Chun Dai was the first one to step through the churning surface of the spatial gate, leaving their native realm with a single step forward.

The ever regal Huang Lei followed after him just a moment after his entrance, her head turning back briefly to give Yu a challenging look before her body passed through the surface of the portal, provoking a ripple in space that was immediately swallowed by the chaotic waves enveloping the entrance to the hidden space.

Yu Xiang was quick to take her up on her silent provocation, leaving Lin Fen’s side to approach the wooden gate.

He hesitated for a single moment once he was face to face with the churning frothing veil of reality, just enough time to take a single deep breath before he leaped inside the portal without looking back.

Instantly his senses were assaulted by a riot of different stimuli.

A kaleidoscope of colors danced before his eyes, lighting up so brightly and flashing so fast that they left spots in his vision. A tantalizing aroma reached his nostrils, immediately setting his stomach to rumble in hunger. His tongue followed right after, his taste buds crying in joy and confusion as endless flavors mixed and battled over ownership of his mouth.

A loud buzzing sound that made the young reincarnator’s body vibrate reached him next, stealing his attention away from the rest of his senses due to its sheer intensity. Then a deep sense of wrongness enveloped his flesh, as if some indescribable substance was being rubbed all over his exposed skin and slithering under his robes.

Finally, the weirdness reached his spiritual senses. Yu’s aura was stretched and compressed, pulled and pushed, squeezed and jostled by thousands of invisible hands, while at the same time his aura picked up on conflicting and oftentimes nonsensical presences floating in this slice of chaotic space in between realms.

The green eyed reincarnator’s mind, spirit and body were thoroughly put through the wringer, a single moment of all encompassing disorientation stretching forward into infinity as the very concept of time seemed to cease to matter.

Then just as quickly as it had begun, all of these overwhelming stimuli ceased to exist.

Yu Xiang fell to his knees, wheezing for air like a man who’d been drowning as his every limb shook beneath him, struggling desperately to keep his weakened body off the ground.

A pair of soft hands settled on his shoulders and pulled him upright effortlessly, leaving the green eyed cultivator standing on unsteady legs before a bowl full of water was put in his numbed hands.

The moment his eyes settled on the life giving liquid and his brain registered the weight in his hands he shoved the bowl to his face and drank until his suddenly dry lips and tongue felt properly moisturized once again.

An explosive sigh of relief escaped from between his lips as his body finally returned under his control.

Yu handed the bowl, which still looked to be completely full, back to Huang Lei, remembering a second later to thank her both for the water and for catching him before he faceplanted into the dirt.

“Think nothing of it.” She said, gently patting his back a few times to ease his distressed body.

It took the young reincarnator a few more moments to fully return to normal, seconds he wisely spent observing his surroundings.

Chun Dai was standing a few meters away from him, looking out into the distance with the barest of frowns on his face, which was either a bad sign since nothing seemed to faze him normally, or just Yu being too paranoid.

The ground all around their point of entrance was bereft of grass, instead, hard packed dirt surrounded their side of the portal in a full circle, behind which wild green grass spread as far as the eye could see.

While on the other side of the portal they’d been in a forest, they seemed to have exited in a vast grassland, the verdant plain looking mundane and flat if it weren’t for hundreds of sharp boulders jutting from beneath the ground.

Yu Xiang set his gaze in the same direction as the stoic swordsman’s, looking for whatever it was that had made him actually show emotions openly, no matter how small.

Immediately, the green eyed cultivator noticed that further away from their current position, almost too far for even his refined eyesight to distinguish them from the rest of the green background, rose lone clusters of short trees, looking no taller than a mortal’s residence.

Furthermore, something else Yu Xiang noticed, was that the pointed boulder got gradually bigger the farther away they were from their position, looking less like a boulder and more like the grey teeth of some titanic primordial beasts, ready to chomp down on the blue, cloudless sky above them.

Now that he took a closer look, Yu Xiang could even make out on the horizon the shape of even bigger stone teeth rising up from the ground, so massive that they had become veritable mountains unto themselves, despite being singular slabs of sharpened stone.

With a frown, the green eyed cultivator broke the stare he’d been giving the far off shapes camouflaging with the horizon, instead turning around in the opposite direction.

In direct contrast to his previously observed pattern, the further one went in the opposite direction the emptier the landscape became.

