Chapter Ten: The Illusion Forest—Where Numbers Don't Lie
With the first threads of dawn, the Spirit Gate plaza of Long Yuan Sect buzzed with life. Hundreds of outer disciples, clad in their uniform gray robes, stood in orderly rows. Swords and spears gleamed under the dim light. At the front stood Yang Lian, wearing a light rhinoceros-hide armor, his eyes scanning the crowd for the servant who had dared humiliate him.
Zhou Fan, however, remained at the far corner, hidden from view. He carried no sword, wore no armor—just simple servant clothing. Yet he had tightly bound his sleeves with leather strips. Where others saw a testing ground, he saw a geometric matrix.
Elder Mo, the overseer of the trial, ascended the high platform. His resonant voice rolled through the mountains like thunder:
"Disciples! Before you lies the Illusion Forest. You have three days. Rules are simple: Each monster you slay grants points based on its level. Each disciple whose identity card you collect grants half their points. At the end of the third day, only the top ten will be promoted to 'Inner Disciples'. The rest… return to servitude—or remain buried in the forest. Open the gates!"
The massive iron gates swung open, and the disciples surged like a river into the dense forest, shrouded in an unnatural violet mist.
Upon entering, Zhou Fan did not run like the others. He paused beneath a massive tree and closed his eyes.
"Humidity: 85%. Wind speed: 3 m/s northward. Illusory energy density: high."
He activated Variable Perception. In his mind, the violet mist transformed into strands of numbers and percentages. He could see how the mist moved and where gaps devoid of illusory energy existed.
"Calculations initiated," Zhou Fan whispered, gliding forward on Void Steps.
Half an hour into the forest, combat cries and the sound of tearing flesh reached him. Zhou Fan hid behind a dense shrub, observing. Three disciples were battling a Shadow Wolf, a Level One beast. They attacked haphazardly, wasting energy on blows that missed.
"Grave mistake," Zhou Fan thought, studying the wolf's movements.
"It tilts its head 15° to the left before each leap. Fulcrum: rear-right paw. These fools will take ten minutes to kill it—and one will lose an arm."
He did not intervene immediately. He waited until the wolf fell, one disciple already dead. As the other two caught their breath, Zhou Fan moved like a ghost. He did not unleash force—he merely touched a point on the first disciple's neck and another behind the second's ear.
They collapsed unconscious before they realized what had happened. Zhou Fan claimed their identity cards and the wolf's points, then vanished.
This was no battle. It was debt collection.
Deep in the forest, Yang Lian enacted his own massacre. His Thunder Fist shattered everything in his path. By the early hours, he had already accumulated over a hundred points.
"Where is that damned Zhou Fan?" Yang Lian shouted, wiping blood from his face.
"Li Mo, have you seen him?"
Li Mo, following, replied,
"No, Yang Lian. Perhaps a beast finished him off early. Don't waste energy on a servant—focus on first place. They say this year's prize is a Third-Rank Spirit-Refining Pill!"
Greed glinted in Yang Lian's eyes.
"That pill will instantly bring me to Level Four of Body Refinement. No one can stop me!"
What Yang Lian did not know: Zhou Fan was watching from a tall tree, hundreds of meters away. He calculated Yang Lian's trajectory.
"He's heading toward Snake Spring. Perfect… I'll set up the first annihilation equation there."
By midday, Zhou Fan reached Snake Spring, a rocky area with sulfuric waters. He worked with astonishing speed, carving tiny symbols into stones with the black dagger and connecting them with silk threads dipped in Energy-Dismantling Fluid extracted from poisonous herbs he had collected along the way.
He was constructing a Reverse Calculation Matrix.
This matrix did not kill by explosion—it altered the laws of physics in a small area, making gravity spike suddenly or air as heavy as lead.
As he finished, he heard heavy footsteps. Not Yang Lian—but a Level Two beast: Armored Stone Tiger, a monster even Yang Lian could not defeat easily.
