The final product was almost twenty meters long, with a girth reaching half a centimeter, questionable toughness, and nearly nonexistent elasticity.

Calling it a thread or a rope would be a mistake; it bore more resemblance to a plastic pipe.

But Han Xuhan was satisfied. While the three laborers rested, he explained the plan to Tun Shi Tian and began the preparation.

After throwing a few stones, he determined a rough, incomplete map of the spatial cracks in the area right below the island.

"Try not to do that too much, disciple. The island holds our entire sect right now. Even the smallest damages done to it may add up to a result we can not afford to face."

Kong Ye's warning put an end to this part of the plan. Han Xuhan had no idea whether the warning had any deeper meaning behind it, or Kong Ye was just being extra cautious. He doubted he would get an answer even if he asked.

Right at that moment, a burst of celebratory cheers from nearby attracted their attention. All of them craned their necks past a rocky border and found the source of the sound, a team of disciples from another mountain peak.

These guys had already formulated a plan, it seemed. One of them was meditating, while the rest of the team rushed around, laying down a qi-gathering formation for her.

"What are you looking at?" said a guy suddenly, halting his work. He blocked the pretty, meditating girl from their sight, appearing displeased at the peeking.

Han Xuhan turned around and saw that Kong Ye had lost interest and walked away already. No wonder this disciple had the guts to be so mouthy!

"I'm looking at Ning Lan. You got a problem with that?" Mu Ran barked back ferociously.

Han Xuhan and Xiao Wu whipped their heads toward Mu Ran in surprise.

He knew the girl?

"Who the fuck is Ning Lan? That's my sister Shen Mi!" The young man on the other end shouted indignantly.

"Thanks, brother," Mu Ran replied with an evil chuckle. "Come Xuhan, our work here is done." He went back with a victorious smile on his face.

However, he completely missed the even more evil grin that took shape on that young man's face seeing him leave.

"Hmph! Do you think you're the only one who has read 'How To Make A Harem: A Perfect Guide To A Blissful Marital Life’? How foolish!" He said in a low voice to Mu Ran's disappearing back.

"And the rest of you, you better stop peeking! Have you no shame, no self-respect? Trying to steal our method?"

"Cocky bastard..." Xiao Wu muttered some incomprehensible words under his breath.

The three of them backed off. This tournament was beginning to arouse the competitive spirit inside everyone's hearts. Han Xuhan did not find the discovery comforting.

* * * * *

Yuen Zhou found it rather concerning how her martial brother Xuhan ALWAYS walked around with a plan, ready for almost any situation. This observation had strengthened her belief that his mediocrity was a carefully woven front to hide his real colors.

Han Xuhan could possibly be the most insidious adversary she had faced so far after her regression.

But try as she might, she could not recall anyone he could be linked to from her memories of that past life.

What could his motives be?

Was Mu Ran really the centerpiece of the events that would lead to the destruction of this planet?

After interacting with both of them for so long, Yuen Zhou was beginning to doubt it.

In her past life, Mu Ran had been well known for carrying this guilt, the evidence transparent enough to convict him.

Could it have been an elaborate ploy staged by Han Xuhan, or whatever power was behind him?

Regardless, she wasn't planning to leave this planet anytime soon. The world outside the neutral territory was nothing short of terrifying, especially for abnormalities like herself. This planet being blown into smithereens was not a future she would let happen...no matter what it took.

"Sister Zhou! Need some help here!" Han Xuhan shouted, bringing her out of the gloomy introspection.

Mu Ran and Xiao Wu were struggling to control the large, delicate chain of solid qi. The density of the chain was not consistent throughout its body and some parts were slowly melting away.

Qi is chaotic by nature. It follows few of the natural principles that other elements of nature uphold. Even the millennia-long legacy of the current world of cultivation had not yet managed to pinpoint some fundamental characteristics of qi, for instance, the melting point, the boiling point, the freezing temperature, maximum density, and so on.

Good thing was, she had predicted something like this might happen, and so had Kong Ye, by the looks of it.

Both of them timely rushed forward to help stabilize the weaker portions of the chain.

"Little Tian, see if you can carry that thing up and fly comfortably," Han Xuhan's voice came from one side.

Flapping its wings, his undead bird landed in front of her and grabbed the chain at one end with a claw.

