193: Chapter 192 Multiple Secret Realms
The battle ended; Xu Ziyan slumped onto the ground, panting heavily.
"What kind of ghostly place is this?"
Lin Fan downed a bottle of spiritual power recovery potion, wiped his mouth, and stood up.
"If I'm not mistaken, this is a newly descended Secret Realm."
"And its grade isn't low. The Spiritual Qi concentration is ten times that of the outside world, its area has no visible borders, and spiritual plants are growing wildly in patches—it's at least an Advanced Secret Realm, maybe even a Special-grade one."
Xu Ziyan's face turned even paler.
The number of discovered Special-grade Secret Realms recorded by the Federation was no more than double digits.
Ye Wushuang walked to the light screen, stared at the spatial ripples on its surface for a while, and then turned around.
"This light screen isn't an ordinary portal. It is the core of this layer of the Secret Realm itself, with a spatial structure pointing deeper. If we enter, we will likely be sent to another space."
"Another space?"
Xu Ziyan scrambled up from the ground, his voice trembling slightly, "You mean there's another Secret Realm behind this thing?"
Ye Wushuang didn't answer, but his silence was an answer in itself.
Lin Fan looked at the light screen.
The silver-white light shimmered with a soft luster under the moonlight.
Multi-layered Secret Realms are composite structures formed by two or more independent Secret Realm spaces nested or superimposed on each other.
If there really was another layer of Secret Realm behind the light screen, then the place they were in was only the first layer.
"Find the exit first."
Ye Qing spoke, her voice deeper than usual.
"The exit of a Multi-layered Secret Realm is often in the deepest layer. No matter how many layers there are inside, we can only keep going forward."
She looked at the light screen; her meaning was clear—the exit was likely on the other side.
Lin Fan nodded and walked to the light screen.
To avoid being separated again, the four of them held hands.
"Go."
The four of them stepped forward simultaneously and walked into the light screen.
The silver-white light swallowed their bodies.
Then, the ground beneath their feet disappeared.
They felt as if they were sinking.
A dark gray, viscous, semi-transparent liquid rushed in from all directions, submerging their ankles and calves before stopping at their knees.
Lin Fan steadied himself and glanced down at the liquid beneath his feet.
It wasn't water; it was too heavy, too thick, like melted wax or some kind of biological secretion, but it wasn't hot—it was even a bit cool.
He looked up and surveyed his surroundings.
They were standing at the edge of a desolate island.
Beneath their feet were grayish-white rocks with surfaces as rough as sandpaper; the edges were jagged, with rings of varying erosion patterns formed by years of immersion in the gray liquid.
A few steps behind them was that viscous ocean.
The dark gray liquid was as calm as a giant sheet of frosted glass.
No waves, no ripples, not a single crease; it extended from the island's edge to the end of their vision, merging with the gray sky.
The desolate island they were on was vast and boundless.
Lin Fan looked out; as far as his eyes could see, there was only land—grayish-white rocky soil, low hills, and crisscrossing ravines extending to the blurred horizon in the distance.
One couldn't see the end of it at a glance.
The vegetation on the desolate island was even stranger.
The plants here were dark in color with thick leaves, their surfaces covered in a layer of grayish-white wax, looking as if they had been hit by frost.
Even the shortest shrubs were two people tall, with twisted branches and bark covered in tumor-like protrusions that looked like silent faces.
In the distance, there were several giant trees with trunks so thick it would take ten people to encircle them, yet their canopies were sparse, hanging only a few clusters of dark purple leaves that remained motionless in the windless air, like specimens of giant umbrella mushrooms.
"This place... is even creepier than the last one."
Xu Ziyan's voice came from behind Lin Fan.
His feet were still stuck in the gray liquid, while his other foot stepped on a rock, holding an awkward posture like a frog trying to climb ashore.
Ye Qing had already stepped onto the island.
When she pulled her foot out of the gray liquid, it made a "pop" sound, like pulling out a giant plug.
She crouched down and touched the grayish-white rocky soil on the ground; it was very hard, with a layer of fine crystals on the surface.
Ye Wushuang was the last to walk out of the liquid. His right eye, the Bright Mist Phantom Pupil, had been glowing, scanning the surroundings from the moment he stepped onto the island.
"That direction."
He pointed toward the center of the island, "There are strong spatial fluctuations, with the same frequency as that light screen in the first layer."
Lin Fan looked in the direction he pointed.
The terrain of the desolate island rose slowly from the edge to the center, with rolling hills and crisscrossing ravines.
Amidst the dark vegetation and twisted trees, very far away, a silver-white pillar of light shot straight from the ground into the sky; it was as thin as a hair, yet exceptionally piercing against the gray sky.
It was exactly the same as the light emitted by the light screen in the first layer.
Lin Fan's left eye grew slightly warm.
Even without scanning, he could feel the spatial power contained within that silver-white pillar of light.
It shared the exact same origin as the core of the first layer's Secret Realm.
The core of this layer of the Secret Realm was there, and the location of the core was the gateway to the next layer.
"This still isn't the final layer of the Secret Realm," Lin Fan said, frowning.
Xu Ziyan had already walked up and stood beside Lin Fan, only managing to squeeze out a sentence after a long while.
"You mean there's a third layer?"
Lin Fan didn't answer.
According to records of Multi-layered Secret Realms—two nested layers were at least Advanced, but if there were three, then it being a Special-grade Secret Realm was a certainty.
With their current strength, trying to get out of an unmapped Special-grade Secret Realm...
Lin Fan took a deep breath.
For now, he could only hope the military would come to their rescue as soon as possible.
"Let's get onto the island first," Ye Qing interrupted Lin Fan's thoughts.
She had already stood up, brushed the rocky soil off her hands, and the silver scales of the Dew-Condensed Clear Moon Fox on her right ear lit up again as she used Moon-Listening Insight to scan the surroundings.
"No matter how many layers there are, we must first find the core of this layer. That silver-white pillar of light is our direction. The vegetation on the island is too dense, restricting our vision; it's easy to get lost if we walk straight in. Let's head toward the light pillar along the coastline; the view there is more open than inland and won't be blocked by plants."
Lin Fan nodded, agreeing with Ye Qing's judgment.
The four of them walked along the coastline of the desolate island toward the silver-white pillar of light.
The coastline was winding; sometimes they had to bypass giant tree roots exposed on the rock surface, and sometimes they had to crawl under fallen deadwood.
After walking for less than ten minutes, Lin Fan stopped.
In a crevice of the rocks along the coastline grew a cluster of dark silver plants.
The leaves were long and thin like needles, covered in a layer of silver-white fuzz that shimmered faintly in the gray light.
Lin Fan crouched down and scanned with his left eye; information surfaced in his vision—Silver Velvet Grass.
Within the Federation, Silver Velvet Grass only grew in a few specific environments, and a single stalk cost over 300,000 federation coins.
There wasn't just one stalk here; it was a cluster.
Over a hundred stalks of Silver Velvet Grass were crowded together, their leaves interlacing like a cluster of silver flames burning in the rock crevice.
Opportunity and danger coexist; since he saw it, there was naturally no reason to let it go.