Chapter 176: The Mountain

The rocky floor had a slight upward slope, creating a small ramp up towards the center of the giant metallic ring. The Trial Master directed them to it, “Go on. Don’t hold your breath or close your eyes, that will just make it more disorienting and stressful. Hold your hands up.”

The Trial Master demonstrated, putting his hands up in front of his chest like he was demonstrating how to perform a pushup. Some of the geniuses gave him a look like he was an idiot. Song Lu Tian immediately jumped to the front of the line and did exactly as the Trial Master said, holding up his hands and hopping off the end of the ramp and into the center of the metallic ring. As he did the glowing energy rings pulsed with a bright light. Song Lu Tian seemed to hang in the air for a second before fading away. One of the other participants whistled, “An afterimage!”

At this point, the other geniuses were quick to follow, each of them leaping into the metallic ring and disappearing from sight. The majority of them didn’t follow the Trial Master’s instructions. Some of them closing their eyes and plugging their nose, but most of them just forgot to hold their hands out, not wanting to look like a fool.

For the participants there was a loud rushing sound, similar to what you might hear holding your ear up to a seashell, but much louder and at a much higher tempo. All around them they saw a kaleidoscope of vibrant color streaming past them like an infinite number of ribbons. They couldn’t move their bodies or even their eyes, seeming to be frozen in place for an indeterminate amount of time. Whether it was just a few seconds or a few years, they had no idea. Just as abruptly as their trip started it ended. The rushing sound and streaming lights disappeared. They were still unable to move and they dropped a few dozen feet straight down onto a hard surface.

It was at this point they realized why the Trial Master said to hold your arms out. The ones that did landed on their hands. While it was a bit rough, they were cultivators and had strong physiques. The ones that didn’t hold their hands out fell flat onto their faces. A few of them now had bloody noses, black eyes, or bruised lips. A second after they smashed onto the ground the paralysis of their bodies wore off and more than a few groans came from the ones who hadn’t followed instructions.

Kang Min, the tiny girl with a huge saber, was the one who had shut her eyes and held her nose. She had a bruise on her forehead from the fall, as well as being dizzy from closing her eyes. When this was combined with having held her breath she had to immediately lean over and start emptying her stomach. The others were glad they hadn’t disobeyed the instructions to the same intent as she had, happy not to be retching into a… bush?

Looking closer they realized that object was not a ‘bush’. They’d barely regained their senses so only now did they look out at the world around them. The ‘bush’ was actually a dark green metallic structure. It was shaped like a shower of dozens of lightning bolts had been frozen in place and turned upside down, poking up from out of the ground and created out of a reflective green material. As they looked around they saw even more of the strange bushes, ‘trees’ that looked similar except the metal was white and had a thick trunk coming from the ground before expanding higher in the air.

Expanding their view they looked out towards the horizon and the naming of this place suddenly became obvious. They were standing on a flat plain that was about a half mile in width, but it extended hundreds of miles into the distance. At the edges of this narrow plain they could only see a sea of stars. A few of them immediately rushed over to take a closer look and they found that it was a sharp edge. Looking down they also saw only the stars and the void of space. Directly beneath them they saw a metallic cliff face and various small tunnels or outcroppings.

The narrow plain seemed to come to an end just behind them, where they saw a metallic ring just like they had travelled through to get here. In the other direction, hundreds of miles away they saw a mass of dark grey. It shot upwards like a mountain, the shape of it hard to make out against the black backdrop of space. At least, it would have been if there wasn’t hundreds of thousands of lightning bolts raining down onto it. They couldn’t tell where they were coming from, but the lightning bolts rushed towards the mountain from all direction, flashing through space and slamming against the dark grey bulk. After a few moments of closer observation they could see that the mountain was covered in small straight poles, the poles were the true targets of the lightning bolts, each of the bolts hitting one of the poles or arcing between them before disappearing.

The ‘ground’ beneath them was actually various consistencies of ground up, powdered, or shattered pieces of metal just like everything else they’d seen here so far. The ten geniuses started to go off on their lonesome. Qin Bao suddenly got to work, recruiting the lucky pair along with Hong Chiang, the Red Spear; Fu Zedong, the assassin; and Kang Min. Hong Chiang only joined as he was concerned about the still queasy looking Kang Min. The rest of them went off on their own, starting to explore the area around them.

Song Lu Tian already had a map and at least one goal upon it, so he took off into a run immediately. He wasn’t interested in the area nearby the exit. He’d been to many secret domains and in most cases the area around the entrance was the most well explored, which also meant it had the least amount of treasure. The Double Flowered Ice Camellia were marked at being near the midway point of the bridge, so he planned to start his exploration there.

An hour later he had covered the couple hundred or so miles, smashing his way through the beasts that came out to slow him down. He went over to the right edge and looked down, carefully examining the outcroppings. Shaking his head, he continued onwards, checking the edge every few thousand feet until he finally saw the landmark he was looking for. The map listed it as a smooth metallic outcropping that slanted outwards, not a good place to choose to descend at. The map said that this was actually a hidden entrance. Underneath the outward sloping edge there was a tunnel entrance from below, one would have to lower down with a rope and climb upwards.

Song Lu Tian merely summoned his flying swords, which he had named, Twelve Eighths. Arranging them into a formation he stepped on top of them and flew down the side of the Thunder Mountain Bridge. From the side he could see that the ‘bridge’ was nearly a mile tall, meaning there was far more room inside it than there was atop it. It was quite apparent that most of the riches would probably found inside and not just laying around on top. He flew down underneath the metallic slope and found the entrance just as the map promised.

Floating inside, he kept his swords out, arranging them around himself defensively and staying on guard now that he was in a more confined space. Looking around he seemed to be in a forest of twisted metal pillars. It was quite dark and would have been a nightmare to a regular person. Song Lu Tian, on the other hand, was an expert at exploring these sorts of places. A mask appeared in his hands and he placed it over his face. The inside of it lighting up with array symbols. On the outside it was a featureless white plate, on the inside in front of his eyes, he could see the world in a brightly lit black and white. It also fit over his mouth and nose, blocking out harmful gases and providing clean air.

With his vision restored, he checked the map and continued on his trip, making his way through the metallic jungle. His fingers lighting up with Qi and executing the Demonic Beasts that came his way. Huge rats covered in fur that looked like steel wool, and badgers the size of a moped with paws shaped like metal clamps came at him in droves, but they didn’t even slow him down.

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