The sudden turn of events caught the young Qi Refinement cultivators completely unprepared.
Fang Hong felt his vision go black and lost consciousness entirely. When he came to again, he was already inside an unfamiliar circular hall with a domed ceiling.
Thirty-six glazed chalcedony lamps hung high overhead, lighting the vast hall as brightly as day. Reliefs of birds and strange beasts covered the circular stone walls, each so lifelike that it seemed about to come alive.
The floor paved with black jade was smooth, level, and spotless.
He sat on the floor with Su Yao beside him. From her bewildered expression, she seemed to have only just awakened as well.
Around them were the other disciples who had passed the Shangqing Sect's entrance assessment.
Several more groups of young cultivators stood farther away, a dense crowd of at least two hundred. All were unfamiliar faces, not the cultivators who had taken part in the Shangqing Sect's assessment earlier.
Within his sea of consciousness, the candle flame in the Fate Mirror burned brightly, showing nothing unusual. This let him breathe a little easier.
"Yao, are you all right?" Fang Hong asked, looking at Su Yao beside him.
Su Yao first shook her head, then knitted her slender brows and rolled up her sleeve to examine her arm.
Lines of blood-colored curse script, so red they were nearly black, slowly emerged on her lotus-root-white arm.
"The Yin-Yang Blood Curse..."
She recognized the curse script on her body at a glance, and her expression immediately turned exceedingly grim.
"Circulate your magical power and sense it too," she told Fang Hong.
Fang Hong did as she said. Sure enough, similar blood-colored curse script appeared on his arm, but unless he deliberately stimulated it with his magical power, he could hardly feel anything.
"What is this?"
He inwardly sensed trouble. Someone must have planted this blood curse on them while they were unconscious.
Before he set out for the Shangqing Sect, the Fate Mirror had revealed the omen "fortune hidden amid peril." Could this be where the "peril" came from?
"This is a means the Yin-Yang Sect uses to control its lower-ranking disciples and prevent them from betraying the sect," Su Yao explained. "If someone activates it, the curse script can travel along the blood vessels into the chambers of the heart, ultimately rotting the heart away."
"You know about the Yin-Yang Blood Curse too, fellow Daoist? This curse will dissipate on its own once we reach Foundation Establishment."
Just then, a tall, thin man walked over from the nearby crowd and looked Su Yao and Fang Hong over curiously, acting familiar from the outset. "I am Chai Hongzhou, a disciple of the Ghost King Sect. Greetings, fellow Daoists."
The Ghost King Sect was one of the thirteen Golden Core sects in the Donglai Sea Region, standing alongside the Shangqing Sect.
Fang Hong cupped his hands. "We are from the Shangqing Sect. Did you also just arrive here, fellow Daoist Chai?"
Chai Hongzhou shook his head. "We arrived several days ago."
As he spoke, he pointed at the group of young cultivators behind him, all wearing black robes just like his. "It's not just our Ghost King Sect. The disciples of the Xiandu Sect and the Wonderful Sound Pavilion over there were also forcibly abducted by Yin-Yang Sect cultivators over the past few days."
Fang Hong and Su Yao exchanged a glance. So that Fang Qing had actually been a Yin-Yang Sect cultivator in disguise, who had brought them here.
A thought stirred in Fang Hong's mind, and he asked again, "Have you seen the man who brought us here, fellow Daoist?"
Chai Hongzhou glanced at him. "You mean Rogue Person Xuanyin, Jin Huaiyuan? Of course I saw him. He left after delivering you here."
Rogue Person Xuanyin...
Fang Hong's heart jolted. "Fang Qing" was Rogue Person Xuanyin? The author of that Romantic Painting Album?
No wonder he had been unable to use the Fate Mirror to examine the man's fate.
But when had Fang Qing been replaced, the plum tree substituted for the peach? On Yunchuan Island, or in Shangqing Immortal Market?
Originally, he had thought Fang Qing had given him the Romantic Painting Album to build a closer relationship so that they could look out for each other in the Shangqing Sect.
Now it seemed this great Golden Core cultivator of the Yin-Yang Sect had some other purpose!
Chai Hongzhou was extremely talkative and continued, "It's understandable if you don't know Rogue Person Xuanyin, fellow Daoist, but surely you've heard of his Dao companion, Feng Shuyue?"
Fang Hong sighed. "How could I not know the fourth-ranked name on the Golden Core Rankings?"
He paused, then asked, "Do you know why the Yin-Yang Sect abducted us, fellow Daoist Chai?"
Chai Hongzhou chuckled. "I only learned about it after arriving, from those aristocratic clan scions from Black Demon Island. Half a year ago, a conflict broke out between the Yin-Yang Sect and the Li Fire Heavenly Palace, and a large number of Qi Refinement disciples died. Now there are quite a few vacancies in both the outer and inner sects, so they snatched us up."
