Techniques and Dao

Chapter 30 Clever Box Seizes the Opportunity
“I suspect that we have all been under some kind of spell,” said Tai Shang Xiao Jun, taking a deep breath.

"You mean they're all under an illusion?"

Upon hearing this, Hua Sheng felt his stomach contract with tension. He remembered that in class, Master Yu Ran had said that illusions could be cast on multiple targets simultaneously. If it were a Xuanming level or even a higher Lingxiao level, it was possible for everyone to see the same thing. This was not surprising.

The problem is, even if they were the ones being deceived, it wouldn't be so bad. Tai Shang Xiao Jun, Mie Ying, and Tian Ji Zi are all top-tier experts in the Magic Academy. The fact that they could deceive both the immortals and the spirits at the same time means that the one casting the spell might be a Celestial Master.

"It should be said that we were not only under an illusion, but we were also inside some kind of magic array, so no one felt anything unusual," Tai Shang Xiao Jun added.

Indeed, after two rounds of competition, everyone was exhausted. Seeing the familiar Magic Academy, they naturally relaxed their guard. Moreover, in the Divine Mind Calculation Bureau, Hua Sheng had witnessed that the entire place was formed from the Qiankun Ring. That is to say, this place could also be transformed from some kind of magical artifact.

Hanabu couldn't help but feel doubtful. If everything they were seeing was an illusion, then when did everyone start having hallucinations?

"If we are in some kind of magic array, does that mean the Heavenly Eye Trial is not over?" he asked.

"It is too early to say, but we must not stay here any longer."

Filled with doubt and unease, Hua Sheng was instantly wide awake. He twisted his arm to clear his head, and then walked out of the courtyard one after the other with Tai Shang Xiao Jun.

She bumped into Qi Guang as soon as she reached the courtyard gate. Qi Guang looked flustered. Upon seeing Hua Sheng, he immediately grabbed his shoulder and said, "Something's wrong! My house is all... all gone..."

Hua Sheng was dizzy from Qi Guang's shaking: "Wait! Don't panic, speak slowly."

"The house is completely gone!" Qi Guang cried out in a panic.

"The house is all empty?"

"Correct!"

"It's like a room that's completely empty, like you've entered the wrong room, right? We understand that," Hua Sheng said. "That's not important. What's important is that we might be under an illusion, which is why we might see..."

Qi Guang interrupted Hua Sheng and pulled him inside, saying, "No! You all have to come and see!"

Despite having long suspected what she was seeing, Hua Sheng was still taken aback when she entered the courtyard of Qi Guang's house. Qi Guang said that nothing in the house was left, and Hua Sheng had initially thought that the furnishings or even the house itself had disappeared.

But compared to these, what we see before us is far more bizarre.

Stepping into the courtyard, I saw what used to be dormitory buildings. All the courtyards and buildings in this accommodation area were similarly laid out. But now, all I saw was darkness.

The courtyard wasn't exactly bright, but the moonlight still allowed for a clear view of the pebbled path beneath one's feet. However, this path, which should have led to the dormitories, suddenly abruptly ended, vanishing along with the houses. Moreover, what lay before them wasn't an open space, but a vast expanse of darkness. It was like an unfathomable cave, swallowing everything.

"What is this thing?" It was Taishang Xiaojun who spoke. He didn't know how to describe what he saw before him, so he could only call it some kind of "thing".

Hanamori carefully examined the irregularly shaped black area and said, "It looks like a strangely shaped bottomless pit?"

But clearly this black "thing" is not a cave, because there is no mountain in front of us that could accommodate it.

Hua Sheng took a few steps to the left and right, trying to see if it was a giant black curtain, but he didn't find it. He bent down, picked up a pebble from beside his feet, and threw it into the darkness. The pebble disappeared as soon as it hit the ground. There was no bounce, no sound of it landing, and even after waiting for a long time, it didn't echo like it would when it landed in a deep pit. The pebble he threw in vanished into thin air.

Hua Sheng cast a spell and threw a fireball into the darkness. The fireball illuminated the space outside the darkness before beginning to fall. Clearly, this darkness contained a vast, empty area.

The fireball flew farther and farther away, gradually shrinking from the size of a palm until it disappeared completely. After a while, the fireball still didn't go out, but instead flew further and further away, becoming a flickering speck of light.

According to Hua Sheng's experience, this distance is at least a hundred miles away.

