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

When Luo Hanying heard Lu Xizhou's assurance that nothing would happen, she breathed a slight sigh of relief. After all, even if the sky falls, there are always tall people to hold it up.

She smiled and said, "Lu Xizhou, you have a really good attitude."

Hey, can you tell me about the Shiren Sect?

What's it like inside the sect? How do people usually cultivate?

The sudden silence made everyone's hearts leap into their throats.

The lantern's light went out at some point.

Lin Zhuzui stopped abruptly: "Are you all still here?"

Ruan Chayan and Luo Hanying responded weakly.

That means Lu Xizhou has disappeared.

"Mommy Cha, I'm so scared!" Luo Hanying was half a head taller than Ruan Chayan. Since she couldn't be petite and clingy, she simply hugged Ruan Chayan into her arms.

Lin Zhuzui's divine sense was always extended outward. Divine sense is different from eyesight; it has no blind spots, and its perception is also linked to one's cultivation level.

He was a true mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, yet he hadn't noticed at all when or why his fellow disciples had disappeared.

Lin Zhuzui picked up the rope behind him and looked at it. The knot was still there, but the person had vanished into thin air.

Are you two Yan Ming and Han Xue?

The two stared blankly at Lin Zhuzui's serious face.

Luo Hanying nodded repeatedly, and Ruan Chayan said, "Yes, I was holding Xiaoxue's hand the whole time, so she shouldn't have been replaced either."

The implication is that they are unsure whether Linzhuzui is the original product or not.

"Xiaoxue, are you holding me?" Ruan Chayan felt a chill run down her spine.

Luo Hanying immediately responded: [“Of course it’s me! Holy crap, this is terrifying! Is this really a mission we can complete? This is too scary!”]

With her God-like perspective, Xian Ge revealed the devastating truth to them: "Luo Hanying is holding a stalagmite, Ruan Chayan is leaning against a stone pillar, and Lin Zhuzui is a projection. You are all in an illusion."

Ruan Chayan jumped up and discovered that neither Luo Hanying nor Lin Zhuzui were her, and no one existed!

Luo Hanying screamed, tearing at her hair as she collapsed in the empty cave, unable to accept the fact that she was now separated from everyone else.

"When did this happen?! When did we break up?!"

Luo Hanying wandered aimlessly through the dimly lit cave like a headless fly, but she found that she reached the end after running a few steps and was back in the same place in the blink of an eye.

After seeing through the illusion, the illusion stopped weaving and simply trapped them in place.

Ruan Chayan rubbed her forehead to clear her thoughts. She found a relatively dry spot to sit down: "Xiaoxue, are you in danger?"

"I didn't." Luo Hanying's voice rose. "Are you in danger?!"

Ruan Chayan forced a smile and said, "No, I was just asking about you. You don't need to worry about me."

"It's good that you're alright." Luo Hanying then turned to ask Xiange, "Big brother, you're my own big brother, can you tell us what happened?"

Surely we can't say this? Is this place connected to Zhou Shuxiang and the others?

When Luo Hanying is nervous or anxious, she can't help but mutter to herself, using language to numb her emotions.

Xiange laughed a few times, seemingly not worried at all about the dangers Ruan Chayan and Luo Hanying encountered: "You can talk, you can talk. Do you still remember the stone crystal beasts that you saw along the way when you were at the peak of the Golden Core stage?"

You guessed right, that was indeed bait to lure you in; the stone crystal beast was fake.

Lu Xizhou's cultivation is not yet up to par, otherwise he would have been able to tell that the stone crystal beast was a mechanical beast.

I don’t know if you two felt it, but Lin Zhuzui subconsciously drew his sword as he jumped off the fault line; that was his swordsman’s intuition.

That's when you walked into the formation, your consciousness pulled into the illusion.

"Holy crap!" Luo Hanying immediately touched her face, pinching it as she asked, "So, my current awake state is fake?"

You mean I...I...I'm dreaming?

Luo Hanying: Ouch! It hurts when I pinch my face! Aren't you and I awake right now? How am I thinking? A dream within a dream?

String Song: "With your brain, you can understand it this way."

You'll understand when you read more books and learn more about the Mirror of Illusion.

Ruan Chayan asked in confusion, "You said Lu Xizhou's cultivation wasn't high enough to recognize it as a mechanical beast, but how come Lin Zhuzui, with such high cultivation, didn't recognize it?"

String Song: "Whether one can recognize a mechanical beast is not entirely dependent on cultivation level, but also on their understanding of these things."

If a mechanical puppet crafted by a master craftsman is dressed neatly and its true appearance is concealed, you might not even be able to tell whether it is a real human or not.

Only weapon refiners can discern subtle differences in the mechanical puppet's operation of spiritual energy.

Luo Hanying exclaimed in surprise, "Wow, that's amazing! Oh my, if I had known, I wouldn't have complained about how hard weapon crafting was; I should have gone into weapon crafting!"

"It would be so cool to have robots fighting like Lu Xizhou!"

String Song made a few sarcastic remarks without any politeness: "What a joke, do you really think weapon cultivation is so easy?"

You have no foundation, no sect resources to support you, unlike Lu Xizhou who has a family of cultivators as a backer. Where will you get high-level materials and weapons?

You struggle to refine pills with your meager dantian fire, how can you expect to refine high-grade ores?

You can't even afford to burn a single mid-to-high-grade spirit stone to control a mechanical puppet.

Luo Hanying awkwardly shut down her microphone.

Ruan Chayan groped around, unable to tell that she was in an illusion, and unable to tell that these things were fake.

Ruan Chayan asked, "What's the current status of our mission?"

String Song said: "The good news is that you two are about to complete the first phase of the side quest."

If you can describe roughly what Zhou Shuxiang and the others did here, their motives, and their purpose, then your mission will be considered complete.

The image of the stringed instrument spread its hands in their minds, saying, "The bad news is that with your current cultivation levels and abilities, you two can't break through to this place."

"You two can't even cultivate properly. Now, just focus on learning from the jade slips and wait for someone to come and save you."

To Xiange's surprise, as soon as she said that, Ruan Chayan and Luo Hanying immediately started guessing the questions.

The two of them were making up baseless facts, one after another. After each unreliable guess, they would ask Zhou Shuxiang and the others if this was the proper procedure.

Xian Ge was so angry she shut herself up: "You two shouldn't be asking me here, right?!"

Use your brains and think about whether what you're saying makes sense!

Luo Hanying curled her lip and retorted, "The truth is sometimes quite surprising, and not everything in reality is reasonable."

No matter how much Ruan Chayan and Luo Hanying called out to Xiange, it remained silent.