Starting as a stray dog, I embarked on a journey of cultivation.

"So, you still want to withdraw?"

The remnant soul posed a crucial question in a deep voice, while slowly raising its illusory palm. A powerful suction force was subtly gathering momentum, clearly indicating that it was preparing to extract Qingfeng Shangren's cultivation on the spot.

"No, no, no!" Master Qingfeng broke out in a cold sweat, frantically waving his hands, his expression extremely flustered: "I was just asking casually, I had no intention of giving up on passing the test."

"I see!" The remnant soul nodded slightly and calmly instructed, "Since no one has withdrawn, everyone, continue the trial."

As soon as he finished speaking, the remnant soul transformed into a beam of white light, piercing straight through the floor above and flying upwards.

A circular passage opened simultaneously in the stone ceiling above their heads, and the eight people had no choice but to leap into the passage one by one to ascend to the second level of the pagoda.

Upon reaching the second floor, the surrounding layout was exactly the same as the first floor, completely empty and devoid of any objects.

The illusory image of the remnant soul reappeared and announced, "The second level of the trial will now begin..."

"The Labyrinth of a Thousand Faces!"

Everyone looked around, their hearts filled with doubt.

This place is open and spacious, and you can see all directions at a glance. There is not a trace of a maze here.

The first floor at least had a stone table and jade plaque, but this floor had nothing at all.

Before anyone could ask a question, the remnant soul suddenly waved its sleeve, and thick black mist instantly swept across the entire area, obscuring everyone's vision.

As the black mist slowly dissipated, Gou An was shocked to find that his surroundings had completely changed. He found himself in a long, narrow, and dark passage, while the other seven people had long since disappeared.

Before Gou An could even grasp his situation, the voice of the remnant soul drifted down from the sky and clearly reached his ears.

"Gentlemen, please listen to the rules of the second level of the maze trial."

"This labyrinth has endless branching paths and contains a spirit-sealing array that imprisons everyone's cultivation. Flight, divine sense probing, and magical artifact tracking are all rendered ineffective, leaving no way to draw upon any power."

"The entire floor is a giant, intricate maze with crisscrossing roads and numerous branching paths, most of which are dead ends."

"The eight of you are now separated in different parts of the maze, and there is only one path that leads directly to the exit."

"The trial is limited to two hours, and a maximum of seven people are allowed to successfully complete it."

"Once the two-hour time limit is up, those who fail to escape the maze will be deemed to have failed the challenge, and the elimination penalty is self-evident."

"Furthermore, the jade tokens you hold are key to finding your way. At each fork in the road, there is a guiding stone statue. Place the jade token into the mouth of the statue, and it will show you the correct path."

"Rules explained, timer starts now!"

As soon as the remnant soul finished speaking, Gou An no longer hesitated and immediately stepped forward.

Upon reaching the first fork in the road, there was indeed a stone toad statue sitting in the center, its mouth wide open, as if waiting to be fed.

This is a pentagonal stone chamber, with each of the five walls connected by a passageway, and a toad statue in the very center of the chamber.

Gou An took out a jade tablet and threw it into the gaping maw of the toad statue.

The stone statue had a sudden inspiration, slowly raised one of its front paws, and turned to point at one of the five passages.

After the guidance was completed, the stone statue's arm drooped down, turned back to its original direction, and returned to its lifeless state, showing no further reaction.

Gou An was taken aback, not expecting that the stone statue's guidance would only be effective once.

He originally thought that activating the statue would keep pointing to the correct route.

If you get lost and return to this place later, you will no longer be able to get directional guidance.

Moreover, this means that the guidance provided by the stone statues activated by the other seven people cannot be used by the others.

Gou An originally intended to carve marks on the walls and the ground to mark the route.

However, after extending their claws to try, they discovered that the stone walls on the ground were incredibly hard, and no matter how they scratched, they couldn't leave a single mark. Ordinary marking methods were completely useless.

Gou An did not rashly step into the passage indicated by the stone statue, but stood still and carefully considered his next move and thought of a way to deal with the situation.

We absolutely cannot just go in like that, otherwise it would be a waste of a guidance opportunity.

However, this did not stump Gou An, after all, dogs have one major characteristic, or rather, a talent.

Those are punctuation marks!

It is rarely used under normal circumstances, but at this moment it is an excellent way to break the deadlock.

Gou An immediately took off his pants and urinated at the entrance of the correct passage.

In this way, if he were to accidentally get lost and return to this place, he could immediately identify the correct path to the exit simply by smell.

Gou An hurried along the path indicated by the stone statue, his nose twitching incessantly.

Using the dog demon's innate and keen sense of smell to discern the surrounding atmosphere, it chooses its direction.

At this moment, he only had five jade tokens left in his pocket, which was not enough to ask for directions at every fork in the road.

If they squander their resources recklessly, they will soon run out of supplies and be trapped in the maze.

Therefore, Gou An could only use the stone chamber marked by his own scent as the center and explore the side paths in all directions one by one.

At the same time, he silently sketched out and pieced together the general outline and pathways of the entire maze in his mind.

After groping around for almost half an hour, he circled the complicated side paths and finally returned to the stone chamber where he had initially left the scent mark.

Although this exploration did not find the main road leading to the exit, it eliminated a large number of dead ends and wrong turns, saving a lot of unnecessary work later.

Just as Gou An was about to follow the scent he had left behind and step back into the correct passage, his steps suddenly stopped.

A faint muttony smell entered his nostrils, and he instantly recognized it as the scent of the old mutton demon Qingmianzi.

It was clear that the old sheep had been here before and had deliberately left its scent.

Gou An immediately followed the source of the scent and quickly tracked it. The scent became stronger and stronger, and soon he saw the old sheep sitting cross-legged on the ground, deep in thought with his eyes closed, at a new fork in the road.

Sensing footsteps, the old sheep slowly opened his eyes, stood up and greeted him: "Fellow Daoist, you've finally found me."

Gou An stepped forward and asked, "Fellow Daoist, did you deliberately leave your scent here? Were you waiting for me?"

"Indeed." Old Sheep nodded gently: "Just now, when I passed through this area, I smelled the lingering scent of dog urine, and immediately guessed that you were nearby."

"But the maze has many branching paths, and I couldn't find you no matter how hard I searched. So I left my scent behind and waited for you to find me by following the scent."

Gou An instantly understood the other party's intentions and asked directly, "Fellow Daoist sought me out; could it be that you wish to cooperate with me?"

"That's right." Old Sheep nodded solemnly: "I'm sure you've explored this Thousand Crossroads Maze on your own for quite some time and are well aware of how vast and complex it is."

"Although we have jade tablets that we can use to ask for directions from the stone statues, there are countless forks in the road, and the number of jade tablets is really scarce."

"The more jade tokens you have, the more confident you will be in escaping the maze safely."

As soon as he finished speaking, Old Yang reached into his robes and pulled out six smooth jade tokens, which lay quietly in his palm. He frankly showed them to Gou An: "I haven't used any of these six jade tokens yet."

Having already explored the area alone, Gou An knew the difficulties of going it alone and had no reason to refuse.

He took out the five jade tokens he had left from his pocket and handed them over: "I only have five left now."

"That's enough." Old Sheep's eyes lit up with joy, and he nodded slightly. "If we calculate it this way, the two of us together will have eleven jade tokens."

"Searching together is much more efficient than searching alone!"