Chapter 886
Three generations living under one roof
The so-called Path of Trials is actually a strange space created by a powerful being.
More than 300 participants were scattered throughout the space, their task being to obtain the qualification to participate in the trial and then leave alive.
It sounds pretty simple; in the best-case scenario, you don't even need to kill anyone.
But is this really the case?
Of the more than three hundred people, ninety-nine percent were going to die. If you don't kill, someone else will. Driven by death, people are capable of anything.
Here, you must learn to fight; not fighting means death.
From this moment on, their lifespan begins its countdown: a cycle of sixty years.
If you cannot cross the sea of suffering and reach the other side within this time, the path of trials will close, and those who remain inside will die.
Song Qingxing passed through the spatial gate and entered a strange space filled with dazzling light. He was suspended in mid-air, with a bottomless, pitch-black abyss below, which seemed ready to swallow him at any moment.
He didn't use any magical power, yet he had a grounded feeling, very similar to the mark of a Golden Core cultivator who stands with his feet firmly planted in the void.
This feeling was still somewhat novel to him.
He raised his head and looked at the sky.
Clearly, there is no true sky in this space; the colorful starlight forms a magnificent and beautiful picture.
Below lies an unfathomable abyss of darkness, while above it is a breathtaking scene, like an oil painting.
Looking around, he saw emptiness, nothingness, and desolation. Apart from the powerful beating of his heart, he could hear no other sound, not even the omnipresent wind of the Purple Imperial Realm. It was eerily quiet.
“There is no spiritual energy, nor any dust.” Song Qingxing reached out and made a grasping motion, but when he opened his palm, no tangible matter remained.
If Zhuang Yuechan were here, she would notice that the space she is in now has many similarities to the "Soundless Heavenly Valley" of the Array Dao Academy.
Song Qingxing was unaware of this. He only knew that he was not currently in an illusion or a small world, nor was he in the boundless void outside the Great Thousand Worlds as the public had previously speculated, because power and matter also exist in the void, but there was nothing here.
They were in a strange space completely detached from the rules governing the world.
In such an environment, it is a great test of a cultivator's character, and those who choose to participate in the trial all have some obsessions.
Obsession and inner demons are sometimes just a matter of a single thought.
According to the jade slip given to him by Li Yuxia, the Trial Path is a vast space that seems to have no boundaries. For the first few years, he was almost always exploring alone and never encountered anyone else.
He recalled that this period was the most difficult time of the entire trial for him.
This feeling is very different from seclusion. It is normal for cultivators of the Purple Mansion to be in seclusion for ten or twenty years. During this period, their minds are clear and their thoughts are peaceful. They will not have any distracting thoughts and will even have a sense of transcendence.
Therefore, the decades of seclusion were actually like taking a nap, and the process was very easy.
Even though it's extremely quiet here, as soon as you close your eyes, you'll feel restless and your mind will be filled with noise, as if an invisible force is influencing you.
The contestants have already reached the peak of the Purple Mansion stage, so not cultivating won't really have any impact on them.
The solo exploration in the early stages was really too torturous, and after a while, you felt like you were abandoned by the world.
At his worst, Li Yuxia even considered ending his own life, but fortunately, his willpower was strong enough that he was not swayed by that invisible force.
Song Qingxing closed his eyes and tried to enter the state of meditation he usually experienced.
At first it was fine, but after a few hours, some noisy sounds began to appear in his mind. He couldn't find the source, and there was no way to block or ignore its existence.
He didn't dwell on the matter and simply withdrew from meditation.
According to the jade slip given to him by Li Yuxia, this space is not completely empty. There are actually many floating islands here, varying in size and distributed irregularly. They are easier to find the closer you are to the central area where the exit is located.
Some islands possess spiritual energy that can be used to replenish magical power. If you are lucky enough, you can also find all sorts of spiritual herbs, which can serve as temporary supply points.
These islands are crucial for surviving the Path of Trials.
