After exiting the sealed world, Hou Jingshu’s group continued traveling through the maze.

They did not find anything of value, but they did find evidence of other people having already passed through. Some areas had scorch marks like a battle had taken place. Other areas had corpses strewn across the floor. It looked as though they had fallen into a trap.

Yin Wuhan led them since he was good at recognizing traps and finding sealing arrays and formations. Sometimes they would have to backtrack. Sometimes they would even run into other cultivators. While not all of those occasions ended in violence, combat was unfortunately an inevitable part of cultivation.

It had been about two days since they renewed their journey through the maze. Wu Jian could not figure out where they were. He stuck with Hou Jingshu in the middle of the pack, right behind Yin Wuhan.

No one spoke. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Yin Wuhan suddenly raised his hand and stopped, forcing everyone else to stop with him. He slowly closed his hand into a fist, then extended three fingers. That meant there were three cultivators lying in ambush up ahead.

Hou Jingshu gestured for Zheng Yawen, who stepped forward and raised a hand, upon which rested a black dagger. Wu Jian felt the chi infusing the dagger before it began floating above the woman’s palm. She formed a single hand seal. The nature of the chi suddenly changed and the single dagger suddenly became six daggers.

With but a single gesture, the daggers shot forward and separated into three groups of two. Each group attacked one of the three wouldbe ambushers. Screams of shock and pain echoed from around the two corners up ahead, and the cultivators who had been hiding there rushed into their corridor, where they met with heavy resistance.

Wu Jian was the first to attack. He did so from a distance. Extending a single hand, he manipulated space to reach inside of the enemy cultivator’s chest and crush his heart. The man, who looked about middle-age, jerked as he fell like a puppet without strings.

Hou Jingshu was the next person to kill her opponent; the man was so busy avoiding Zheng Yawen’s knives that he didn’t even see her until it was too late. She thrust her spear into his chest. A burst of chi exploded from her spear as it penetrated flesh and blasted a hole clean through his body. The man flew backward and hit the ground.

And there he remained, an ever expanding pool of blood underneath him.

Leaping into the air, Huǒ Shuchang threw several fireballs at the last man, who tried his best to avoid the attacks. Yet whenever he avoided a fireball, Zheng Yawen’s floating daggers were there to greet him. She manipulated all six to attack him simultaneously. One impaled his arm, another his left right, and the last went through his torso. The pain was distracting enough that he couldn’t avoid the next fireball, which struck him dead on and burnt him to cinders.

“Let’s check their storage rings to see if they have anything useful,” Hou Jingshu said.

Wu Jian knelt by the one he had killed and removed the storage ring from his finger. He sent his chi inside the check the ring and see what it contained.

There were several dozen pills, though none of them were that good. He could tell their quality was lower than the ones he used.

Perhaps the only thing worth keeping was the low-grade profound earth spirit weapon. It was a jian—a straight sword of about three chih in length. The blade was maybe two and a half chih, while the handle was half a chih. The blade looked like it was made of gold, but the material was actually called meteorite iron. It was a sturdy blade, but unfortunately, not a weapon that fit Wu Jian’s combat style.

None of the other storage rings contained much in the way of treasure, though there were plenty of spirit coins. Wu Jian guessed these people had spent more time ambushing fellow cultivators than they did looking for treasure. He understood the logic. It seemed most of the treasure on these floors had already been taken. The best way to get something was not by searching the ruins but stealing from the other people who entered.

However, just because he understood the logic didn’t mean he approved.

“Okay. Let’s keep going,” Hou Jingshu ordered.

More time passed. Wu Jian had honestly lost track of time. It could have been hours or days. However, they eventually reached the end of the maze. A staircase going down led out.

Yin Wuhan checked it for traps and preceded everyone else just in case. Only after he gave it the all clear did the others travel down as well.

The next area looked like an underground city. Ancient buildings that somehow remained standing were spread out on what seemed like a grid. Everything looked very uniform and easy to navigate. All the roads were straight and intersected with each other at several points. Wu Jian wondered if this was where the core disciples had lived.

That wasn’t what astounded him.

“What is that? A floating river?”

High above their heads was something that he could only call a river. However, it wasn’t made of water. The subtle glow carried a strong chi that he could feel even from all the way on the ground. He couldn’t even begin to guess at what this was.

Fortunately, someone else had an answer.

“That’s a medicine river,” said Hou Jingshu. “A friend of mine told me about them. Larger sects have medicine rivers that travel through the sect and feed into specified areas that are filled with chi. These areas are called cultivation zones. You can sit within a cultivation zone and activate the formation, which causes all of the medicine within that area to travel toward you, allowing you to absorb the medicinal ingredients. The quality of the river depends upon the medicine used.”

Zhou Lihua must have been the one who told Hou Jingshu about these medicine rivers.

He knew that Hou Jingshu and Zhou Lihua had spent time together in the capital. He wasn’t surprised their alchemist friend knew about medicine rivers. This was something only an alchemist of the highest quality could create.

“I imagine there used to be multiple medicine rivers here,” Hou Jingshu continued. “Many of them probably became unstable and broke apart. The fact that one still remains is a testament to this sects power. Even now, after thousands of years have passed, parts of this sect are still working.”

