Chapter 151: The Heaven-Extinguishing Tower Trial Has a Waiting List?!

"Humph! You really don't have much ambition, wanting to save your little life all day long!" Bai sneered disdainfully.

"Nonsense, what's wrong with wanting to save my little life?! When everything is fine, if you don't have to die, who wants to die? Who doesn't want their life to be adequately guaranteed?" Lan Tian rolled his eyes and said as a matter of course.

Being afraid of death isn't anything shameful!

In the face of opportunity, one certainly shouldn't shrink back at the slightest sign of danger, but if it truly is a life-threatening danger, how many people dare to pat their chests and say:

I am not afraid of death!

Those are just reckless fools.

Lan Tian believed that a qualified practitioner should strive with all their might while ensuring their own safety as much as possible as a prerequisite.

He would never take risks in a secret realm with a ninety-nine percent mortality rate, even if it held heaven-defying opportunities.

Of course, if he successfully cultivated that secret technique, Lan Tian felt he would have the courage to try a secret realm with a ninety-nine percent mortality rate. After all, although that secret technique was extremely costly and ordinary people simply couldn't afford to cultivate it, its effects were thoroughly heaven-defying!

"Bah, bah, bah! What death this and death that, can the two of you say something nice!" Hearing the conversation between Lan Tian and Bai from the side, Velin's face instantly filled with black lines.

What danger, what death, what on earth are these, how can you speak like that!

"Haha, that's right, we haven't even gone in yet, and we're already saying such discouraging things. I can't speak for other things, but in this Sky-Jem Tower that tests talent and comprehension, I definitely won't die!" Lan Tian also snapped back to reality and laughed ruefully.

He had already asked Bai that the restrictions below planetary level in the Sky-Jem Tower were aimed at cultivation realms, with no restrictions placed on spiritual force. Therefore, he was confident that with his comprehension and intermediate star-domain-level spiritual force strength, it was utterly impossible for anything to go wrong during the Sky-Jem Tower trial!

"Humph! Just you? That's not necessarily true~" Velin slanted her eyes and said.

"Go away! You'd better watch out for your own little life!" Lan Tian refused to show weakness.

"You're starting to argue again... Can the two of you calm down, why are you just standing here like fools? Go to the Sky-Jem Tower first!" Even with Bai being an intelligent life form, seeing Lan Tian and the other two start bickering again gave him a massive headache.

"Shut up!" the two said in unison.

After some bantering and light scolding, the three of them rose into the air and rapidly sped away in the direction indicated by Bai.

"...I didn't expect so many people to come and participate in the trial." With the current strength of the three, after flying for a while, they saw the towering Sky-Jem Tower piercing the clouds from afar.

Back in the one-hundred-percent virtual game created by Bai, the surroundings of the Sky-Jem Tower were a vast, desolate, and lonely environment, so Lan Tian subconsciously assumed the real Sky-Jem Tower would be the same. However, upon truly arriving near the tower and seeing the dense crowds of people participating in the trial filling both the sky and the ground, along with the bustling, lively high-rise buildings and heavy traffic surrounding it, he was left utterly dumbfounded by the sight.

This was far too different from the appearance of a secret realm he had imagined...

Just as the three were hovering in mid-air in a daze, a young man wearing what looked like work clothes flew over to them, beaming with smiles, and said, "Three of you, are you here for dining or lodging?"

Lan Tian: "..."

"We came to participate in the trial, not to eat or stay..." Velin said speechlessly.

"Hehe, I know, coming to Sky-Jem Planet, of course everyone is here to participate in the trial." The young man was around the sixth or seventieth level of energy gathering, and facing the three of them, he showed no stage fright, saying with a smile: "You few probably don't know yet, right? The Sky-Jem Tower nowadays is no longer like before where anyone could enter at will. Ever since it was taken over by the Yuanlan Empire military, not only do you need to pay a hefty trial fee, but you also have to queue and wait. Look, the queue has already reached number 211,500. If you want to participate in the trial, you'll have to wait for quite a long time. Why don't you claim a number tag and stay at our small shop first? Our shop has everything..."

By the end of it, Lan Tian no longer had the heart to listen to him speak; his mind was in absolute chaos.

The Sky-Jem Tower trial now not only required a trial fee, but also required queuing and waiting?!

And the queue had already reached past the two hundred thousand mark!

What the hell?!

"There are still over two hundred thousand people waiting in front?! Then when on earth will it be our turn, in the year of the monkey?! How could I have that kind of time?!" Lan Tian was shocked and furious.

"Hehe, don't be anxious, brother. Although the trial tower can only accommodate ten thousand people for trials at a time, among those ten thousand, generally only a handful manage to break through to the second floor, and as for breaking through to the third floor, you might not even encounter one in several years. Therefore, it finishes very quickly. As each person exits or dies, the next waiting person can enter. With over two hundred thousand people currently in the queue, it'll probably take about a year before your turn comes up," the young man explained with a smile.

"I can't wait even a year!" Upon hearing that he had to wait a full year, Lan Tian's face remained ashen.

"Hehe, looking at you, brother, you must be a law-abiding person. Speaking of waiting a year, if you have money, are you afraid you won't be able to buy a number tag from further up the line? Not everyone is in a rush to participate in the trial; some people haven't even prepared to participate yet, but they went ahead and claimed number tags anyway." Seeing Lan Tian's anxiety, the young man revealed a "you know how it is" smile. "If you have this kind of need, our shop can also run errands for you and acquire the front-of-the-line number tags."

"Oh? You can play it like that!" Lan Tian was instantly amused yet exasperated. So this kind of operation was possible too; sure enough, he really was "law-abiding."

As for money, he had plenty of it, alright!

"Hehe, how about this? Let's go to your shop, give us a table of your finest food and wine, and open three of your best rooms." Lan Tian looked at the young man, smiling faintly.

"Huh? Good, good! Rest assured and stay comfortably, everything is on me, Little Dao!" Seeing that Lan Tian was so generous, the young man named Little Dao was overjoyed, and his form of address changed from "brother" to "sir."

Subsequently, under Little Dao's guidance, the three of them arrived at a lavish and magnificent hotel. After checking in and registering, they entered the hotel's dining hall.

The hall was bustling and crowded with people, and their cultivation levels were generally not very high, mostly around the Starlight level, with Nebula levels considered quite prominent. Presumably, most of them were also people who had come to participate in the trial.

Once a table of extremely exquisite food and wine was fully served, Little Dao tentatively asked, "Mr. Lan, how far up the queue would you roughly need the number tag to be? So I can make arrangements for you."

"The sooner the better, money is no object!" Lan Tian raised an eyebrow and said domineeringly.

"Alright then, rest assured, as long as you're willing to spend the money, let alone a year, if luck is on our side today, by tomorrow at the latest, everything is covered by me, Little Dao!" Little Dao was overjoyed, hurriedly patting his chest to guarantee it, though he then hesitated slightly, "As for the price, if you need the very front batch of number tags, it'll cost at least a grade-five energy crystal..."

"Go ahead and handle it, money is no object," Lan Tian emphasized once more, and then tossed a grade-three energy crystal to him.

Aside from universal universe coins accepted across the cosmos, people on Sky-Jem Planet generally did not use Yuanlan coins for transactions. Although their numbers were not very large, there were still people from other cosmic nations present on Sky-Jem Planet; Yuanlan coins worked well within the Yuanlan Empire, but once they went to other cosmic nations, they weren't all that popular.

"Many thanks, just wait right here, I'll be right back!" Little Dao pleasantly accepted the grade-three energy crystal, beaming with joy.