An open platform came into view.
It was paved with an unknown blue-gray stone, its surface smooth as a mirror, reflecting the scene above.
The platform was not particularly large, roughly a hundred zhang on each side. Empty space stretched away on all four sides, and it floated there like a lone island adrift on a boundless sea.
Above the platform lay a sky.
It was a sky unlike any Li Bufan had ever seen.
There was no sun, moon, or stars, no clouds or rosy light. The entire sky was a uniform grayish white, like an old sheet of rice paper bleached by the years.
At the very center of that grayish-white sky, an enormous mountain hung upside down.
Its summit pointed downward and its base upward, like a massive sword thrust upside down into the heavens.
Dense forests covered the mountain, ancient trees towering into the air, vines entwined around them. Here and there, streams could be seen pouring between the rocks, tracing silvery lines of water across the grayish-white sky.
Clouds and mist wreathed its slopes. Occasional flashes of lightning streaked through the clouds with low rumbles of thunder, while its base vanished into the deepest reaches of the sky, lost in a hazy halo.
Upside-Down Mountain.
Li Bufan gazed at the enormous mountain hanging from the heavens, a tangle of emotions surging through him. At last, he had seen the secret realm said to be capable of repairing a golden core.
As he watched Upside-Down Mountain, screens of light suddenly appeared out of thin air on every side.
They emerged from the void like enormous mirrors, enclosing the space.
Li Bufan's pupils abruptly contracted.
The screens showed him making his way through the trials.
On the first screen, he sat cross-legged on the first level of