Krune was sitting on a corner of the cave recovering his Tribulation Lightning, and just like before, it was absorbing all the lightning energy that he sent in and after filtering. But this time, Krune noticed one thing.
'The amount of tribulation lightning that it has after I used the Heavens Fall is bigger than before I started feeding it for the first time. It's still early to say, but maybe the rainbow core is keeping extra lightning every time. If that is the case, what is it accumulating Tribulation Lightning for?'
Unfortunately, Krune had no answer to that question. Still, since that is his own future core, it's not going to harm him, right? But then again, that's the power of the Tribulation Lightning, the same power that tried to obliterate him! In the end, Krune just sighed and decided to put those thoughts behind to focus on another idea.
'I was able to temper my soul through the power of the tribulation lightning during the Heavenly Tribulation. Since I can take some of the Tribulation Lightning out, I should be able to use it to temper it again.'
After recovering the Tribulation Lightning power, Krune used his Spiritual Energy meridian to take some of the lightning power to strike his soul. As expected, the pain was enormous. Still, by the end of it, Krune was feeling ecstatic!
'It works! My soul can really be tempered with the power of the Tribulation Lightning! With that, my Divine Sense will get even stronger. Of course, I can't use too much of it every time. I have to give my soul enough time to recover, or I might permanently damage it. Steadiness the key.'
Krune then kept using the power of tribulation lightning to temper his soul until he felt that he was approaching his limits. If others were to know that Krune was attacking his own soul with tribulation lightning, they would all think that he is a lunatic!
---
It had been three days since everyone came back to the gate's cave. They didn't immediately enter after Krune recovered, though. First, Krune's group waited some time to see if someone would appear. Krune's Heavens Fall was too catchy after all, and they might have been followed without noticing. Fortunately, no one appeared, so they decided that it was time to enter.
Krune came forward and then said
"I will enter first. Wait ten minutes before entering too, if this gate has some trap that only detects cultivators inside, then it should activate after I pass through. In that case, I will try to send a signal back through the gate before any of you come as well."
Everyone nodded and got prepared.
Krune didn't say anything else and passed through. The world around him warped and got black for a second. When the light returned, he was already on the other side. Krune then immediately spread his Divine Sense and checked around, waiting to see if someone or something would attack him. However, after waiting for an entire minute, everything was still silent, and no movement could be felt. The gate behind him was still opened and didn't seem like it was going to close anytime soon. Krune let out a sigh of relief and then waited for the ten minutes to be up.
Ten minutes later, Yusa and the others appeared inside. Krune was still there looking around carefully to see if now that they were all inside, it would activate some countermeasure. But much to his relief, nothing happened even with the increase in numbers.
Shinja looked around and spoke.
"It seems like it really doesn't have anyone. So, should we go up?"
Krune and the others nodded.
"I expanded my Divine Sense to the limit, but this secret realm is just like the Fog Forest. Also, it hinders the power of my Divine Sense to a much greater extent. Outside I could penetrate all the way to the gate's cave, which was two kilometers underground. But here I can't spread my Divine Sense for even 400 meters. How is yours, Shinja?"
Shinja checked out and felt the same as Krune.
"You're right, I can spread my Divine Sense to a little bit more than 400 meters. It seems like we can only go out and see the outside world with our eyes."
Krune and the others agreed and immediately started to work. The soil in this place was several times harder than outside, and it took them three days to finally be able to see the end of it. When they finally stepped outside, they were amazed.
They looked around, and it seemed like they were in the middle of a city. However, it was utterly desert! Some of the buildings were even on the verge of falling down while others have already crumbled. It was evident that no one entered this place in hundreds, no, probably thousands of years!
They were expecting a nature-related realm, but definitely not a city. After checking around, they confirmed that not a single soul could be found around. Demon beasts? Forget it! They couldn't even find common animals like spiders, rats, or ants. It was a completely dead city.
"What do we do now? Let alone fortunes, I can't even find a piece of metal without being rusted by time."
Yusa was a little sad since this secret realm was totally different than what she expected. Krune looked around and then sighed.
"From what I know about secret realms, as long as we find in which direction there is more spiritual energy, we should find where the fortunes are. Also, secret realms are enormous, and this one is just like it. When I went up to a building and looked in the distance, I simply couldn't find the end of it."
Ao then commented.
"In that case, let's choose a direction and move out. If Spiritual Energy increases, we keep going. Otherwise, we go back. Just remember to mark this place in your communicator, that way we can find our way back here."
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The group nodded, and after marking the location, they moved out. The buildings around seemed to never change, though. They found quite some shops, and one of them was definitely for selling weapons. Still, after entering, the weapons that were left behind didn't have even a strand of spiritual energy on them. Ao took out a rusted sword from a weapons rack and examined it. After that, he let out a sigh and said.
"The weapons inside this shop don't have spiritual energy. But it is not because a lot of time passed and it ran out, it is just that they were made to be ordinary weapons to start with. It seems that this city wasn't made for cultivators."
Shinja agreed with that statement.
"I believe you are right. All the other houses and buildings we checked had no trace of being a place that cultivators would spend their time. None of the still intact tools that we found was something that cultivators would use either. They are all common and very old too, so I don't believe that cultivators even passed through this place often."
Krune then said.
"It's impossible for cultivators to not have been involved. Secret realms are things that only all might cultivators can make after all. As to why this expert moved a lot of common people to live in this city, I don't know. Maybe it was some experiment or something similar."
