Inside the secret realm, at the bottom of a nameless valley, two figures stood amidst the ruins of broken dwellings.

"Is this the place?" Mu Chen said.

"Mhm," Zhou Mei nodded.

After half a day of travel, they arrived in front of a large metal gate. The plain-looking gate had weathered the test of time and nature, but it dutifully performed its task of guarding the entrance to the cave behind.

Mu Chen scrutinized the surface of the gate. There were two spherical images overlapping each other on the left half of the door. It looked like a crescent moon.

"It looks like the sun or maybe the moon…"

"Mhm," Zhou Mei said, "There should've been a sect here."

"This should be their trial grounds," Mu Chen nodded his head in understanding.

According to Zhou Mei, when they entered, the door was open. Whether it was by accident or on purpose, when Qin Huang triggered something inside, the door began to shut. Liu Fengying tried to stop it, but besides her, only Zhou Mei managed to escape in time. After the door closed, the formation activated. Fortunately, Su Rong managed to send a message informing them of their safety.

Mu Chen fell into thought.

Not only was the gate sturdy, but the formation was also difficult to deal with. If they carelessly destroyed the formation, it might affect the integrity of the cave and cause it to collapse. Su Rong and others might get buried inside.

Originally, he was planning to pierce the formation with his sword intent while Zhou Mei would send a message transmission. However, even if he pierced the barrier, it would only be for a short period. It wouldn't be possible to convey everything they wanted to in a short message transmission. Moreover, it had been several days since Su Rong and others were inside the cave. It was likely they were at a critical juncture. Disturbing them at this time might be detrimental to their success. It wasn't worth the risk.

Once he realized this, Mu Chen decisively gave up trying to pierce the barrier.

"Looks like we can only wait for them to come out," Mu Chen sighed. Sometimes, not doing anything was the best course of action.

They didn't know how much time the trial would take, Mu Chen and Zhou Mei decided to chat.

"You seemed to have made a lot of progress," Mu Chen said as he recalled Zhou Mei's recent performance.

Currently, Zhou Mei had already broken through to the Spirit Condensation realm.

"Sister Fengying and Sister Rong helped a lot," Zhou Mei said.

"You don't have to be so modest about it," Mu Chen said.

Replacing an old cultivation technique with a newer one wasn't an easy task. Every cultivation had stringent requirements when it came to major acupoints. However, there was no such restriction when it came to minor acupoints. One had to figure out the route of operation for minor acupoints on their own if they wanted to take full advantage of their higher number of acupoints. Not just this, one had to get familiar with the operation of cultivation technique to the point where it became instinctive, otherwise it would be useless in battle.

Mu Chen thought it would take Zhou Mei a few months to adapt to the new cultivation technique. Yet, Zhou Mei had exceeded his expectations. Not only had she completely replaced her old cultivation technique with the newer one, she had even learned a few martial techniques and magic arts from the jade slip.

Even if she had other people's guidance, Zhou Mei's talent and effort couldn't be ignored.

Mu Chen couldn't help but feel glad at Zhou Mei's growth.

The two of them were chatting when one of the wooden tokens hanging by Zhou Mei's waist burst into fire.

"Kreeee!"

A firebird jumped out from the flames and disappeared after a piercing screech.

Mu Chen was stunned. Meanwhile, Zhou Mei's face turned pale.

"Mei'er, what happened?"

"S-sister Fengying," Zhou Mei gasped. "She's in trouble."

"What?" Mu Chen jumped in shock. "W-what happened?" It had barely been several hours since they separated. He didn't expect Fengying to encounter trouble so soon.

Zhou Mei shook her head. "I-I don't know the exact situation. The distance is too far… "

Mu Chen groaned. "Where is she?"

"One hundred and fifty miles from here… "

"You stay here and wait for others…"

In just a breath, Mu Chen came up with an impromptu plan and explained it to Zhou Mei. He was in such a rush, he didn't even wait for Zhou Mei's reply.

"Damn! Just what happened?" Mu Chen clenched his fists as he boiled in anxiety.

If something happened to Fengying—Mu Chen didn't even want to think about it…

Mu Chen's speed was fast as he paid little attention to anything else. If it was any other time, he would've already run into a monster beast. But the string of recent earthquakes had scared all the monster beasts into either hiding or running away.

In just a couple of hours, Mu Chen covered a distance of more than a hundred miles. As he approached his destination, he slowed down and began to move cautiously. The long run had cooled his head to some extent.

The region he had arrived at was still within the forest but it was quite far away from the barbarians or the volcano.

Mu Chen continued to proceed forward.

"Halt!"

A figure jumped from one of the trees and blocked his path. The guy wore a vermilion red dress with an inscription of a beautiful bird similar to a peacock.

"Liu Clan has taken over this region. Irrelevant people, retreat," the guy said with an air of arrogance.

"Liu Clan?" Mu Chen was taken aback.

It was normal for a large team to take cordon off an area in a secret realm to secure resources or treasure. Once a group took control of a region, others wouldn't argue too much to avoid conflict.

There was nothing strange about this.

However, if the region was under Liu Clan's control, would Fengying resort to emergency contact?

