The flood had been weakened by the first three layers of the peripheral walls. The black tribulation clouds had disappeared from the sky, revealing the sun shining brightly beyond. All around, the innumerable cracks in the sky that had opened up to flood the floating island with seawater had disappeared along with the tribulation cloud.
The trial had come to a conclusion.
Shangguang Ce and Hong Wei stood on top of the third wall, eyes glued to the sight of two soaring silhouettes overhead.
Shangguang Ce's smile broadened.
"What an odd guy...It'll be interesting to see where he ends up if he becomes a member of the coalition."
Hong Wei's gaze snapped toward Shangguang Ce upon hearing his musings.
"You cannot be serious! Celestials above! Why would you want to recruit HIM out of all the potential candidates we've seen so far? He's the least likely to be of any use to us. His cultivation is the lowest of them all, his manipulation of qi is barbarically crude, and his behavior is plainly unacceptable in an operation of such caliber."
Shangguang Ce rubbed his nose absentmindedly while he listened to his martial sister. In the end, he couldn't help but interject.
"Hey, that's going a bit too far. What exactly did you see in his behavior that's so problematic? He seems like a fairly innocent, kind-"
"Seriously?"
Hong Wei interrupted his defense, her tone bordering on ridicule and indignation.
"Did you seriously think I would be stupid enough to believe that Mu Ran is as much of an idiot as he acts as? Even more importantly, did you actually think I would believe that YOU hadn't seen through his act faster than I did?"
"Hey, now, no need to get so worked up, Little Wei. Let our friend keep his strange hobbies. If he finds happiness in being mistaken for a retard, we should respect that. As long as you are aware that it's a facade, it'll suffice."
Hong Wei sighed, seemingly realizing that it would be a futile attempt to persuade her martial brother to change his decision.
The two of them watched the elder throw Mu Ran's body at the exact spot he had come out of just ten minutes ago. Mu Ran disappeared silently into the rift lines. The Elder flew downward immediately and landed beside them seconds later.
"Anything else, Little Ce?" he asked in a monotone.
"No. Please feel free to return to your chamber, Elder Peng."
Hearing his reply, the Elder nodded and hopped upwards at the fourth wall, his speed almost difficult to track. Like a grasshopper, he leaped beyond their sight far within the layers of Sunrider Sect.
"Whatever....But I'll say this, at least. Don't mistake him for being a kind fellow. He'll definitely stab us in the back if the situation turns against us once the existence of the coalition is discovered."
Shangguang Ce threw a sharp look at Hong Wei.
"How did you reach that conclusion? Are you sure you're not holding a grudge against him for making fun of your...Physique?"
Hong Wei's lips pressed into a thin line.
"Let's talk about his actions after I left you two here. The motion recorders caught him running away almost instantly. What forced him to return was the flood.
Once he had realized that he had no path left other than to escape further inside the Jade Fortress, he decided to save you.
It was obviously not out of kindness. He knew that, as competitors, we aren't exactly a friendly party. He had to have insurance, which could only be you, the only friendly, defenseless acquaintance he knew here. Since you were under the influence of the Soul Crusher Bolts, he must have assumed that you might not survive the flood, seeing your aura is still in the physique transformation realm.
Which is why he used you as a lifesaving token and brought you along with him while trying to enter further into the fortress. Even a fool could tell that he'd not be welcomed inside if he left you behind.
Saving you was not his prime objective, it was saving his own skin."
Shangguang Ce began to clap slowly, his expression half-amused, half-approving.
"Your neural networks have improved in terms of critical thinking by analyzing your subconscious observations! Good work, little Wei. See why I told you not to change your current body? It's a gem of a discovery!"
Hong Wei scratched her throat lightly, an unwilling expression forming on her face.
"So are you sure you still want him to be a member of the coalition? Our deal with that scheming woman hasn't ended yet. Drones reported that someone intentionally messed with the Gateway formations here to create a jam just a few hours ago."