Because there is no spiritual energy in the space, and they do not have any pills to restore their health, it means that the magical power in their bodies is diminishing with each use.
To replenish your mana, you need to find islands with spiritual energy. Not only can spiritual energy be used to restore your mana, but with a bit of luck, you can also find spiritual plants that restore mana. This is the key to exploring this world and competing for the dice.
Of course, you can also use some underhanded methods if you want. This is a completely unregulated space where you can do whatever you want. The ugliness of human nature is on full display here.
It is precisely because of this environment that the friendship between Li Yuxia and Bai Zhengchun is all the more precious.
Besides replenishing supplies, these islands have another crucial function: eliminating the negative emotions caused by loneliness.
The dice that lead to the trial gate only began to appear many years later, so Song Qingxing's immediate priority was to find the floating island, replenish some supplies, temporarily solve the problem of mana recovery, and then try to find the floating island where Bai Zhengchun had fallen.
There are no special skills involved; it all comes down to time and a bit of luck.
There was nothing that could be done about it. Li Yuxia did come out alive, but he hadn't seen the whole picture of the entire trial path. Only after finding the areas he had been through could the map he drew come in handy, and things would be much easier then.
Even so, he still had a significant advantage over others.
After all, most people probably still don't understand what's going on and are in the initial stages of exploration. They are like newborn babies who know nothing about the world.
They will most likely end up like Li Yuxia, wandering around aimlessly for a few years, like headless flies, gradually figuring out the patterns.
In the past few years, Song Qingxing has accomplished so much that he started from a much higher point than others.
These were Li Yuxia's responses to those who had placed the bounty.
With his strong abilities, experience, and assistance, his chances of survival are undoubtedly much higher than others.
In fact, on the very first day he issued the bounty, many people came to his door and paid high prices to buy information from him.
He wasn't wealthy, but if he put a price tag on his information, plenty of people would be willing to go bankrupt for it. He didn't need to sell most of his assets for a mere five million spirit stones.
The main reason for not choosing to do so lies in the word "first-mover advantage". If too many people know about it and everyone seizes the opportunity, then it is no longer an opportunity.
Of course, these things didn't really matter to him; it was a one-off deal, and he could make a fortune.
But he couldn't do that. Because if he did, Bai Zhengchun's body would never see the light of day again.
Therefore, his bounty can only be accepted by one person, who will use this information gap to seize the initiative and help him succeed.
Only the successful person can bring back Bai Zhengchun's remains!
Song Qingxing understood Li Yuxia's intentions, so his plan was to find Bai Zhengchun's body before the dice appeared, taking advantage of the time difference with others, and then participate in the competition for trial slots.
However, the most urgent task now is to find a floating island.
Since he is in a three-dimensional space rather than a two-dimensional one, theoretically, he could find the floating island no matter which direction he explores from.
Of course, if you choose the wrong direction, you will get further and further away from the final trial ground.
Even so, it will only take a little more time. After all, once the dice appear, everyone will sense it and, once they have the dice, it will naturally guide them in the right direction.
Relying on his intuition, Song Qingxing continued to explore, during which he used his long-forgotten [Sword Control Technique].
Before finding a floating island with spiritual energy, the consumption of magical power must be carefully calculated. Although some escape techniques or supernatural abilities can speed up the journey, they also consume a lot of energy.
Even the flight techniques commonly used by cultivators in the Purple Mansion realm generate a large amount of meaningless consumption.
In comparison, the [Sword Control Technique] used by Foundation Establishment cultivators is actually the most cost-effective.
Because there are no sun, moon, or stars in the path of trials, the perception of time becomes increasingly blurred. Song Qingxing didn't know how many days he had flown on his sword before finally finding the first floating island.
He was clearly lucky; the first one he found possessed abundant spiritual energy.
These floating islands are not fundamentally different from islands in the outside world, except that there are no animals, but the vegetation is still very lush.
