The Law of Heaven

Chapter 22 Aihara: So boring
The technicians in the control room were dumbfounded. Even the instructors, including Li Yun, had never seen anything like it. They stared at the monitor with almost blank expressions, watching as thirteen military knives spun in the air, their cold light flashing.

Rather than an autopsy of a zombie, it was more like a meticulously planned murder, executed by a surgeon with unparalleled skill, calm, efficient, and fluid.

With one person performing the surgery and twelve others assisting, the risk of the zombies suddenly attacking and injuring people during the dissection process was not only avoided, but the efficiency was also greatly improved.

"What ability is this?"

Li Yun's expression was rather unpleasant.

"I don't know, it's obviously not included in the register."

The technical advisor shook his head and said, "There are countless ancient relics in this world, and the database only includes less than 30%. Moreover, ancient relics also carry the genetic information of their previous owners during the process of being passed down, which causes them to mutate and greatly increases the unknown. Many abilities that seem to have the same characteristics actually have completely different underlying principles, unless the user himself is honest about it."

He swallowed hard, not noticing that the cigarette in his hand was almost burned out until he burned his finger, which brought him back to his senses.

Then he started to feel a bit smug.

Because this is a slap in the face to Li Yun.

The hunter training process is fixed. Newcomers must challenge three stages within a specified time, with a total of four chances.

However, Li Yun's training is extremely difficult because he will arbitrarily increase the difficulty of the challenges in order to make things difficult for the newcomers and deliberately trap them during the training period.

For example, this first level.

Generally speaking, newcomers only need to deal with fifty zombies, which is not too difficult.

However, Li Yun placed more than a hundred corpses in the morgue and deliberately posed a threat at the beginning, wasting the newlyweds' time to pass the test. He was truly wicked.

Over the years, only one person has quickly passed Li Yun's training and thoroughly humiliated him.

That person's name is Jiang Youqing.

After being humiliated, Li Yun, determined to learn from his mistake, threatened that if anyone else passed his training so easily, he would eat shit upside down on the spot.

Many people don't understand why Li Yun did this, but if you put yourself in the shoes of these instructors, it's easy to understand.

Most instructors treat new recruits as their apprentices, sharing both good times and bad. The advantage of this is that both mentor and apprentice have the opportunity to climb the ranks, but the downside is that it requires a lot of effort and resources, and carries the risk of being betrayed.

But Li Yun doesn't want to climb up the ladder; he just wants to stay in his current position. So, his mentality is like that of a boss, treating newcomers like employees and suppressing them without any limits. Unless someone can beat him, if you want to get ahead under him, you can only rely on licking his boots, and it all depends on his mood.

The former is like venturing into the martial arts world, emphasizing loyalty and righteousness.

The latter refers to the current state of corruption in many companies.

"Boss, should we go and stop them?"

The adjutant whispered from the side.

"Not for now, it's only the first hurdle."

Li Yun said coldly, "I want to see what tricks these newcomers can come up with."

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The metal door to the morgue opened, revealing a long, narrow passageway behind it. Soft mechanical sounds echoed in the empty space, congratulating the newlyweds on passing the test.

Aihara was panting heavily, his head covered in sweat.

Thirteen military knives lay scattered on the ground.

The whole room reeked of the stench of a corpse.

For the first time, he experienced what it felt like to have his spiritual essence completely depleted. It was an unprecedented sense of emptiness; his soul became hollow, like a lost ghost.

John pulled him up, his words filled with amazement, and said from the bottom of his heart, "Young man, we really owe you a lot this time. You have an amazing ability."

Both Chu Xun and Jiang Quan realized that this young man was extraordinary. Even though they were all long-lived beings at the Creation level, the difference in their strength was enormous, which was obviously due to his superior abilities.

Now it's obvious who the top dog is.

How about the next level?

It's clear to everyone that Aihara's energy expenditure was quite high.

"It's okay, I'm here."

Suddenly, someone put their hand on Aihara's shoulder.

This is a woman with short chestnut hair, a dark makeup style that makes her look a bit cool, and she is dressed like a motorcycle enthusiast. She is one of the few women among the newcomers.

Aihara, who had already burned out, felt something was wrong. He suddenly felt a warm current flow into his body, which nourished his parched brain, relaxed his tense nerves, swept away his fatigue, and restored his vitality.

In particular, that feeling of emptiness in my soul also disappeared.

He felt fulfilled again.

"This is……"

Aihara was taken aback.

"My name is Lin Xiaoyan. My ability can help others recover from injuries or restore their spiritual essence. If it weren't for my special ability, I probably wouldn't be able to register as a hunter."