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with you on that one. That is definitely Lady Luo Yi's handiwork," Shangguang Ce said with a chuckle.
"She probably wants to send in a few more unsuspecting talents here from the newcomer sects; that's some dedication I can respect."
Hong Wei scowled sensing the tone of approval in his voice.
"Another selfish, greedy, benefit-oriented-"
"Well, why do you expect anyone to work for us if there are no benefits involved? That's just natural. I wouldn't work for anyone if it didn't involve treasures at the level of this Jade Fortress either. All the talks of our great cause and ideology are still at the stage where you can label them as propaganda. Nobody's gonna fall for just that," Shangguang Ce butted in before she could complete the sentence.
"...."
Hong Wei did not prolong the argument this time.
"Let's get ready for the next audition. It'll be an interesting contrast once we weigh Brother Ran's actions with the rest of the candidates," Shangguang Ce said, breaking the silence. Then he leaped towards the periphery of the fortress, where the water level had already decreased by a significant margin.
Hong Wei jumped down into the space between the third and fourth walls.
Walking towards a direction opposite to Shanguang Ce's position, she touched her throat once more, this time hard enough to leave fingerprints on the brown skin. A thin thread of qi spun in a particular pathway around the fingers locked on her throat.
A few seconds later, harsh, intermittent noise came from her throat.
Bzzzz....Trrrrkk....Bzzzz!
"Five, five, four, zero, six. The heavens are not above. Two. Wholesale. Correction. Transmigration."
Through the crushing pressure inside her windpipes, a series of clear, meaningless words escaped slowly.
A brief moment passed. Then a change took place deep within her left ear canal. The tympanic membrane that is originally supposed to transfer information inside vibrated by itself suddenly, producing a sound that reached her brain directly.
"Report."
It was a single word. But that was enough to bring Hong Wei great relief, it seemed. Loosening the grip on her throat, she spoke while massaging the area.
"Silver level threat. Soul type. Requesting investigation."
A long silence ensued once she finished speaking.
"Are you absolutely certain it's not a mere iron-level mutated soul?" the voice in her eardrum said, breaking the pause. Hong Wei seemed to have expected the doubtful question.
"99 percent sure. I sensed an ancient, fragmented aura of at least the Dao Integration realm. In the worst-case scenario, it could very well be the hideout of a Monarch."
"...The task has been published. You shall receive an update exactly forty-eight hours later. Your next code will be-- Jade Six, Gate Six, Two, Two, Infuse, Refinement."
Containing a sense of urgency, a series of jumbled words sounded in her head, which she memorized carefully. Her left eardrum stopped vibrating as soon as the voice finished speaking.
Hong Wei caressed her neck, now back to its normal complexion with no fingerprints to be seen, and walked off deeper into the maze of walls.
........ ........ ..........
Nerves taut, Han Xuhan felt his heart beating like a drum as the floating island of the Sunrider Sect disappeared from his sight, along with the Elder who had just thrown him at the empty air above them.
This time, he was more prepared to face the sudden world of darkness that encapsulated him.
For a terrifying second, Han Xuhan felt as if he were inside a stuffed toy, his breath blocked by countless soft cotton balls. As panic set in, he tried to push away whatever he was buried within. But the crushing weight disappeared after a moment, replaced by the sensation of slippery substances surrounding his body. He felt as if his body had turned into a mass of noodles, constantly being stretched and mauled inside lukewarm fluids.
Right at that moment, every drop of qi inside his meridians suddenly went out of control and rushed towards his right hand in a frenzy. Within half a second, even the tiniest drop of his qi channeled out of his palm and disappeared from his senses.
The sensation of being a malleable piece of noodle went away with his qi as well. Han Xuhan opened his eyes and found himself back to the normal world, falling down towards a....chessboard.
With his brain back to proper functioning, Han Xuhan observed his fall for a fraction of a second and realized that his acceleration didn't quite seem as high as it should be under normal conditions.
So that was the reason why he hadn't sustained any injuries after falling onto the Sunrider Sect's island! The basic laws of gravity weren't consistent in this strange archipelago.
