The second elder could see that Tianlan was blatantly ignoring him, which frustrated him to no end, but he knew full well that complaining about it wouldn’t do him any good. And seeing the amount of focus the young women who were helping out with the trial were giving him, he had a feeling that any outburst of his would travel quickly among the juniors, making him a laughing stock.

In the end, all he could do was go back to the other elders to see what was happening.

“How are things going? Are there any standouts this time?”

“Things are going very well indeed,” Elder Cho answered. “It just seems there are few minor bugs in the formations.”

“Problems?”

“Yeah. Things like random contortion and sudden weather changes. Small stuff.”

“Okay.”

The second elder wasn’t so well-versed with the technical aspects behind the third trial, so he didn’t know the true horrors the new recruits were facing.

But Tianlan could see it all.

While spiritual perception was indeed inhibited in the Nameless Forest, the same didn’t apply to Tianlan’s eyes. They practically gave him the ability to see the entire trial area.

“Did he say ‘All of this just works’? If this is working, I wouldn’t want to see what it looks like when it’s broken.”

He had seen several horrifying circumstances befall unsuspecting participants, and he was seeing another one right before his eyes.

***

Red Wan had been carefully making his way around the trial area, trying to find his bearings and come to an understanding of how exactly things worked. He regretted not asking more questions, but with this being a time-limited competition, every second was precious.

Fortunately, when he passed the boundary of the safe zone and found himself in a densely populated rainforest environment, he also found that he had acquired an additional item.

It was a simple black pouch with a golden character on it, and it conveniently came with a belt which it was securely attached to.

Pulling it off of the belt and taking a closer look, Red Wan found that it was actually a storage space commonly known as a bag of holding.

‘I was just worrying about how I was going to carry around a bunch of beast cores. This way, they won’t get in my way while I’m fighting, and I won’t expose how many I have to the other participants.’

Red Wan knew that this was going to be a fierce competition. Not only did he have to watch out for spirit beasts, he also needed to be mindful of potential danger from the other participants. After all, killing one spirit beast would only award a single core, but stealing from another participant could net much greater rewards.

‘Oh? They gave us an information jade as well.’

He took the jade out and passed his qi into it. As a result, certain information was transmitted into his mind.

He could see details about what each level of core looked like and could use it to appraise any cores he found.

There was also a convenient counter for the number of points currently in his bag of holding. Of course, it was currently at zero, but he was sure it would rise in no time.

‘Nice. Now I won’t have to calculate it manually. I’ll be able to check how many points I have at a glance.’

Above that, what he paid the most attention to was the information on the types of spirit beasts that could be encountered as well as their general cultivation levels.

‘It’s a shame it doesn’t list their behaviours and natural habitats. I’ll have to rely on my own knowledge to try to set up advantageous circumstances for myself.’

After getting the gist of it, Red Wan set off to find some easy kills. He knew that the early hours would present the most opportunity to climb rapidly, and he wanted to take full advantage of it.

But the thing was, after taking three steps, he found himself falling into what should have been solid ground.

When his head was under, all turned to black, then he suddenly felt the sensation of falling as well as a tremendous amount of wind rushing past his face.

As he looked down, he saw a strange section of land which was made up of several distinct areas, each vastly different from the last, and they seemed to have very clear boundaries. It was as if he were looking at a collage of environments.

‘So this is what the third trial looks like from a bird’s-eye view? It’s interesting that it’s not all dark. That desert over there looks like it’s in daylight.’

Red Wan mused over his situation when he finally realised just what kind of situation it was.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

He was hurtling towards the ground from a tremendous height. Even for a cultivator of his level, he couldn’t sustain fall-damage of that severity.

“I THINK SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH THE FORMATIONS! SAVE ME!!!!!”

He screamed at the top of his lungs, but even as the seconds ticked by, he saw no reaction at all.

“I’m dead. This is how I die.”

Even though he had already embraced his death, he still mustered all the qi he could to protect himself. He dearly hoped that he would come out of it with just a pulverised body but his life intact.

As he saw the ground rushing to his face, he found himself oddly at peace.

‘Of the myriad ways to die, this is a fairly unique one. My name will probably be recorded somewhere, right? And hey, Mother and Father have been nagging at me to get a real job and bring in some money. Maybe they can claim some compensation.’

He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the moment of his death.

But it sure took its time.

Still feeling the rushing wind, he opened his eyes slowly, only to realise that he was high in the sky once more.

‘… How cruel.’

He continued his free-fall, again closing his eyes as he neared the ground, but then, there he was in the air again.

‘…’

He fell and fell, and fell some more.

‘Well… This is unexpected.’

After ‘dying’ for the umpteenth time, he mustered the courage to keep his eyes open and see exactly what was happening.

‘As I thought.’

“IS THIS A FREAKING TRAP? THIS IS SO UNFAIR!”

The jade had mentioned that there would be various surprises that the participants could discover, but he never thought they would sneak a portal in the ground. And to have the exit be in the clouds was just cruel and unusual.

‘Wait…’ he suddenly had a terrifying thought. ‘Didn’t they say the environments would change? What if the portal isn’t there in the new one?’

He suddenly felt his frustration turn into fear. He had already been in this loop for at least half an hour. If the environment were to change before he could find a way out, he was afraid he would die for real.

“HEEEEEEELP! I’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T GET UP!”

Unfortunately for him, his fears came to fruition before he could get any help. Seeing the new environment he was falling into, he couldn’t help emptying his lungs.

“NOOOOOOOO!”

If earlier, he had made peace with dying, the constant teasing had taken that peace and thrown it on the ground. He wanted to live.