"Counting your group from the Shangqing Sect, there are already more than two hundred and sixty of us. The Yin-Yang Sect is one of the four great Nascent Soul sects in the Donglai Sea Region. Even if our sects found out about this, what could they do?"
He spoke freely, his tone carrying a trace of helplessness as well as a measure of excitement.
According to him, there were currently five groups of disciples in this hall whom the Yin-Yang Sect had seized from the various powers.
The largest group came from Black Demon Island, numbering over a hundred Qi Refinement cultivators.
Black Demon Island had six great Golden Core aristocratic clans, all practicing demonic arts. Though they constantly fought among themselves, they could form an alliance against outsiders and contend with other Golden Core sects.
Next came the Ghost King Sect, from which more than fifty male and female disciples had been abducted.
The Wonderful Sound Pavilion never accepted male disciples. Fifty of its members had also been abducted this time, all female cultivators who practiced charm arts.
More than thirty had been abducted from the Xiandu Sect.
By that reckoning, the Shangqing Sect had the fewest. Excluding Fang Qing, there were only twenty-six of them.
While talking with Fang Hong, Chai Hongzhou also occasionally asked about the Shangqing Sect disciples. He was intensely curious and widely informed, seeming to know a little about everything.
Fang Hong answered him offhandedly, managing to draw out quite a bit of useful information.
Roughly half a day later, light flashed overhead at the hall's dome, revealing a man and a woman of extraordinary bearing.
Both wore black-and-white cross-collared robes with broad, splendid sleeves and dark jade belts at their waists. Subtle yin-yang fish patterns covered their robes. The moment they appeared, a powerful spiritual pressure descended.
Everyone in the hall immediately stopped talking and looked up at the pair.
These two have considerable cultivation. Their spiritual pressure is about the same as that Shangqing Sect true disciple, Gao Yi. They should be at Foundation Establishment too.
Fang Hong silently considered this.
The richly dressed man stood in midair, looking down at everyone, and said calmly, "Since you have been invited here by our Yin-Yang Sect, it shows that you share a fated connection with us. The two of us will now preside over this entrance trial."
"In a moment, I will activate the teleportation array in this hall and send you into one of our Yin-Yang Sect's natural secret realms. Once you have gathered a hundred pieces of ice-soul mystic crystal in the secret realm, you can teleport back on your own using the teleportation altars scattered throughout it."
The woman beside him smiled alluringly and added softly, "Junior brothers and sisters, killing is not forbidden within the secret realm, nor are there restrictions on your methods. How much ice-soul mystic crystal you can obtain will depend entirely on your abilities. Anyone who successfully returns may enter our Yin-Yang Sect."
She paused, her lovely eyes turning, then smiled again. "In addition, there is a rare Divine Ability Treasure Tree in the secret realm, bearing three Ice Soul Spirit Fruits. After swallowing one, a divine ability talisman seed will condense on its own within your sea of qi."
"This divine ability is called Ice-Soul Mystic Light. Its power can continue to grow as your cultivation rises, reaching as high as the Golden Core realm. If you see it, be sure not to miss it. This is a little surprise our sect has prepared for you."
Having finished, the pair paid no further attention to the cultivators in the hall. Together, they immediately performed hand seals, sending a bolt of black-and-white demonic light like a length of silk pouring down like a rainbow to strike the hall's floor.
The next instant, rings of intricate, profound array patterns appeared on the mirror-bright black jade floor, spreading like ripples.
The space within the hall rippled like water, and Fang Hong and the others vanished into thin air one after another.
The dazzling streams of light before Fang Hong's eyes faded, revealing an altar that gave off a glimmering blue glow.
Cold wind struck his face like blades.
He silently circulated the Azure Sea Mysterious Art and spread his protective spiritual light, slightly blocking the astonishing chill that was everywhere. Even so, the cold made his whole body ache, and even his magical power circulated somewhat sluggishly.
He immediately took a talisman from his storage pouch. With an infusion of magical power, it turned into a streak of azure light that enveloped his entire body.
The chill immediately diminished by more than half.
As the son of a Golden Core cultivator, he had quite a few high-grade and supreme-grade first-tier talismans in his storage pouch, and even several second-tier talismans.
However, activating second-tier talismans consumed too much divine sense, so he could not use them lightly.
He surveyed his surroundings and found himself standing on a circular altar covered in teleportation array patterns, much like the teleportation array in the hall earlier.
According to that Yin-Yang Sect cultivator, he could return to the hall from here once he had gathered a hundred pieces of ice-soul mystic crystal.
Before him lay a cold, pitch-black cavern. Thick, solid ice coated the rough rocks all around. Outside the entrance, freezing winds howled through utter darkness, and faint, savage roars drifted in.
Never mind finding ice-soul mystic crystal-merely surviving here on his own magical power was already extremely difficult!
Suddenly, he sensed something and looked up toward the cavern entrance.
In the darkness, a pair of scarlet eyes silently emerged.
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