With a loud thump, he fell down on the ground and immediately tried to perform a roll, 'tried' being the keyword here.
"Ah-fuck!" He got back on his feet as fast as possible, cranking a tendon or two in the process. It didn't take more than a single glance to understand that he had traveled to a new sect this time instead of the Crimson Snow Sect.
What he had originally mistaken for being a chessboard was actually a vast region of flattened soil. The entire floating island was crisscrossed by long borders made up of mud from one end to the opposite, giving someone overhead the impression of looking at a checkered board.
Each chunk of land separated by the flimsy borders was square, albeit in very rough measurements. Some squares were slightly larger than the rest, while a significant number of them could barely surround a small shack.
Countless stalks of weeds and dry roots of crops long harvested decorated the island in every square.
This place...was a land of cultivation, a slightly different type of cultivation. As a cultivator himself, Han Xuhan didn't feel welcome here in the slightest. In fact, he started sprinting towards the closest edge of the floating island as soon as he got his first look around.
But alas! His plan of escape was not meant to succeed this time either.
He was almost near the edge of the island when a loud, boisterous cheer came from ahead. Following the cheers appeared a swarm of bulls from below the edge, leaping onto the flat region with mighty roars, spraying chunks of soil in all directions without care.
MOOOOO! MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOO!!!
Where the hell did these things come from? How were they able to climb up on a floating island?
The bulls were gigantic, even the smallest of them twice his height, energy brimming with pulsing muscles. But what drew his attention were not these cattle, but what the cattle had dragged up behind them.
A chariot on fire had landed at the edge of the island, bound to the raging bulls by meter-thick metal chains. It was the size of a small sea-faring boat, three-storied, stylized, its black polished wooden body smooth as glass.
While he had been struck dumb by the otherworldly sight, the occupants of the chariot recovered faster upon noticing his presence. Their reaction, however, was rather off.
"WOW! A new friend!" Screamed a guy whose naked upper body looked too muscular to be real. Each of his arms was thicker than Han Xuhan's waist.
"HEY BRO! DON'T RUN!" Shouted a lady whose physique almost rivaled the first guy.
"Yeah! We come in peace!" Yelled an extremely tall, thin young man whose high-pitched voice was remarkable even amidst all the noise.
"Wang One, you forgot your lines again! This is our sect. We're not supposed to say we come in peace in this place!" Someone from the back of the chariot corrected him.
"Hey, are you HUNGRY?" This time the shout was completely off-topic. But all the occupants of the chariot cheered extremely enthusiastically at this. Several of them jumped down from the top deck, making the ground beneath sink down by several centimeters. Han Xuhan, used to dealing with cultivators far above his own strength, understood how futile further attempts at escaping would be. These guys were all at the late stages of the Physique transformation realm! Not to mention, all of them appeared to have impossibly large physiques, hinting at non-human involvement!
He decided once more to play the role of an honest man.
In the blink of an eye, Han Xuhan was surrounded by three giants, each of whom was at least eight feet tall. Han Xuhan felt like a hobbit facing off against high elves.
"Hello, big brother! Are you lost? Do you need shelter? You can stay here for as long as you want!" One of the giants exclaimed excitedly.
Another giant, a girl, grabbed his right hand for a handshake so vigorous that it almost dislocated his shoulder.
"Wow! This big brother sure has a good grip!" She said 'in wonder'. Han Xuhan, whose hand wasn't even visible within her closed palm, absorbed a drop of manly tear back into his eye.
"Although we've run out of crops, we still have food," said the guy who seemed still fixated on his proposal.
"But we can't guarantee the quality of the meat though. Haven't yet gotten the chance to examine the loot."
The words registered rather slowly in the back of his mind because he had just noticed one detail that had escaped his observation earlier.
The fire crackling brightly around the black chariot was not a part of the decoration. It was actively burning down a significant portion of the chariot and becoming bigger every second.
Loot, huh?
