Steadily Upgrading Everything!
Chapter 37: What are you looking at?

Chapter 37: What are you looking at?

After a bit of rest and a quick session of meditation, John stepped out of his cabin into the wide corridor of the spirit ship.

The soft hum of spirit energy vibrated through the walls, giving the entire vessel a faint, otherworldly pulse.

He followed the smooth curve of the hallway until he reached one of the observation decks near the ship’s starboard side.

As he stepped through the transparent spirit glass doors and out onto the open viewing platform, a gust of cool wind swept past him, tugging lightly at his robe.

And then he saw it.

"Above the clouds..." he murmured, his voice barely a whisper.

His eyes widened in amazement.

The ship was flying far above the earth, high enough that the thick clouds beneath them looked like endless waves of silver cotton, rolling and swirling slowly as the massive vessel glided overhead.

Sunlight pierced through in golden beams, casting a radiant glow across the deck and making the runes on the ship’s exterior shimmer.

John stepped forward until he reached the railing and looked down.

There was nothing beneath him but white, stretching out like an endless ocean.

A breeze brushed past his face, and he closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling the crisp, high-altitude air.

He felt weightless. Free.

As if the burden of the tests, the ghosts, the hallucinations, and even the cold hands of death itself had loosened their grip, if only for a moment.

A smile tugged at his lips.

In this one breath, this one view... he allowed himself to feel alive.

But the moment was short-lived.

His spatial sense, passively sweeping the area in a ten-meter radius, suddenly detected a presence, a figure to his left.

He hadn’t heard a single footstep.

No sound. No shift in air.

She was simply... there.

His eyes slowly turned, and the smile on his face froze.

Cold, calm, and motionless like a statue carved from moonlight stood Bennaca Silentsword.

Her pale silver hair fluttered slightly in the wind, and her cloak hugged her slender figure tightly, as if it were part of her body.

Her deadpan grey eyes stared forward at the clouds without blinking, emotionless, yet strangely absorbing.

John’s heartbeat quickened, not from fear, but from the sheer stillness she radiated.

She hadn’t just snuck up on him.

She had bypassed every layer of his awareness.

"Bennaca Silentsword..." he murmured inwardly, instantly recognizing her.

She was third in his batch during the alchemy test.

An assassin and alchemist, an impossibly rare combination.

She had barely spoken during the trials, yet her name had sent chills through the crowd.

John instinctively sent a soft pulse of his spatial sense toward her to gauge her cultivation realm.

But the moment it touched her...

It vanished.

Like water being poured into a black hole.

There was no echo, no feedback, no sensation at all.

"What...?" He furrowed his brows.

He couldn’t even sense her cultivation, let alone estimate it.

And then...

"What are you looking at?" a voice rang out, soft but flat, like a blade lightly tapping glass.

John’s body stiffened in surprise.

She hadn’t looked at him, hadn’t even turned her head.

Yet somehow, she knew.

He quickly withdrew his spatial sense and awkwardly chuckled, trying to suppress his instinctive tension. "Nothing... I was just looking at the sky."

Finally, she turned her head.

Her eyes met his, emotionless and piercing, as if she were reading every layer of his soul.

John forced a polite smile.

For a long second, she didn’t say anything.

Then, she turned her gaze back to the horizon.

"Don’t look at things you can’t understand," she said flatly, her words without malice, but laced with eerie finality.

John’s smile froze again.

Was that a warning?

Was she talking about her cultivation, or something else?

"...I’ll keep that in mind," he said quietly, and turned his eyes back toward the sky, careful not to glance in her direction again.

For several minutes, neither of them said anything more.

The only sounds were the steady hum of the ship, the gentle wind, and the whispering clouds below.

But somehow, John felt like he’d just shared a conversation with a shadow.

John returned to his cabin, the echo of wind and the ghostly silence of Bennaca Silentsword still lingering in the back of his mind.

He closed the door behind him and exhaled slowly, trying to shake off the unsettling stillness that had settled over him.

He sat cross-legged on the floor, letting the soft pulse of spirit energy from the ship’s inner walls soothe him.

Then, he opened his panel.

---

[System Panel — Updated]

Name: John Coral

Age: 25

Cultivation: Spirit Seed Realm (1259 / 3200)

Upgrade Slot: Empty

Skills:

• Meditation (Level 6 – Max)

• Breathing (Level 5 – Max)

• Spatial Awareness (Level 5)

• Slow Toad Breathing Skill (Level 10 – Max)

• Double Face Lizard Technique (Level 7 – Max)

• Basic Flame Control (Level 3)

• Alchemy (Level 5)

• Twelve Circle Slashes (Level 4)

• Soul Piercing Gaze (Level 2)

---

His eyes lingered on the last line, Soul Piercing Gaze.

It had already reached level two.

