Li Yang walked blindly through the gray mist for a few minutes before the scenery around him finally changed. The gray mist dissipated, the world around Li Yang turning into a vast and empty plain. The ground was yellow and dry, with barely any vegetation growing. The biggest rock Li Yang could see was only the size of his fist, not large enough to provide shade against the sweltering sun that hung high in the sky above him. Li Yang swept the empty plain with his eyes, patting Jinwu on the head slightly as he spoke."This should be the time trial, where we have to keep our mind intact."
Li Yang looked at the plain around him once more, checking if there was anything worth noting. Upon not finding anything, he sat down on the ground, causing a bit of dust to be thrown up. After sitting down, Li Yang picked up some of the earth with his hands, muttering to himself when he saw the earth turn to dust in his hands.
"If the earth here is this dry, I don"t think we can expect any rain in this illusion. Let"s wait here for a bit and see if anything happens, if nothing happens, we can start walking and see if the scenery changes."
Li Yang sat on the ground and slowed down his breathing, cultivating in silence as he waited for time to pa.s.s. Even though he was silently cultivating, he knew that the Qi he was absorbing was not real, it was only an illusion created by Mengxiang and the array that was the core of this trial.
While Li Yang was cultivating silently, Jinwu flew around his head for a while, before he eventually got bored and landed on Li Yang"s thigh. Jinwu laid down on Li Yang"s thigh and closed his eyes, but Li Yang was unable to tell if he was sleeping or cultivating.
Li Yang continued to silently cultivate, counting the days while doing so. After cultivating for three days without food, he realized that he would not feel hunger inside this illusion, and after a further five days of cultivation, he realized that he would also not feel tired while inside the illusion. After the eleventh day of silently cultivating, Li Yang opened his eyes and stood up, stretching his body as he spoke to Jinwu, who had jumped down from his thigh and was flying around his head.
"No need to eat, sleep, nor use the restroom. Seems like the amount of time needed to complete this test is ridiculously long, even if it is set to such an easy difficulty because of my cultivation. I wonder what Jing Yimu has to go through."
Li Yang finished stretching his body, so Jinwu landed on his shoulder and let out a few caws. Li Yang no longer had the robes with the specially prepared shoulder pillow for Jinwu, but it was still better to sit on Li Yang"s shoulder than fly next to him. Li Yang pat Jinwu on the head with a wry smile, shaking his head as he looked towards the distance.
"Yeah, yeah, I will buy some new robes once we get out of here. But for now, let"s start walking and seeing how much time we will have to spend here."
Li Yang started walking, simply walking in a straight line and seeing how far they could go. Because of how dry the earth beneath them was, every step he took would cause the earth to turn to dust that would be thrown up into the air.
While walking, Li Yang emptied his mind as much as he could, simply walking mindlessly. One of the first things he noticed after spending some time walking was that he did not feel exhausted, not even after walking for almost two days. Two days of walking was not enough to make him exhausted, but it should have at least made him feel a little tired. Because of this, he guessed that he would not need to rest while inside the illusion, allowing him to spend more time walking.
Li Yang continued to walk in a straight line, the days rapidly pa.s.sing as he walked mindlessly. After spending an entire year walking in a straight line and not seeing a single change in the environment around them, Li Yang came to the conclusion that the empty plain around them would not change, no matter how much he walked.
After three years of continuous walking, Li Yang noticed the first signs of aging appear on his body as he grew taller, his hair growing longer. As a cultivator, Li Yang"s aging was already slowed down, his lifespan increased, but he would still age with enough pa.s.sing of time.
After another seven years of walking, his body had already turned into that of a youth in his early twenties. He looked like a youth in his early twenties, but because of the dry atmosphere and the sun constantly shining on him, his skin was strongly tanned and dry, wrinkles already appearing on his face.
Yet despite this, Li Yang continued to walk, his speed never dropping. After hearing about how this trial would be done, Li Yang had not worried in the slightest, knowing full well that he could complete the trial with ease. He had two reasons to be this confident, one was that he already had experience from his past life with spending many years in complete isolation and without moving, and the other reason was that he had Jinwu with him. With Jinwu to keep him company and talk with him, he would not be like most others who had his cultivation level and undertook this trial, slowly turning insane from loneliness.
Li Yang continued to walk, no longer bothering to count the days that pa.s.sed, instead starting to count the years that pa.s.sed. After he had spent a total of 30 years walking, Li Yang noticed that Jinwu had not changed in the slightest, seemingly not aging despite the pa.s.sage of several years.
