My best friend asked me if I was still doing system tasks.

Ruan Chayan reached out to support herself on the ground to stand up, only to find that her fingers were full of sand. At the same time, she heard the sound of something slipping through her fingers: "What's that noise?"

The sound and the feel on her hands reminded her of sand slipping through an hourglass.

"My God, where am I?"

Wenren Ya took out a magical artifact from her Qiankun bag that could emit light when infused with spiritual energy, illuminating the small space.

Ruan Chayan exclaimed in alarm, "Sand! Sand is seeping down from the crack above our heads!"

The two were now in a dark, square space, with the mechanism they had fallen from above overhead. There were obvious gaps in the stone bricks, making it seem like they could be opened.

On the four walls, about two feet from the top, there is a six-inch-long gap through which sand is continuously flowing out.

Wenren Ya was startled when she saw the scene before her. She placed the glowing magical artifact on the ground and shot an arrow overhead, hoping the arrow would destroy the mechanism above her head—

They have spiritual power protecting them; if they are hit by a stone, at most they will get bruises, which is better than being trapped here.

The arrow of spiritual energy struck the mechanism above and was silently absorbed by the array on the stone bricks.

Ruan Chayan cast talismans, which exploded on the wall one after another, leaving the wall intact. The talismans only allowed them to see a fleeting array on the wall.

Ruan Chayan's expression turned serious: "Oh no, there are arrays on all four walls. I'm not good at deducing arrays, are you?"

Wenren Ya smiled wryly and said, "I only know the basics of formations, and I'm afraid I'm not even as good as you."

Ruan Chayan took a deep breath and forced herself to calmly think of a solution.

In just a short while, a layer of sand had accumulated under Ruan Chayan and Wenren Ya's feet.

Wenren Ya's smile was more like a grimace: "Do you have any powerful magical artifacts? Can't we forcefully break the formation?"

"Will we die here?" Huajiao, who was squatting down, felt two squeaking sounds on Ruan Chayan's shoulder, the sound echoing in the small space.

Ruan Chayan touched the peppercorns: "It's just sand, ordinary sand. We won't die so easily."

That's what she said, but when she took out her magic weapon to attack the mechanism above her head, the mechanism remained completely unmoved.

Wenren Ya bit her finger anxiously, then muttered incantations and shot an arrow into the ground.

She possesses a wood and water spiritual root, with green as the primary color and black as the secondary. Green flowers bloom on the sandy ground, gradually revealing a hexagonal altar composed of lines. In the center of the altar, two lines of characters that Ruan Chayan did not recognize slowly appeared, seemingly in the style of flower and bird seal script.

Wenren Ya's eyes lit up, and she raised her hand to disperse the altar and words formed by spiritual energy: "The path to survival is at our feet!"

"Quick, quick, let's push them to a corner while there's still some sand and see if there's a trap on the ground!"

Ruan Chayan hurriedly followed Wenren Ya to push the sand aside and pile it up together. There was also an array operating beneath their feet.

Wenren Ya sighed, "What should we do? It's another formation."

Ruan Chayan sighed and said, "Let me try to deduce the formation. Since you say that the path to survival is at our feet, I should be able to find the core of the formation."

*

"Junior Uncle, I'm a little tired. Shall we rest here for a while?"

Luo Hanying stopped Ji Daoyun with difficulty, "Although I don't know how long we've been in the maze, we've gone around in circles many times. The spiritual energy here is a bit thin, and I'm not feeling well."

Ji Daoyun agreed: "It was my oversight that I didn't take your condition into account."

After confirming that there were no traps at the corner and that it was convenient to observe the situation on both sides, the two put down their cushions and sat down on the ground.

Ji Daoyun recalled what he had seen and heard along the way, and murmured, "This underground palace is so strange..."

Upon hearing this, Luo Hanying replied, "What do you mean?"

Ji Daoyun and Luo Hanying discussed: "The tomb doors of all the tombs I have visited before are sealed with stone slabs and huge bricks, and then reinforced with array formations. Some even have mud or poison between the two layers of huge bricks used to seal the door. All of this is to prevent outsiders from entering the tomb and disturbing the tomb owner's peaceful rest."

If the maze was designed to prevent us from entering the tomb, then logically, the entrance to the maze should have been designed in this way—an array of formations and puppet figures would provide an extra layer of protection.

Luo Hanying went through Ji Daoyun's words in her mind and couldn't help but say, "Could it be because the tomb owner believed in the puppet?"

After all, the puppets have indeed caused us a lot of trouble. If it weren't for your high cultivation level and strong soul, and if anyone else were with me, we would both be bewitched, which would be a dead end.

Ji Daoyun pondered for a moment and said, "The puppet is indeed difficult to deal with, but I still stick to my idea. I feel that the tomb owner is afraid that we won't come in."

If the tomb cracked because of our fight, then why did a swarm of insects drag us into the illusion?

The swarm of insects possessed such power—power we couldn't resist—that preventing us from entering the tomb would have been more than enough. Yet, they willingly led us in, and even when we were trapped in the illusion array, they didn't use any deadly moves to take our lives.

Luo Hanying recalled Wenren Ya's words and joked, "It can't be that the tomb owner wanted to find a master for his artifact after his death, so he set up many barriers to select a worthy master, right?"

She saw Ji Daoyun say very seriously, "It's not impossible."

Luo Hanying: "...Huh?"

No, I was just saying it offhand. You didn't take it seriously, did you? Put yourself in my shoes. If I had a suitable magical artifact in my lifetime, why would I be willing to hand it over to someone else?

If it were me, I would definitely bury all the things I like with my life. Why would I think about finding a new owner for the things I like?

Just before and after Ji Daoyun and Luo Hanying were resting, Ji Daoyun received several messages from people, saying that someone from Shiren Sect and Baiyuzhai had broken through the illusion array and entered the passageway.

Those disciples weren't as lucky as Ruan Chayan, Luo Hanying, and the other three. As soon as they emerged from the illusion array, they faced disciples from the Wenjian Sect and the Kegu Sect.

If the passageway weren't so narrow and inconvenient to fight, a fight would probably have broken out long ago. Although things seem calm on the surface now, tensions are high and a fight could break out at any moment.

Ji Daoyun urged everyone to be careful. He recounted the traps he had encountered and the methods he knew to deal with them, so that they could inform each other and help one another.