Chapter 235: Harvest

Qin Sang circulated his spiritual power with all his might, but still couldn't ascend further. It was clear that an unknown spiritual force was preventing trial participants from exiting upwards.

At this point, the mist showed no signs of thinning. Qin Sang was merely testing, confirming his assumptions. He then began to slowly descend, not stopping even after seeing the iron chains, continuing to explore downwards.

He encountered no resistance during his descent. Qin Sang wove through flocks of firebirds, silently estimating that the number of firebirds in this space must be terrifyingly large.

After breaking through the mist and descending a certain distance, Qin Sang suddenly stopped. He saw a new iron chain beneath his feet!

Indeed!

Qin Sang thought to himself, "The trial participants are probably all in this space. If there are enough of them, I'll surely encounter someone." However, his goal wasn't to find other companions, so after a brief pause, Qin Sang descended at his fastest speed.

The red line grew increasingly brighter, even becoming a little dazzling.

All the way down, Qin Sang saw chain after chain, dozens of them. He didn't know how far he had descended, but the lava river in his sight became clearer and wider.

He discovered that this space was not boundless after all. There were high cliffs on both sides, meaning the trial space was actually a canyon.

The canyon was so wide that from above, one couldn't see the cliff walls, giving the impression of an infinite space. But the further down he went, the more the canyon narrowed. At the very bottom of the canyon was the surging lava river.

The lava river was extraordinarily wide and far from calm. The lava surged like a mighty river, stirring up enormous crimson waves as it flowed.

Contrary to Qin Sang's expectations, this was not the source of the lava river. The lava flowed from the ancient cultivator's relic site, from here to an unknown destination outside.

"Oh?"

When Qin Sang reached above the lava river, able to see the full expanse of the lava sea, he suddenly felt resistance, blocked by an invisible barrier, preventing him from descending further.

Qin Sang was surprised and looked down at the space beneath his feet. Everything in the void appeared normal; no barrier was visible to the naked eye. Moreover, the fire elemental power in the lava river seemed to ignore the restrictions.

Such enormous waves were ubiquitous. Just in front of Qin Sang, a wave surged forth. The lava was blocked by the restriction, but a stream of incredibly pure fire elemental spiritual power, with an imposing aura no less than the lava itself, fiercely burst out of the restriction.

This stream of fire elemental spiritual power dissipated after exhausting its energy, remaining above the restriction. It transformed into clumps of fiery-red essence that merged into the mist, and perhaps, after a long evolution, might become new firebirds.

After a brief contemplation, a flash of spiritual light appeared beneath Qin Sang's feet. The invisible barrier, stimulated by the spiritual power, finally revealed itself.

Densely packed runes formed one incredibly profound circular restriction after another. These circular restrictions overlapped, extending deep into the lava river, with no apparent end.

What Qin Sang saw was certainly not the entire restriction.

It was hard to imagine how powerful the owner of the ancient immortal's relic site must have been, to leave behind such a massive restriction covering the entire lava river.

The restriction's brilliance was very dim, and there were even cracks on its surface. It seemed that tens of thousands of years had eroded most of its power, yet it remained robust, beyond Qin Sang's ability to break.

His attempts to probe it yielded no results.

Qin Sang was once again surrounded by firebirds attracted by the spiritual power fluctuations. He used his stealth technique to escape the firebirds, and his figure flickered repeatedly as he darted towards the edge of the restriction, arriving in front of a stone wall.

The stone wall curved inwards from top to bottom. Its surface was not smooth, but rugged and uneven, covered in strange, jagged rocks.

Qin Sang stepped onto the stone wall and looked around. After a moment, his eyes suddenly lit up. He darted to a crevice in the rock, bent down, and pulled out a small piece of stark white material.

It was a skull fragment!

Firebirds, upon death, turned into flames, leaving nothing behind. This skull fragment clearly belonged to a human.

Upon finding this bone, Qin Sang's confidence significantly increased. He immediately focused on his search. However, after searching for a while, Qin Sang stopped, his brow slightly furrowed.

There weren't as many treasures on the stone wall as he had imagined. After searching for a long time, he had only found one other bone. This indicated that most failed trial participants were either torn to shreds by firebirds or destroyed by the fire elemental power bursting from the restriction.

After a moment of contemplation, Qin Sang suddenly released his spiritual sense, extending it to its maximum range, instantly sweeping over a large area. As soon as his spiritual sense appeared, it immediately startled flocks of firebirds, and Qin Sang's figure was quickly engulfed by them.

When the number of firebirds reached a certain level and Qin Sang sensed danger, he retracted his spiritual sense and concealed himself. Once they dispersed, he would release his spiritual sense again.

This method greatly increased his speed. Qin Sang started from the beginning and searched forward along this mountain wall.

After two quarters of an hour, Qin Sang stopped, standing on a rock. He gazed intently at the mist ahead. He could no longer move forward here; a gentle force pushed him back. He understood then that this was the end of the first trial, and he needed to follow the iron chains to find the exit.

Because he had to divide his attention to search the stone wall, his speed was not fast. If he had focused solely on flying, he could have passed the trial in just half a quarter of an hour.

Qin Sang then went to the other side of the stone wall and searched back along the way he came.

After completing his search of both stone walls, Qin Sang flew up and found a nearby stone platform. Over forty rays of light flew out from his mustard seed pouch, arranged before him.

Encased within the light were various magical artifacts. It was evident that most of them were in the demonic cultivator style.

These were all of Qin Sang's gains. He had initially expected to return empty-handed, so finding so many artifacts was a pleasant surprise. In addition to these, there were also three mustard seed pouches.

Qin Sang first opened the mustard seed pouches, and was disappointed to find that the spiritual items, spiritual pills, and similar things inside had lost their spiritual essence due to the lack of sealing restrictions, rendering them unusable.

Besides a small amount of spirit stones, a few artifacts were also not very useful.

Qin Sang turned his attention to the artifacts before him. With a wave of his hand, he discarded most of them. These were damaged artifacts; like the items in the mustard seed pouches, their power had drained away, turning them into useless scrap metal.

Nine intact artifacts remained, varying in grade. They were still fully functional. Qin Sang picked them up to examine them one by one. A look of joy suddenly appeared on his face, and he reached out to grasp three of them.

A black gourd, a pale banner, and a bone flute.

All three were soul-refining demonic artifacts!

The banner was the least impressive. Qin Sang glanced at it, then summoned the Ten Directions Yama Banner to devour it.

The other two, however, were difficult to gauge by grade. The black gourd's function was to draw opponents into it, where the soul-refining entities within would slay them, transforming them into blood essence. The bone flute could emit ghostly wails to affect an opponent's mind.

The number of soul-refining entities within these two demonic artifacts was astonishing, clearly indicating they were natal demonic artifacts meticulously refined by demonic cultivators!