The flood had been weakened by the first three layers of the peripheral walls. The black tribulation clouds had disappeared from the sky, revealing the sun shining brightly beyond. All around, the innumerable cracks in the sky that had opened up to flood the floating island with seawater had disappeared along with the tribulation cloud.
The trial had come to a conclusion.
Shangguang Ce and Hong Wei stood on top of the third wall, eyes glued to the sight of two soaring silhouettes overhead.
Shangguang Ce's smile broadened.
"What an odd guy...It'll be interesting to see where he ends up if he becomes a member of the coalition."
Hong Wei's gaze snapped toward Shangguang Ce upon hearing his musings.
"You cannot be serious! Celestials above! Why would you want to recruit HIM out of all the potential candidates we've seen so far? He's the least likely to be of any use to us. His cultivation is the lowest of them all, his manipulation of qi is barbarically crude, and his behavior is plainly unacceptable in an operation of such caliber."
Shangguang Ce rubbed his nose absentmindedly while he listened to his martial sister. In the end, he couldn't help but interject.
"Hey, that's going a bit too far. What exactly did you see in his behavior that's so problematic? He seems like a fairly innocent, kind-"
"Seriously?"
Hong Wei interrupted his defense, her tone bordering on ridicule and indignation.
"Did you seriously think I would be stupid enough to believe that Mu Ran is as much of an idiot as he acts as? Even more importantly, did you actually think I would believe that YOU hadn't seen through his act faster than I did?"
"Hey, now, no need to get so worked up, Little Wei. Let our friend keep his strange hobbies. If he finds happiness in being mistaken for a retard, we should respect that. As long as you are aware that it's a facade, it'll suffice."
Hong Wei sighed, seemingly realizing that it would be a futile attempt to persuade her martial brother to change his decision.
The two of them watched the elder throw Mu Ran's body at the exact spot he had come out of just ten minutes ago. Mu Ran disappeared silently into the rift lines. The Elder flew downward immediately and landed beside them seconds later.
"Anything else, Little Ce?" he asked in a monotone.
"No. Please feel free to return to your chamber, Elder Peng."
Hearing his reply, the Elder nodded and hopped upwards at the fourth wall, his speed almost difficult to track. Like a grasshopper, he leaped beyond their sight far within the layers of Sunrider Sect.
"Whatever....But I'll say this, at least. Don't mistake him for being a kind fellow. He'll definitely stab us in the back if the situation turns against us once the existence of the coalition is discovered."
Shangguang Ce threw a sharp look at Hong Wei.
"How did you reach that conclusion? Are you sure you're not holding a grudge against him for making fun of your...Physique?"
Hong Wei's lips pressed into a thin line.
"Let's talk about his actions after I left you two here. The motion recorders caught him running away almost instantly. What forced him to return was the flood.
Once he had realized that he had no path left other than to escape further inside the Jade Fortress, he decided to save you.
It was obviously not out of kindness. He knew that, as competitors, we aren't exactly a friendly party. He had to have insurance, which could only be you, the only friendly, defenseless acquaintance he knew here. Since you were under the influence of the Soul Crusher Bolts, he must have assumed that you might not survive the flood, seeing your aura is still in the physique transformation realm.
Which is why he used you as a lifesaving token and brought you along with him while trying to enter further into the fortress. Even a fool could tell that he'd not be welcomed inside if he left you behind.
Saving you was not his prime objective, it was saving his own skin."
Shangguang Ce began to clap slowly, his expression half-amused, half-approving.
"Your neural networks have improved in terms of critical thinking by analyzing your subconscious observations! Good work, little Wei. See why I told you not to change your current body? It's a gem of a discovery!"
Hong Wei scratched her throat lightly, an unwilling expression forming on her face.
"So are you sure you still want him to be a member of the coalition? Our deal with that scheming woman hasn't ended yet. Drones reported that someone intentionally messed with the Gateway formations here to create a jam just a few hours ago."