“This isn’t the strangest place.” Qi Guang led Hua Sheng and Tai Shang Xiao Jun out of the courtyard and walked around it to the back. If that darkness were a bottomless pit, it should lead to the back of the house. But when the three of them arrived at the back, they found that the courtyard wall was completely intact!

The three leaped onto the wall and discovered that only the area where the dormitories should have been had turned black. Clearly, from any angle, the area that should have been the rooms was now black.

If I had to describe this thing in front of me accurately, it would be like someone had dug out a piece of the entire space.

“It seems that strange things aren’t just happening in your room,” said Taishang Xiaojun.

Hua Sheng and Qi Guang looked around and saw that the once-standing dormitories were now in ruins. Some houses, like Qi Guang's, had disappeared entirely, some were missing sections, and some even had their walls turned black.

Qi Guang asked anxiously, "What happened to the Academy of Arts and Sciences? Why are all the people gone?"

"Clearly, this isn't the Academy of Arts and Sciences. We're trapped in some kind of magic array," Hua Sheng said.

"A magic array?" Qi Guang asked.

Hua Sheng said, "That's right. We need to go back to the stone box and take a look! I think we're not the only ones who noticed something was wrong; everyone who did should have gone back to the parting point."

Without delay, the three immediately flew to the stone box located on the Lingtian Sacred Path. As soon as they landed, they saw Mieying, Xuanwen, and Tianjizi beside the stone box, but Mieying's hair had turned golden brown again.

Qi Guang saw Mie Ying, who had tormented him before, again and couldn't help but hide behind Hua Sheng and take a few more glances.

"What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a girl change her hairstyle before?" Curly-haired Mie Ying glared at Qi Guang.

Qi Guang stuck out his tongue.

"Look again and I'll gouge your eyes out!"

Hua Sheng saw Mie Ying and asked, "You noticed it too?"

"I got back to my dorm and found everything was gone! I'm so angry!" Curly-haired Shadow puffed out her cheeks. "Those cosmetics cost so much money. Now everything's gone!"

"This isn't the time to worry about that, is it? I mean, has anyone noticed a lot of black... I don't know what these things are, around the dorms?" Hua Sheng asked.

Tianjizi said, "If this place is not the Academy of Arts and Sciences, then we should still be in the Heavenly Eye Trial."

Xuanwen said, "Assuming the trial isn't over, then we're still in the midst of it. The question is, in which phase are we?"

Hua Sheng recalled, "We were all very certain that the Candlelight Battle was over, and the second round, the Divine Calculation Battle, also advanced according to the trial rules."

Tai Shang Xiao Jun said, "But we haven't seen the immortal master who was in charge of the second round of supervision?"

Hua Sheng said, "No, I met the Immortal Master of Supervision when I left the Divine Calculation Bureau. It was the Immortal Master Qingmiao."

"Are you sure it's her monitoring?" Qi Guang asked.

"I'm sure. Because it wasn't just me, Mieying saw it too." Hua Sheng thought about his promise to Qingmiao Immortal Master to keep the secret, so he gave an ambiguous answer.

Mieying fiddled with her curly hair without answering.

Tai Shang Xiao Jun frowned and said, "If what you say is true, then the first two rounds must be over. But the question is, assuming we have already escaped from the Heavenly Eye Trial, then where is this place disguised as the Daoist Academy?"

Tianjizi said, "If we are in some kind of magic array, then it is very likely that we are in the third round of the Tianmu Trial."

Hua Sheng recalled that the previous game's arena was set up by Qingmiao Immortal Master using the Qiankun Ring, so this place was also likely created using some kind of magical artifact.

“But the problem is, if this is the third round, then according to what Tianjizi said before, he has participated in the Tianmu Trial for ten years but has never encountered a situation without any trial prompts or rules. The supervising immortal master for this round has not appeared either, so what is the purpose of trapping the trial participants here?” Xuanwen muttered.

These words certainly put everyone on alert. Who exactly set up the magic array? And what was their reason?
"Speaking of everyone, does anyone see Rongping?"

If Qi Guang hadn't asked, everyone would have long forgotten about this fat disciple.

“You should be the last one to separate from Rongping.” Tenkiko looked at Hanamori.

Hua Sheng replied, "Indeed. Before I went back to my dormitory, Rongping said he wanted to stay a little longer and take another look at this big stone box."

