The Long Journey to Immortality

With so much water falling from the sky, the formation set up by the three women was easily destroyed.

When the three women realized what was happening and tried to rely on their personal defensive magic items to defend themselves, they were surprised to find that their spiritual energy was sluggish. The magic items lost their spiritual energy supply after only a short time of activation and fell silent.

"Poisoned?"

An idea flashed through the minds of the three of them.

Seeing that the magic weapon had just been activated and the light barrier blocking the three of them was already showing signs of collapsing under the pressure of the water, the three hurriedly tried to take out the high-grade antidote pills they had prepared for this secret realm from their storage bags to break the deadlock.

However, it was too late.

The three paid a heavy price for their negligence.

Han Lu's sonic attack was like a heavy hammer, striking their heads three times with a "bang bang bang".

The three unsuspecting individuals immediately fainted and lost consciousness.

The light curtain shattered, and heavy water crushed it.

The scene lasted for a full half minute before the large amount of water that Wen Er Ya had summoned dispersed, revealing the tragic scene to the three who had just successfully launched a sneak attack.

"How was it?" Han Lu descended from the sky on her flying sword.

She had just ascended to the sky to avoid the scattered "heavy water".

Upon landing immediately, Yi Qiyan, standing in the flowing water and eager to check the results, pointed at the three people lying sprawled in the water and said, "The effect is good, but I don't know who deserves the credit."

“It’s all on us,” Wen Erya laughed. “Let’s get started. This is our first time doing this, and we don’t know how to handle it.”

"Regardless of the severity, getting them back to their sect as soon as possible is the most important thing."

The three of them stopped dawdling.

Wen Erya was responsible for retrieving the Spirit Beads from the three of them.

Han Lu was responsible for giving a quick check of the three men's injuries to prevent them from becoming too serious and causing unnecessary bloodshed.

Yi Qiyan, on the other hand, was searching for tokens, preparing to activate them one by one and send the three "home".

The attack was swift and clean; it's likely that even after An Qing and the other two are rescued and awakened back at their sect, they won't know which fellow disciples were behind the sneak attack.

Yi Qiyan happily accepted the thirteen Spirit Beads collected by An Qing and the other two, and then activated the token.

With the appearance of the portal, the unconscious An Qing, An Yan, and Qin Tingyun were sucked in, becoming the second team eliminated by Han Lu's team.

Chapter 533 Unconvinced, Ambush

An Qing and the other two were teleported back to the inner treasury of the South Mountain Courtyard of the Zhengyi Sect. With the help of the Golden Core Elder, they regained consciousness in less than half a minute.

Han Lu and the other two knew their limits and did not cause them any major harm.

However, when they were crushed by the water, many bones in all three bodies were broken, and some even punctured their spleen and lungs, causing massive bleeding.

These injuries, which would be extremely serious for ordinary people, were only minor injuries for Foundation Establishment cultivators. With the help of the Golden Core elder, the three of them had already recovered by 90% by the time they regained consciousness.

In the coming days, the injured area will still occasionally hurt, and I will need to take medication and recuperate carefully for a period of time.

It's a bit troublesome and uncomfortable, but it won't endanger your life.

After regaining consciousness, An Yan had no idea what had happened.

The other two female cultivators, realizing they had been ambushed, were filled with remorse.

"How could there be such a despicable person who ambushed us? I should have taken turns recovering from our injuries." An Yan muttered to herself in frustration, her face crestfallen.

"Sigh, I got a little carried away after getting five Spirit Beads, and as a result, I became careless and made such a basic mistake." Qin Tingyun clenched her fist, full of indignation.

Being attacked, knocked down, and driven away—no cultivator at the top of the rankings would accept such an outcome.

Not to mention, they were knocked out of the secret realm in a daze, not even knowing who ambushed them, and had nowhere to seek revenge.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. The thirty-seven-year-old cultivator An Yan even shed two tears.

She had hoped to achieve a good ranking in this competition, but being eliminated early from the Secret Realm exam was a significant blow to her.

An Yan, who was also quite depressed, quickly comforted her sister when she saw her sister crying.

These few childish tears temporarily made the other two in the team forget the unpleasantness of being eliminated, and they racked their brains to find reasons to comfort each other.

"Including you, Nanshan Academy has probably had twenty teams eliminated. The situation in other academies is probably similar."

"If you work hard in the arena competition, you will have a chance to achieve a good result in this competition."

The Golden Core cultivator who had sobered up An Qing and the other two happened to be an acquaintance of them and spoke up at the right moment, which finally calmed the light rain on An Qing's face.

Regrouping, An Qing and her two companions turned their attention to the arena training program, which would begin only after all the secret realm tests were completed.

However, the thought of finding out the identity of the "attacker" still lingered in the minds of the three.

This wasn't because they wanted to retaliate against the attackers who followed the rules, but rather because they wanted to find another time to have a fair fight with the attackers, so that they could either "take revenge" or lose clearly and find peace of mind.

Wen Erya, Han Lu, and Yi Qiyan, who were still in the secret realm, were unaware of the story unfolding outside.

