"Brother Bai, I have found that Lan Hui boy. He is with me now, we are close to the mountain range between the second and third ring. He is good now."

The message came from Bai Xuengen and had been sent right as Shin Sumi had escaped the ice prison where the Vein of Hell Fire was located.

Shin Sumi heaved a sigh of relief. Lan Hui was safe. It did not matter now what trouble had befallen him as long as he was sound and taken good care of.

Amused, Shin Sumi thought about how her intuition was right. She had instantly thought of Lan Hui when she found the Affairs Pavilion insignia even though it could have been someone else's, and she had been right.

She didn't know for certain but Bai Xuengen wouldn't have said "he is good now" if the red robed disciple had always been fine.

Shin Sumi was about to reply something along the lines of "I am on my way, thank you brother Bai, consider your debt fulfilled", and was already circulating a bit of her newfound Shinsoo from the Vein when another vibration interrupted her.

The second message also came from Bai Xuengen, which made Shin Sumi furrow her eyebrows. Another message so fast?

"Brother! They are still after him, I can't protect him here. We have to cross to the next ring and hopefully lose them in the mountain pass! My divine sense won't project from there. Shit, here they come!"

And just like that the message ended. Shin Sumi tried to answer, holding the jade so tight that her knuckles turned white but to no avail.

"Who are 'they' and what do 'they' want?! Beasts? Disciples? Bai Xuengen is yellow talented and has the sword from the golems, what is it that can make him flee in this tournament?"

A certain image flitted through her mind. She remembered the huge crocodile, and the blur faster than lightning that had severed its claw.

She had heard the cry of the thing and she remembered perfectly the strength that had crushed her in an instant.

It had been enough to make her lose consciousness, a power akin to to the weight of a thousand mountains compared to her puny cultivation level.

"No that can't be it. Bai Xuengen wouldn't last a single breath before that thing."

Shin Sumi sent her divine sense to the Gold Tyrant Flying Sword, sending it to her bag of holding with a thought. The sword was too visible and recognizable.

She had to find Bai Xuengen and Lan Hui and couldn't waste any time, but it didn't matter what was after them, she still had to exert caution.

"Little Copper Bell, it's time for me to become Bai Fulong once more" she said as she activated the bell's powers. Trying to intensely forget the images of her male body in the clear river water that one time, she wasn't too happy about using Yang type Shinsoo to hide her identity, but Bai Xuengen knew only her face as a red robed boy.

Once the Confusion Pill dissolved into her mouth, Shin Sumi was ready.

Arching her legs a little bit, the ground cracked in a circular pattern beneath her feet before she lept in the direction of the yellow pillar of light.

Her entire body had undergone refining from the very source of Shinsoo of the entire ice environment, and it showed.

Impressing even herself, Shin Sumi traveled more than thirty meters with each burst of power. The cold wasn't as bothering as before, and even the beautiful snowflakes dancing above her head could not sap away her energy like before.

If before she felt like she was on par with yellow robes, now Shin Sumi knew that she owned them!

***

Bai Xuengen turned away quickly as soon as the boy sitting on the rock a few meters away noticed his staring.

Lan Hui sighed while clutching his left wrist.

"I'm fine, Senior Brother Bai. Your pill is working. I just need to rest for a bit and we can continue."

Bai Xuengen held his fist tightly. They couldn't rest for too long, they had to keep moving, but the red robed boy wasn't in condition yet.

The light of divination flashed briefly in Bai Xuengen's eyes before he put away his magical compass.

"They are closing in on us again. Do you have another speed talisman?"

"I only have two left" answered Lan Hui straight away.

Bai Xuengen sighed once more. His forehead was wrinkled with concern. Tearing a piece of cloth with his teeth, he turned to face the young man.

"Wrap your hand in this. Put a spirit stone against the wound to keep your energy levels as close to maximum as possible."

"Mn" approved Lan Hui. He clenched his teeth to do what he was told. The contact between the spirit stone and his open flesh burned painfully for a second before the pain started being alleviated.

He took one last look at the place where his fingers had been before wrapping his hand in the cloth. That was only a makeshift bandage but it would be enough for a while.

"You know, Senior Brother Bai, you would have no problem escaping alone. I mean you wouldn't have to..."

"Stop spewing nonsense" Bai Xuengen cut him off before he could finish his thought. "Someone I owe a debt to trusted me with finding you and keeping you safe, and I intend to do just that."

He looked back towards the entrance to the tunnel and continued, "Before he gets here, you stay with me, I'm not leaving you behind, no matter what you say."

Lan Hui didn't know Bai Xuengen very well. Obviously, being one of the few individuals of the lower valley of the Dark Sky Starry Sect, he knew his name, but hadn't interracted much with him before.

The Affairs Pavilion boy was a good judge of character, being in charge of solving conflicts between disciples on a daily basis, but he knew his first impressions of the yellow young man were mistaken.

Instead of the aloof personality and proud nature to be expected from a talented individual, he had found Bai Xuengen to be rather... simple.

