Everyone managed to pa.s.s the first stage. Immediately after that, they ventured forward into the second stage. Chen Feng was the last to enter.

Like water ripples, s.p.a.ce enveloped Chen Feng, who found himself entering an illusion. Various bizarre scenes appeared before him. Sometimes, ma.s.sive, ferocious beasts would roar as they pounced on him. Sometimes, his surroundings would transform into a sea of flames to burn him without respite. Moreover, tens of thousands of blades of light would also shoot over from his surroundings, desirous of obliterating Chen Feng, both in body and soul.

I do not know what the first stage is about, but this stage is an illusion technique aimed at one's mind, meant to stir out inner demons. However, it is not strong enough. It is only at the mid-level True Immortal stage. If it is also at this level for the others, it would not be too hard. Looks like I cannot waste any more time. Fire burned within Chen Feng's eyes and the illusion became like paper in the face of fire, completely burned away. Everything returned to its original form. 

A piece of jade stone fell down upon Chen Feng. Surprisingly, it contained another minor immortal technique. Shaking his head, Chen Feng then walked into the gate that had just appeared. Following the pathway behind the gate, Chen Feng then entered the third palace hall.

As he was making his way forward, Chen Feng also noticed the s.p.a.ce outside the palace. The two sides of the pathway were protected by a formidable power. In other words, after entering the palace, one would have to pa.s.s through all the stages. Short of that, they can forget about leaving this place. Those were restrictive arrays set up by a Gold Immortal.

Chen Feng, though, quickly grew bored of this game. From what Chen Feng could see, besides some specific patterns, there was nothing else special about this. With enough power, all the obstructions before him would become nothing more but illusions.

That was especially so considering the fact that the obstructions Chen Feng encountered were set up to correspond to Chen Feng's cultivation level. They were not difficult at all.

After stepping out from the third palace hall, Chen Feng was teleported to a place with various arenas. There, Qing Shan and some others were fighting against combat puppets.

Bang!

Qing Shan blasted a combat puppet with three heads and six arms out of the arena. Next, however, light flashed and Qing Shan was teleported to another arena. Even before he could stabilize his footing, the combat puppets in the arena had already attacked him. 

Observing, Chen Feng saw that there were nine arenas, low to high. After beating the first arena, the cultivator there would be immediately teleported to the second arena. There was no time to rest at all in between. By the time Chen Feng arrived, someone had already made their way to the sixth arena.

Quite fast. Still, this stage is clearly more difficult. Chen Feng was teleported to the first arena and a combat puppet, looking no different from a human cultivator, brandished a great sword and slashed down on Chen Feng with it. The force behind the sword was ferocious, containing the power of devastation and the dao of carnage. 

Chen Feng's eyes flashed and he saw through his opponent's attacks, all of it, even the circuit used to channel its power. With a step, Chen Feng's counter attack arrived first to collide against the incoming attack to send the combat puppet flying.

Once again, it is at the mid-level True Immortal stage. Chen Feng shook his head, feeling somewhat frustrated.

After but one breath's worth of time, Chen Feng was sent into the second arena. This time, Chen Feng had to face two opponents. Even so, he was able to instantly defeat them both.

In the third arena were five combat puppets, also at the mid-level True Immortal stage. The combat puppets here were slightly stronger than the one Chen Feng had encountered outside. Even so, Chen Feng was still able to instantly finish them off.

Thirty-six combat puppets surrounded Chen Feng, unleas.h.i.+ng world-encompa.s.sing blade beams at him. However, sword light flashed out and each of the 36 combat puppets were cleaved into two at almost the same time.

Swiftly, Chen Feng made his way through the sixth arena. In the seventh arena, he finally encountered something different. Two combat puppets with three heads and six arms attacked Chen Feng, one from the front and one from the back. 

High-level True Immortals. Chen Feng's eyes flashed with light. Finally, the difficulty level had increased.

For the average cultivators, even entering the first arena might potentially kill them. But the cultivators here were monstrosities, capable of killing opponents on a higher level as if it were a common occurrence.

The first to pa.s.s all nine arenas was the variant wyrm. The second was Qing Shan. The third was Duan Shuiliu. Even the other cultivators were not that much slower. 

Reaching the ninth arena, Chen Feng had to face six combat puppets at the high-level True Immortal stage. Once again, he instantly defeated them all. 

The three cultivators behind him grew shocked at the speed at which Chen Feng defeated the combat puppets.

Again, Chen Feng obtained a minor immortal technique for pa.s.sing this stage. Chen Feng felt somewhat frustrated. And yet, there was nothing else he could do but to quickly enter the fourth palace hall.

“This stage is interesting.”

A total of 18 gates had appeared before Chen Feng. Every one of the gates was engraved with countless patterns. A careful observation revealed that there were various powers flowing across the surface of the gates. It was a way of employing spatial powers.

“One month, choose the correct gate. Failure, die.” The majestic voice rang out again.

One month, the time given has increased. This proves that the difficulty involved has increased as well.

Still, it is just the identification of the right path. It should not be too big of an issue. Chen Feng then utilized the Divine Eyes of Heavenly Insight. Gradually, Chen Feng's gaze was able to a.n.a.lyse the nature of the power on the gates.

Not this one. Retracting his gaze, Chen Feng then moved towards another gate.