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with you on that one. That is definitely Lady Luo Yi's handiwork," Shangguang Ce said with a chuckle.
"She probably wants to send in a few more unsuspecting talents here from the newcomer sects; that's some dedication I can respect."
Hong Wei scowled sensing the tone of approval in his voice.
"Another selfish, greedy, benefit-oriented-"
"Well, why do you expect anyone to work for us if there are no benefits involved? That's just natural. I wouldn't work for anyone if it didn't involve treasures at the level of this Jade Fortress either. All the talks of our great cause and ideology are still at the stage where you can label them as propaganda. Nobody's gonna fall for just that," Shangguang Ce butted in before she could complete the sentence.
"...."
Hong Wei did not prolong the argument this time.
"Let's get ready for the next audition. It'll be an interesting contrast once we weigh Brother Ran's actions with the rest of the candidates," Shangguang Ce said, breaking the silence. Then he leaped towards the periphery of the fortress, where the water level had already decreased by a significant margin.
Hong Wei jumped down into the space between the third and fourth walls.
Walking towards a direction opposite to Shanguang Ce's position, she touched her throat once more, this time hard enough to leave fingerprints on the brown skin. A thin thread of qi spun in a particular pathway around the fingers locked on her throat.
A few seconds later, harsh, intermittent noise came from her throat.
Bzzzz....Trrrrkk....Bzzzz!
"Five, five, four, zero, six. The heavens are not above. Two. Wholesale. Correction. Transmigration."
Through the crushing pressure inside her windpipes, a series of clear, meaningless words escaped slowly.
A brief moment passed. Then a change took place deep within her left ear canal. The tympanic membrane that is originally supposed to transfer information inside vibrated by itself suddenly, producing a sound that reached her brain directly.
"Report."
It was a single word. But that was enough to bring Hong Wei great relief, it seemed. Loosening the grip on her throat, she spoke while massaging the area.
"Silver level threat. Soul type. Requesting investigation."
A long silence ensued once she finished speaking.
"Are you absolutely certain it's not a mere iron-level mutated soul?" the voice in her eardrum said, breaking the pause. Hong Wei seemed to have expected the doubtful question.
"99 percent sure. I sensed an ancient, fragmented aura of at least the Dao Integration realm. In the worst-case scenario, it could very well be the hideout of a Monarch."
"...The task has been published. You shall receive an update exactly forty-eight hours later. Your next code will be-- Jade Six, Gate Six, Two, Two, Infuse, Refinement."
Containing a sense of urgency, a series of jumbled words sounded in her head, which she memorized carefully. Her left eardrum stopped vibrating as soon as the voice finished speaking.
Hong Wei caressed her neck, now back to its normal complexion with no fingerprints to be seen, and walked off deeper into the maze of walls.
........ ........ ..........
Nerves taut, Han Xuhan felt his heart beating like a drum as the floating island of the Sunrider Sect disappeared from his sight, along with the Elder who had just thrown him at the empty air above them.
This time, he was more prepared to face the sudden world of darkness that encapsulated him.
For a terrifying second, Han Xuhan felt as if he were inside a stuffed toy, his breath blocked by countless soft cotton balls. As panic set in, he tried to push away whatever he was buried within. But the crushing weight disappeared after a moment, replaced by the sensation of slippery substances surrounding his body. He felt as if his body had turned into a mass of noodles, constantly being stretched and mauled inside lukewarm fluids.
Right at that moment, every drop of qi inside his meridians suddenly went out of control and rushed towards his right hand in a frenzy. Within half a second, even the tiniest drop of his qi channeled out of his palm and disappeared from his senses.
The sensation of being a malleable piece of noodle went away with his qi as well. Han Xuhan opened his eyes and found himself back to the normal world, falling down towards a....chessboard.
With his brain back to proper functioning, Han Xuhan observed his fall for a fraction of a second and realized that his acceleration didn't quite seem as high as it should be under normal conditions.
So that was the reason why he hadn't sustained any injuries after falling onto the Sunrider Sect's island! The basic laws of gravity weren't consistent in this strange archipelago.
