ming muttered as he started going through the shelves and books one after another. He kept reading the description of skills before skipping to the next book.

Xu Ming was still going through the books when another person got to the first floor, but that person didn't stay there. Instead, he continued going upwards and got to the second floor.

Xu Ming looked at him with curiosity clear on his face.

"Oh, man. I wish I was also in the top 500 of inner sect rankings, if I was, I would be allowed to go to the second floor as well,"

"Me too. I heard that the second floor contains real good skills. If I had a chance of getting ranked in the top 500, I wouldn't bother wasting my time on skills from the first floor and would have gone to the second floor instead. Alas, I'm not as talented as then. I can only be satisfied with the skills from here,"

Xu Ming heard the conversation of the other disciples that were already on the second floor.

'Second floor? I was thinking about getting stronger before attempting the ranking trials, but I guess I should do that first. As those guys said, If I'm going to be learning skills from here, I better learn the better ones,' Xu Ming thought before he left the first floor and walked back to the ground floor.

"That was fast. Which skill did you choose?" the Elder inquired as he saw Xu Ming coming down.

"I didn't select any skills. I heard that the second floor is the place where the good skills are, so I'll select skills from there," Xu Ming told him.

"From the second floor? You can't get skills from there until you get ranked in the top 100. Would you really not choose a skill before that? Don't aim too high, kid. This might take years," the Elder told Xu Ming.

"Thanks for the advice, Elder," Xu Ming said before he left.

"I wonder what rank I can get, if I use my full strength, I should be able to get in the top 500, I'm already in Gold Core Realm," Xu Ming muttered as he walked towards the Ranking Arena that contained the 8 Trigram Battle Formation which could be used to get ranked.

Xu Ming was walking towards that place when he stopped in his spot as he saw a girl at a distance.

It was Sui Ru, the same girl that claimed to be his wife.

He didn't want to waste his time with her; thus, he turned back and walked behind a building. He only stepped out when the girl left.

"That girl, did she get promoted to an Inner Disciple as well. I need to stay away from her," Xu Ming muttered as he stepped towards the Ranking Arena.

After walking for over 10 minutes, he reached the Ranking Arena.

Xu Ming stepped inside the Ranking Arena and walked towards the In Charge of that place, who was a 25-26-year-old girl.

"Welcome to the Ranking Arena. Is this your first time coming here, or you've been here before?" The girl asked Xu Ming.

"It's my first time here. I want to enter the 8-Trigram Battle Formation to get my ranking," Xu Ming replied to her.

"Oh, Alright. Room no. Three should be empty now. You can enter that room. Place your disciple badge at the center of the formation in the room, and the formation will activate," She told Xu Ming.

"Alright, Thanks," Xu Ming said to the girl.

"Best of luck," the girl told Xu Ming before he left.

Xu Ming found room no. 3 and entered the place.

The door automatically closed behind him.

Xu Ming saw a long and beautiful formation on the ground in front of him. He walked to the center of the formation and placed his badge there.

The formation lit up and started shining. Soon, Xu Ming found himself in a different place.

He was in a deserted place. There was a small stone pillar behind him.

He was wondering what was happening when he heard a voice.

"Protect the pillar!" the voice said.

"Protect the pillar? From what?" Xu Ming muttered, but that's when he saw a small orc-like creature running towards him.

"From him, I suppose," he muttered as he brought his sword out of his storage ring.

He swung his sword as soon as the creature got near him and slashed the creature apart.

Some more time passed before he saw two more creatures like that running towards him.

He killed them with ease as well, but then four creatures like this came running.

"1st strike of Heaven!" Xu Ming muttered as he swung his sword. A powerful arc of light left his sword and cut the 4 creatures in an instant.

It didn't stop as eight creatures came. They all held clubs in their hands this time, and they came from different directions.

Four of them came from the right while the other four came from the left.

"So that's how it's going to be," Xu Ming muttered as he ran towards the four on the left.

He killed them first before he ran towards the four on the other side and killed them as well.

The number of assailants that were eight had turned to 16. This time they were not humanoid creatures, but Wolf Beasts with sharp teeth and dangerous claws. They came from all four directions.

"This will keep getting tough with time," Xu Ming muttered as he raised his sword.

He kept using the 1st Strike of Heaven as this was his only long-range skill that consumed less Origin Energy.

His Sword Art of Destruction and Heavenly Vajra finger were both power-hungry skills that depleted half his Origin Energy with each usage.

Xu Ming kept protecting the pillar against the wave of monsters, but the wave kept getting stronger each time.

After he finished the 15th wave, he heard the voice again, telling him that he was allowed to rest for 5 hours now.

Xu Ming breathed in relief as he sat down on the ground and started cultivating. If it had kept going on for longer, he would have been defeated.

After 15 waves, he only had 10% of his Origin Energy remaining.

He cultivated for 5 hours to fasten his Origin Energy recovery. Fortunately,5 hours were enough for him to get in peak condition.

He stood up after 5 hours, right after the announcement that the 16th wave was about to come.

Xu Ming watched the 16th wave and was quite surprised as the wave was different. Instead of hundreds of weaker monsters, he now had to face 4 Initial Gold Realm beasts.

"Now it's quality instead of quantity? It's fine. It's much better than protecting the pillar against hundreds of beasts coming in from different directions," Xu Ming muttered.