After being reborn, the villain comes with a spoiler tag.

In stark contrast to the bustling entrance examination at the foot of the mountain, the summit was a tranquil and peaceful place, shrouded in mist, with the occasional clear cry of a crane or the roar of a beast, as if one had stepped into a fairyland.

The main hall of the Qiongshan Sect stands majestically atop the mountain, serving as the residence of the inner disciples.

Unlike the outer disciples who are busy chopping wood, carrying water, and doing odd jobs all day long, the inner disciples are the true elites of the Qiongshan Sect, and their main responsibility is cultivation.

Those who can become inner disciples are either exceptionally talented or scions of prominent families.

Coinciding with the once-every-five-years entrance examination, the Inner Disciples' Task Hall has also released a number of related tasks.

These tasks are relatively simple, but the rewards are good. The task hall has been bustling with people these past few days.

Just as the duty officer of the Mission Hall was about to breathe a sigh of relief after seeing off the last disciple who had completed the mission, a white streak of light came hurtling towards them from afar.

The steward immediately recognized the white robes that only Foundation Establishment stage disciples were qualified to wear, and he quickly became very attentive, smiling as he said:

"Senior Brother Yu, are you here to hand in a mission or to receive a new one?"

The "Senior Brother Yu" mentioned by this steward is none other than Huo Yu, who has changed his appearance and been lying low in the Qiongshan Sect for nearly a year.

"Hand in the mission."

Huo Yu took out two precious spiritual herbs from his storage bag and handed over the mission token.

"As expected of Senior Brother Yu! This task had been hanging in the task hall for two whole months without anyone paying attention to it, yet Senior Brother Yu completed it in just three days!"

After inspecting the spiritual herbs, the steward retrieved the token and handed the mission reward to Huo Yu, his eyes filled with admiration.

Huo Yu neither agreed nor disagreed, accepted the payment, and turned to leave.

In fact, if it weren't for the strict rule that inner disciples must complete at least one task every three months, Huo Yu probably wouldn't have even stepped out of the courtyard gate.

His current identity is Yu Bai, an inner disciple of the Qiongshan Sect, with a cultivation level of mid-Foundation Establishment. After being impersonated by Huo Yu, his cultivation level "breakthrough" to the late-Foundation Establishment stage.

Before joining the sect, Yu Bai was a rogue cultivator, with a solitary personality and no close friends within the Qiongshan Sect. Huo Yu used illusion magic to change his appearance, and he stayed in the Qiongshan Sect as Yu Bai for a year without anyone noticing anything amiss.

As for the real Yu Bai, he had already been sent into reincarnation by Huo Yu.

After leaving the mission hall, Huo Yu flew towards his residence.

Most of the inner disciples of the Qiongshan Sect live on the mountaintop, while the outer disciples are forcibly assigned to the mountainside. A few maverick inner disciples prefer to live elsewhere.

Huo Yu was used to cultivating in seclusion and disliked crowds, so he simply opened a cave dwelling on the shady side of the foot of the mountain.

Qiongshan is surrounded by illusion arrays, making it impossible for mortals to enter. Inner disciples mostly travel away from the mountain by flying, while outer disciples, due to sect rules, rarely descend the mountain, and even when they do, they walk along the sunny side of the mountain path.

As a result, Huo Yu lived on the shady side of the mountain for nearly a year without seeing a single living person, which he was quite satisfied with.

However, before Huo Yu even flew to the mountainside, he saw a group of ordinary people sparsely climbing the mountain with their bare hands at the foot of the mountain, a place that was usually deserted.

On a peculiar rock protruding halfway up the mountain, an inner disciple is taking a short rest with his eyes closed, maintaining a meditative posture.

"..."

Huo Yu knew that today was the day the Qiongshan Sect was recruiting disciples, but he never expected that the entrance examination would be so simple and straightforward.

He hovered in mid-air, hesitant for a moment, unsure whether to continue upwards or turn away.

Just then, a familiar golden light flashed past the edge of Huo Yu's vision. Huo Yu focused his attention and looked closely, only to find that it was just a mortal with no spiritual power.

But Huo Yu sensed something was amiss. He extended his divine sense to investigate and was nearly blinded by the golden light—a golden prism was perched atop the mortal's head.

Moreover, unlike the golden prism that Huo Yu had seen on Bai Xue's head before, the prism on this person's head was extremely dark in color and emitted a strong golden radiance in all directions, making it impossible for people to look directly at it.

