24 Tension

Over the past few days, Kong Xiang had finally managed to get to the end of the desert. Unfortunately, there was a barrier preventing him from moving farther, so he had to resort to the strenuous method of grinding away the barrier formation slowly, before finally breaking out.

Looking at his new environment quickly, he noticed he was now inside a forest filled with thick wood qi. He quickly unleashed the Nature Domain and sat down to replenish his energy, only standing up when he had been restored to his peak form.

He glanced at the pouch on his belt. It belonged to Wu Mei. After she had confessed she had killed most of the group and relied on their spirit stones to replenish her energy, he crippled her Origin pool which knocked her unconscious, then took her stash. As for her life and death, it was none of his concern. Forget his harmless appearance, concealed behind that honest face was a boy whose family had been exterminated thanks to opportunists and back biting hypocrites in the Imperial Court just like Wu Mei. Towards this kind of people that didn't care about people's lives to preserve their self-interest only, he wouldn't blink if they were drowning and all he had to do was cough to save them.

Compared to the desert, this forest was easier to navigate, as he was akin to a fish in water. Before long, he had reached the end of the forest, where there was also another barrier.This time, he stuffed all his storage space with all the herbs and plants in the forest rich in wood qi. Some of them rare and others unrecognizable even to him, despite his extensive botanical knowledge.

Feeling the abundant wood qi in the air, he used the Nature Domain to absorb a very large quantity of qi then exploded it against the barrier again and again, finally breaking out into yet another maze.

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Cui Chen prided himself as an intelligent person, so he was very much particular about analyzing every situation he was in. Right now, he found himself frowning instinctively at the several things amiss.

As their group kept breaking into new mazes and meeting new set of people, they started expanding. He could sense a general disagreement brewing in the undercurrents. The atmosphere was a tad tense, and it just needed a little spark to be ignited.

The problem was the inheritance. As of now, about 74 percent of the total people to enter the secret realm had already gathered, and all of them passed some sort of test and broke through mazes to get here. Everyone generally thought that this was a joint elimination test, and everyone here was a competitor they would have to eliminate at some point.

As for the inheritance, Cui Chen was beginning to have doubts. A number of people had obtained some rare ores and even weapons, and just a few minutes earlier, they just left a forest that had lots of herbs that seemed to have been uprooted by someone and left behind at the last minute, but nobody had obtained anything like a direct inheritance yet,and not everyone could obtain it in the end, so what was the point of gathering everyone together then.

Having heard of secret realms where an inheritor was required to kill other participants to pass through, he couldn't help but feel cautious.

Li Luo followed closely behind him. Unlike the others, she recognized the message left behind in the forest. Kong Xiang intentionally placed some of the herbs in the packaging arrangement used in the factory they used to work in, just in case Li Luo passed through the woodland. Li Luo got the message and was reassured of his safety.

Like Cui Chen, she was also very observant and could sense the tension in the air. She tightened her grip on the longsword and continued walking.