Box of Ultimate Bliss

A long, endless corridor stretched out, lined with countless rooms on both sides.

What lay within those rooms was unknown, their identical doors tightly shut.

Was this the interior space of the Box of Ultimate Bliss?

It was not quite what Mo Jingxian had imagined; even the light was a warm, milky hue.

He lowered his defensive stance and stood in place, observing his surroundings alone.

The group of people who had been sucked in alongside him were nowhere to be seen.

Danger was certain to exist, perhaps lurking behind one of those doors.

After waiting for several minutes, the environment remained as quiet as ever, to the point where it diluted the sense of passing time.

Mo Jingxian lifted his right foot and took a step forward.

The moment his sole touched the ground, he braced himself for an attack.

Yet, nothing happened.

Then came his left foot.

The space was so quiet that he could clearly hear his own breathing.

Mo Jingxian explored calmly, passing many doors without entering any of them.

He kept walking, and though he did not know how much time had passed, the scene before him remained unchanged.

It was exactly the same as when he had first entered.

It was as if he had stepped into an infinitely looping street.

It seemed the way out must be hidden behind one of the doors.

What lay behind the doors?

He would only know after checking, but he assumed danger was inevitable.

Mo Jingxian prepared his defenses and randomly pushed open a door.

The scene inside made him freeze; the attack he had imagined did not occur. It was a standard, furnished room.

It was the house where Mo Jingxian had lived for nine years—his former home.

He was intimately familiar with everything here.

His palm brushed over the tables, chairs, the desk, and the flower arrangement upon it.

It felt very real.

Yet, Mo Jingxian was certain he was not under an illusion; the chakra within his body remained sluggish and undisturbed.

His water element, however, was active, and within his range of perception, everything around him was genuine.

He felt a sense of confusion.

He could not understand how the Box of Ultimate Bliss had achieved this.

Had he fallen into a highly sophisticated illusion without realizing it?

Or...

Did the space here possess its own unique rules?

It was difficult to draw a conclusion now, so he decided to test it.

Trapped within the Box of Ultimate Bliss, Mo Jingxian had to find a way out, and taking some risks was unavoidable.

A series of sealing runes flowed with his water element, but the space showed no change.

Next, he began to adjust the structure of the runes to produce different logical effects.

When he applied a rune with a "convergence" property, he sensed a subtle change in the room.

Hm?

It worked!

If Mo Jingxian's perception had not been so powerful, he might have missed this subtle shift.

If he remembered correctly—

When he first entered, there had been three purple flowers in the vase.

Now, one had turned white; he was absolutely certain he had not misremembered.

Change was a good thing; he would continue.

He linked the runes one by one to form the "convergence" property, then layered them upon each other.

When the third convergence rune took effect, the room began to ripple like water.

Concentric waves washed through the space, passing through walls and wooden doors, disappearing from his sight.

The runes continued to stack until six convergence runes linked into a hexagonal star.

The scene before his eyes shattered like glass, and the space began to peel away in fragments.

By the time Mo Jingxian regained his senses, he had reappeared in the original corridor.

It felt somewhat like experiencing the Flying Thunder God.

Thinking about it, it seemed reasonable; recalling the scene of the Box of Ultimate Bliss devouring everything, it must have contained spatial laws.

It was the same door.

Mo Jingxian pushed with force, but this time, the door did not budge in the slightest.

It seemed he had to move on to the next door.

He thought to himself, walking forward while checking his own status.

His chakra was slightly more active.

When he emerged, he had sensed a peculiar law descend upon his body.

It was very faint, but it definitely existed.

Perhaps this was the reason his chakra had become somewhat more active again.

It was a bit like a game where one cleared stages; every time a level was completed, a reward would descend.

To verify his hypothesis, he pushed open another door.

Mo Jingxian had returned to the sacrificial hall, where the five bronze torches were still burning fiercely.

Was this another realistic illusion?

He was already prepared in his heart, having grown somewhat accustomed to the sudden spatial shifts.

However—

The corpse beneath his feet, it seemed to be called Mui.

Judging by the attire, it was the same as when they had met before; that was how Long Yunzhi had addressed him.

So, was he truly dead? Or was he merely a part of the realistic illusion?

"You killed Lord Mui?"

A roar interrupted Mo Jingxian's train of thought.

Looking up, an elite Grass Ninja appeared not far ahead.

He was unsure if this person was part of the realistic illusion trial, so he remained silent.

"Lord Mui!"

The opponent tried to wake the corpse lying on the ground, but it was all in vain.

Mo Jingxian observed silently; the sorrow and despair on the other man's face did not look fake.

If this was also part of the realistic illusion, he could only say... this was too damn impressive.

"Go to hell!"

The Grass Ninja formed hand seals, unleashing a ninjutsu immediately.

"Water Style: Thousand Senbon Rain Kill!"

And then, there was no "then."

Nothing happened; the Grass Ninja's hands, still held in the seal, remained frozen in place.

Through observation, Mo Jingxian discovered that the opponent's expression did not seem fake.

The look of confusion and terror on his face was portrayed perfectly, and one could even detect a hint of awkwardness.

The Grass Ninja adjusted quickly; after freezing for a second, he drew a short blade and charged forward.

Fortunately, his taijutsu was unaffected.

The enemy's strikes were swift; he was worthy of being an elite ninja of the Grass Ninja.

Compared to an elite Chunin of Konoha, he was not far off.