Just as he had given up all hope, he noticed that he could see the environment moving. He could see little white lights shining on its surface, and as he got closer, he realised what he was looking at.

“A Lake! Oh, sweet heavens above, it’s a lake!”

He closed his eyes, straightened his legs and wrapped himself in qi as he braced himself for impact.

Fortunately, landing in water wasn’t nearly as scary as landing on solid ground. Without too much trouble, he found himself safe and sound smothered by the cool embrace of a lake at night.

The only thing was… why was he feeling a pulling sensation?

‘You have got to be freaking-’

“KIDDING ME!”

***

‘Interesting.’

Tianlan watched as the boy madly swam upstream in a strange waterfall that stretched to the sky. He finally managed to free himself after slowing his descent and fighting against the whirlpool in the lake.

Tianlan turned to observe the elders. There was a young man who had approached Elder Cho with a clipboard in his hands.

***

“Elder Cho. We’ve discovered a bug in sectors 3 and 11.”

“What kind of bug?”

“It seems there’s a flaw in the transportation formations, which created an everfall loop.”

“Has anyone died?”

“No, sir.”

“Then leave that to the modders. They’ll make a patch at some point.”

“What do we do about the participants who encounter it? It will surely affect their performance.”

“Send them a canvas bag or something.”

“Sir, we’ve run out of canvas.”

“You make the call,” Elder Cho replied as he waved his hand dismissively. “What’s the status of the downloadable modules?”

“We only have a few low-effort works that the team used for practice, sir.”

“Put them on sale.” Elder Cho smiled as though he had thought of a brilliant idea. “And label them 50% off.”

“But sir...”

“Get to it, Rinnegan.”

“It… It’s Lin Qian, sir.”

***

‘Perhaps it’s safer to assume that none of this works...’

Tianlan continued observing the third trial from the tree branch. He found some interesting behaviour among some of the spirit beasts which led him to piece certain things together.

***

‘This is a piece of cake.’

Gu Jon walked cautiously through the forest, making sure to stay alert to potential sneak attacks. He had already amassed a decent number of points after killing a few low-level spirit beasts and was starting to get used to the random shifts in the environments. He had already been lucky enough to catch a stronger spirit beast out of its comfort zone and had thus earned an easy 60 points.

As he continued on his way, he spotted some grass dyed red and some dents in the ground.

He went in for a closer examination and determined that it was the blood spilt by a four-legged creature about the size of an average adult wolf. It seemed it had sustained injuries while fighting. Seeing as there were no other tracks, either it had won, or it had managed to get away during an environment shift. Either way, it was likely weakened and searching for a place to rest.

‘When a snipe and clam quarrel, the fisherman wins.’

Gu Jon smiled and erased his presence and jumped into the trees as he followed the trail of blood to his target.

The journey was smooth with nothing blocking his way, and when he got to the end of the trail, he saw a grey dog-like creature. Its snaggled teeth gave it away as what was known as a Mangy Mutt.

Gu Jon knew these creatures to average at the fifth layer of the internalisation realm, which just so happened to be his cultivation level.

Knowing that spirit beasts were usually stronger than their human counterparts, he made sure to assess its current condition carefully before making his move. When he was sure that he would have no problems beating the beast, he went in for the kill.

Unfortunately for him, the beast was able to hear his clothes flapping in the wind and thus avoided a lethal blow, but it still had its neck slashed by his sword, leaving a shallow wound.

The beast turned a hateful gaze at Gu Jon and slowly moved in an arc as it growled threateningly. It was trying to show that it wasn’t going to die without a fight.

Gu Jon just smiled and took his time, waiting for it to make its move. He knew that a cornered beast was at its most dangerous.

This standstill lasted for a while until the beast stepped on its injured leg and winced in pain. It decided to flee at that moment, and from then on, Gu Jon knew that it posed little to no threat.

He followed behind it leisurely as it struggled to escape. It was strangely addictive to watch the creature struggle in vain. It knew that today was its last and so did he.

The chase finally came to an end when they reached a white boundary.

The third trial was split into zones, and each was clearly separated by a white boundary which blocked the view into the next, making travel between zones something one had to do with caution. After all, one could very well dash headfirst into an ambush.

The beast retreated slowly, one step at a time until its backside was practically touching the boundary.

“The boundaries really make things difficult, don’t they?” Gu Jon snickered. “Well, the jig is up. I’ll take my 50 points now.”

At that moment, the environment changed to that of a jungle. Only slightly different than the forest it had previously been, but it seemed to be different enough to give the beast some confidence.

Its previous fearful look was replaced by confidence and even ridicule. It raised its injured paw and licked the blood off, revealing a leg without injury at all. All it had left was the shallow cut made by Gu Jon’s sword.

As it moved its neck and felt the pain, it directed a vicious glare at him.

Seeing this, Gu Jon had a sense of foreboding. He realised he had overlooked something.

Mangy Mutts never act alone.

***

Tianlan whistled internally.

‘A magnificently laid trap. And to think it would use the shift in environments to launch an ambush.’

Tianlan had seen the whole thing. That beast had snuck its tail behind the white boundary, and when the shift happened, its friends appeared right behind it. All it took was a wag of the tail to signal an all-out attack.

‘And this isn’t a one-off either.’

He saw the beasts inflict a shallow injury on a different beast than the one who had previously acted as the bait. The others, including the old bait, moved back across the boundary while the new bait moved into position, waiting for the next target.

They were clearly acting according to a practised method.

‘It seems things aren’t as random as one would assume.’