“Arghhh,” Qian Yu awoke from his slumber as he was still a little lightheaded. As he got up and looked around him before seeing that he was in a room that was oddly familiar. It was none other than the rooms where they needed to kill a spiritual beast before entering the next floor. 

His vision soon found Sun Hong who had awakened from cultivating and was looking at him. 

“How many hours has it been,” Qian Yu asked her. 

“6 hours, I gave you one of the pills from earlier and I also found the door to the next floor,” she replied calmly. 

“Ahem ahem,” Qian Yu coughed as he remembered what happened. After the two battles were over, the last thing he felt was two fingers touching his lips as something entered his mouth before he fell completely unconscious. As for after that, he was probably carried by Sun Hong while she went to go find the next door and slay the spiritual beast. 

Ignoring the shame and loss of his dignity, he asked, “Shall we go to the next floor?”

“Yea, let’s go, I haven’t looked at the rewards yet,” she replied.

Hearing that, Qian Yu got up in anticipation as the two approached the door to the room with the rewards and teleportation formation. Opening it, they saw two different objects on the stone table. For the rest of the previous rewards, they were the same thing but this time, it was different. 

In front of them, there was a black cloak and a gray mask. 

‘Hmm, could these be artifacts?’ Qian Yu glanced at the items before coming up with a hypothesis. He didn’t hear much about artifacts and only through some of the books that he read was he able to learn more about artifacts. 

Like cultivation techniques and weapons, artifacts were of the mortal, earth, sky, heaven, and legendary ranks. Yet in all the auctions he had attended before he had never seen one.

As the two walked up, they saw a piece of parchment explaining the uses of the artifacts. Without an appraiser and expert in the artifact crafting field, it was pretty much impossible to determine what the artifact could do. 

For the cloak, the paper read, “Shrouded Cloak. Earth Grade. Allows user to blend in with the darkness better. Effective against Martial Fighters and below.”

On the other hand, the description for the mask was, “Face Mask. Earth Grade. Allows user to change facial appearance. Effective against Martial Fighters and below.”

‘These are pretty good!’ Qian Yu thought to himself as he saw the two beloved pieces of treasures. He didn’t know how much a mortal grade artifact would cost but it shouldn’t be less than what was sold at the auctions he had been to, and these were a tier higher than mortal grade artifacts. Realizing all the treasures he had recently gained in the last couple of days, he finally remembered that he finally had money!

Focusing on reality, Qian Yu saw that Sun Hong had picked up the mask and put it into her belongings. Seeing that, he took the cloak and decided to try it as he put it on. To use an artifact, it was pretty simple. You just needed to be conscious and continuously channel some of your qi into it for it to be active. 

Activating it, he walked towards a dark spot in the room to test it out. “How is it?” Qian Yu asked Sun Hong. Over the last couple days, the two had gotten along pretty well and Qian Yu had a pretty good impression of Sun Hong. Of course, she never showed him her face or anything and Qian Yu had gradually gotten used to talking to the cloaked individual. 

“It works. We should go now,” Sun Hong answered before her voice turned serious.

“Mmm, the ninth floor is next…” Qian Yu said with a frown on his face. 

‘Only the strongest cultivators could reach this stage. Will we really be ok? What happens if we meet two soul foundation cultivators that were both at the middle stages…’ Qian Yu thought. Yet that wasn’t all he was frowning about. 

*Sigh* Qian Yu took another deep breath as he looked at Sun Hong and realized that his time with her was quickly ending. Even though they had been in a stressful environment this whole time over the last week, he hadn’t really felt its effect and always felt comfortable and free while being with her. 

Yet it wasn’t just because of her overbearing strength. As Qian Yu looked back on his time with her, he saw at times, a caring and thoughtful girl and he couldn’t help but want to learn more about her. He felt that she was gradually becoming more open to him and if there was more time, something could change. 

“Alright, let’s go,” Qian Yu said as he finally stopped thinking. Time was pretty important still. 

“Ok,” Sun Hong said as they both stepped onto the teleport formation. 

Yet when they reached the 9th floor, things didn’t happen according to their expectations. 

12 hours later, Qian Yu and Sun Hong were standing in front of a door.

Seeing the door, they both looked at each other as a smile appeared on both their faces before they chuckled.

“Hahaha!” Qian Yu laughed.

“Hehe,” Sun Hong similarly laughed.

Noticing her uncharacteristic and rare, yet bright laugh, Qian Yu really couldn’t help but wonder about the girl hidden behind the robes. 

“Looks like we got lucky?” Sun Hong smiled as Qian Yu could tell she was extremely happy. 

“Mmm, maybe? Since people started deciding to fight and eliminate other groups, there might be enough doors for every group that managed to get onto this floor?” Qian Yu guessed. 

“Yeah, that’s true. Let’s go in now!” Sun Hong said as she pushed open the door.

Opening the door, the two entered the room as a large black wolf appeared in front of them. Its fangs were large and red in color as it looked menacingly at the two humans. 

“Hmm, an Ashen Wolf at the peak stage of the uncommon rank, not bad,” Sun Hong casually said as she ran at the wolf. 

*Bang… bang…* Sun Hong started fighting with her greatsword.

In a matter of minutes, the wolf was taken down as the door to the room opened. 

Seeing it, Qian Yu, said “Once again, thank you.” Without her, he knew he would have only been able to get past a 2 or 3 floors at most. 

Hearing his thanks, she thought for a few seconds before saying, “It was no problem.” 

Still, Qian Yu had heard some reluctance as she said so. Yet even then, he didn’t say pursue further as he knew that it was more important to focus on the matter at hand. 

“Let’s go into the room,” Qian Yu said as he tried to focus his attention elsewhere.

Entering the room, they saw a teleport formation with nothing else.

“Seems like we’ll get our reward after we teleport,” Sun Hong said.

“Yeah, I guess we just go now then,” Qian Yu said and the two stepped forward onto the formation. 

Bright light covered their eyes and a few seconds later, they opened their eyes as they saw a starry world above them while a figure in a white gown was sitting under a tree observing the sky. He had long white hair that extended to the ground and his face was calm as an ocean.