The two exchanged blows several times, the "bang-bang" sounds echoing through the empty hall.

Mo Jingxian seized a flaw in the opponent's defense, and the Water Python Technique proved its worth once again.

The Grass Ninja's expression became even more complex; aside from all the previous emotions, a look of bewilderment was added.

Mo Jingxian had no obligation to explain; he picked up the short blade dropped by the Grass Ninja and pierced the enemy's heart.

Allowing the enemy to suffer less was the greatest kindness he could offer.

The moment the blade pierced the Grass Ninja's body, the scene began to collapse.

[Reputation points from Grass Ninja Hongu Jiro +50]

This counted as good news; the Box of Ultimate Bliss could not block the rules of the Balance of Fate.

It was likely a collision between planes of law.

His chakra became active again; calculating by proportion, about one-third of the seal had been undone.

The scenery shifted, and he returned to the familiar corridor, that faint sense of law descending upon him once more.

Mo Jingxian did not rush to find the next room, but instead sat down where he was.

He carefully sensed his own condition, finding no hidden dangers lurking within.

As it stood, the rules did not seem to have caused him any harm; on the contrary... they had even provided benefits.

Yet, he did not believe the Box of Ultimate Bliss would be so kind-hearted.

Unfortunately, once the rules entered his body, they vanished without a trace, leaving behind no evidence whatsoever.

He set aside the matters he could not find answers to for the time being.

Mo Jingxian compared the two incidents in his mind.

The similarity was that the spatial rules definitely existed, the restrictions targeted everyone who entered, and the rules were identical for all.

The difference... the Grass Ninja had released a ninjutsu immediately, clearly unaware that his chakra had been restricted.

Everyone had entered the box together, and since he had already completed the task for one room, the Grass Ninja had certainly had enough time to discover the anomaly.

Yet, the other party acted as if he had just arrived and had not had time to understand anything here.

Thus, only one possibility remained.

The flow of time was not the same for everyone.

He felt his head spinning; there was too much unknown information.

He looked up and swept his gaze around; there were far too many rooms he had yet to enter.

Mo Jingxian stood up and suddenly slammed a punch into the wall.

No sound was emitted; the silent corridor seemed to have existed for eternity.

If he were outside, a punch like this would have shattered even stone.

But here, it could not even produce the slightest noise.

The wall remained as good as new, having absorbed all of his previous attack.

Mo Jingxian refused to give up.

He switched to testing ninjutsu.

The result was as expected: he could not cause the slightest damage to this place.

"Sigh, it seems my current strength is not enough to break the rules here."

He muttered to himself in a low voice and pushed open the next door.

In the third room stood a mirror image of himself, which launched an attack the moment he entered.

The mirror image possessed strength close to that of a Jonin, and it took a great deal of effort for Mo Jingxian to finally succeed with a roundabout sneak attack using sealing jutsu.

The mirror image vanished, contributing a mysterious rule, just like the previous two rooms.

During this battle, he discovered that the mirror image was unaffected by genjutsu, which weakened his own methods significantly.

Inside the fourth door lay a sealing formula: "Fire Style: Heavenly Prison."

Mo Jingxian did not possess fire-attribute chakra, so logically, he should not have been able to learn this sealing jutsu.

However, he was well-versed in water elements and the Principles of Sealing Jutsu, so after spending some time, he managed to dismantle and understand this sealing technique.

In fact, the formula within the sealing shackles was a simplified version of this technique.

Of course, if he changed the underlying code of the sealing jutsu, the logic of the runes would change accordingly.

After a long period of thought and experimentation, he actually managed to tinker with a new ninjutsu.

"Water Style: Fire-State Seal."

The function of this ninjutsu was to restrict the circulation of fire-attribute chakra, reverting and destroying fire-style ninjutsu after they were released.

The effect was related to his understanding of sealing jutsu and the amount of chakra he input.

"Fire Style: Heavenly Prison" was a fire-style sealing jutsu, and its seal was effective against all chakra.

Because the time was too short, Mo Jingxian could not yet research an equivalent ninjutsu.

He took a different approach, using the principle that water and fire counteract each other, and rearranged the underlying runes of the Fire Style: Heavenly Prison according to the opposite logic.

"Water" replaced "Fire," and "Dispersion" replaced "Aggregation."

Adding some of his own understanding, Mo Jingxian created his own ninjutsu while alone in this room.

The moment the ninjutsu took shape, that familiar feeling descended upon him.

He had passed this trial.

Once a person becomes familiar with an environment, they unconsciously begin to relax.

After resting, Mo Jingxian skillfully pushed open the fifth door.

This time, his opponent was a half-human, half-beast monster.

It possessed the legs and torso of a human.

Its arms were covered in feathers, resembling a pair of oversized wings.

The sharp claws glinted with a cold light; their appearance alone made it clear they were razor-sharp.

Its head bore no resemblance to a human's, covered entirely in avian feathers that swept backward from its face.

"What is this thing?"

At the first sight of it, Mo Jingxian was startled, recoiling abruptly.

Only when his back hit the wall did he cautiously peer at the creature.

With his ninja blade in hand, he found a sliver of courage to stand his ground.

In this moment, it felt as if he had encountered a natural predator, yet a desperate, irreconcilable urge to fight to the death surged from the depths of his heart.

Just as he could no longer restrain himself from attacking, the monster suddenly spoke in a human tongue.

"I shall be consumed..."