Chapter 1321: Promotion

"Different set of prisoners?" Long Chen asked, confused. What did he mean?

"I mean the prisoners that rose to higher places," Zia Uzhi answered. 

"As I said, this place is like a sect. Even though you can't go out, you can get quite a lot of facilities inside the Heavenly Prison depending on your position," he added. "It's like when an outer sect disciple becomes an Inner Sect disciple; he gets more facilities. It's similar here."

"That's very interesting. So we can rise to that level? How do we do that? And what kind of facilities do we get when we get to higher places?" Long Chen asked, interested in the information.

Even though he wanted to escape, he knew that it might be easier if he had more freedom in this place. As long as he was able to get there, it was going to be perfect. 

"How to get there? Similar to how you do in sects. By keeping a good behavior during your stay here and at the same time achieving missions or showing your talents in various events held in the prison," Zhu Chang explained. "Going down that route takes a long time to get promoted though. There are shortcuts too."

"How long without shortcuts?" Long Chen asked, curious. 

"Well, around a thousand years, I think. But if your performance is exceptionally good, you might get promoted in half that time too," Zia Uzhi answered. 

"Half that time? You mean five hundred years? That's also a long time. What's the shortcut?" Long Chen inquired. 

"There are actually three shortcuts. One is by winning the annual tournament between the external prisoners. But that's also hard since there are too many people there. And a lot of them are even more powerful than me. So winning seems impossible for even me, let alone you."

"What's the other way?" Long Chen asked, frowning. 

Through the first shortcut, it seemed impossible. He knew his own strength. Winning against the other Heavenly Prisoners was impossible, at least when he couldn't even use his laws. He wasn't optimistic about that. 

"The second option is by going inside the Dark Tower," Zia Uzhi answered. 

"Dark Tower?" Long Chen asked, not understanding. "What's that?"

"It's like a tower which was made for the prisoners. It contains a myriad of challenges, and it scores the prisoners according to their performance. As long as you get a score which is in the top ten scores of all times, you'll be automatically promoted." 

"That seems like a much easier option than the first one," Long Chen muttered, rubbing his chin. 

"Don't even think about it. We're not talking about getting a good score from the tower, but getting the top ten scores. With your strength, it should be impossible," Zia Uzhi responded, rolling his eyes.

"Did you go inside the Dark Tower?" Long Chen asked Zia Uzhi. 

"I did just last month," Zia Uzhi replied. 

"It appears you didn't get in the top ten in that case. What was the challenge inside the tower like? Can you tell me?" Long Chen asked. 

"Not get in the top ten? Let alone top ten; I didn't even get in top thousand scores," Zia Uzhi replied. "It's much harder than you can think! We're talking about overtaking the best of Heavenly Realm prisoners since the start!"

"Not even top thousand? I guess I underestimated this place. But what's the challenge inside? Does it take cultivation into consideration?" Long Chen asked. "Since I would probably come last in that if that's the case."

"I don't think it considers cultivation. Some people with weak cultivation got a better score than me. It should be something else," Zia Uzhi answered. "As for what happened inside, it is different for everyone. So even if I tell you, it's not going to help you. Every person gets a different set of challenges."

"It's alright. You can still tell me what challenges you face. I would at least get some ideas," Long Chen responded. 

"I can't. We aren't allowed to talk about the challenges we faced inside," Zia Uzhi answered, shaking his head. 

"Huh? That doesn't make sense? If you can't talk about it, how do you know the others didn't face the same challenges?" Long Chen asked. 

"What I meant was that we can't talk about that with people who haven't entered the tower even once. As for how I know about the challenges of others, it's because I asked them after I came out. Everyone I talked to had a different set of challenges than mine." Zia Uzhi exclaimed. 

"So I can't know without going inside," Long Chen muttered. "I guess I might try at least once. Is there any danger of death inside?"

"Who knows. There are some safeguards for you to protect yourself, but death is certainly a possibility. But you'll come out safely as long as you don't push yourself. You'll have a crystal which you can crush to come out."

"But who knows, you might be killed before you even get a chance to crush the crystal. It all depends on you,"  Zia Uzhi replied. 

"Any other shortcuts?" Long Chen asked, wondering if there was any other way in which he could get promoted easily. 

"Other ways? I am not sure about that. I think there is one more from what I heard, but no one knows what that is. We just know that one person was promoted despite not winning the annual tournament or getting the top score. We can't ask him how he did that since he's in a different part of prison now," Zia Uzhi answered, sighing. 

"So that one leaves these two options we know of?" Long Chen asked. "What benefits do we get from promotion though?"

"Benefits? There are many. First, you don't have to live inside the cell as you're shifted to a better place. You get a proper room of yourself where you can sleep peacefully with a bed and other facilities. No sleeping on the ground."

"Moreover, you won't be locked in your room. You can leave the room even at night, so that's pretty good. Also, you can go inside the places where we outer prisoners can't. You can access more facilities as well."

"And there's also the best part."

"What best part?"

"The best part is that unlike us, they also get cultivation resources. We can only depend on ourselves to absorb the energy and progress our cultivation, but they get proper resources for that, to get external help in their cultivation."

"Moreover, they can also have access to cultivation skills and other things that are available inside the library in the Heavenly Prison," he further explained.