Here, he saw the long-lost greenery, and his feet once again touched solid ground.
The slight restlessness that had arisen from exploring the secluded environment for a long time vanished the moment I stepped onto this spot.
Li Yuxia had a bad start and failed to find the floating island for several years.
They were almost driven to the brink of suicide, but they survived only because they encountered the floating island.
Song Qingxing was clearly much luckier than him.
The island, which is only a few hundred feet in diameter, is shrouded in a semi-transparent barrier.
The spiritual energy wasn't very dense, and the speed at which he could recover his mana was extremely slow, but he did find many spiritual medicines that could restore his mana and heal his injuries.
At the same time, there was also a corpse with a gruesome death expression.
The corpse lay under a cypress tree on the edge of the island. There were no signs of a struggle around it, and no obvious injuries were visible on its body, except that its pores were abnormally dilated.
The corpse was curled up in a ball, its face filled with terror, as if it had encountered something terrible.
"The life essence in his body has been completely drained; it shouldn't be man-made." After a careful examination, Song Qingxing came to a rough conclusion.
The cultivators participating in the Trial Path are of the same realm, but their strength varies greatly, sometimes even to the point of determining life or death with a single move.
Killing a person is easy, but draining a person's life essence without causing any injury is extremely difficult, unless the person offers no resistance.
The most crucial evidence proving this wasn't man-made is that neither the storage bag nor his sword were taken; the storage bag also contained over a dozen [Restoration Grasses] capable of restoring mana.
It wasn't man-made, yet its life essence was drained away.
Could there be other creatures or threats along this path of trials?
Song Qingxing felt a slight unease; Li Yuxia had never mentioned this before.
This made him even more wary of the journey ahead; the unknown is always more terrifying than the known.
After casually blasting a deep pit in the ground to bury the corpse and recovering his strength, Song Qingxing continued to explore forward, preparing to unveil the unknown fog ahead...
What Song Qingxing didn't know was that by the time he found the first floating island, a full three months had passed in the outside world.
During this period, nearly twenty members of the Song family successively achieved breakthroughs.
The number of people is large and concentrated, but this is a concentrated burst of the results of the Song family's rapid development over the past few decades.
In fact, it's not just the Song family; most of the forces in the Great Qi cultivation world have developed very rapidly in recent years since the last expedition. A large number of Foundation Establishment and Purple Mansion cultivators have been born in these few decades, far exceeding the number in the past.
Only a small portion of the Song family members broke through to the minor realm; the majority broke through from the Qi Refining stage to the Foundation Establishment stage, becoming the backbone of the Song family's development.
The proportion of cultivators with the character "Jing" was undoubtedly the highest, but what was most surprising was that there was also a cultivator with the character "Ming" in this batch.
The person who broke through was named Song Mingyuan. He was the ninth among the "Ming" generation and the first Foundation Establishment cultivator of the "Ming" generation. He was only twenty-seven years old.
The "Ming" generation of cultivators were born after the Song family became a Golden Core family, and they enjoyed the best resources from birth.
Therefore, they also carry the greatest expectations of their families.
And their performance did not disappoint. We can confidently say that they are the generation with the strongest overall quality in the history of the Song family.
Song Mingyuan's breakthrough is just the beginning. He represents the rapid growth of a generation, and it is only a matter of time before he becomes the backbone of the family.
Song Changsheng even took time out of his busy schedule to meet with him.
"What a wonderful era! If only this peace and stability could continue forever."
Watching Song Mingyuan's departing figure, Song Changsheng let out a heartfelt sigh.
Song Xianming shook his head slightly and said, "If that's the case, then the demons on the other side should be worried. Have you made contact with Jin Xuan yet?"
"Not yet, so I plan to go to the Demon Realm myself to find out the movements of the demon race!"
……
P.S.: This is today's regular update, two chapters totaling 7,000 words. I still owe 4,000 words. (End of Chapter)