Lu Changsheng reached for Faces of All Beings once more, but the moment his fingers made contact, cracks spread across its surface, and it shattered into fragments that dissolved before they touched the floor.

What a pity. Only one use. I wonder how great the tempering effect would be on the heart if you could live out nine lifetimes...

Lu Changsheng then thought of the name he saw on Faces of All Beings. He knew it had been refined by someone known as Dao Lord of the Dark Void.

If I could find this Dao Lord of the Dark Void and have another Faces of All Beings refined...

The thought lingered for a moment before fading. He knew nothing about this person, and he had no thread to follow. This was just wishful thinking, nothing more.

It was unfortunate that the artifact was gone, but it had done its work. Lu Changsheng could feel that his heart force had grown, though exactly how much remained unclear. So, he decided to find out using the Heart Monument.

Lu Changsheng got up and made his way to the Transmission Hall, where a long line of disciples had already formed, each waiting to test their heart force. He quietly joined the queue without drawing attention, but even so, it did not take long for others to notice him.

"Isn't that Senior Brother Lu Changsheng?"

"How long has it been since his last test? Barely over a month? Two at most. How much could his heart force have changed in that time?"

"Some people go a year or two without any improvement at all. Even for a scion disciple, no matter how talented they are, elevating the heart force is extremely difficult."

"Maybe Senior Brother Lu is different? His heart scale was twenty-eight last time. Think he can reach thirty?"

Lu Changsheng disregarded the chatter. When his turn came in about an hour, he placed his hand on the Heart Monument and fixed his gaze on it. His consciousness gradually blurred, drawn inward by whatever strange pull the monument carried.

Time passed in that haze. Then a faint glow flickered across the stone, and Lu Changsheng snapped back to himself, lifting his head to read the number now shining clearly on its surface: 33.

His heart scale had reached thirty-three, a gain of five points from before. Lu Changsheng paused for a moment, turning that over in his mind. The number surprised him, though not for the reason anyone watching might have assumed. It wasn't that thirty-three was too high; rather, he found it too low.

He had pushed the Starry Sky Domain to seventy-five percent and lived out an entire lifetime through Faces of All Beings, passing through hardship that most cultivators would never come close to. How could all that amount to just five points?

This reinforced what he had already known but never truly felt until now. Heart force was incredibly difficult to cultivate. It was no wonder so many inner disciples, despite their talent, could never raise their heart scale to one hundred. In the end, they remained stuck in the Divine Fortification Realm, unable to advance.

While Lu Changsheng felt dissatisfied, the surrounding disciples stared at the monument in amazement. To them, this was an enormous improvement, and achieving it in such a short time was unbelievable.

"Thirty-three? Senior Brother Lu's heart scale actually reached thirty-three?"

"Not even two months, and he's up five points?"

"He was at twenty-eight last time. How did he improve his heart force so much so quickly?"

"Maybe it's the Dao Comprehension Pills, or some lucky encounter on the mission he went down the mountain for..."

The crowd buzzed with speculation, but Lu Changsheng paid them no attention. Once the test was done, he turned and left, heading back to his courtyard.

After he arrived, Lu Changsheng turned the results over in his mind. He had to admit that he had been too optimistic. He had assumed that by contemplating Domains and pushing their progress, his heart force would rise quickly. But in reality, while improving a Domain did strengthen heart force, the effects of this method were very limited. In truth, Faces of All Beings had likely contributed far more to his heart scale.

That brought him back to the Dao Comprehension Pills. He still needed at least three, which meant 30,000 contribution points, and he currently had eight thousand. He was short by more than twenty thousand.

Do I really have to take on missions again?

He had only just returned to the Northern Region Heavenly Sect and was not keen on going back out so soon.

Then, another option surfaced in his mind. The Combat Hall.

Under normal circumstances, disciples of the Northern Region Heavenly Sect were not allowed to fight privately. If they wanted to engage in combat, they could only do so by formally challenging scion disciples. But martial artists were not made to stand still, which was precisely why the Combat Hall existed.

The Combat Hall was a designated venue where disciples could register for organized combat events. Each participant paid 1,000 contribution points to enter, and once at least a hundred had signed up, the fight would begin and last until there were only ten disciples left.

The final ten disciples would then share in the total pool. A hundred entrants meant there were 100,000 contribution points in play. The first place would receive 35,000 points, the second would receive 20,000, the third would receive 10,000, and the fourth to tenth would receive 5,000 each.

