Subterranean Spirit Pearl! Withdrawal from the Competition!

The stone pillar's foundation was buried deep underground.

Lin Zhiyan's Spiritual Sense traveled downward, passing through soil and rock... only when it reached twenty thousand zhang beneath the earth did it finally discover the stone pillar's end.

It was an enormous sphere, pitch-black throughout, its surface covered in dense, intricate formation patterns.

Those patterns were even more complex and unfathomable than the ones on the stone pillar, emanating an aura that made one's heart tremble.

And the stone pillar had grown directly from this sphere.

Lin Zhiyan's heart jolted.

This was the true face of the formation eye.

The stone pillar aboveground was merely the tip of the iceberg. The true core was hidden twenty thousand zhang below the earth.

She continued probing with her Spiritual Sense and discovered that the sphere was rotating slowly. With every rotation, it drew in vast amounts of Vital Energy from the earth veins, then sent it up to the stone pillar on the surface.

And all that Vital Energy was ultimately absorbed by the bead atop the stone pillar.

Lin Zhiyan observed more carefully for a while and discovered that the formation patterns on the sphere were not wholly intact. Several had already dimmed, and some had even fractured.

Clearly, after countless years of operation, the formation's power was slowly weakening.

Lin Zhiyan formed a plan.

She withdrew her Spiritual Sense and, without betraying anything on her face, formed hand seals to lay down one auxiliary formation after another. It looked as though she was helping the three break the restriction on the stone pillar.

But in truth, her Spiritual Sense had already entered the depths of the earth again and begun studying the formation patterns on the sphere.

If she could find the nodes within those patterns, she might be able to