At this point in his speech, Wang Lang stared at Quan Jiuxing without blinking. A trace of disdain actually rose in his heart. Although Quan Jiuxing was also a prodigy among the Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Supreme Mystery Teachings, Wang Lang believed his attack power was too weak. In the last trial, if he had led the Qi Condensation cultivators into the sphere, they would not have lost eleven people. He alone could have slaughtered their one second-tier demonic beast and five first-tier demonic beasts. But at this moment, his face showed no dissatisfaction.
And none of them noticed that in this space, a wisp of divine sense had already quietly entered. If one didn't look carefully, it would be impossible to notice its arrival.
Li Yan had already chosen a gate from the pure white ribbon of light. But this time, he had chosen a gate that was brightly lit, which meant he was very close to the cultivators inside. The moment he passed through, he would appear right under their noses. But at this moment, the spirit power in his body was surging unceasingly, and the spirit power from his hand was continuously pouring into the blue rhomboid crystal. The green light on the crystal flickered, appearing extremely unstable. The protective spirit light on his body had already been deformed by the powerful external pressure. The runes on the Ghost-Chariot Talisman outside his protective light had dimmed, and it wouldn't be long before it collapsed and dissipated. This situation was because he had not broken through the membrane of the ribbon of light. Right now, Li Yan's body was as if stuck in a wall. Only by exerting force could he break through.
The reason he was doing this was that after repeatedly entering the ribbon of light passages, he had discovered that he could temporarily stay in the membrane of the passage. The reason for this was the blue rhomboid crystal in his hand. But often, after passing through once, the single-attribute spiritual energy in the crystal would be mostly consumed. He had to re-inject his own spiritual energy into the five-elemental space of the crystal to force its five elements to unify again. So he constantly tried to slow down his movement when passing through the passage membrane, instead of passing through in one go. This way, he could actually stay in this membrane wall for a short while. But this consumed the single-type of spiritual energy in the crystal drastically. He needed to continuously replenish it with his own spiritual energy to maintain a single-element state inside. Otherwise, he might be stuck here forever. At the same time, there was a huge squeezing force in this wall. Even with his protective spirit light under the Ghost-Chariot Talisman, he could feel a huge pressure coming from all directions, as if trying to crush him into a pulp.
This Ghost-Chariot Talisman on him had already been used three or four times. Staying in the membrane like this, Li Yan estimated it would collapse after at most another dozen breaths. The reason he was doing this was so that he could get extremely close to the other party while causing minimal disturbance to the attack restrictions in the passage. A wisp of his divine sense could create a small crack in the light gate with the light from the crystal, and through this crack, his divine sense could slightly penetrate into the passage.
He wasn't worried that the other party would discover him and attack. He was now quite confident in this membrane. He estimated that even a Nascent Soul Old Ancestor might not be able to break it. But there was one possibility that they could attack him: through the crack he had opened with the crystal's green light. But this possibility was extremely small. The other party would first have to discover his divine sense, or find this small gate he was at in the vast ten-li passage, and then follow the source of his divine sense to this crack on the gate, or directly find the crack he had opened on this gate. Otherwise, they couldn't attack him at all. And Li Yan was confident that even if the other party could do the above two things, he could instantly close the crack before their attack arrived, and they wouldn't be able to harm him in the slightest.
'I can't believe it's Wang Lang and Quan Jiuxing. The two of them have actually merged. Any other team that runs into these two working together would have a very small chance of winning. I have to think of a way. But this Ghost-Chariot Talisman can only last for another six or seven breaths before it disintegrates. I must go out and change to another one. So they had already merged in the last trial. This isn't the best angle of attack either. I should go out and find another position later.'
Li Yan, watching the dozens of people slowly moving away in front of him, slowly followed for a short distance. The reason he chose to enter through a brightly lit gate this time was, one, to test if his method of getting stuck in the wall was feasible, and two, his choice was also very particular. If he chose a dark archway ahead, he was afraid that the moment his body or divine sense entered, it would trigger the restrictions and attract a large number of attacks. But the restrictions here had already been triggered by the cultivators in the passage. His divine sense was mixed in among them, so both the restrictions' attacks and the cultivators in the passage would ignore the existence of this wisp of divine sense.
A smile appeared on Quan Jiuxing's handsome face. Hearing his words, he smiled, "Heh heh, why don't our two sects compete again for the rest of the journey? Let's see who can reach the ten-li mark first?"
Wang Lang's face darkened. If they followed the terms of the bet from the last trial for the remaining few li, he was very confident he could win. There weren't many li left, and their current stamina was still good. But in that case, even if they reached the outside of the yellow sphere, after this competition, the Qi Condensation disciples would certainly not have much stamina left. They had been advancing with normal attacks for the first half of this trial, and the difficulty of this trial was much greater. They had already spent a lot of time. Even if they accelerated to the ten-li mark, they wouldn't have much time left. It wasn't possible for only one sect's Qi Condensation cultivators to go in, leaving the other sect's to sit outside and recover, right? Or perhaps wait until they had recovered most of their strength, until the last moment when the giant black shadow was bearing down, and then have one Foundation Establishment cultivator lead all the Qi Condensation cultivators in a hurry, leaving the last Foundation Establishment cultivator outside to be covered by the black shadow and turned to dust.
"Brother Quan, did that senior of your Supreme Mystery Teachings only discover these secrets? Is it really not possible for two Foundation Establishment cultivators to enter at the same time?" Wang Lang struck down several black strange eagles, his eyes flashing as he spoke again.