Yuen Zhou noticed the improvement made to the armor protecting the claw. This too was solidified qi, except its properties were completely different from the chain they had produced in the last fifteen minutes.

The qi armor over Tun Shi Tian's claw was not just a physical object, but also a spiritually connected manifestation of a measured, tested cultivation technique. Its stability was beyond question.

Letting undead beings cultivate...was an area she very much wished to explore, especially now after seeing what Han Xuhan was doing with his minions.

Burning with curiosity, she watched the owl skeleton take flight with an unsteady dive, dragging the chain of qi with it.

"I can fly, but not comfortably. This thing is HEAVY!"

The owl's struggle was apparent to everyone's eyes. It flapped its wings rapidly, forcefully, to stay afloat. The powerful wind was not making things easier for it either.

"Yeah, that's enough. Remember the plan. Let's begin!"

Tun Shi Tian swooped downwards, following the trail of flight Han Xuhan had apparently instructed it to.

"On your right! Slow down and swing the chain!"

Tun Shi Tian rapidly spun in the air, nearly a hundred feet below the island. The momentum made the chain of qi lash out in an arc.

Nothing happened.

"Go about ten feet lower and repeat!" Han Xuhan shouted.

This time, the bottom part of the chain seemed to disappear for the fraction of a second during its descent.

"Found the crack!" Han Xuhan pumped his fists in the air.

"Now, the second step, slowly lower the chain at that exact spot."

All of them looked on with interest as the chain seemed to get shorter and shorter the lower Tun Shi Tian went.

"Come back up, at the same speed!"

The chain began to elongate. Like a magician pulling out long scarves from a tiny pocket, that spot in the air produced the portion of the chain it had devoured.

"Good! Now we can be certain that the spatial cracks do not directly transfer anything by mere touch. Things are allowed to exist both inside the crack and outside the crack at the same time."

Yuen Zhou's core strategy in dealing with the spatial cracks was utmost caution. Her knowledge of spatial concepts did not exceed the basics of what a cultivator was expected to know at the peak of the Dao Integration Realm. But she had never seen a phenomenon like this, where the law of gravity was clearly not functioning properly and so many cracks in space had opened up simultaneously, yet there was no distortion, no damage done to the environment, no effect on the elements surrounding the cracks.

Yuen Zhou herself had investigated one of them the moment she had gotten the chance, having even traveled past the void inside and visited the sect at the other side of the crack.

Her visit had been quick, as she had returned to the Crimson Snow Sect immediately after disabling the two disciples guarding the area she had landed on.

What had made her be wary of the cracks was not the enemy on the other sides, but the phenomenon during her transportation through them.

The tour had left her with a surprise from an unexpected source, the void itself, and she was not the only one. The set of sharp teeth she had found herself carrying after her return was an interesting piece of work.

The craftsmanship definitely belonged to a Rank-2 civilization. It had taken her an hour to figure out its purpose, which was to...be a set of dentures for low-level cultivators with irreparable oral injuries.

Harmless as it was, Yuen Zhou did not at all trust a place where everyone was being handed foreign treasures while their senses were shut off.

She had thought of a way to get rid of it pretty fast.

The opportunity would come within a day or two...

So far, she approved of the way Han Xuhan was experimenting on the cracks. With his minion's safety on the line, there was no need for him to take the risks. It saved her the trouble of taking up the mantle as the head of their team and exploring this suspicious 'source of treasures'.

"Let's move on to the third step. You know what to do!" Han Xuhan yelled after Tun Shi Tian had repeated the second step multiple times smoothly.

The owl hooted in acknowledgment and began to fly in circles with the chain of qi swinging below.

"First circle, FIVE SECONDS!" Both Xuhan and Tun Shi Tian chanted together. There was no way to measure the distance of its flight in the air. So they had adopted a measurement based on time!

"One!"

"Two!"

"Three!"

"Four!"

"Five!"

"First circle can fit inside the spatial crack!" Han Xuhan clapped loudly with a victorious laugh as the bottom of the chain stayed inside the crack throughout its circular course. The circle it created was slightly bigger than the one Tun Shi Tian was on.

"This is...easy, I gotta say," Mu Ran said, thumping him on the back with a surprised smile. Both Kong Ye and Xiao Wu on the other hand seemed to have expected something similar to happen.

"Second circle! Eight seconds!" Han Xuhan declared, and this time all four of them counted down the numbers together, having gotten the hang of his plan.