Inside the mountain.
Ji Yuan followed at the rear of the group toward the stone gate.
The old man was gaunt, his gray cloth robe hanging loosely from his frame.
Yet from that body, which looked to be on its last legs, emanated an extraordinarily dense surge of vitality.
Once Ji Yuan drew closer,
he sensed it carefully for a moment and understood.
The gray-robed elder's aura was powerful, but in essence it was much the same as Instructor Huo's.
He had most likely cultivated the Five Viscera Furnace Realm to the point where four or five viscera were perfected.
He was still one crucial step away from the Nirvana Realm.
The auras Ji Yuan had sensed from afar, far beyond the Five Viscera Furnace Realm, came from deeper within the mountain, not from the old man before him.
It made sense.
A true Nirvana Realm powerhouse was the equivalent of a spell cultivator at the Void Refinement Stage. Even across the entire Martial God Continent, such people might not stand at the very tip of the pyramid,
but they were still among a rare handful.
Their presence here to oversee the Martial God Blood Pool already showed how seriously it was taken.
Why would they personally handle a trivial task like showing people the way?
Then again, even getting to guide people inside this blood pool probably took connections. Not everyone had the chance to be steeped in vitality day and night.
Ji Yuan put the thought aside and crossed the stone gate with the others.
The space beyond was far more expansive than he had expected.
The vaulted ceiling rose nearly a hundred zhang overhead. Rows of fist-sized luminous pearls were set into the rock walls, casting a soft white glow that lit the entire cavern as brightly