“Do you think we should try and find the cultivation zone?” asked Wu Yong.

“I’m sure someone else is already using this,” Wu Jian said.

“Jian Wu is right. We’ve fallen behind everyone else thanks to the trap we fell into,” Hou Jingshu said. “I doubt we’ll be able to use the cultivation zone even if we do find it. Let’s try and get to the next floor. We might find something even better if we can hurry to the bottom floors.”

Their group moved out, but they didn’t cut a straight line through the city. Yin Wuhan had already detected several cultivators lying in ambush, and while they could have dealt with each one, they didn’t want to waste their chi. Only the weaklings who couldn’t find anything good would bother ambushing other cultivators this way.

They took a roundabout approach to reach the central building, which looked a lot like a palace. The imposing architecture vaguely resembled those of the Shang Kingdom, but the statues decorating everything were lions instead of dragons, and the palace looked far more imposing.

“This building reminds me of the Xia Dynasty’s architecture,” Huǒ Shuchang said.

“Does it?” asked Wu Jian.

His friend nodded. “That country is all about creating large, imposing buildings. Of course, the symbol of the Xia Dynasty is the phoenix, not the tiger.”

“The Xia Dynasty is the oldest and largest among the thirteen nations,” Hou Jingsu recalled. “I imagine they were around when the White Tiger Sect still existed. That, or they are old enough to have learned and adopted the techniques previous nations used to build similar structures. Anyway, let’s head inside. According to the map, the stairs to the next floor is in there.”

They walked up a set of stairs and found an imposing double door made of gleaming gold before them. The door was already open a crack, allowing them to catch a glimpse of the inside. Everyone walked through with Hou Jingshu in the lead.

“Geh!”

Wu Jian almost flinched when he found Sǐwáng Hou, Huǒ Pànguó, and Shā Ying Yue already inside. The vice commander of the Crimson Sands was glaring at him with murder in his eyes. However, he made no move to attack.

The reason why soon became apparent.

All three people were standing on a small platform. The glow of a sealing array under their feet told Wu Jian what he needed to know. They were probably unable to move from that location. There were nine such platforms in total.

“Well, if it isn’t my brother. I’m surprised you made it this far,” said Huǒ Pànguó. “And I see you’ve found more people to join. You always were weak on your own.”

“Well, if it isn’t my brother. I see you’re trapped like a rat in a cage,” Huǒ Shuchang responded with sarcasm.

Huǒ Pànguó glared at him. “You’re lucky I’m stuck here, or I would have beaten you black and blue for your insult.”

“Wuhan?” asked Hou Jingshu.

“Leave this to me, Your Highness.”

The group walked further into the palace, which was much larger than Wu Jian had anticipated. Massive columns several dozen meters high rose into the air. Beautiful artwork depicting a white tiger was shown on each one. They rose to the ceiling, which also showcased a white tiger, though it was composed of hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of tiny tiles.

Yin Wuhan began inspecting the platforms. The three that already had someone standing on them were glowing, but the ones with no one were not. He looked at the glowing ones, then looked at the ones that weren’t glowing. He stood up a moment later.

“It looks like these platforms represent the elements,” he explained at last. “There’s the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water… and then there’s the elements of light and darkness, followed by the elements of space and time. This last one here seems to represent an unknown element. The characters on the platform means tiger, but it could also be translated into king.”

“So what are we supposed to do now?” asked Huǒ Shuchang.

“We each need to stand on a platform based on our element,” said Yin Wuhan. “I’m earth, Zheng Yawen is metal, and Wu Yong is wood, so we’re good there. Wu Jian is space, so he can stand on that one. I don’t think we have anyone who can stand on time… but we can have Huǒ Shuchang and Her Highness try just in case. Nothing should happen if they stand on it.”

“Are you sure?” asked Zheng Yawen.

Yin Wuhan nodded. “At best, the platform simply won’t light up.”

Hou Jingshu deliberated for a moment before nodding. “Let’s give it a try.”

Wu Jian went over to the platform indicating space and stepped onto it. The characters on the platform glowed, and he soon found himself unable to move. He tried lifting his feet, but it was like they had been glued to the floor.

Yin Wuhan, Wu Yong, and Zheng Yawen all stepped onto their respective platforms as well. Each one began glowing.

Huǒ Pànguó stepped onto the platform representing time, but nothing happened. Hou Jingshu also stepped onto it. Again, nothing happened.

“Your Highness, try stepping on the platform that means king,” Yin Wuhan suggested.

“Okay,” Hou Jingshu walked over to the platform and stepped onto it. The character for king lit up. “Oh, it worked.”

“Guess that means I’m the odd one out,” Huǒ Shuchang grumbled.

“Hmph. Consider yourself lucky,” Huǒ Pànguó snorted.

“What do we do now?” asked Wu Jian.

“Now we wait for someone who can manipulate darkness and time to come along,” Yin Wuhan said with a sigh.

It was obvious, but those were not the words Wu Jian wanted to hear. What if no one who could manipulate time came along? Time and space were already abstract concepts. Wu Meiying was the only person he knew who could control time.

He sighed. Maybe they should have waited before stepping on these platforms?

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