In the game, the Tower of Civil and Martial Trials was nothing more than an entertaining side dungeon.
The civil trial tested your knowledge base. While it monopolized your screen during the process, you could still pull out your phone to look up answers, or even ask someone for help.
However, since there was a time limit for each trial, and sometimes the questions involved obscure bits of lore from the game's background, the failure rate was quite high.
The martial trial, on the other hand, didn't simply test combat power. It was full of various mechanical monsters, designed to test one's understanding of buffs and hidden in-game mechanisms.
All in all, it was a rather fun little challenge mode.
Yet when Yaoshan first designed it, there was a not-quite-a-bug "bug" hidden within the Tower of Civil and Martial Trials.
In theory, each entry into the tower should only allow one participant.
Only after the challenger cleared one floor would the restriction to the next floor unlock, allowing them to continue upward.
And the problem lay right there.
The tower's rules stated only that "once a challenger clears a floor, that floor's restriction lifts."
But it never specified who could pass through, nor did it require that the one who opened the restriction be the same person who entered.
In other words, if the challenger wanted, they could turn back, clear the same trial again, reopen the restriction, and let another person pass through.
In this way, one could sit an exam on someone else's behalf.
Such was how the underlying code had been written.
Of course, someone had thought of exploiting it before, but in practice, it was nearly impossible to pull off.
After all, the Tower of Civil and Martial Trials wasn't some automated machine running in isolation. It stood right beside Yaoshan Academy, where academy disciples were always watching.
Apart from the gatekeeping disciples, academy tutors would also check the site from time to time.
To sneak someone in right under the academy's nose? That was harder than ascending to heaven.
Moreover, most people couldn't even pass the trials themselves, how could they possibly take them on behalf of someone else?
A pretty theory, but a cruel reality.
It existed in concept only, never in practice.
But for Gu Fangchen, such things were never really a problem...
You Shao had wanted to object to his proposal, it wasn't by the rules, after all, but then he glanced at the sword in the maid's hands.
The blade was plain, its ancient body resembling wood or stone, unremarkable at first sight.
But they all knew what it was: the legendary sword forged from the veins of mountains and rivers, later identified by the Sky-Eye Division as the Sky-Piercing Sword of the Seventy-Two Peaks.
On the Sky-Eye Division's Divine Armament Index, this sword ranked just below the weapon in Ying Baishou's hand, Ailing Spring.
Beneath the Divine Grade, this sword stood unrivaled.
Its might lay not in recorded victories, but in its astounding property of splitting itself into seventy-two separate blades.
If ever it were fully refined, it might even rival Ailing Spring.
Unfortunately, Gu Fangchen knew all too well that such success was impossible.
This sword was, in truth, only a component of a formation, its purpose was to draw out the earth's leylines and serve as a conduit to transmit that power to Ancestor-Matron.
Though he didn't know what Ancestor-Matron sought to achieve, one thing was certain: the forging of this sword had already failed beyond redemption.
Still, in the eyes of others, this remained Gu Fangchen's greatest trump card.
You Shao sighed, cupping his hands toward Gu Fangchen.
"Since the young lord himself insists, we won't stand in his way. If the young lord can clear the trials twice, then by all means, take your maid with you."
For anyone else, the academy would never have broken its own rules.
But this was, after all, the Heir of the Northern Garrison Prince.
If he could really clear the trials twice, then let it be so, it would only prove his skill.
Their task, after all, was merely to ensure that Gu Fangchen entered the tower.
But the surrounding cultivators were not nearly so calm.
Gu Fangchen's words implied that all those who had failed before were fools!
Among the crowd were many who had tried and failed themselves; their faces reddened with anger as they sneered bitterly:
"What a joke, Gu Fangchen may be a sixth-grade brute, but does he think a few polite words from a Confucian Sage make him some prodigy of both letters and arms?"
"Exactly! He wasn't even the one who shone at the Qionglin Banquet!"
"I bet he doesn't even dare take the civil trial. At best, he'll make it to the fifth level of the martial one before washing out."
"What, he'd snub an invitation from the academy's sages just to show off? Arrogant fool..."
"He was a dissolute wastrel before, and a man's nature never truly changes. No way he's been acting all those years without some real shamelessness underneath!"
Their mockery wasn't just spite, it was bait. They wanted to provoke him into taking the civil trial and making a fool of himself.
After all, even if he aced the martial trial, would the academy really contradict the Sage who had extended the invitation? Of course not.
From the look of it, the man had come prepared for the martial path anyway, he'd even brought along a sword-bearing maid.
That invitation had been issued by the Sage himself. The academy might grumble, but they'd have to accept it.
At the tower's base, two academy disciples gestured politely and explained:
"Your Highness, the entrance on the left leads to the civil trial, the right to the martial trial."
Gu Fangchen smiled faintly, turned toward Xue Xiang, and said gently, "Go wait by the civil entrance. Once the restriction lifts, go on in."
Xue Xiang nodded and walked left, sword in arms.
The guards exchanged glances, quietly shaking their heads.
Had he gone for the martial trial alone, they'd have said nothing, but clearly, youthful pride had gotten the better of him. To take the civil one out of spite? He was only asking to embarrass himself.
Gu Fangchen chuckled, snapping his fan open as he strolled toward the right-hand entrance.
One of the guards blinked. "Your Highness, the civil trial is over there-"
Without stopping, Gu Fangchen glanced back and said coolly,
"I never said I was taking only one side."
Because the tower was designed for a single participant, its trials were not truly divided. Where one's body stood didn't affect the civil trial's answering sequence.
So while Xue Xiang waited at the civil side, he would clear the martial side, and in doing so, reopen the restrictions for her.
He could have taken it easy. But since he was here, as a player, how could he resist giving these people a proper shock?
If you're going to show off, you might as well make it grand!
The two gatekeepers stared blankly. For a moment, they didn't even comprehend what he meant.
Only after Gu Fangchen's figure vanished through the martial gate did they look at each other, speechless.
Was he out of his mind?