Immortality Cultivation: Fellow Daoists, please live for two more episodes!

As soon as the words were spoken, perhaps because he had been imprisoned for too long, he couldn't hear what the stone statue was about to say next.

The young handyman in the corner jumped up without looking at anyone and ran towards the passageway Shen Ye had come in through.

The stone man raised his arm, and a beam of gray light shot out from his palm, silently catching up with the young servant's back.

The moment the gray light touched the young handyman's back, he froze instantly, his skin turning grayish-white inch by inch, starting from the top of his head.

Three breaths later, a living person was turned into a stone statue, frozen in place in the running posture.

The remaining five people dared not move.

The stone figure spoke again: "Five people remain. The test continues."

"Those who pass through will be granted opportunities; those who defy will be turned to stone."

The scarred handyman was the first to come to his senses. He glanced at the stone statue and said, "Listen to it, don't do anything rash."

These words are said to others, but mostly to oneself as well.

The light on the stone figure's chest flashed twice, and the leftmost of the three doors in the stone hall slowly opened, revealing a passageway illuminated by fluorescent stones.

The stone man's last words were: "First path, enter through the left gate."

"When you reach the end, you must not stop."

After saying this, the light on his chest went out, and the entire stone figure became as if it were dead, without making a sound.

The five people looked at each other in bewilderment.

Who goes first?

The scarred servant was the first to stand up and walk towards the left door.

Shen Ye followed behind him. His thoughts were similar to Scarface's. The stone man's words were the rules. Those who followed them lived, and those who didn't turned into stone. There was no other way to go at the moment.

The tall handyman gritted his teeth and followed.

The short, stout handyman remained squatting in place, shook his head, and said to the three people's backs:

"I'm not going. It's a test, not a death sentence. I'll stay here."

The tall, thin man who had been silent all along didn't leave either, but he wasn't stationary.

He stared at the left door for a long time, then turned around and walked to the closed door on the right, reaching out to push it.

Three people entered through the left door, while two remained in the stone hall; their different choices naturally led to different outcomes.

The passage wasn't long; Shen Ye walked about a hundred steps before reaching the end, where another small stone chamber was located.

As soon as the three of them stepped inside, a stone door slammed shut behind them.

At the same time, through the stone door, two muffled sounds, one short and one long, came from the direction of the stone hall.

Then silence fell.

None of the three spoke, but they all knew what had happened. The other two had probably paid the price for their arrogance.

The scarred handyman's facial muscles twitched, and he immediately issued a warning: "If there are any more stone men later, listen to them. Do whatever they say."

"You can do whatever you want, but don't drag others down with you."

As soon as he finished speaking, the wall on the right slowly slid open, revealing a side room.

The side room was small, with a row of stone platforms in the center, on which five items were placed:

A jade bottle, a short sword, a jade slip, a bronze shield, and a cloth bag—each item had a line of explanatory text engraved on the stone table beside it.

The scarred servant was the first to go in, picked up the jade bottle, looked down at the inscription on the side, and read it aloud: "Spirit Gathering Pill, taking it can open up the meridians and draw spiritual energy into the body."

His hands began to tremble violently.

The tall handyman also came over, picked up the jade slip, and saw the words "Qi-Guiding Technique, Introductory Exercise" engraved next to it.

He clutched the jade slip to his chest, his voice trembling: "This is a cultivation technique... a real cultivation technique... with this I can start cultivating..."

The scarred handyman's hand was already gripping the bottle cap: "Take it first, who cares about any test?"

When faced with self-interest, those words seem like utter nonsense.

Shen Ye also entered the side room. But he was two steps behind the other two. When he entered, he first looked up and saw a line of words engraved above the door of the side room.

"Those who pass through may take one item with them."

Those who passed...

The test had just begun. The stone man said, "The test has begun." The first instruction was, "Enter the left door, walk to the end, and do not stop." Those were the instructions, and they did as they were told.

But the stone man never said "you can take things" from beginning to end.

The short, stout servant who didn't enter the door died, and the tall, thin man who pushed open the right door also died.

Every word spoken by the stone man is a rule; if it doesn't say you can take it, then you can't take it.

Shen Ye opened his mouth, wanting to give a warning to his two remaining teammates.

But the scarred servant had already opened the bottle cap.

The ground beneath my feet suddenly trembled.

The stone figure's voice came from the walls on all sides: "To take something without permission is to commit a crime."

The jade bottle in the scarred servant's hand shattered, its fragments turning into grayish-white powder, and his entire hand turned to stone.

He roared and tried to smash his petrified arm with his other hand, but to no avail. Three breaths later, he turned into a stone statue.

The tall handyman froze almost instantly, frozen in place with his head down looking at the jade slip, the jade slip and his hands becoming one.

Shen Ye stood alone between the two stone statues, holding nothing in his hands.

"One person passed."

The wall opposite the side room slowly slid open, revealing a new passageway.

Shen Ye glanced back before stepping into the new passage.

The stone statue of the scarred servant remains in the posture of smashing his own arm, while the stone statue of the tall servant has his head down, the jade slip and his hands blending together, making it impossible to distinguish which is stone and which is jade.

The scarred servant was the first person in the stone hall to speak to him, and also the first person to enter through the left door and make the correct judgment.

His summarized rules were completely correct, but when he saw the Spirit Gathering Pill, he himself failed to follow them.

Shen Ye thought about why he hadn't taken it.

He entered the side room two steps later than them, and what he saw first was the writing above the door, not the pills on the stone platform.

If he had seen the elixir first, he wasn't sure what he would have done.

The passage was short, ending in a small space. Water seeped from a stone trough in the corner, and a word was carved on the ground: "Rest".

Shen Ye squatted down, drank a few sips of water, and sat against the stone wall for a while.

After resting for an unknown amount of time, the opposite wall slid open, revealing a new path.

As the amount of fluorite decreases, the temperature drops.

After walking about twenty steps, the view suddenly opened up before us.

It was no longer a stone chamber, but a boundless space, surrounded by a hazy mist. Underfoot was a two-foot-wide stone path that stretched into the mist, with no end in sight.

There was nothing but emptiness on both sides; you couldn't see the bottom down or the edge in the distance.

A line of words is carved on the ground at the entrance of the stone path: "Go to the end, do not stop."

Shen Ye took the first step.

The stone path felt very stable underfoot.

Ten steps, twenty steps, fifty steps, looking back, the path I came from had disappeared into the fog, and ahead was still thick fog.

The stone path remained unchanged, two feet wide, grayish-white, stretching forward without turning or branching.

He didn't know how far he had gone, nor how far he was from the end.

But he knew that what he needed was...

Keep your head down and keep walking.

But Shen Ye had no feelings, and he didn't know the name of this road.

If he knew, he would have realized that this road was actually a road without end...