The dark tunnel stretched forward on and on at an upward incline until Yu Xiang could no longer see the way ahead, the smooth walls and ceiling showing that the entire structure had been artificially constructed.

Yu Xiang extended his aura outward, feeling his feline companion doing the same a second after him, he tried to push past the dark walls but he was surprised when he found the stone pushing back against his spiritual senses.

No matter how hard he tried to push past it, he was easily rebuffed every time, as if the rock had a will of its own and an aura far stronger than his, even searching for a gap in the wall, both in the physical and metaphysical sense, led to nothing.

Its defense was airtight.

The young reincarnator frowned to himself as a thought popped into his mind. Was this some kind of large scale array that covered the whole mountain?

Once again Yu Xiang cursed whoever came up with the brilliant idea of barring outer disciples from participating in array creation classes. Unless this was exactly why? Would an array savvy cultivator have the know how to break this entire test open like an egg?

Yu Xiang pocked the tunnel’s walls with his aura once again.

He doubted it. Even without whatever formation kept the entire tower aura proof the sheer amount of energy coursing through the stones of this place would’ve made any long range sensing a crap shoot at best.

So why exactly was something so basic barred for them?

The green eyed youth furiously scratched at his head in frustration and confusion. Lin Fen patted his back in bemused support, by this time used to his friend working himself up into a frenzy over nothing.

Yu Xiang gave up on his latest train of thought. It didn’t matter anyway, not now. He should concentrate instead on reaching the top of the mountain, who knew what laid between the two of them and their goal? He could waste time on ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ once he was an inner disciple.

With his mind made up and his will steeled, the duo finally began their task in earnest.

Yu Xiang walked in the front while Lin Fen trailed behind him, a colorless flame with flecks of silver burning in it resting in the palm of his hand and providing light for the two cultivators.

They didn’t really need it at their stage of cultivation as their eyes were far better than those of a mortal, but it was still better not to be too over confident. Especially since this was a trial engineered to test them in every way a cultivator could be tested, so they couldn’t ignore the possibility of something blocking their mundane sight.

Their caution was soon rewarded as they made their way forward.

Lin Fen was the first to notice. The feline cultivator grabbed Yu’s arm. “Something’s wrong.” He said as he scanned the surroundings, slit eyes roving over the fire lit stone of the tunnel.

Yu Xiang joined his search, deploying his aura in all directions. The walls still rebuffed his spiritual sense but the rest of the tunnel was free game. Unfortunately, even with his quite powerful aura, he couldn’t find anything.

The green eyed cultivator didn’t doubt his friend for a second even as nothing pinged in his search, trusting Lin’s senses and instincts, the possibility that his companion might be wrong didn’t even pass through his brain.

The young alchemist pulled Yu closer by his should. “There,” he said while pointing towards a spot at least a dozen meters from the two of them. “Look at the shadows, the light isn’t illuminating that spot, and the darkness is too uniform.”

Yu Xiang noticed the spot his friend was talking about, directing most of his aura there. He frowned as despite knowing that something was amiss he still could not feeling anything out of the ordinary.

Deciding to go with his gut feeling he executed the third and last technique he had learned in his time as an outer disciple.

[Piercing Fulmination]

A dart of pure lightning chi as long as his open hand and as thick as a pencil formed between his index and middle finger. Whit a flick of his wrist Yu sent the projectile rocketing towards the pocket of dense shadows.

The bolt of crackling energy traversed the distance between him and his target in less than the blink of an eye, leaving behind a trail of yellow sparks.

Yu Xiang’s gut feeling was immediately rewarded as a high pitched screech suddenly filled the wide corridor. Yu’s technique had pierced right through whatever had been using the shadows as a cover to hide, breaking its technique and finally giving the two cultivators a glimpse of their hidden foe.

It was the size of a small dog, standing on four legs with dark fur covering most of its body, a pair of beady black eyes were situated upon a rat like face. From its spine sprouted a pair of bat wings, connected to the thing’s forelegs like that of a wyvern, a long worm like tail curled and uncurled itself in sporadic bursts as the big bastard twitched on the ground, the lightning technique having pretty much seized all of its muscles and blown a hole right through the thing’s abdomen.

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It looked like a mix between an overgrown groundhog and a bat, with the bald tail of a rat. Yu Xiang was glad it had died on the spot as he didn’t particularly feel like touching it.

“There’s more.” at his feline companion’s statement Yu raised his arms in a long practiced stance, readying himself for some real combat.

A couple of lightning darts came to life, crackling between the young reincarnator’s fingers.

Yu Xiang scanned the darkness, completely unsurprised as countless pairs of glowing eyes lit up in the darkness.

Yu’s aura brushed past the beasts as they revealed themselves. His senses now coming up with a fuzzy response to their presence, but as more and more of the overgrown rats revealed themselves his aura became more and more able to register their existence.

