After returning to the Dragon Temple, Yuan flew into the air and looked at the formation around the city to see its progress, but as he'd expected, the formation remained unfinished.

"Since it's going to take a while for the formation to finish, I should use this time to look around the place and see if I can find the treasure room," Yuan mumbled to himself, and he proceeded to fly around the massive city that would've taken him months to explore if he had to do it on foot.

However, that was easier said than done. How was he supposed to find the treasure room in this massive and empty city? Where should he start?

After flying around the city for an hour, Yuan gave up and decided to start searching from the ground.

"Is there really nobody in this place besides myself?" Yuan mumbled to himself as he knocked on the closed doors.

"Hm? It's open?"

Realizing that the doors were not locked, Yuan decided to go inside.

"This is…"

Yuan was surprised to see furniture inside the buildings. In fact, every single building was fully organized with furniture, almost like people used to live in this place.

"Maybe people used to live in this place in the past…"

Sometime later, Yuan eventually stopped entering the buildings as there was nothing new after looking through over a hundred of them.

"What about the trials? Where can I do the trials?"

After pondering for some time, Yuan flew back into the air once again and activated his Dragon's Gaze, and instead of using it on the dragon statue, he scanned the city with it.

And to his surprise, he could see some of the buildings glowing a faint golden color, almost like they were surrounded by fireflies, and some buildings were glowing brighter than the others.

And just like how bright lights affected moths, Yuan went for the brightest building he saw.

A few minutes later, he knocked on the door just in case it was occupied.

When nobody answered, Yuan opened the door and entered the building.

The interior of the building looked almost the same as the other buildings, but there was an addition there— a small dragon statue placed directly in the center of the room.

Yuan ignored the other things in the room and approached the dragon statue.

The moment he got close enough to the statue, it suddenly began glowing, and the doors behind him closed.

Although he was startled, Yuan didn't panic or run away.

A few seconds later, the dark room began brightening despite the lack of light sources in the room.

Furthermore, the room also expanded, almost like the world itself was being stretched.

"Is this an illusion…?" Yuan wondered to himself.

The expansion of the room wouldn't stop until all of the furniture disappeared into the horizon.

Suddenly, a notification appeared before Yuan.

[The Great One's Trial has begun!]

[You have a new challenge!]

[Defeat as many enemies as you can within the time limit!]

[The more you defeat the stronger the enemies become and the better your rewards!]

[Difficulty has been adjusted based on your talents!]

Ding!

[3:59:59]

The moment the countdown started, Yuan could see human-like figures wearing armor that resembled the armor worn by the guards in the Ancient Dragon City appearing on the horizon, and there were tens if not hundreds of them appearing at once. Furthermore, they were all wielding different weapons.

Some of them had swords while others had spears. There were even some weapons that Yuan had never seen before.

Fortunately for him, they appeared pretty far in the distance, giving him some time to prepare.

"Their aura… First level Spirit Masters?" Yuan quickly retrieved his Empyrean Overlord and the Starry Abyss.

And not waiting for these armored figures to get close, Yuan used the Starry Abyss to attack them in the distance.

Boom!

The Starry Abyss easily tore holes in their bodies, and after killing 100 of them, the surviving armored figures' aura suddenly grew stronger, almost like they'd leveled up or something, and they were now at the second level Spirit Master realm.

Yuan continued to slay these armored figures, and this challenge reminded him of the challenge on the 100th floor of the Carp Leaping Over Dragon's Gate Tower.

However, compared to the challenge on the 100th floor, there were not as many enemies, but they were certainly stronger— much stronger.

Second level… third level… fourth level…

The armored figures continued to grow stronger as Yuan destroyed them, and in just an hour, these armored figures entered the Spirit Grandmaster level.

[Heaven Splitting Sword Strike!]

Yuan unleashed a devastating attack that instantly destroyed over a hundred of these armored figures, increasing their strength once again to the second level Spirit Grandmaster.

Since this challenge required him to slay as many armored figures as he could in what little time he was given, Yuan spared no effort destroying as many of them as he could.

Yuan's spiritual energy depleted at an insane rate that would exhaust anyone with a similar cultivation base, but because of his skill Perfect Regeneration and the Nine Dragon Symbols inside his body, his body continuously absorbed the surrounding Qi as quickly as he used them, keeping Yuan from exhaustion.

Furthermore, once the armored figures had reached Spirit Grandmaster, fewer of them were being summoned, and their silver armor also changed to a golden color.

While Yuan continued his challenge inside Cultivation Online, the real world became rowdier and rowdier as more people woke up and learned about cultivation.

"Sister Rou! Have you heard the news?! Apparently, cultivation is real and there are already Cultivators in our world!" Xiao Jingyi approached Yu Rou at school.

Yu Rou smiled and said, "Everybody and their mother have been talking about it since I woke up. How can I possibly not have heard about it by now?"

"What do you think about it? I am filled with excitement! In fact, I am going to start cultivating when I get home today! What about you? Are you going to cultivate?" Xia Jingyi said.

"I am also going to become a Cultivator." Yu Rou nodded.