The boulders shrunk until they were no more than sharp rocks that one could even end up stepping on accidentally, a thought that immediately provoked a chain reaction in the reincarnator’s mind which led to him winching in phantom pain at the possibility of stepping on sharpened legos.

Even further away the landscape seemed to be completely bereft of the pointy stones, which left the ground looking extremely flat. Unnaturally so at that.

In their native world, even empty plains tended to have small elevations and depressions due to the shifting of the plaques deep beneath the ground, while here everything was almost perfectly level, as if the entire landscape was placed atop a flat and stationary surface.

This was made all the more apparent as the healthy grass growing tall all around them grew progressively shorter and drier the more he looked far in the distance, until it stopped growing at all and all that was left was the cracked arid ground, bereft of all moisture, nutrients and every other crucial substance needed to nurture life.

All of this Yu Xiang figured in just a couple of minutes and it all painted a bizarre picture.

This entire realm seemed to grow richer in life and spiritual energy the closer one got to its center, as if all of this hidden space’s spiritual energy was radiating outward from a single source.

The green eyed cultivator’s heart skipped a beat as the possibility of some supremely powerful treasure being hidden in the heart of the hidden realm took hold of his mind.

Yu Xiang shook his head to clear away the daydream. It was not the time to get lost in his own fantastical pipe dreams.

Instead, Yu Xiang turned back around towards the churning portal leading back to their native realm, noticing that Lin Fen and Zhen Yin had already crossed over and were currently sitting down to recover their senses.

As he had nothing else to do right now the young reincarnator decided to help Huang Lei deal with the rest of their dazed companions as they entered through the portal.

Every few minutes another member of their party would suddenly step through the ripped fabric of reality, stumbling drunkenly and almost deliriously in a display that Yu would’ve found amusing had he not gone through the same thing just a bit earlier.

Although he did end up cracking a smile as he had to drag away a completely limp Su Rong that looked so green in the face that they could’ve easily lost him in the grass if it weren’t for his blue and purple robes.

Only after they were all safely through did the wildly churning portal settle down, looking more like a mirage created by the heat of the hidden realm’s nonexistent sun, the empty air wavering and shimmering faintly.

The disappearance of the hellish tunnel they’d all crossed opened up the seal over their mouths as they all felt recovered enough to finally speak again.

Their main topic, predictably enough, was the psychedelic trip they’d all gone through, their unanimous complaints even momentarily bridging the gap between Su Rong and Yu Xiang.

Huang Lei giggled as they all vented at each other, rising up from the seated position she’d taken once they’d all crossed through the blasted portal and immediately grabbing their attention.

“Congratulation.” She spoke, trying and failing to hide her obvious mirth. “You have all gone through the traditional rite of passage for all passage for all young cultivators.”

Their subsequent glares seemed to only make her even more amused.

“Don’t worry.” She said once she had her fill with their reactions. “Now that you’re full fledged cultivators of our illustrious Golden Peak sect I will be more than happy to teach you all how to make any future trips in hidden realms much smoother.”

That quickly pacified them, the prospect of learning something and preventing a repeat of today more than enough to soothe their wounded pride.

After that Chun Dai finally deigned to turn around towards their little group, his eyes scanning their faces looking for something.

"As is tradition you have all been tested both before and after you rise as inner disciples." Yu Xiang and the others hadn't expected the stoic man to suddenly start giving them a speech and were caught off guard as the core disciple's piercing eyes settled upon each of them, making them all stand straight under his severe scrutiny.

"This was just another such test. One that you have all passed by keeping the contents of your stomachs from showering the dirt of this realm." The young reincarnator blinked slowly in bewilderment, a reaction mirrored by the others, was that supposed to be a joke or a statement of fact?

"But it is not yet time for you all to relax!" His voice thundered against their ears, making them flinch back.

Chun Dai ignored their reaction, still speaking in his severe tone. "Only once this mission comes to an end will your appraisal be over, and if I deem you worthy, you will get a place at our heir's table."

His icy blue eyes met the shocked gazes of all the inner disciples present, besides Yu and Lin who already knew all of this, before he once more turned his back to them.

"Do not disappoint me and your sect." He finished gravelly.

Welp, Yu Xiang thought to himself as he watched his companions grow excited, his eyes meeting with Huang Lei's as her gaze took on a positively predatory glint.

Guess brother Chun really wasn't one for subtlety or subterfuge...

Oh, well, Yu Xiang shrugged inwardly, he could work with this.