473: The Strange Phenomenon of Infant Formation

Just as Divine Craftsmanship was imagining the future.

Outside the Trial Grounds, Jiang Vengeance and others were suspended in mid-air, observing the movements of all players through the images released by Projection Stones.

A Senior Brother was watching with him. Upon seeing a player fly out right at the start, only to be discovered and ganged up on by other players, he couldn't help but sneer.

He then saw a player who completely ignored the scrolls and was instead digging continuously on the spot, as if searching for something.

This Senior Brother's expression shifted as he looked toward Jiang Vengeance and asked:

"Junior Brother Jiang, according to what you said, players who don't follow instructions like this are the ones who need to be eliminated, right?"

Jiang Vengeance shook his head and said:

"No, we can't be sure yet if they can be used by us. We need to continue testing."

After saying that, he looked at the screen where that player was and performed a hand seal to cast a spell.

The next moment, that player suddenly stopped, the corners of his mouth curling up into a brilliant smile.

It turned out he had dug up a tombstone; clearly, there was a grave beneath it.

Graves have special significance in the Xuanhuan World; they can basically be seen as a type of Secret Realm, containing many good treasures.

Particularly the graves of some High-level Cultivators; once unearthed, they can directly trigger a struggle among various heroes, and one might even find a supreme Legacy within, which is quite extraordinary.

Consequently, this player's face was practically split with a grin. He excitedly continued digging and soon reached the entrance of the tomb, seeing a massive stone gate. It looked ancient, covered in many inscriptions, and appeared very extraordinary at a glance.

The player became even more excited.

But just as he was about to approach the gate or even open it.

Suddenly, a streak of light burst forth, and a middle-aged man wearing cultivation robes drifted down.

"Dear player."

The middle-aged man spoke solemnly: "I am an examiner. I am now issuing a special task for you: travel thirty li southeast from here, find and kill a Rank 7 Fire Fox Yao."

"As long as you can complete the task, you can obtain extra points, which will benefit your final grade."

After speaking, the examiner drifted away and vanished without a trace.

The Senior Brother beside Jiang Vengeance couldn't help but ask: "What is the meaning of this task?"

Jiang Vengeance smiled and said: "To see whether this player puts the task first or the fortuitous encounter he found first."

A distance of thirty li is not far, and a Rank 7 Fire Fox Yao would not stay in one place. If he were truly dedicated to the task, he would certainly go to do it immediately.

However, if he chooses to dig up the mausoleum first and then do the task, it shows that this player believes the encounter is more important, or even feels the rewards from the encounter can cover the loss of failing the task.

"What will he do?"

The Senior Brother looked curiously at the screen.

He saw the player indeed begin to hesitate, looking toward the southeast and then back toward the mausoleum gate.

In the end, he still walked toward the mausoleum, clearly intending to dig it open first to get the rewards of the fortuitous encounter.

Jiang Vengeance shook his head and said: "Alright, this player can be eliminated."

With a wave of his hand, he directly struck a name from the roster, but he did not immediately send out an elimination notice.

"Let him continue wandering in the Trial Forest. Later, I'll just arrange a few powerful Spirit Beasts or Yao Beasts for him, so he'll think he was eliminated because his strength was insufficient."

After deciding the future of one player, Jiang Vengeance turned to the other screens to check the performance of more players.

The players, completely unaware of the focus of the assessment, were still displaying their various methods in the Trial Forest... Within the borders of the Yue Kingdom, inside Duan Kong Cave.

Since Midnight Gao Sou was refined into a Medicinal Pill and the Duan Kong Cave Old Ancestor took the pill to enter secluded cultivation, the Duan Kong Cave Sect Master had gradually begun to reveal his methods.

He allied with many players and sought external help to forcibly suppress the various Elders within the sect, pushing down old-guard Golden Core Cultivators like Xiang He and Xiang Yuan, who had once been above him.

By now, he had almost completely taken control of Duan Kong Cave. Although he had the help of players, in the eyes of the natives, he held absolute power.

After taking power, the most important thing Xiang Qing did was... search for the location where the Old Ancestor was in seclusion.

For various reasons—for instance, having once been raised by the Old Ancestor as Alchemy Materials—Xiang Qing harbored considerable resentment toward the Old Ancestor and also feared him greatly.

Like many players, he wanted to seize the opportunity of the seclusion to kill the Old Ancestor and thus resolve his future worries.

When the players contacted him expressing their desire to completely annex Duan Kong Cave, Xiang Qing only hesitated for a moment before making a decision:

He had to sell himself for a good price.

One side wanted to buy, and the other wanted to sell, so peaceful negotiations naturally and logically unfolded.

If nothing unexpected happened, the players would peacefully subdue Duan Kong Cave and subsequently deal with the Duan Kong Cave Old Ancestor together.

But an accident did happen.

On this day, on the side of the Yue Kingdom near the Green Emerald Mountains, a heaven-spanning vision suddenly appeared.

The nearest players noticed it first, which then attracted more players, followed by native Cultivators like Xiang Qing.

Countless Cultivators gathered on the eastern side of the Green Emerald Mountains with varying expressions.

The commotion caused by the vision was massive and very prolonged.

At first, it was just a tiny speck of red light on the eastern side of the mountains. Then, this light filled the entire mountain range, subsequently dyeing the sky and the earth blood-red, spreading for a full thousand li.

Then Red Rain began to fall from the sky, continuous and unrelenting. it fell for three days straight without ceasing, and the further it fell, the heavier it became, actually turning the various valleys and basins in the mountains into red lakes.

When the rain reached the fourth day, seductive flowers began to bloom in the lakes, and then spiritual fish leaped up.

Some players approached out of curiosity. After harvesting and searching, they judged that even the lowest grade was Rank 8, and the highest actually reached Rank 5.

This vision far surpassed the vision of a successful Core Formation, and it was countless times greater than an Immortal Foundation vision.

And when the Red Rain reached the fifth day, Spiritual Qi from all directions gathered even more intensely. Finally, the spiritual atmosphere changed.

The entire Green Emerald Mountains, along with the spiritual atmospheres of the Yue Kingdom, Li Kingdom, Chu Kingdom, and Great Jiang, changed together. It even eroded the North Mountains, South Mountains, and the Great Desert; only the East Sea was special and escaped erosion.

Natives specializing in the study of spiritual atmospheres conducted measurements and determined that this atmosphere was beneficial to the Demonic Path of evil Cultivators and detrimental to the cultivation of the Righteous Path.

The native Cultivators were thrown into a panic, and the players were also discussing it fervently, wondering what would happen next.

When the Red Rain reached the sixth day, the blood-red water could no longer be contained by the valleys and basins. It rushed out in all directions with a roar, actually crashing into the Great River that divided the north and south within the Great Jiang territory. It instantly triggered an unprecedented flood, swallowing thousands of li of land on both banks in an instant, with countless Mortals dying miserably within.

On the seventh day, the surging blood-red waves smashed through mountains, forcibly striking out hidden underground spiritual mineral veins. There were also claims that the heaven and earth vision had birthed the mineral veins; regardless, it triggered a scramble among many players.

The eighth day, ninth day, tenth day... A month later, the players finally realized that this vision was not going to stop anytime soon.

And the only thing that could match such a vision was a Nascent Soul Breakthrough—and a Nascent Soul Breakthrough where no isolation measures had been taken against one's own vision.