Mu Chen looked at the guy in front of him with a frown. He was indeed wearing the Liu Clan's dress, complete with the clan member's token at the waist. However, Mu Chen didn't have much of an impression of him. Liu Clan had sent over a dozen members and he wasn't particularly acquainted with every one of them, but how could it be that he had no impression of this guy?

"If you are done loitering around, get lost!"

"Big tone!" Mu Chen snorted. "Do you know who I am? Even your Patriarch wouldn't dare talk to me like that."

"Hey, anyone can brag. Someone like you, Patriarch wouldn't even spare a second glance—"

In a blink of an eye, Mu Chen approached the guy and smacked him in the face. His slap was heavy, but also precise. Not only did it knock the guy onto the ground, but also a couple of his teeth—something Mu Chen had learned from An Zhi.

Mu Chen stomped on the guy's chest. He unsheathed his sword and pressed it against the guy's neck.

"You—" the guy groaned. "What are you doing? Do you want to go against the Liu Clan?"

"Liu Clan?" Mu Chen sneered. "Who are you trying to fool? Liu Clan's head is a woman, not a man. You don't even know this—some Liu Clan member you are."

The guy's face turned ashen on hearing Mu Chen's words.

"Who are you?" Mu Chen peered down the face of the guy. "And why are you pretending to be someone from the Liu Clan?"

"N-no, I'm not."

Mu Chen inched his sword, cutting it into the guy's neck and a bit of blood trickled down.

Feeling the pain followed by the cool sensation of blood, the guy panicked and blurted out. "I-if you kill me, t-the Prince won't let you go!"

"Prince?" Mu Chen raised his brow. "Which prince?"

"M-Ming Dynasty's prince," the guy gasped.

Ming Ren? Mu Chen frowned. It didn't make any sense.

"Are you lying?"

"N-no, I'm not lying. I was indeed ordered by the F-Fourth Prince."

Fourth Prince? Mu Chen was even more confused. He only knew that Ming Ren was the crown prince, he had never heard of there being other princes. But now he had heard about the Fourth Prince. Since there was a Fourth, didn't it mean there were more?

Mu Chen wanted to ask more but paused as he sensed the presence of several approaching figures.

"It looks like your friends are here," Mu Chen looked at the guy and sneered.

The guy's expression changed and he became ecstatic, but before could make another sound, Mu Chen knocked him out with the blunt side of his sword.

The trees around them rustled and a few more figures appeared. They all wore the robes of the Liu Clan. When they saw Mu Chen, they immediately surrounded him.

"Huh? Is the Liu Clan giving away robes for free?" Although Mu Chen was surrounded, he didn't panic and instead had the leisure to look at their appearances. None of these people struck him as familiar.

The leading guy ignored Mu Chen's snide remark. He glanced at their fallen member, then he looked at Mu Chen and said in a loud voice, "You assaulted a Liu Clan member without provocation…"

"Kill!" the leader roared and the cultivators surrounding Mu Chen moved into action. Each of them took out a talisman and palmed it toward Mu Chen.

The sky above Mu Chen was covered by a canopy of flashing colors. Invisible and oppressive pressure descended on him as if the sky was falling.

"Huh? A formation?" Mu Chen narrowed his eyes.

The advantage of using a formation was that even weaker cultivators could take on stronger ones. Of course, it wasn't easy to use and required a lot of practice to get it right.

Unexpectedly, these fake Liu Clan members were quite adept at formation. They were used to cooperating. When they attacked Mu Chen, they didn't underestimate him and immediately used their strongest tactic: a five elements killing array.

Yellow, silver, blue, green and red—each color corresponded to a specific element. Once the canopy fell on him, his body would be reduced to five elements.

"Hmph!" Mu Chen sneered. He hooked his toe under the body of the guy who was still curled up and tossed him into the air.

The five-colored canopy descended, but instead of Mu Chen, it wrapped around the guy.

"Aargh!" The guy woke up in shock and pain. He flailed his arms and legs, trying to break out of the canopy. "No! Stop! Let me go!"

Seeing this, the several fake Liu Clan members hesitated. The advantage of using formation was obvious, however, they weren't without their disadvantages. Once the formation started, it was difficult to stop it—forcefully stopping could instead cause a backlash.

"Don't stop!" the leader roared.

The guy screamed in pain, however, no one responded to his cries for help.

The next moment, the canopy squeezed.

Boom!

The five colors dispersed with a cloud of dust and smoke. There was no trace of a human remaining other than a bit of red fog that lingered in the air.

"Where is he?" The leader didn't care for their dead comrade and looked around for Mu Chen. However, taking the cover of dust and smoke, Mu Chen had already escaped their encirclement.

"Spread out," the leader snorted. "Request support from other units and do carpet search. If you find the target, don't engage—wait for others to arrive… " The leader rapidly issued instructions to his team.

One after another, the fake Liu Clan members left, leaving the leader behind. When everyone had left, the leader took out a sound transmission token.

"Sir, we may have a problem," the leader whispered into the token. After speaking for a while, he put the token away and turned to leave.

"It seems you know a lot," a whisper sounded behind him.

The leader was shocked and wanted to move, but darkness had already engulfed his vision.