In the face of the gates, Chen Feng's approach was to utilize his eye technique to investigate and trace its essence. The other cultivators also utilized their own methods for it. The variant wyrm, the strongest amongst them all, utilized brute force to break through the gates. Although it was slow, it was still fairly effective.  

Most, however, utilized their soul powers to identify the differences between the gates. One month. In certain ways, it could be considered long. Likewise, in certain ways, it could also be considered short.

Ten days later, Chen Feng successfully found the right gate and entered the fifth palace hall. And yet, despite having utilized the Divine Eyes of Heavenly Insight, Chen Feng was still not the first to pa.s.s the stage.

Looks like this will be a fierce compet.i.tion.

…

As Chen Feng was making his way through the stages there, Tun Ri and the others, who were in the Six Daos Sword Faction, finally lost it. Due to that, the Dark Kirin went to meet the higher-ups of the Six Daos Sword Faction and began to put pressure on them.

As a result, Dao Monarch h.e.l.l and the rest revealed the fact that Chen Feng had disappeared. When they found out about it, Tun Ri's group started a ruckus for real. If it weren't for the Dark Kirin, who stopped them, the entire Six Daos Sword Faction would likely had fallen into a state of turmoil.

In the face of Tun Ri's threat of summoning the Celestial Longevity Plane's army, the Dao Monarchs felt anxious and helpless.

At any rate, Chen Feng did indeed disappear inside the Six Daos Sword Faction. Additionally, Chen Feng had an extraordinary status. Should the Celestial Longevity Plane be alarmed about this, just the might of the Boundless Corps was enough to easily exterminate the Six Daos Sword Faction. 

Due to that, the most important issue here was to not allow Tun Ri and the others to spread this news. And while half-step Gold Immortals would have a very easy time dealing with them, but there was also the Dark Kirin. The Dark Kirin was very strong, also at the half-step Gold Immortal stage. The Dao Monarchs were not confident that they could quickly deal with the Dark Kirin.

“Chen Feng is just cultivating in a mysterious place. Nothing will happen. Fellows, don't worry about it. We can use our entire Six Daos Sword Faction to guarantee it.” Helpless, Dao Monarch h.e.l.l could only explain it to them again and again. As a highly-exalted half-step Gold Immortal, Dao Monarch h.e.l.l believed that he had dealt with the circ.u.mstances very well.

However, that was not enough to pacify the rage of Tun Ri's group. After some time, two more teams – consisting of twelve cultivators – from the Boundless Corps arrived to group up with Tun Ri. Although their number was not high, they were also Heavenly Immortals. Seeing that, the Dao Monarchs grew even more apprehensive.

Some disagreements had emerged within Tun Ri's group. Some advocated contacting the experts from the Boundless Corps while some were concerned that doing so would bring more danger to Chen Feng.

And while the Dark Kirin was the strongest there, his relations.h.i.+p with Chen Feng was only that of a friend. He could not interfere with their decision.

As they were finally on the brink of losing their patience, they finally received a secret vocal transmission from Tower. Thanks to that, they all calmed down. They stopped talking about getting reinforcements from the Celestial Longevity Plane and just calmly stayed in the Six Daos Sword Faction.

With that, the Dao Monarchs were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. However, they quickly grew concerned again. Chen Feng's disappearance was something beyond their control. The six Dao Monarchs, all half-step Gold Immortals, could not tell if danger would befall Chen Feng or not.

Moving back to Chen Feng, while he could not know what was happening there, he could speculate that something would happen should he remain missing for a long time.

Chen Feng had already made it to the 30th palace hall. After pa.s.sing through every 10 palace halls, a resting period would be given. At that very moment, Chen Feng was seated on a chair carved out from jade stone while inspecting a black piece of stone in his hand. 

In the beginning, it was not easy to observe the gap between the cultivators there. But with time, the gap between them began to show. As Chen Feng was resting in the 30th palace hall, several cultivators were already ahead of him. Naturally, more were behind him. Several were still behind the 20th palace hall. That said, no one had been eliminated so far.

This mysterious stone is quite good. Although I do not know its origins, its structural density is high and it is tough enough. It is also quite flexible. Most importantly, it contains a trace of Divine attribute and the aura of cosmic essence. The fist-size stone, una.s.suming in appearance, was the reward that Chen Feng had just obtained. For Chen Feng, he could use it to craft or refine a magic treasure in the future.

But just as Chen Feng was about to keep the black stone, a notion of desire spread out from his body all of a sudden and the black stone in his hand disappeared.

Chen Feng was taken aback. Next, he broke into a smile. He could sense that the fragment of the Great Wilderness Ding had devoured the black stone, completely breaking it up at an extremely rapid rate.

How did I forget? It had been so long since the Great Wilderness Ding broke apart. The power within the fragments must be terribly exhausted. I should try to replenish the power within it. That way, it can unleash a stronger power. A pity, most of my items are stored inside the Longevity Tower. That said, Chen Feng did still bring out some unique items stored in his insight acupoints.

Although the items in Chen Feng's collection appeared somewhat messy, items that Chen Feng would choose to store in his insight acupoints were all high-quality items. As expected, the fragment of the Great Wilderness Ding took a fancy to some ores, metals and rare spiritual objects and it absorbed them all.