The rewards were generous, and more importantly, there was no need to leave the sect. As for the combat, Lu Changsheng had no concerns on that front.

Having made up his mind, he got up and headed straight to the Combat Hall. The hall was busy when he arrived, with several combat sessions already underway. Events ran on a fixed morning schedule and started as soon as a hundred participants had gathered.

Lu Changsheng took out his identity token and registered with the steward on duty.

The steward looked up. "Come back tomorrow morning. If we don't reach a hundred participants within the day, you'll need to register again."

"Understood," Lu Changsheng replied with a nod.

He stayed a while longer at the Combat Hall to go over the rules more carefully. There were no restrictions on cultivation level; outer disciples, inner disciples, and true inheritor disciples could all enter. The one limitation was frequency: each disciple could only participate once per month, a rule designed to keep combat from consuming a cultivator's focus at the expense of everything else. Combat experience was beneficial, but if it became an obsession, the cost could outweigh the gains.

Lu Changsheng considered the potential competition. True disciples rarely entered, but it wasn't unheard of. If one did appear, things could get complicated.

Still, he did not necessarily need to win first place. Second or third would cover what he needed, and if a true inheritor disciple did appear, he would take this as an opportunity to see a Divine Treasury expert in action from the inside. Settled on that, he returned to his courtyard to prepare.

The next morning, Lu Changsheng returned to the Combat Hall and presented his identity token to the steward.

The steward glanced at it and handed it back. "Your group has reached one hundred participants. Head on in. The main combat hall is inside."

Lu Changsheng's eyes lit up, and he stepped inside the hall without hesitation.

The hall was already crowded, and the moment he entered, heads turned. He was well known, an inner sect scion disciple who had also once been a scion disciple in the outer sect, so before he had taken even three steps, most of the room had already recognized him.

"That's Senior Brother Lu Changsheng, an inner sect scion disciple!"

"Lu Changsheng? Damn it. He's a strong contender."

"Four Domains, four layers of Divine Fortification, and capable of unleashing the strength of one hundred thousand cauldrons. He's going for top three at minimum, maybe even first."

"Not necessarily. What if a true inheritor disciple shows up?"

"A true inheritor disciple joining this? What are the chances?"

The murmuring was still going when the doors opened again. This time, a man in white robes and a longsword at his waist stepped in. His features were refined, his bearing calm and unhurried.

At a glance, he looked more like a scholar than a fighter. Then someone put a name to the face, and the mood in the hall shifted.

"That's Xiao Jian! A true inheritor disciple!"

"A true inheritor disciple actually joined? We're screwed..."

"Forget first place. With Xiao Jian here, nobody but him is taking it."

"We'd better just focus on not getting eliminated by him. If we don't crack the top ten, that's a thousand contribution points wasted."

"Just terrible luck... running into a true inheritor disciple."

Disappointment swept through the crowd. A true inheritor disciple entering the combat did not just make first place harder to contest; it introduced a far more immediate threat. If he happened to target someone during the fight and knock them out early, even a disciple expected to finish at least top ten, if not top three, could walk away with nothing.

Xiao Jian's presence made the whole event unpredictable in a way that no inner disciple could. With Xiao Jian in the field, no one could say with any confidence that they would make it through, and a great deal would come down to luck.

Even Lu Changsheng narrowed his eyes, his gaze moving over Xiao Jian with quiet appraisal. Where the others felt the sting of bad luck, he felt something closer to anticipation.

A true inheritor disciple. Perhaps this time, I'll finally get to experience firsthand what the Divine Treasury Realm has to offer.

Losing 1,000 contribution points meant nothing to Lu Changsheng, and failing to crack the top ten would be no great blow either. Simply watching a true inheritor disciple in action was already worth the price of entry.

That being said, he had no intention of engaging with Xiao Jian recklessly. The wiser approach was to stay patient, remain cautious, read the field, and hold on long enough to secure a place in the top ten if he could.

Xiao Jian seemed approachable enough, but no one dared to speak to him. He soon found a spot, sat down cross-legged, and waited. Though all hundred slots had been filled, a handful of participants had yet to arrive, and the hall settled into an uneasy quiet as the rest trickled in one by one over the next quarter of an hour.

When the last participant had entered, the doors of the main hall swung slowly shut.

Then a voice boomed, "Let the battle begin!"

Everyone in the hall went still, and the tension was palpable.