"In that case, let's keep moving. Have any of you notice any difference in the spirit energy in the air so far?"
Everyone shook their heads. Even after walking an entire hour, they didn't feel any difference what so ever. There is spiritual energy, that's true, but it looked like that this secret realm was built exclusively for common people to live in.
Krune then asked the others something.
"For those experts, is it possible to move the secret realms with them when they want to leave?"
Everyone shook their heads. They had no idea, this information was far from what low-level cultivators like them could have access to.
"What is your idea?"
Krune looked around and then said.
"I just feel like this is some kind of display, a place that that expert or maybe several experts built to watch the common people live."
Yusa and the others were taken aback.
"Why would he spend his time in something nonsensical like that? It doesn't make sense."
Krune shook his head. This was just a feeling, nothing more.
"In that case, let's keep moving. If what you said is correct, then there is bound to have a place where those experts stayed while they looked at everyone. If there is any fortune, it's there."
Krune's group moved out and walked for an entire day. Still, they found nothing different. The spiritual energy hasn't changed even a bit, either. It was reaching a point where their group was already starting to feel depressed.
Yusa felt the surrounding spiritual energy and said.
"So, it seems like we are going nowhere. This feeling of wandering without destiny is already making me feel numb."
Krune's eyes suddenly widened after hearing that.
"We screwed up!"
The rest looked at him with puzzled expressions.
"Can't you see it? It doesn't matter if there were cultivators inside this city before back then or not. There is no way that Spiritual Energy could not have changed even a bit after walking for so long. Let alone a secret realm that works because of Spiritual Energy. There is only one way for that to happen, and that is if we haven't left the same place at all!"
Ao and the others expressions finally changed.
"We are walking in circles!"
Yusa then asked.
"But how is that possible? If we really were walking in the same place, we should have been able to recognize some of the places that we passed before."
Shinja shook her head.
"This is only the case if the place we are trapped is a small one. But what if this formation that is trapping us inside is enormous? It simply happens that we haven't walked into a place that we recognize yet."
Krune nodded.
"In that case, we will need to find the core of this illusion formation and destroy it. Otherwise, there is no way we can ever move forward."
Ao didn't have too big of an expectative.
"We are talking about a supreme expert here, someone with a Cultivation Realm that you won't be able to find in the Makui planet. What are the chances of being able to find it with our strength? Even if we find, can we destroy it?"
They looked at each other and felt helpless. But it was then that Krune's eyes suddenly lit up! He looked at Yusa and Shinja and then asked.
"What if we just cut off the spiritual energy that is feeding the illusion formation? Would we be able to find it easier due to the lack of spiritual energy?"
Yusa and Shinja looked at each other and then nodded.
"It should be possible. If the main source of spiritual energy is barred, the core will try to gather spiritual energy from the surroundings. A formation of this size will definitely cause some ripples on the spiritual energy inside it since the spiritual energy will charge to the core. We should be able to pinpoint the location of the core with that."
They continued.
"But if we knew where it is, it would be better to use the spiritual energy from it to find the core of the formation first. It's better than wait for the energy outside to move to it. In fact, it should be much easier."
Krune nodded.
"That's even better, so we just need to find the source first."
Everyone looked at Krune, and it seemed like he had an idea.
"But how are you going to find the main source of spiritual energy that feeds the formation?"
Krune suddenly laughed out loud and said.
"Find it? Why should I? We all know very well where it is!"
Only then did the three of them understand the crux of the situation.
"Right! The gate to the outside world! Now I understand why there was no trap and why it was hidden deep underground. It was the source of the core! Not only that, since the gate is the source, the core is bound to be close!"
But then Yusa asked.
"But how are we going to find our way back? As far as I know, even our communicator's markers won't work inside of this formation. Even if we follow the place shown on the screen, we won't ever arrive there. Formations have evolved to cover such technological flaws a long time ago."
Krune heard that and laughed out loud once more.
"That's where you are wrong! Does this city look like a place where technology was developed before?"
"Ah!"
Everyone's eyes suddenly lit up!
"Correct! This is a formation from far too long ago, and obviously, before technology took its place in our universe. There is no way that the expert who created it would have counted for the fact that our technological devices exist. Chances are that he died even before technology itself was invented."
That being said, they immediately moved out. Krune's moved in the direction showed on their map screens and were even more surprised with this illusion formation. They were sure that they hadn't passed through some of those buildings before. They even felt like they were, in fact, walking in circles. Still, their communicators did not disappoint them. Ten hours later, they were back to the entrance of the cave.
They descended into the gate's cave, and sure enough, the gate was still open. To be more precise, it would always be open. The core of the formation can't do without it, after all.
It didn't take long for them to find the core of the formation after following the flow of spiritual energy coming from the gate.
Yusa looked at it and sighed.
"There is a barrier around the core. If we want to destroy it, we will need to stop the flow of spiritual energy first."
Shinja nodded.
"There is no other way. It's not something we can breakthrough with only our strength. Let's go back to the gate first."
Back at the gate, Ao asked.
"How are we going to stop the spiritual energy from passing through?"
While everyone was thinking about a way, Krune looked at the gate, and his eyes lit up.
"Should we destroy it?"
The others' hearts almost stopped! They then looked at Krune like they were looking at someone beyond salvation.
Krune noticed their eyes and felt a little embarrassed.
"Cough, cough. It was just a joke."
Ao and the others felt a chill behind their backs. They are absolutely sure, Krune was being 100% serious just now!