Bai Xuengen had showed him an incredible sense of duty and commitment that was unexpected for someone he didn't know.

Whereas he probably should have focused on his cultivation and progress, as it was the goal of the Rising Star Tournament, Bai Xuengen had instead stayed with him and protected him from the repeated assaults by his aggressors.

The two camarades resumed moving as soon as Lan Hui had finished tending to his wounds.

The boy kept thinking about the person Bai Xuengen was referring to when he said he was asked to protect him.

"Bai Fulong... I know nobody of that name. Whoever that is, it's obviously not their real name. Bai Xuengen should know that too."

The yellow robed young man did know. He had suspected from the start that 'Bai Fulong' had been a made up name that coincidentally matched his own.

He also was willing to bet that the face of the boy dressed in red yet displaying an unusual strength was not his real face.

He would uncover that mystery soon. He knew that his last message to Bai Fulong had been received, right as they had left the second ring a few days before. Now it was only a matter of time before he could find and meet them.

Hopefully the mysterious boy in red robes would offer them an explanation. And hopefully Chu Erlong and her group wouldn't catch them beforehand.

On his own, Bai Xuengen would have been fine. He could beat the orange robed Chu Erlong with his eyes closed, but with the crew she had gathered and the already injured Lan Hui, every fight could be the last for the latter.

***

Shin Sumi was at a loss.

"What is this place?" she asked in disbelief.

No voice answered. There was no one around to answer but that wasn't the reason for her confusion. Advancing as fast as she could, she had just finished crossing the mountain range separating the second ring from the third.

The air had suddenly gotten warmer and the snowflakes had disappeared silently. The icy landscape was behind her.

From what she had seen so far, Shin Sumi expected to find a third special terrain after the mountains. The third ring, location of the third Vein of Hell Fire that she needed to temper her Gold Tyrant Flying Sword with.

But instead, she was in front of a dead end.

Due to the circles becoming smaller and smaller, the mountain range between the ice ring and the next one was way smaller than the one before that. In fact not many entrances could be found to trace a path between the high stormy peaks.

Shin Sumi was sure to have taken one of them, but after a few hours of walking in between the rocky cliffs and the jagged stones leading the way, she found herself in front of a wall.

The wall was a dark grey color, much darker than the mountains itself and was incredibly flat.

Rising vertically, she couldn't even see where the wall ended and where the dark rumbling clouds started.

Had it been a normal exploration, Shin Sumi probably would have turned back and tried to find another path between the rings, but she didn't have that luxury.

"Lan Hui is with Bai Xuengen but his message sounded almost panicked. Something is after them, I can't delay much longer."

It was then that Shin Sumi saw the hole.

Right at the end of the path, behind a strange looking stone statue representing a tree, the dark wall separated slightly, leaving just enough room for maybe two or three persons to walk side to side.

The entrance was square shaped and looked completely ordinary, except for the few lines carved above it.

"Where the sky lays low and meets the ground, only a star can shine bright enough to light the way" Shin Sumi read without difficulty.

It was not written in the common language used by the people around the sect, but being the avid reader that she had been all her life, Shin Sumi recognized the words.

"The ancient southern tongue! This is from the Story of the People!"

Shin Sumi breathed heavily as flashbacks from her childhood formed in her eyes. The Story of the People, a legendary myth that had come from who knew when in ancient history.

She could recall her second uncle, the city librarian explaining to her "These texts come from an era way before our own, Little Sumi. Nowadays most of the culture from back then has been lost, but some few bits remain."

"We don't know their name or where they came from. The legend talks about an entire civilization that rose from the belly of the earth and ascended to the heavens."

Shin Sumi's second uncle had teased her a lot with this story, until he finally gave her a cipher scroll and an old looking book with a leather cover.

To her disappointment, Shin Sumi had only been able to translate a few pages of the entire book with the cipher. A lot of the text had remained a mystery.

The cipher had been found far away in southern lands and although crude, corresponded well to the strange symbols written on the pages of the leather covered book.

Shin Sumi remembered her delight reading the Story of the People, and that sentence was definitely part of it.

"Where the sky lays low and meets the ground, only a star can shine bright enough to light the way" she repeated in a soft voice.

What was the link between this pocket dimension owned by the Dark Sky Starry Sect and the People from the story? Her mind spun with excitement and confusion.

"How befitting... The Rising Star Tournament, when one ascends to the Liquid Realm and becomes a star for the sect."

Now she was starting to understand.

"Does that mean... Is the whole ring underground?!"

The entrance carved in the whole, the line from the Story of the People rising from the belly of the earth... Shin Sumi sensed that she was right.

"Well I'm about to find out anyway. I don't have much choice, do I?"

Shin Sumi had never felt claustrophobic when she was younger, instead preferring to stay inside most of the time. But recently she had spent an incredible amount of time far away from the light of the sun.

Or in this case the blood red light that flooded the entire sky devoid of sun.

From the sect itself that was always covered in heavy clouds to the Veins of Hell Fire deep under the surface, and now this?

Shin Sumi entered the square hole, allowing herself to be swallowed once more by the earth, feeling in her nose the scent of the wet and warm rock.