Huo Yu was all too familiar with that familiar color and radiance—it was exactly the same as the spiritual light of the Gate of Heaven!

And that mortal who had previously gone unnoticed by him, who else could it be but Long Yucheng!

A sharp pain shot through his consciousness, and Huo Yu seemed to hear again the thunderous explosion of the soul that person had emitted when they perished together.

Not far away, the inner disciple in charge of supervising this round of trials suddenly felt a pang of fear and was jolted awake from his dream.

He opened his eyes and saw a figure floating in mid-air. He couldn't make out the person's face, but he was very familiar with the white robes that symbolized a Foundation Establishment disciple.

Before the proctoring disciple could find an excuse for slacking off during the exam, the man in white silently disappeared.

"It's all over, it's all over! It's my senior brother who's at the Foundation Establishment stage, will he report this to the Hall of Affairs? I'm doomed!"

The proctoring student was on the verge of tears.

The Foundation Establishment stage senior brother he mentioned hadn't actually left. Huo Yu simply used an invisibility spell to fly closer to the foot of the mountain.

It seems my cultivation at this stage is far from sufficient; my state of mind is so easily disrupted. Huo Yu suppressed the killing intent that he subconsciously emitted, his face ashen.

Despite his previous elaborate plans, he had decided to make Long Yucheng an important part of his scheme and ensure that Long Yucheng would live well before his own ascension.

But when the person who killed him actually appeared in front of him, Huo Yu couldn't help but want to make him bleed on the spot.

The golden prism on Long Yucheng's head seemed to be mocking him as well, radiating an incredibly dazzling golden light, as radiant as a miniature version of the Gate of Heaven.

At this point, Huo Yu had completely confirmed the meaning represented by the prism's colors:

If the black prism above his head, which seemed to absorb all light, represented him as a "discarded child of Heaven" destined to never ascend, then the golden prism possessed by Long Yucheng was already written beside it—"a favorite of Heaven"!

These four short words contain a clear and concise message.

Huo Yu smiled silently, a complex mix of resentment, anger, and his inherent arrogance.

He raised his hand and unleashed two invisible gusts of wind, which flew towards the two rock walls that Long Yucheng was climbing. He wanted to see what this person chosen by the Heavenly Dao would do if he couldn't even enter the gate of cultivation!

Long Yucheng was hanging on the cliff face. It was almost noon, and the sun seemed to be hanging directly above his head. The intense sunlight not only made him sweat profusely, but also made it almost impossible for him to see what was above him.

He was now undergoing the second round of testing, and his goal was to climb the stone platform halfway up the mountain by hand before the sunlight disappeared.

The first round of assessment was a spiritual root test, which lasted only fifteen minutes. As long as one was found to have a single-attribute heavenly spiritual root or a dual-attribute spiritual root, they could directly become an inner disciple.

When it was Long Yucheng's turn, he stepped forward confidently, only to find out that he had no spiritual roots of any of the four attributes.

Long Yucheng was stunned. What happened to the protagonist's halo?

Is he following a comeback story where he gets his comeuppance and gets slapped in the face?

He didn't pay much attention to the people who participated in the spiritual root test until the second round of assessment was about to begin. Only then did Long Yucheng come back to his senses from his daze, only to be shocked by the abnormal level of the assessment content.

"I'll give it my all! It's a comeback story, no pain, no gain!"

Long Yucheng quickly adjusted his mindset, gritted his teeth, and began to climb.

Fortunately, he hunted when he was young and often did physical labor when he grew up, so his physical fitness is quite good.

Among the test takers were many children, as well as a few young scholars who were too weak to lift a finger. Upon hearing the test content, their faces turned pale, and some even fainted, their eyes rolling back in their heads. They were then carried out of the Qiongshan Illusion Array by the sword-wielding supervisory disciples and disqualified.

Even Long Yucheng was starting to feel exhausted after climbing nearly halfway through the journey, and his pace began to slow down.

Fortunately, there was still enough time. Long Yucheng kept encouraging himself and reached out to climb a rock diagonally above.

Just then, the support points on his right hand and left foot suddenly shattered and fell off. Before Long Yucheng could react, he began to fall without weight.

At that moment, only one thought occupied his mind:

I haven't even finished the first main quest yet!