Lin Xiaoyan withdrew her hand: "It's up to you now."

Aihara grunted and got up from the ground.

The newlyweds put away their sabers and entered the metal tunnel together. As the mechanical voice announced the contents of the next level, they learned about it.

The second challenge is to find spirits. There are a total of eight thousand items in the room, but only one hundred of them are living spirits. The newlyweds must find them all and put them in the safe within two time limits, or they will fail.

"The first challenge is corpse removal, the second is spirit retrieval, and I don't know what the third challenge is. Although Li Yun doesn't want us to pass, I have to say that these training challenges are indeed useful, provided they don't sabotage us."

Chu Xun pushed open the door: "Get ready, I'll open the door."

“My great-grandfather collected some spirits, and if you haven’t seen one before, you must remember this. The most obvious characteristic of a spirit is that it has a face, which can startle you unexpectedly. The higher the level of the spirit, the more it resembles a living creature.”

Jiang Quan cautioned, "Deep Blue Alliance wouldn't use their high-level living beings for our training; any mishap would be a huge loss. Therefore, the living beings we see are probably useless junk. They're not easy to identify, but you can tell if you look closely."

Aihara understood: "Something like Master Zhou's thermos? If any of you still have any useful abilities, then use them quickly, don't keep them to yourselves."

He was already quite familiar with the living spirits.

Whether it's Mr. Zhai's card or Master Zhou's thermos, he shouldn't mistake them if he sees them again.

As the metal door opened, everyone fell silent.

"Oh, our instructor is a real bastard."

John couldn't help but complain, "Aren't the lights on?"

"Hurry up."

Lin Xiaoyan turned on the flashlight function on her phone.

The lights illuminated the dimly lit storage room, where antique niches were embedded in all four walls. The bizarre and wonderful collections were dazzling, ranging from everyday kitchen utensils to toy models, antique coins, and firearms and knives.

The sheer variety is overwhelming, enough to make one despair.

"How the hell are we going to find this?"

Someone murmured.

Aihara laughed.

This hurdle may seem difficult, but for someone with Alaya consciousness, it's incredibly easy.

·
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Silence fell again in the control room, as the monitors showed the newcomers sifting through the vast collection with lightning speed, effortlessly and precisely identifying the "living beings" from the dazzling array of items, as if they were sweeping through a warehouse. One by one, the "living beings" were found and tossed into the safe.

Compared to the previous level, the newcomers made surprisingly fast progress this time, and were almost able to pass the level in just one hour.

Li Yun couldn't understand it.

These creatures are indeed of the lowest level of activity; basically, apart from having a strange face, they are not much different from ordinary items and have no value whatsoever.

But this is precisely what makes these living beings so difficult to distinguish.

How did these newcomers manage to do that?
Bang.

Li Yun slammed his fist on the table, gritting his teeth as he said, "Cheating! This must be cheating! No, this is frying fish!"

"Can anyone tell me where this kid came from? Did someone deliberately send him here just to embarrass me?"

He was furious: "What exactly happened?"

The adjutant hurriedly pulled out his phone to investigate, and what he found shocked him: "Boss, this kid is really something else! He's Xiang Chaonan's nephew! Xiang Chaonan, do you remember him? The Xiang Chaonan who used to hang out at the antique market on Zhongfu Street, the swindler who slept with the second young lady of the Fu family twelve years ago!"

Li Yun nearly fainted from anger, and immediately raised her voice: "What? Xiang Chaonan's nephew? What the hell is this guy if not here to fry fish? That conman's nephew, he must have been raised by a lecher since he was a baby, how could this be difficult for him? Why didn't the guard check his background when he passed the test?"

The adjutant said, looking aggrieved, "Didn't you say that these newcomers can't cause any trouble? Let's see what tricks they can pull first."

In most people's eyes, Xiang Chaonan was just a low-class street hustler. He might have some ability, but he wasn't very strong.

I know a little about fortune telling, but not much.

I enjoy collecting things, but most of what I buy are fakes.

If we were to say what advantages Xiang Chaonan has, we could only say that he is a smooth operator. Having navigated the complexities of society for decades, he is very adept at understanding human relationships. Many important figures are his friends, and he was able to sleep with the daughters of five prominent families without any consequences.

But thinking about it carefully, the fact that Xiang Chaonan was able to live peacefully in this city for so many years without joining the Deep Blue Alliance proves that he must have a special skill, which is just unknown to most people.

"Oh, you didn't know?"

The technical advisor, sipping tea and watching the show, said, "Captain Jian only recruited that kid because of Xiang Chaonan. I forgot to remind you."

