Harvest

Qin Sang circulated his spiritual power with all his might, yet he still could not ascend any further. Evidently, an inexplicable spiritual force prevented the trial participants from leaving through the top. Even at this height, the mist showed not the slightest sign of thinning. Qin Sang had only been testing the waters; having confirmed his suspicion, he began to descend slowly. He did not halt upon seeing the iron chain, continuing downward. He met no resistance during his descent. Weaving his way through flocks of firebirds, Qin Sang silently estimated that the total number of firebirds in this space had to be truly terrifying. Cutting through the mist, he plummeted some distance before abruptly stopping—beneath his feet lay another iron chain! As expected! Qin Sang thought to himself that all the trial participants might be in this very space. If there were enough people, they would surely cross paths. However, his goal was not to seek out companions. After a brief pause, he dove downward at top speed. That red line grew increasingly bright, verging on dazzling. On the way down, Qin Sang spotted chain after chain—several dozen in total. Without knowing how far he had descended, the lava river in his vision grew clearer and broader. He realized this space was not boundless after all; high cliffs stood to his left and right. The trial space was actually a canyon. It was simply so vast that the cliff faces were completely invisible from above, giving the illusion of an infinite expanse. The further down one went, the more the canyon narrowed, until at its very bottom flowed the surging lava river. The lava river was extraordinarily wide and far from tranquil. The magma surged like a rushing torrent, churning up colossal crimson waves in its tumultuous course. Unlike what Qin Sang had imagined, this was not the river's source. The lava flowed out from the ancient cultivator's abandoned abode, coursing from here toward an unknown expanse beyond. "Eh?" When Qin Sang arrived above the lava river and could see the full expanse of the molten sea, he suddenly felt resistance. An invisible barrier blocked him, preventing any further descent. Surprised, Qin Sang looked down at the space beneath his feet. Everything in the void appeared normal, showing no visible barrier to the naked eye. Moreover, the fire elemental power within the lava river seemed able to ignore the restriction. Such colossal waves were everywhere. A spray happened to surge right before Qin Sang; while the magma was held back by the restriction, an exceptionally pure surge of fire elemental spiritual power burst aggressively through the barrier with momentum equal to the lava itself. Once its force was spent, this fire elemental spiritual power dissipated above the restriction, transforming into clusters of fiery-red essence that merged into the mist. Over long periods of evolution, they might well turn into new firebirds. After a moment of contemplation, a flash of spiritual power gleamed beneath Qin Sang's feet. Provoked by the energy, the invisible barrier finally manifested. Dense clusters of runes formed profoundly arcane circular restrictions, overlapping one another and stretching into the depths of the lava river without an end in sight. What Qin Sang saw was certainly not the restriction's entirety. It was hard to imagine just how mighty the master of this ancient immortal abode had been to leave behind a restriction on such a grand scale, spanning the entire lava river. The luster of the restriction was quite dim, and cracks even marred its surface. Tens of thousands of years seemed to have worn away most of its might, yet it remained resilient—far beyond Qin Sang's ability to crack. His probing had borne no fruit. Drawn by the spiritual power fluctuations, more firebirds surrounded him. Concealing his presence to shake them off, Qin Sang flickered repeatedly and darted toward the edge of the restriction, arriving before the stone cliff. From top to bottom, the stone cliff sloped inward in a curve. Its surface was anything but smooth, rugged and jagged with crags. Qin Sang stepped onto the cliff face and scanned his surroundings. After a short while, his eyes suddenly lit up. Flitting over to a crevice, he bent down and pinched out a small, pale-white object. It turned out to be a fragment of a skull! Upon death, firebirds turned into flames and left nothing behind; this skull fragment clearly belonged to a human. Finding this bone bolstered Qin Sang's confidence, and he immediately focused on searching. Yet after combing the area for some time, he stopped, his brows slightly furrowed. The treasures on the cliff were not as abundant as he had imagined. After searching for quite a while, he had only found that single fragment of bone. Evidently, most of those who failed the trial had either been torn to shreds by firebirds or destroyed by the fire elemental power surging past the restriction. After pondering for a moment, Qin Sang abruptly unleashed his spiritual sense, expanding it to its maximum limit and sweeping over a vast area in an instant. The moment his spiritual sense appeared, it alarmed flock after flock of firebirds, and Qin Sang's figure was swiftly swallowed by the swarm. Whenever the number of firebirds reached a dangerous level, Qin Sang retracted his spiritual sense and concealed himself. Once they dispersed, he would release his spiritual sense anew. This greatly accelerated his pace. Starting from the beginning, Qin Sang searched forward along this side of the cliff face. Half an hour later, Qin Sang stopped and stood atop a boulder, gazing intently into the mist ahead. He could advance no further here; a gentle force pushed him back. Understanding dawned in his heart: this was the end of the first trial, and one had to follow the iron chain to find the exit. Because he had been distracted by searching the cliff, his pace had been slow. Had he focused purely on flying, he would only have needed to hold out for half a quarter of an hour to pass the trial. Qin Sang then crossed over to the cliff on the opposite side and searched back along the way he had come. Once he finished searching both cliff faces, Qin Sang took to the air and found a nearby stone platform. Over forty streaks of light flew out from his mustard seed bag, arranging themselves before him. Enveloped within the lights were various magic tools, most of which were visibly demonic in style. These were the entirety of Qin Sang's harvest. He had expected to return empty-handed, so finding so many magic tools was a pleasant surprise. Aside from these, there were also three mustard seed bags. Qin Sang opened the mustard seed bags first, only to discover to his disappointment that the spiritual items, spiritual pills, and similar goods within had lost their spiritual nature due to the lack of restrictive seals, rendering them completely useless. Apart from a meager amount of spirit stones, the few magic tools inside were hardly of any great use either. Qin Sang shifted his gaze to the magic tools spread out before him. With a wave of his hand, he cast aside the vast majority. All of these were damaged tools that, like the items in the bags, had lost their power and turned into worthless scrap. Only nine intact magic tools remained. Ranging from low to high grades, they were still fully functional. Qin Sang examined them one by one, and a flicker of delight suddenly surfaced on his face as he reached out and took three of them. A black gourd, an ashen banner, and a bone flute. All three were soul-refining demonic tools! The banner was of the poorest quality; after a single glance, Qin Sang summoned his Ten Directions Yanluo Banner to devour it. The other two, however, were difficult to measure by ordinary rank. The black gourd's function was to suck opponents inside, unleashing the refined souls within to slaughter them and melt them into bloody water. The bone flute could emit ghostly shrieks that unsettled an opponent's mind. Both contained an astonishing number of refined souls and were definitely life-bound demonic tools painstakingly refined by demonic cultivators!