Some kind of natural stealth array? Or a technique that reinforces upon itself the more users there are maybe? Whatever the actual answer was didn’t really matter as either option still revealed the same crucial detail about this particular foe.

A swarm of weak beasts who were more reliant on wave tactics and overwhelming numbers than on their own strength.

Perfect.

The lightning constructs held between the reincarnator’s fingers slowly swelled, their forms becoming hazy and indistinct as their shape warped and bent. Arcs of energy danced between the unstable bolts, growing in intensity as the seconds passed.

Yu Xiang had seen countless young cultivators get fixated on learning as many techniques as possible, trying to account for every possibility with an endless repertoire of skills, but that way laid madness and ruin, for there was no way to account for every possibility.

So Yu Xiang chose a different road. Take his sole offensive technique, [Piercing Fulmination] for example. The original technique was considerably different from the one he used. To begin with, the normal technique formed a single lightning construct that was considerably larger than Yu’s darts, the size of an average spear usually. The power behind the skill was also markedly greater, this, however, made it take a while to charge up before it was ready to be used.

Yu preferred his version, which was admittedly weaker, but far faster to execute and launch while keeping the lightning’s unique natural stunning properties.

Instead of learning a dozen different skills, he elected to take a singular technique, study every constituting component and minutia of it then change and adapt to fit any situation he found himself in.

Like now, the lightning darts in the young cultivator’s hand were barely holding their form, Yu’s will and expert control over his spiritual energy the only thing stopping them from dissipating. Yet this was exactly what he wanted.

Before the group of rat like spiritual beasts could take the initiative Yu threw his darts forward with all his might. The glowing constructs flew towards the glowing eyes, hitting the rats head on.

Unlike before the darts didn’t penetrate the beasts’ flesh, instead, they exploded on contact in a conflagration of electricity, lighting up the tunnel even further and finally giving Yu Xiang and Lin Fen the chance to see what they were dealing with.

Dozens of the rat beasts hid in the darkness clinging to the ceiling, the walls and floating gliding above the ground.

A chorus of pained and enraged screeches filled the tunnels and was immediately followed by the horde’s charge. Grey furred figures leaped towards the duo, fangs bared and claws outstretched.

Just as they were about to get near them, Lin made his move. Colorless fireballs exploded in front of the charging beasts, forming a wall of flames that interrupted their attack. The weaponized alchemical flame disrupted their coordination, which allowed Yu Xiang to stride forward fearlessly.

The green eyed cultivator started to launch more of his unstable lightning darts everywhere, leaving twitching giant rats in his wake, which promptly incinerated by a following Lin Fen.

The duo’s practiced coordination easily trounced the beasts’ instinctual one. The battle was over in a matter of seconds.

Not that it was surprising, Yu Xiang had examined the beasts once their cloaking technique was no more, and by his amateur appraisal, they must've been nearing the peak of the natal realm at the highest estimate. Not really anything two cultivators in the constitutional realm with their level of skill and their particular powersets would have any kind of difficulty dealing with.

The tunnel was left toasty and sooty due to the feline cultivator’s fire, but fortunately, the smoke didn’t linger as it seemed to seep right through the ceiling’s stone.

“How does that even work?” questioned the young reincarnator, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Does the stone become intangible when it comes in contact with smoke? Or is the smoke just annihilated when it touches the stone?”

Lin Fen’s feline ears twitched at his companion’s question, his tail swaying in contentment as he basked in the rush of a battle well fought, something he usually didn’t really get to enjoy since he spent most of his time either in the house or in a laboratory.

“I don’t really know to be honest.” the beastfolk shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway, we’re taking a test, remember?”

Yu Xiang huffed in amusement. “Aren’t you a scholar? Where is your sense of wonder? Your curiosity?” he walked up to his friend, bumping his hip playfully with his own. “Don’t you feel the itch to uncover a mystery?”

Lin Fen rolled his eyes. “The only thing that I want right now is to get out of these tunnels. They’re claustrophobic.” With that last comment, he started walking forward.

Yu Xiang chuckled at his friend’s curtness and followed in his trail.

The team of two kept going forward, their senses alert and searching for any more hidden enemies. Their path, inversely, remained free of conflict, only the same tunnel stretching on and on without end, until Yu, with his aura expanded forward farther than Lin’s own finally sensed a change in the tunnel.

He motioned his companion. “The tunnel is opening up into a larger room.” Lin nodded in understanding, summoning forth a bunch of alchemical fireballs floating around his hands.

Minutes later they arrived at their destination. The tunnel lead to an atrium, lit up on all sides by glowing stones embedded into the walls and ceiling.

Five pedestals stood at the center of the room, and on the other side, opposite the entrance, they came from was a thick metallic door, radiating the same impenetrable aura as the tunnels.

Well, it’s not like Yu Xiang expected the test to merely be a series of fights, so a puzzle room wasn’t that surprising.