"Heh heh, Brother Wang, as far as I know, the higher-ups of your sect and the Pure Land Sect have been asking about this for decades. Why don't you believe it? This secret was discovered by chance by that Golden Core senior of my sect thousands of years ago. This senior was a miscellaneous spirit root, but he accidentally ingested a strange crimson pill in his youth, which actually allowed him to cultivate all the way to the Golden Core stage. This caused a great stir at the time, but the ingredients of that pill had long since merged with his body, and not a single trace of its medicinal properties could be analyzed, so there was no way to replicate the prescription.
Later, this senior participated in the Wheel of Life and Death as a team captain. During a battle, he accidentally discovered the five-elemental space in the blue rhomboid crystal. In his subsequent hundreds of years of trials in the Wheel of Life and Death, he constantly experimented and found that when the spiritual energy in the five-elemental space of the crystal was balanced, he himself could enter the yellow sphere, which already had an opponent present, while holding the crystal. The earthen platform wouldn't rise, and the rules wouldn't judge that both sides had arrived. Only when his Foundation Establishment team members behind him entered would the rules in the sphere judge that both sides were present and that a life-and-death battle must be fought. In dozens of trials, he always used this secret method to gain the upper hand. But he never explained it. It was only later, after failing to form a Nascent Soul, that he, disheartened, specialized in studying medicinal pills. When he passed away, he left behind a jade slip that recorded this matter in detail. It was only nearly a thousand years later that an elder of my sect discovered this jade slip by chance.
But this discovery was a chicken rib. The Wheel of Life and Death thousands of years ago was entered by Golden Core cultivators leading Foundation Establishment cultivators. Where could one find someone like that Golden Core senior? It wasn't until three hundred years ago, with the threat of the Malevolent Spirit Sect to our three sects, that the idea of using some of the functions of this blue rhomboid crystal came about, using the Wheel of Life and Death to sever the foundation of the Malevolent Spirit Sect, at least so that they couldn't recover their lower-level cultivators for decades, thus creating a generational gap. I'm sure Brother Wang knows no less about this matter than I do," Quan Jiuxing glanced at Wang Lang.
Wang Lang nodded. "My sect spent a full two hundred and sixty years just looking for miscellaneous spirit root cultivators. After much effort, we only found less than one hundred and eighty. After spending a huge amount of resources to cultivate them, only a little over sixty were qualified. Most of them either died from their bodies exploding after taking pills or died during training. Heh heh, isn't it the same for you? What's the point of talking about this? Is there really no way to enter the sphere at the same time?" Wang Lang sighed, but still pressed on.
Quan Jiuxing spun gracefully, releasing a large swath of rosy light, which instantly enveloped four or five golden thread-like snakes. The sound of Daoist chants emerged from the rosy light, and the golden snakes struggled desperately to escape, but they had already dispersed into a sky full of golden light and vanished.
"Brother Wang, according to that senior's records, he discovered that the inner core of the blue rhomboid crystal should be strange, but he couldn't enter it. Every time, whether it was with spiritual energy or divine sense, the moment he touched the core, he would be repelled. He wanted to take the crystal out to ask a Nascent Soul Old Ancestor, but the crystal would dissipate the moment it left the Wheel of Life and Death; it couldn't be brought out of this space at all. But through dozens of trials, he did come to the conclusion that the restrictions on five-elemental spirit roots are greatly reduced in this space. As for the problem of the team leaders entering at the same time, he once obtained several blue rhomboid crystals and wanted to stabilize the five-elemental space inside with his own spiritual energy. But this crystal was very strange; he couldn't control it as he wished with his five-elemental spiritual power. In the end, he could only use his cultivation realm to forcibly inject and temporarily solidify the five-elemental space inside. But according to him, it could only be maintained for ten breaths. Later, he secretly tried to sneak into a yellow sphere. When there was one high-level cultivator inside, he could sneak past undetected. But once the ten breaths were up, he would be judged as a hostile party, and a life-or-death battle was inevitable before an exit would appear. If there were already two high-level cultivators in the sphere, and he snuck in, the three of them, including himself, would be subjected to an extremely terrifying invisible attack. This attack was comparable to a blow from an early-stage Nascent Soul cultivator. In that sneak-in, two leading high-level cultivators died on the spot, and all the Foundation Establishment cultivators under them also died. He himself was also heavily injured. If not for the mutation of his primordial spirit due to the strange pill he ingested in his youth, he would have died directly as well. Because his primordial spirit could temporarily feign death, he tricked the rules, but he was still heavily injured, and his cultivation regressed by a minor realm, from late-stage Golden Core to mid-stage. This also caused him to never enter the Wheel of Life and Death again. As for the low-level cultivators, he speculated that if they were all five-element miscellaneous spirit roots, the number should not exceed seventy-two, which is the number for two teams. Because he had a feeling that once more than seventy-two five-element miscellaneous spirit root people merged, that kind of attack might descend again. Otherwise, why would the Nascent Soul Old Ancestors of the several sects spend a huge price to refine a magical treasure like the green gourd to ensure the lives of us Foundation Establishment cultivators?"
Quan Jiuxing's hands did not stop. He spoke these words amidst his rapid attacks.
"This was originally a top secret among the higher-ups of our three sects. But I imagine that whether we completely annihilate the Malevolent Spirit Sect, or some of them manage to escape, it will inevitably attract their attention.
I'm telling you this, Brother Wang, out of trust. But you must never again have the idea of three high-level cultivators appearing in the sphere at the same time. Otherwise, you and I will surely die." Quan Jiuxing looked back at Wang Lang again and said in a deep voice.
As they spoke, they had advanced another two hundred meters. And on an iron chain three hundred meters behind them, a wisp of divine sense was swaying with the bridge railing in the river.