He thought it was strange for a short moment, but then quickly realized why Jinwu didn"t age. Jinwu was a Divine beast, so of course, he would have a lifespan that far surpa.s.sed most people, that was one of the gifts given to Divine beasts. Li Yang would have to cultivate to a higher cultivation realm if he wanted to have such a long lifespan, but Jinwu already had such a lifespan the moment he was born. He also didn"t have to cultivate like Li Yang to grow stronger, Jinwu merely had to grow older to become stronger. Of course, cultivation would help him cut down the time needed to grow stronger.
After he had spent a total of 80 years walking, Li Yang"s walking speed had slowed down because of his aging. His bones had gotten fragile, his joints hurting with every step he took. He didn"t feel tired or hungry, but it seemed that pain was something that the array did not take from him.
After a further 20 years of walking, Li Yang"s aging body could not last any further, his heart stopping while he was walking. His body died and fell over, but Li Yang"s consciousness was still there, floating above his body, unable to move. Jinwu seemed to be able to see Li Yang"s consciousness, so he did not fly away from Li Yang"s slowly rotting body.
Another three years later, Li Yang"s body turned to dust and was blown away by a sudden breeze. When the dust that was his body vanished, a new body appeared in the spot where he had died. The new body looked exactly like Li Yang"s actual body, and he quickly found his consciousness pulled into the body. With his consciousness entering the body, Li Yang opened his eyes and stretched the body, checking how it worked.
"Is this my real body?"
Checking out how the body felt, Li Yang noticed that it worked and felt exactly like his own body had felt before he entered the trial ground with Jing Yimu, causing Li Yang to wonder whether it had only been his consciousness that had been drawn into the illusion. Another reason why he believed this was because he noticed that Jinwu was already perched on his shoulder, instead of flying in the air like he had done while Li Yang"s consciousness had been dragged into the body. Li Yang swept the surroundings with his eyes, noticing that the environment had changed slightly.
"A lake? Looking at how much Qi is gathered in it, it should be the center of the array. Does that mean I have completed the trial?"
Li Yang could see a small lake in the distance, and guess that it was most likely the center of the array that produced the trial. He checked the surroundings a few more times but did not see anything else that was worth noting, so he decided to head towards the lake.
Li Yang kept a vigilant eye on his surroundings as he walked, making sure that this was not another part of the trial, and that he was actually getting closer to the lake. He breathed a slight sigh of relief when he noticed that he was indeed getting closer to the lake, even he was somewhat tired after spending 103 years inside an illusion.
When Li Yang reached the small lake, which looked more like a pond when he saw it from up close, the Qi that was gathering inside the lake rose up and surrounded his body. The Qi sank into his body, coursing through his veins, flesh, and dantian as it slowly strengthened him.
With the Qi nourishing his body and increasing the size of his dantian, Li Yang decided to take the chance to increase his cultivation. He had been forced to slow down his cultivation speed while traveling with Jing Yimu, so this was a good chance to increase his cultivation. Li Yang took control over the Qi that was coursing through his body, sending all of it into his dantian and using it to engrave a new rune for each of his element. Just when Li Yang wanted to take the chance to engrave more runes, the Qi was pulled out of his body and back into the lake, the familiar voice of Dai Shu ringing out in his head.
" You have completed my trial, earning the right to hold one of the four emblems needed to enter the Thunder Flower Memorial. Only by gathering the last three emblems will you be given the chance to become the next Thunder Monarch or Poison Empress."
After the voice rang out in his head, gray mist rose up from the lake, gathering into an emblem in front of Li Yang. The emblem was made out of gray jade and was about the size of his palm, the surface of it was engraved with the image of a white crane flying towards a bright moon. The emblem flew towards his chest and sank into it, settling down next to the emblem he had gotten from clearing Zhao Feng"s trial. Li Yang pat the place where the emblem had entered, muttering to himself.
"You couldn"t have waited for a few more seconds and let me carve my fourth rune as well?"
After letting out the mutter, he shook his head and discarded the thought. Just the fact that he had been able to carve a third rune and push himself up to the late stage of the Mortal Rune realm was already good enough, he shouldn"t be greedy and ask for more.
While he was shaking his head, Li Yang could feel that s.p.a.ce around him was distorting slightly, so he guessed that he was about to be sent back towards the entrance of the trial. Before he was sent back, he hurriedly used a special technique to hide his cultivation, making it seem like he was still at the middle stage of the Mortal Rune realm. If his cultivation had suddenly increased after a trial, Jing Yimu would probably find it rather suspicious, maybe even going as far as thinking that Li Yang had completed the trial.
While he was waiting to be sent away, Li Yang could not help but be slightly excited as well. He had completed two trials and increased his cultivation twice, would he be able to continue increasing his cultivation like this as he completed the last two trials? And what about when he reached the Thunder Flower Memorial?