After successfully carrying out the ambush and obtaining the Spirit Beads from An Qing and the other two, the three did not stop there. They used their magic again to search for their next target.

After the spell was cast and while waiting for the result, Yi Qiyan jokingly complained, "These two fights weren't satisfying enough. Han Lu, Er Ya, no matter what happens later, let's have a fair fight with everyone, okay?"

Yi Qiyan was a warlike cultivator, and having prepared so many moves and routines for the competition, she naturally wanted to unleash them to the fullest and make her trip to the Central Plains more interesting.

After two "unjust" battles, Wen Er Ya's aversion to the matter had become increasingly weak, so naturally she wouldn't voice any objections or say anything discouraging at this time.

Han Lu said, "Okay, I'll listen to you this time. I also want to see if the routines I thought of and practiced during training are acrobatics or special skills."

Then, Han Lu brought up something else that she considered very important.

"By the way, if all three of us are injured later and need to find a safe place to recuperate..."

"Don't end up like those three from before."

"One person heals, two protect."

"That way, even if we're ambushed, we'll still have a chance to fight back."

Although Han Lu thought the chances of him suffering injuries from the fight that would require him to meditate and recuperate were slim, it was still better to offer a word of advice than to make a mistake in the heat of the moment.

Wen Erya and Yi Qiyan both nodded in agreement.

Clearly, the experience of those three cultivators had served as a wake-up call for the two, who feared they too might become the unfortunate victims of a sneak attack.

About fifteen minutes later, the spell, which had been cast again, returned with feedback.

Han Lu was interpreting the runes, but her expression wasn't good.

"It seems that Di Caijun's team originally only had eleven or twelve Spirit Rhinoceros Pearls on them."

"After handing over five, the number of Spirit Beads on my body was less than ten, making them undetectable by this spell."

"There are no other teams within a hundred miles that possess ten Spirit Rhinoceros Pearls."

Feeling lost and directionless, Han Lu realized that continuing down this path of victory would make it much more difficult to secure the next one.

Yi Qiyan's idea was as simple as ever: "Since we can't find other teams to fight over, let's keep wandering around and think of a way to take advantage of the monsters."

"Use the spell every now and then, and you'll always reap some rewards."

No matter how much, it's all meat. Although robbing monsters is not as efficient as directly using magic to find targets and steal them from other teams, it's still a good option.

Ultimately, it will increase the number of Spirit Beads on the three individuals, thus improving their ranking.

They set off again, but because they needed to search carefully, the three abandoned the Ark and, just as when they first entered the secret realm, each flew on their swords, maintaining a distance of forty or fifty meters.

After flying for about thirty or forty miles, the three of them would stop for a moment and use a spell.

The frequency was a bit too high. It can only be said that the three of them were ultimately just Foundation Establishment cultivators. After experiencing the benefits of accumulating resources so quickly by seizing Spirit Rhinoceros Pearls, it was inevitable that they would become greedy.

This was repeated for the seventh time, and when Han Lu was interpreting the runes again, she finally received good news.

"Wow, this time it's a big fish."

"It seems they possess over fifty Spirit Beads, just like us."

"Ninety-five li to the north."

Upon hearing this, Wen Erya reacted quickly.

"Perhaps they are also casting spells and have discovered us?"

Han Lu said, "It's possible. They might even be moving closer to us."

Yi Qiyan rubbed her hands together, eager to fight this formidable opponent.

Wen Erya had an idea. "Han Lu, what do you think? How about we set up an ambush for them?"

"Catch them off guard."

Yi Qiyan quickly said, "Erya, didn't we agree to fight the next team fairly and squarely?"

Compared to Yi Qiyan, an outsider from the Zhengyi Sect, Wen Erya and Han Lu were quite concerned about their performance in the competition and did not want to treat this formidable opponent, who had collected a full fifty Spirit Rhinoceros Pearls, carelessly.

Thinking about her friend's academic performance, Yi Qiyan stopped being willful and obediently accepted Wen Erya's plan to set a trap.

"Anyway, the other party is definitely not an ordinary person if they can collect fifty Spirit Rhinoceros Pearls."

"Even if they fall into a trap and we seize the initiative, they shouldn't be much weaker."

"If they fight, it will definitely be a lot of fun."

After discussing for a few more minutes, the three decided to use the spell again as soon as possible to confirm whether the other party had discovered them and whether the other party was heading straight for them.

Based on the feedback, we can then decide which arrangements to make, so as not to just wait idly while the other party doesn't come to us.

Chapter 534 Inviting the Enemy into the Trap

The three were delighted to receive the information obtained from deciphering the runes by casting spells once more.

“They’re only about forty miles away from us now,” Han Lu said, looking through the layers of leaves at the empty sky to the north. “It seems they really have discovered our presence and have come looking for us.”

"Judging from this flight speed, the other party should not have used or even have a high-level flying artifact."

"I suppose they are formidable, but they shouldn't be too difficult to deal with."

Based on the limited information, Han Lu made reasonable deductions and came to a conclusion that all three of them could agree on.

Wen Erya smiled and said, "That's great, Junior Sister, Yi Qiyan, let's quickly set up the formation and give them a surprise."