Li Yun's face turned ashen, and he sneered, "It's alright, there's still a third level. I refuse to believe it."

But when he said those words, he no longer had his previous confidence, and his face remained ashen.

The adjutants looked at each other in bewilderment.

The third level is the most difficult.

Because the third level simulates the environment on the opposite side.

That room was designed strictly according to the architectural style of the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, and it contained a large number of walking corpses and living spirits. But the real test was not these, but the remains of the Heavenly Principles that the immortal beings discovered while exploring the other side!
In fact, the principles of Heaven do not have a concrete form. Their essence is more like a chaotic concept, tending to be a soul that cannot be accurately observed, only showing different appearances under different conditions.

However, it is certain that when they are active in the other world or in the present world, they will also condense into physical bodies.

Whether it is voluntarily abandoned or killed, the body formed by the principles of nature will not disappear into thin air, but will leave behind a corpse like all living things.

Even after losing its vitality, the remains of Tianli still possess a strong spiritual corrosiveness, causing an instinctive fear from the depths of the soul to those who are immortal.

That's a fear ingrained in our genes.

The more gifted a long-lived species is, the stronger its resistance to this fear and the less likely it is to be corrupted.

High-ranking long-lived species are also immune to this.

It is said that the most powerful beings among the legendary immortal species can resist the spiritual erosion when facing the true form of Heavenly Principle, and do not feel any fear whatsoever.

The rules for the third level are simple, like an escape room.

The newlyweds are considered to have passed the test if they stay in the room for two hours.

But Li Yun didn't think any of the newcomers could resist the erosion of the remnants of Heavenly Principle; this was common sense to him.

Before awakening, most immortal beings have seen these legendary mythical creatures in online videos or movies, and have some understanding of gods, but it is still not as shocking as witnessing the remains of gods with their own eyes.

Even if these gods did not hold high positions in their lifetimes.

But a skinny camel is bigger than a horse.

Even the weakest of the principles of Heaven is still the principles of Heaven.

The facts proved his point.

The surveillance footage showed that after completing the second challenge, the newlyweds were in high spirits and excitedly went to the third challenge, pushing open the heavy metal door.

The moment the door was pushed open, everyone froze on the spot, their pupils contracting sharply.

He looked like a fool, his face blank and his eyes filled with fear.

"That's more like it... Hmm? Wait a minute!"

·
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The third room is an ancient temple, with faint candlelight flickering in the corner, casting shadows that resemble gods and demons on the walls, creating a solemn yet eerie atmosphere.

"What is this?"

The newlyweds' throats bobbed, and each of them shivered violently. Their pupils trembled, reflecting the stark white bones in the darkness.

It's hard to imagine what ancient and majestic creature could have left such enormous remains. Even prehistoric dinosaurs didn't possess such majesty; they must only exist in myths and legends or in the Bible.

Some museums also have similar skeletal specimens.

But it's different, completely different.

It's a world of difference.

The ancient bell suppresses the remains of a giant, which has huge horns like bull horns, a face as ferocious as a lion or tiger, sharp fangs, and bones in its torso as jagged and dense as whale bones. It has eight arms and four legs.

The skeleton of a giant python is wrapped around the mottled Buddha statue, but its head is a strange human face with a long neck and four pairs of bony wings on its back.

Inside the hall was a giant millipede with eight heads and a body as large as an African elephant. Every bone was black, like charcoal.

It was like a chaotic dance of demons.

Such a deformed biological form possesses a strange beauty and majesty, making the newlyweds almost unable to breathe, their eyes blank.

If this ancient temple truly existed in history, then a horrific disaster must have occurred there, ending with the gods and demons embracing each other in death. For thousands of years, no one has disturbed the tranquility of this place, yet this peaceful scene is permeated with horror and eeriness.

The newlyweds' consciousness gradually faded.

It felt like falling into an abyss.

Endless nightmares consumed them.

"What are all these?"

Aihara was also startled, but he wasn't too scared to move. Instead, he wandered around the hall like he was visiting a museum, looking left and right.

The room was indeed eerie. The dim candlelight illuminated the ancient human remains, and the stark white bones scattered everywhere gave him a chill down his spine. The eerie atmosphere created a strong psychological pressure.

"These things are so terrifying, how did they die?"

Aihara felt his eyes were a little tired, so he took out some eye drops from his pocket, put them in, and muttered, "The third level is going to scare us with corpses? This isn't even as scary as the escape room that Xiaosi took me to last time. This is so boring."

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(End of this chapter)