Bamboo Mound

Standing before this dilapidated hall, which exudes a primitive feel, one is immediately struck by the aura of time.

Although it is now just ruins, one can still imagine what the original appearance of this great hall looked like.

The outer stone pillars are long, unprocessed stones selected directly from the rubble, supporting the long, slab-shaped square dome.

The base is a huge stone block that serves as the floor of the entire hall. Ning Chang estimated that the hall should be about 500 square meters in area.

The base also has irregular cross-sections on all four sides, but most of the edges have been smoothed out.

The surface above is very flat, with only some pits where it meets the stone pillars, which are easy to embed, and some marks left by various weapons that are scattered all over the ground but not very obvious.

Upon entering the main hall, the first thing that catches the eye is a circular white jade dome that has fallen to the center.

The entire ground was covered with a thin layer of dust.

Although it is thin, it still cannot be used as a basis for estimating time, since Ning Chang has not felt even the slightest breeze since entering the secret realm.

In this windless environment, even dust is bound to accumulate.

Compared to the ground, the knife marks and fist marks on the walls inside the main hall are much deeper and denser.

Eight stone pillars, just as rough as the outside, have broken and half of them have fallen down.

In one corner of the main hall, there was a pile of wooden fragments. After using spiritual energy to sense them, there was nothing but wood.

On one side directly opposite the gate are several broken sculptures, with only the parts that can be identified as sculptures remaining.

Apart from that, there is nothing else special about it.

After walking around, Ning Chang came to the white jade dome again.

In his perception, the dome was just an ordinary stone, belonging to the jade category, and contained no spiritual energy.

Although it was an ordinary object, in Ning Chang's layman's eyes, it could be considered a flawless piece of white jade.

"Although it's not very useful now, I'll still bring some. You never know when I might need it for decoration or something."

The entire white jade dome has an area of ​​about 25 square meters and a thickness of about half a foot.

This size is definitely too large to fit in his storage bag, nor is it necessary.

So he simply cut two pieces, each about one square meter in size, from the center and put them into his spatial bag.

He originally just wanted to try it out, but he didn't expect that the spiritual power added with the sharpness would be so useful, allowing him to directly cut out the size from the inside of the white jade!

"Bad luck..."

Unexpectedly, after running for several hours to reach the first place, he found nothing. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, he cut two stones.

He did not suspect that the disciples of the three sects who had entered earlier had already explored this place.

After all, Master had said before we came in that the environment would change each time we entered, but this original hall didn't have anything to begin with.

He turned and walked out of the main hall, then circled around again, scanning the surroundings once more.

The forest that had been in the direction we came from was no longer visible; now all around was an open space, with only the stone hall and the rocky mountain to the side visible.

"No, then what's the point of this secret realm? There's nothing here." Ning Chang frowned and couldn't help but complain.

"Besides, wasn't there supposed to be ferocious beasts? I haven't heard a single bird chirp since I came in!"

"I can't just waste seven days and my first time entering a dungeon by wandering around here, can I?"

"No, that's too much of a loss. Let's take a look around the mountain first."

Without hesitation, he took a spirit stone in his hand and began running around the stone mountain.

During this time, he kept looking into the distance, trying to find some outlines or shadows.

However, he found nothing when he returned to this side of the main hall.

"We're out of options..."

After thinking it over, he decided to go up to the top of the mountain first and then find his way from there.

Then he took a step and came to the rocks.

He stomped his feet a few times and found that the rocks were quite sturdy, so he leaped up and headed towards the top of the mountain.

The rugged, rocky terrain makes it an ideal foothold, and the Qingyun Step's boost to jump height even surpasses that of planar speed!

But that was in terms of running speed on a flat surface. In order to climb this rocky mountain with no visible top, Ning Chang still had to put in a lot of effort.

It took Ning Chang a full half hour to finally step onto the smooth, flat mountaintop.

That's right, it's smooth and flat! It looks like someone has sliced ​​off the mountain peak with a sword!

However, Ning Changyi estimated that the area of ​​the entire mountaintop seemed to be about the same as that of the main hall at the foot of the mountain.

He then guessed that the main hall was originally located on the mountaintop, but was thrown down for some reason.

There are still many suspicious points. The main hall was thrown from such a high mountain and still managed to retain most of its structure.

Moreover, judging from the traces in the main hall, it must have been the site of a great battle, but there was not a single trace of battle on this rocky mountain!

"What kind of bizarre secret realm is this? What useful things can you find in all this stuff?"

"You've been here all this time just for a stroll?" There seemed to be no sun or moon in the secret realm, and it maintained this brightness, making it impossible for Ning Chang to judge how long he had been inside.

But the monotonous journey made him feel like a day or two had passed.

Standing on the edge of the mountaintop and looking out, everything seems so small.

The forest in the direction of the entrance came into view again, but it was a hazy gray and indistinct.

On the other side, a similarly gray and hazy landscape appeared, making it impossible to tell what place it was.

But he had nowhere else to go, so he decided to go over there and see if he could find anything else there.

After estimating the distance, he took out two more spirit stones, along with the one he used to climb the mountain, and swallowed them all.

He immediately took a step from the mountaintop, continuously gathering spiritual energy to stride through the air and rush forward.

This was a method he had developed before: briefly condensing spiritual energy into a single point in the air to provide leverage for the Azure Cloud Step.

This amount of spiritual energy was naturally insufficient to support the backlash from the Azure Cloud Step; it dissipated immediately upon taking a step.

But that's enough for Qingyun Step to advance!

The scattered spiritual energy is constantly being gathered back, and then it is condensed again at the next landing point.

He descended slowly like this, and by the time he landed on the ground, he had already traveled a short distance!

And the area ahead has been identified.

It turned out to be a bamboo forest!

He ran for several hours until all three spirit stones had melted away before he finally arrived within a thousand meters of the bamboo forest.

After taking a few more steps, Ning Chang looked at the unusual bamboo in front of him and a hint of doubt arose in his mind.

"This is... a type of bamboo?"

Ning Chang picked up a spindle-shaped seed hanging from a thin branch growing beside a bamboo stalk and recognized it at a glance.

"But...why?"

As far as he knew, bamboo only flowers and produces seeds when it is about to wither, and once the seeds have grown, the bamboo will wither in large patches!

And right now, almost every bamboo stalk in this bamboo forest has at least one bamboo flower hanging from it!