A technique born of torment, carved from the slaughter of hundreds of thousands by a ghost spirit.

One he had earned by shattering his own hand inside a mental hellscape.

He took in a deep breath and tapped the technique.

"Place into upgrade slot again," he whispered. "Level cap... four."

[System Panel — Updated]

Upgrade Slot: Soul Piercing Gaze (Level 2) → (1 / 400)

(Upgrading at 1 point per 9 minutes)

He nodded slowly, doing the mental math.

"At this rate... two and a half days to reach level three, and seven days for level four," he murmured, rubbing his chin. "If I can conserve energy and survive till the end, this could be my trump card."

His fingers clenched slightly at the thought.

A laser beam from the center of my forehead... able to pierce spirits.

Just imagining it sent a chill down his spine.

He closed the panel with a mental command and stood up.

It had been a little over three hours since the ship had begun flying, three hours of peace, hovering far above the world, away from beasts, spirits, and ambition.

And then, the calm shattered.

A deep, commanding voice rang out from every corner of the vessel, projected by a sect-wide array.

"Everyone, we have reached our destination. You are to report to the main hall at the base of the ship within half an hour. Those who are late will be disqualified."

The voice was unmistakably that of the white-haired elder.

And there was no warmth in it.

John’s expression hardened.

No tolerance. No second chances.

He took a deep breath, centering his thoughts.

He grabbed his small pack, slung it over his shoulder, and pushed the cabin door open.

Just as he did, a chill crept up his back.

Bennaca Silentsword was stepping out of the cabin next to his.

John blinked, startled. ’She... was next door this whole time?’

She walked forward silently, expression blank, her movements graceful but devoid of warmth, like a blade unsheathed in silence.

For a moment, her gaze met his.

John nodded politely. "Good luck," he offered.

She didn’t respond.

Her eyes simply passed over him as if he were part of the furniture.

Then she walked forward, her footsteps soundless even against the ship’s polished stone floor.

She’s definitely dangerous, John thought, suppressing a shiver.

Even the ship doesn’t seem to register her weight...

He followed behind her, descending the winding staircase that led toward the ship’s lower decks.

As he reached the next turn, he caught sight of another familiar figure.

Brandon Flamewell.

The plump, crimson-robed cultivator was stomping down the stairs, face redder than ever.

His expression twisted into a scowl the moment he spotted John.

Their eyes met, and Brandon didn’t bother to hide his contempt.

He simply glared at John, snorted loudly, and lumbered past.

John merely raised an eyebrow and let him go.

’Not worth it. He’ll burn himself out with that temper.’

Finally, John reached the bottom floor, the massive internal hall of the ship.

And despite expecting something simple, he was stunned by the scale.

The room was enormous, larger than most village plazas he’d seen.

Tall columns supported the structure, and glowing spirit lights floated mid-air like fireflies.

And in the very center stood a large round portal, its surface rippling with translucent blue light like a pond frozen in time.

Beside the portal stood the old man in blue robes, flanked by several blue-clad disciples holding jade slips.

The elder’s gaze swept over the gathered cultivators.

His expression remained unreadable.

"In a moment," he began, voice sharp and clear, "you will enter the portal. You will each be teleported to a random location on Blood Ghost Island—a place once plagued by spirit beasts and ghost spirits."

A few murmurs rippled through the crowd.

"The Blue Cauldron Sect has purged any Core Formation Realm beings, so nothing above your abilities should be present. However, the land is still perilous."

He raised a single finger.

"This is a ten-day survival test. The first five hundred to either die or surrender will be removed from selection. The remaining five hundred will become official outer sect disciples."

Five hundred out of a thousand...

John felt the pressure settle on his shoulders.

But the elder wasn’t finished.

"In addition," he continued, "each beast core or ghost spirit core you collect will contribute to your final ranking. The top fifty will be granted additional rewards...including resources, spirit pills, and even cultivation techniques."

A sharp spark ignited in the crowd. Competition. Rivalry. Ambition.

John narrowed his eyes.

"Step forward. Collect your return slip," the elder commanded. "Once inside, the only way back is to crush the slip. It will activate a return array and pull you back onto the ship at the end of ten days."

One by one, participants moved forward.

John saw Brandon stomp up and take a slip without a word.

Without hesitation, the portly cultivator stepped through the portal and vanished in a flicker of blue.

John hesitated for a moment.

He looked around, searching for Riara, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Either she had already entered... or was among those still arriving.

I can’t risk disqualification by waiting too long.

He stepped forward and received a jade slip from one of the disciples.

The item was cold to the touch, and he could feel the dense spirit array woven within it.

With a final exhale, he tightened his grip and walked toward the shimmering blue portal.

Time to see what I’m made of.

And without a second thought, John Coral stepped inside, into the wild unknown of Blood Ghost Island.