"Study this stone box?" Tianjizi walked behind the stone box, and after a few steps said, "It seems..."

The group followed and ran behind the stone box, where they found a piece of the sleeve of a martial arts uniform on the ground. The sleeve was stained with blood.

"Blood!" Mieying immediately covered his eyes.

The atmosphere became heavy. Everyone fell silent.

Taishang Xiaojun looked at the torn sleeve and said, "Could this be from Rongping?"

Hua Sheng mustered his courage and stepped forward. He didn't pick up the torn sleeve, but examined it carefully and said, "Rongping had blood on his forehead earlier, and he wiped it with his sleeve, so this bloodstained sleeve is likely his. But the other end seems to have more bloodstains." Indeed, one end of the sleeve had bloodstains from wiping, while the torn part was almost completely soaked with donated blood.

"Are you sure it's that fat guy?" Mieying asked, covering his eyes and speaking in a trembling voice.

Hua Sheng carefully recalled the scene when Rong Ping wiped his forehead with his sleeve when they parted. Then he said with certainty, "It must have been his."

Mie Ying jumped up and down in a panic: "Don't scare me! I'm terrified of blood!"

Tai Shang Xiao Jun said, "If it is confirmed that this sleeve belongs to Rong Ping, then it is obvious that something must have happened to Rong Ping not long after we left."

Qi Guang suddenly shouted, "Rongping! Rongping!"

"Don't shout so loudly all of a sudden!" Mieying said to Qi Guang, "You startled me!"

Despite Qi Guang's loud shouts, the surroundings remained deathly silent.

Xuanwen, who was standing to the side, said, "You mortal! What if your shouting attracts the things that were dragging Rongping away?"

"Hey! You little devil! Don't make it sound so scary!" Mieying shouted.

Xuanwen said, "Am I wrong? Maybe it's something hiding in the shadows watching us! As soon as we're separated from the group, it will drag us away one by one!"

Mieying cried out again and covered her eyes.

Hua Sheng said, "Don't jump to conclusions. Rong Ping is only temporarily missing."

"The situation is so dire that we can only say whether they live or die," Tianjizi said.

Mieying said, "But shouldn't we all be safe during the Heavenly Eye Trial?"

Everyone looked solemn and remained silent.

“If being alone means you could be attacked, then apart from Taishang Xiaojun and me sharing a dormitory, everyone else should be staying in different places. So, everyone should be alone. But clearly, no one seems to be acting strangely.” Huasheng was the first to speak.

His analysis is indeed reasonable; it is clear that disappearance and being alone are not necessarily related.

"So what do you mean?" Xuanwen asked.

Hua Sheng said, "I guess it's because Rong Ping discovered something while he was here alone..."

After saying this, he silently recited a spell of spiritual light, illuminating the surroundings. He carefully examined the half-sleeved blood-stained sleeve on the ground, and also used the light to examine the stone box wall closely. Unfortunately, it was just an ordinary, flat, black rock wall, nothing strange about it. Hua Sheng leaned closer and examined it carefully from top to bottom, and still found some clues.

Tiny, dark red liquid stains remained on the stone wall. Hua Sheng wiped them with her finger; they were clearly bloodstains.

Hua Sheng said, "There seem to be...bloodstains on the stone wall?"

"Was it splashed on?"

“No.” Hua Sheng looked at the bloodstains, which appeared to be thin lines, indicating they had only recently dried. He looked up at the top of the stone wall and said, “It doesn’t look like it was splashed there; it’s like it flowed down from above.”

Mie Ying exclaimed, "This young lady is most afraid of blood! Especially lots of blood. That fat guy won't die up there, will he?!"

Hua Sheng leaped and landed on the stone box. But he didn't see Rong Ping on the stone box, nor did he see anything unusual. It was just a dark, rectangular rock platform.

The others flew up as well, and only after confirming that there was nothing wrong did Mieying finally fly up last.

As expected, the bloodstains that flowed onto the stone wall were indeed due to blood on the edge of the platform.

"It seems that Rongping was likely attacked on this platform for some unknown reason. At the same time, the sleeve of his martial arts uniform was torn," Hua Sheng continued to analyze.

He looked up and around; the central avenue was straight, surrounded by dense trees, but he didn't find anything. He continued walking towards the center of the platform above the stone box, and using the light in his hand, he crouched down to examine the rock surface carefully.