Unlike these other underground places she had visited, the atmosphere in there was lighter.

Shin Sumi didn't feel like she was pressed down to the ground by the weight of the earth above. Instead the feeling was more akin to moving inside a gigantic building.

Or maybe that feeling came from the fact that the walls were carved and the ground was covered by stone tiles.

"This isn't just another cave, is it?" Shin Sumi asked the relative darkness, "The entire ring is a big maze..."

As far as her divine sense could probe her surroundings, the only thing in sight was a complex entanglement of corridors, halls, tunnels, all with carved walls and tiled flooring.

In some places, the precious looking tiles had been dug up, likely by someone looking for hidden treasures. Some walls that had at some point in time been covered by tapestries were now bare.

Like the ruins of an old civilization, the underground city had definitely seen the passage of time.

Shin Sumi navigated for hours in the maze, unable to find indications of which way to go, which path to follow.

She tried to make sense of her orientation to find the general direction towards the next ring but she soon realized that it was impossible.

The ground was never perfectly level, always in a slight slope, and a large number of stairs with a seemingly random number of stairs made it so she couldn't even recall if she was on the same floor as the entrance.

In fact, now that she looked at it closely, not a single room or corridor was in a straight line.

For Shin Sumi who's orientation without the sky was not that great, this maze was a nightmare.

"Maybe it works the same way as the entry test to the sect?" she had tried without conviction. But the little grey nut was unable to help her this time. Not even the natural flow of Shinsoo in this place could help navigating it.

Shin Sumi tried contacting the people she was looking for through divine sense messages but she didn't get any response.

"I have to leave it all to luck? No that doesn't make sense. Luck is important for a cultivator but that hardly fits the criteria for a test or a tournament! How do the Elders and the higher-ups of the sect expect us to pass the trial with sheer luck?!"

"I am certain there is a special way of passing this ring besides pure luck. Maybe there are clues in the carvings on the walls? Is that linked with the Story of the People in some way?"

But the more she looked at it, the more Shin Sumi realized that the engraved rows of characters that sometimes spanned entire walls were complete gibberish to her.

Even with her knowledgeable background the writings were impossible to read. Besides, some of them had even been destroyed by the passing of time.

"It is strange, in some places it seems written in the ancient southern tongue, but here for example the characters are completely different!"

Shin Sumi sighed.

"... and completely unintelligible."

Depressed by her lack of findings, Shin Sumi continued her evolution through the corridors, trying to find clues in basically anything.

She arrived after a series of large and impressive halls to a plaza with a high ceiling. The place was awe-inspiring and Shin Sumi could almost see the might that it possessed whenever the civilization that lived here was at their best.

The room was almost circular and possessed dozens of platforms distributed evenly along the perimeter. From the entrance, Shin Sumi could barely see the platform at the end of the plaza, a few hundred meters from where she was.

On each platform, a large pedestal stood proudly in the middle, surrounded by a few smaller ones.

In one glance, it was easy to tell what had happened. Each platform had once housed a large statue that was now nowhere to be seen.

The carved lines on each pedestal had been furiously scratched by heavy weapons, rendering what was probably the names of the people whose statue was worshipped utterly ilegible.

Whoever desecrated the plaza of worship did a good job on the dozens of pedestals, but clearly couldn't be bothered about the smaller ones.

Rubble and broken up parts covered the smaller pedestals. Of the lower statues, some features could be distinguished amongst the ruins, all of them human looking.

Taking the entire room in sight, Shin Sumi discovered that the markings that she had previously found only on the walls, the ones in the ancient southern tongue, also covered part of the floor there.

The engravings formed intersecting lines between platforms here and there, drawing a complex pattern of hundreds of symbols.

In fact, from above, the entire place probably looked like...

"A magical formation! The worship that had been going on here weren't only to these individuals, but also for this complex pattern! But seeing how it looks now, broken up and forgotten... Who or what in the world had the power to break a formation this large and impressive?!"

Shin Sumi didn't have any answer to her questions. The fact that this strange underground city was in the middle of the training dimension of the Dark Sky Starry Sect made no sense. It was only a ring in the big floating continent, just like the ice environment and the jungle.

Has the civilization flourished in this exact space, or had their city been moved there? By whom and how did it end up owned by the sect? What was the link between the sect, this place, and the People from the legendary story?

Shin Sumi was pondering these thoughts all the while admiring the nearly perfect pattern of the spirit formation.

Every line, every platform fit in the perfect spot, with the center being the source of all symmetry.

"Except that fountain" Shin Sumi realized.

Close to the center of the room but not quite in the middle, a dried up fountain stood. As she got closer to it, Shin Sumi saw that she wasn't the first disciple to come here.

Large splashes of blood covered part of the stone fountain, which wouldn't have been unusual considering that this maze had once been a city that had fallen. Surely some fights took place, maybe even amongst the pillagers that dug up the floor tiles.

But what made Shin Sumi gasp was the fact that the blood hadn't dried yet. No, it was definitely fresh.