With a loud thump, he fell down on the ground and immediately tried to perform a roll, 'tried' being the keyword here.
"Ah-fuck!" He got back on his feet as fast as possible, cranking a tendon or two in the process. It didn't take more than a single glance to understand that he had traveled to a new sect this time instead of the Crimson Snow Sect.
What he had originally mistaken for being a chessboard was actually a vast region of flattened soil. The entire floating island was crisscrossed by long borders made up of mud from one end to the opposite, giving someone overhead the impression of looking at a checkered board.
Each chunk of land separated by the flimsy borders was square, albeit in very rough measurements. Some squares were slightly larger than the rest, while a significant number of them could barely surround a small shack.
Countless stalks of weeds and dry roots of crops long harvested decorated the island in every square.
This place...was a land of cultivation, a slightly different type of cultivation. As a cultivator himself, Han Xuhan didn't feel welcome here in the slightest. In fact, he started sprinting towards the closest edge of the floating island as soon as he got his first look around.
But alas! His plan of escape was not meant to succeed this time either.
He was almost near the edge of the island when a loud, boisterous cheer came from ahead. Following the cheers appeared a swarm of bulls from below the edge, leaping onto the flat region with mighty roars, spraying chunks of soil in all directions without care.
MOOOOO! MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOO!!!
Where the hell did these things come from? How were they able to climb up on a floating island?
The bulls were gigantic, even the smallest of them twice his height, energy brimming with pulsing muscles. But what drew his attention were not these cattle, but what the cattle had dragged up behind them.
A chariot on fire had landed at the edge of the island, bound to the raging bulls by meter-thick metal chains. It was the size of a small sea-faring boat, three-storied, stylized, its black polished wooden body smooth as glass.
While he had been struck dumb by the otherworldly sight, the occupants of the chariot recovered faster upon noticing his presence. Their reaction, however, was rather off.
"WOW! A new friend!" Screamed a guy whose naked upper body looked too muscular to be real. Each of his arms was thicker than Han Xuhan's waist.
"HEY BRO! DON'T RUN!" Shouted a lady whose physique almost rivaled the first guy.
"Yeah! We come in peace!" Yelled an extremely tall, thin young man whose high-pitched voice was remarkable even amidst all the noise.
"Wang One, you forgot your lines again! This is our sect. We're not supposed to say we come in peace in this place!" Someone from the back of the chariot corrected him.
"Hey, are you HUNGRY?" This time the shout was completely off-topic. But all the occupants of the chariot cheered extremely enthusiastically at this. Several of them jumped down from the top deck, making the ground beneath sink down by several centimeters. Han Xuhan, used to dealing with cultivators far above his own strength, understood how futile further attempts at escaping would be. These guys were all at the late stages of the Physique transformation realm! Not to mention, all of them appeared to have impossibly large physiques, hinting at non-human involvement!
He decided once more to play the role of an honest man.
In the blink of an eye, Han Xuhan was surrounded by three giants, each of whom was at least eight feet tall. Han Xuhan felt like a hobbit facing off against high elves.
"Hello, big brother! Are you lost? Do you need shelter? You can stay here for as long as you want!" One of the giants exclaimed excitedly.
Another giant, a girl, grabbed his right hand for a handshake so vigorous that it almost dislocated his shoulder.
"Wow! This big brother sure has a good grip!" She said 'in wonder'. Han Xuhan, whose hand wasn't even visible within her closed palm, absorbed a drop of manly tear back into his eye.
"Although we've run out of crops, we still have food," said the guy who seemed still fixated on his proposal.
"But we can't guarantee the quality of the meat though. Haven't yet gotten the chance to examine the loot."
The words registered rather slowly in the back of his mind because he had just noticed one detail that had escaped his observation earlier.
The fire crackling brightly around the black chariot was not a part of the decoration. It was actively burning down a significant portion of the chariot and becoming bigger every second.
Loot, huh?