The tiger paused, eyeing Zhou Fan like a morsel. It roared and charged.
Zhou Fan remained calm, hand on the final symbol in the matrix.
Variable X: Tiger speed 40 km/h.
Variable Y: Tiger weight 300 kg.
Desired outcome: free fall.
Once the tiger entered the matrix, Zhou Fan activated the symbol. Suddenly, the rocks beneath its feet lost all friction. The massive tiger slipped comically and, unable to stop, slammed its head into a sharp rock—precisely calculated.
Crack! The armored stone tiger's skull shattered in seconds.
A Level Two monster dead, without Zhou Fan breaking a sweat. He extracted its spirit core, feeling its energy flow through his veins via the Celestial Record.
On Day Two, the forest became true hell. Disciples fought ruthlessly, and the violet mist thickened, inducing hallucinations for many.
Zhou Fan perched atop a rock, eating wild berries, when three disciples from the Fifth Peak appeared—infamous for their brutality.
"Look what we found… the little servant everyone talks about. Hand over all your points, and maybe we'll let you leave alive—with just a broken leg."
Zhou Fan looked at them with boredom.
"Three of you. Total points: 150. You waste 40% of your energy in idle chatter. Attack now, and I'll need twelve seconds to finish you. Shall we proceed?"
The leader laughed scornfully and lunged with his sword.
"Twelve seconds? I'll cut your tongue in one!"
Zhou Fan moved. His motions seemed slow, yet were perfectly timed. He dodged the sword by a millimeter, smashed the attacker's elbow with his hand using Chaos Derivation.
Thwack! The elbow shattered as if struck by the sword itself.
He turned to the second, grabbed his spear with bare hands, channeling Black Ash Energy through the blade into the disciple's heart. The disciple screamed, clutching his chest as if his blood had frozen.
The third froze in place.
"You… you're not a cultivator… you're a demon!"
"I'm an accountant," Zhou Fan said, collecting their cards.
"Leave now before I recalculate the cost of your lives."
By the end of Day Two, Zhou Fan reached the Sacrificial Altar the old man had warned him about. A place drowned in silence, surrounded by a lake of dried blood. There, he saw something that froze his blood.
Not beasts—but corpses of disciples from the Black Shadow Sect, Long Yuan's rival.
"They really infiltrated," Zhou Fan thought.
"The old man was right. This forest is not a test… it's a trap."
Suddenly, a chill ran down his neck. Not Yang Lian—but someone far stronger.
Zhou Fan leapt forward—and at that moment, the rock he sat on exploded from a Flying Dagger imbued with toxic energy.
From the shadows emerged a young man dressed entirely in black, a scorpion tattoo marking his face.
"Not bad for a servant," the youth hissed.
"I am Qin Yu of the Black Shadow Sect. I've slain twenty of your sect's disciples today and was seeking someone to entertain me before opening the altar. Seems I've found him."
Zhou Fan stood slowly, feeling the immense pressure emanating from Qin Yu. This youth was at Level Five of Body Refinement—far stronger than Yang Lian.
"Calculations just got complicated," Zhou Fan thought, his heart racing.
"Current probability of victory: 15%. Must raise it to at least 60%… or I'll be the next number on the death list."
Elsewhere in the forest, Yang Lian ran frantically, badly wounded, chased by two Black Shadow disciples.
"Help! Someone!" Yang Lian cried—once a self-proclaimed god hours ago.
Zhou Fan heard his distant screams and smiled a dark smile under the moonlight.
"Qin Yu… how about a deal? I'll give you Yang Lian… if you let me see how to open the altar."
Qin Yu laughed loudly.
"A servant sells his master? Interesting! Agreed… show me where the coward is."
But in Zhou Fan's mind, the real equation was entirely different:
Variable A (Qin Yu) + Variable B (Yang Lian) ÷ Variable C (Altar) = Probability of escape with inheritance.
The grand game had begun: betrayal, intelligence, and blood—all intertwined on the final night of the trial.