The surface was covered with undulating rock patterns. After observing for a long time, Huasheng suddenly discovered that some of the patterns had a strange regularity.

It looks like characters?

The characters on the rock platform were worn down for some reason, and he couldn't recognize them at first. But after looking at them from a different angle, he gradually realized that there were indeed several lines of text carved on the rock.

"There seem to be words carved here!" Hanamori exclaimed.

Using the light in his hand, he tried to brush away the dust from the rock surface, revealing four slightly larger characters, which he then read aloud.

"A cleverly placed box to seize the initiative?"

The crowd immediately gathered around, and Taishang Xiaojun said, "The clever box trick? So we really are still in the Heavenly Eye Trial?"

Hua Sheng continued to search for the characters on the ground by the light, but most of them were unrecognizable. He read out the ones he could recognize.

"Guard the Bagua Porcelain Box...endure the trials of the box..."

"The Path to Victory is contained within the Yin-Yang Box... The trial participant will open it to obtain it..."

After carefully examining the text, Hua Sheng could only recognize these few characters.

"So, the Victorious Buddha's guide is here?" Xuanwen slapped his thigh and said, "Not only is it the Heavenly Eye Trial, but it's the final round!"

"Wait!" Tai Shang Xiao Jun said, "If it's the Heavenly Eye Trial, why hide the rules in such a secret place? And the presence of so much blood at the scene at least indicates that Rong Ping suffered a rather serious external injury."

Mie Ying continued, "In the first two rounds, it was repeatedly stated that disciples of the Xi Academy must not harm their fellow disciples, so why was someone injured in this round?"

Qi Guang said tremblingly, "However, it's still uncertain whether the blood at the scene is Rongping's..."

Mieying immediately interrupted him: "Isn't it obvious? This homosexual is that fat guy!"

A strange thought suddenly arose in Hua Sheng's mind. Rather than saying that the rules of this game were a bit strange, it was more like a different situation.

"I think," Hua Sheng guessed, "could there be something wrong with the Heavenly Eye Trial?"

"Something went wrong?" Tai Shang Xiao Jun sensed an ominous feeling in Hua Sheng's words. "What do you mean?"

Hua Sheng continued, "It's hard to describe. Although this is my first time participating in the trial, I have experienced two rounds before, so I can feel that no matter what the rules of this Tianmu trial are, the core is to create a certain environment in which the trial participants compete according to the rules of this round, competing for a limited number of advancement spots, and thus winning."

“That’s how it is,” said Mieying.

"Is it possible that, like when you go to an amusement park, you happen to encounter a malfunctioning ride? Our current situation is like being trapped inside a malfunctioning amusement park ride."

Everyone remained silent in response to Hua Sheng's speculation. However, this ambiguous trial did make the idea seem plausible.

"You idiot! Do you think the Heavenly Eye Trial is some lousy amusement park in your mortal world?" Mie Ying said, hands on his hips. "This is a celestial array set up by the Academy of Arts and Sciences! How could it possibly have problems? Besides, there are celestial masters protecting it. If it's like tofu dregs, would it still be considered a celestial array?"

Tai Shang Xiao Jun also agreed with Mie Ying's opinion: "Mie Ying is right. The immortal array of the Art of Dao Academy cannot be wrong. The Heavenly Eye Trial has been held for five hundred years, and it represents the strength level of the Art of Dao Academy."

“But the Daoist Academy wouldn’t intentionally harm its own disciples during trials, would it? That would violate the rules,” Xuanwen said.

Mie Ying stepped forward: "Make way, make way! Let me see!"

She bent down and touched the stone slab: "What is this! It's all dirty."

Suddenly, as if some mechanism had been triggered, red light spots appeared on the platform and began to draw on the rock wall, slowly forming a Tai Chi symbol, which then extended outwards and eventually presented a Bagua (Eight Trigrams) pattern.

Taiji gives rise to Yin and Yang, Yin and Yang give rise to the Four Symbols, and the Four Symbols give rise to the Eight Trigrams.

This ultimately forms a complete Bagua (Eight Trigrams) diagram. However, unlike the Tai Chi Yin-Yang Bagua diagram, the originally white parts of the Tai Chi symbol have turned blood red, appearing extremely eerie.

"Blood, Blood Tai Chi!" Qi Guang's voice trembled and cracked, making it almost unrecognizable as his own.

(End of this chapter)