Chapter 36 (Part 1)

Song Yuanxi’s follow-up waterproofing talismans never got used. Ji Wuxing was generous and simply gave him a water-repelling Pearl.

“It still feels safer inside a protective membrane.” Once he entered the water-repelling Pearl, Song Yuanxi finally felt at ease.

Ji Wuxing opened a passage between their two water-repelling Pearls, then reached his hand through. “Brother Xi, do you still have any of my cousin’s talismans? Give me some.”

“You don’t have any? Isn’t Senior Brother Ji your cousin?”

Song Yuanxi had seen Ji Wuyi’s stockpile of talismans before. He was truly a man who owned three hundred thousand talismans, a walking nouveau riche.

Ji Wuxing immediately looked embarrassed. “I’ve entered the Trial Tower too many times. I used them up a little fast.”

Song Yuanxi thought of the speed at which he burned through talismans and instantly felt a sense of shared suffering. “True. We Five Spiritual Roots cultivators really do use up external items faster than other cultivators. I have to use dozens of talismans at a time too.”

Ji Wuxing’s hand paused as he took the storage pouch, looking a little guilty.

But disaster came as soon as it pleased. The two of them no longer had the mind to chat and began focusing all their attention on dealing with the seawater surging toward them from every direction.

A water-repelling Pearl could protect a person so tightly that not even a seam was left exposed. Inside, there was absolutely no need to worry about drowning. But it also had drawbacks. First, the amount of air stored inside was fixed; once used up, the pearl would become useless. Second, the water-repelling Pearl was hard to control and could easily drift around in the sea.

Rather than drifting around, it was more like a water ball freely rising and falling in the seawater, carried wherever the current took it.

Song Yuanxi’s personal sensation was as if he had become a laundry detergent pod that had been thrown into a gigantic drum washing machine. At any moment, the protective membrane wrapped around him might burst, and then he would be churned into dregs by endless seawater.

And the dizzying sensation of spinning at high speed with no fixed direction also let him experience an astronaut’s training regimen. Its main feature was the soul leaving the body!

When the first wave of surging seawater ended, the waves slowly calmed. The water-repelling Pearls the two of them were in sank to the bottom and temporarily stabilized.

Song Yuanxi’s brain had been spun into a daze. Only after a long while did he finally regain his senses enough to ask the question in his heart. “Ji Wuxing, why can other people control the direction of their water-repelling Pearls in the seawater, while yours can only drift with the current?”

Aside from the two of them, there were no other cultivators around. Who knew which remote corner they had all been washed into?

“Controlling a water-repelling Pearl is something you can only learn in the late stage of Qi Refining. I’m only at the first level of Qi Refining. I don’t even know how to get started.” Ji Wuxing refuted him with perfect logic and evidence.

Song Yuanxi was just about to agree when he suddenly remembered something he had seen during the impact earlier. Ji Shaoqing was also at the third level of Qi Refining, right? Yet that person had controlled his water-repelling Pearl extremely well. It had not even spun once.

“Ji Shaoqing is at the third level of Qi Refining. He can do it.”

Ji Wuxing shot back directly, “I heard there’s also a Five Spiritual Roots good-for-nothing in Tianyi Sect around the same age as you, and he’s already at the fifth level of Qi Refining. Why are you still at the third level?”

That was true. Song Yuanxi was powerless to refute it.

Sure enough, when trash hurt each other, the most commonly used method was stabbing each other right in the heart. The physical damage was enough to make a person feel stifled.

The more Ji Wuxing thought about it, the more wronged he felt. They were both good-for-nothings. Who was looking down on whom? Since he looked down on him, fine, he would cut off contact. Let him do whatever he wanted!

The passage opened between the two water-repelling Pearls was severed, and Ji Wuxing made a face at the other side.

Song Yuanxi was across from him. Because there was no passage connecting them, he could not hear anything. But just from looking at the other party’s expression, he knew Ji Wuxing was shouting at him, his face full of childishness.

Helpless, Song Yuanxi opened his jade token and silently sent a message.

Song Yuanxi: Xingxing, stop messing around. Hurry up and reconnect the passage. A single water-repelling Pearl is easier to wash away.

Ji Wuxing: Beg me! Beg me and I’ll agree.

Song Yuanxi fell silent, considering whether he should beg. And if he did beg, how could he give himself the perfect way out?

At that moment, the jade token suddenly lit up. Its scalding temperature almost burned them. The two lowered their heads and saw an emergency notice suddenly arrive.

Trial Tower: A tsunami is approaching. Due to unpredictable factors, the difficulty has been upgraded. If you sense mortal danger, please exit immediately!

Song Yuanxi stared blankly. Could it be that this Trial Tower had already produced an artifact spirit?

Ji Wuxing, however, grew anxious on his side and immediately sent Song Yuanxi a message: Not good. This is a reminder from the Guardian Hall. I don’t know which unlucky bastard triggered the hidden mechanism on the first floor, but the trial difficulty has been upgraded.

Ji Wuxing had entered the Trial Tower countless times. He had stumbled and struggled on the first floor, but no matter how unlucky he was, he had never triggered the hidden mechanism.

He had once heard Ji family disciples who had encountered it mention that once the hidden mechanism opened, the trial difficulty instantly increased severalfold. It would not kill you, but it would leave you gravely disabled.

After reading the message, Song Yuanxi felt a bad premonition. Gravely disabled? What kind of disabled are we talking about?

Ji Wuxing: I don’t know. Probably missing an arm or a leg? Anyway, the few I know of were all especially miserable. Even after taking pills, they lay in bed for a year and a half. Later, when they heard they had to enter the Trial Tower again, they started crying on the spot.

The last trace of luck in Song Yuanxi’s heart vanished completely. The Trial Tower was the Ji family’s possession, yet it was this ruthless toward Ji family disciples. He was an outsider; when it abused him, it would probably be even more cruel.

It was the first time either of them had encountered such a thing, so they inevitably panicked a little. Neither of them thought to reconnect the passage between the water-repelling Pearls.

By the time Ji Wuxing remembered, he only had enough time to open a narrow gap. And because his spiritual energy was unstable, the passage was thin and long. From afar, it looked like a fine thread connecting two water-repelling Pearls.

The tsunami was even more ferocious than the tide. Song Yuanxi once again felt the sky and earth spinning. Along with the water-repelling Pearl, he was swept into the tsunami, spinning, spinning again, tossed high into the air, smashed heavily down, pulled endlessly, compressed to the extreme…

It was as if he had experienced an ultra-fast roller coaster, a human propeller, a tower drop ride, a giant pendulum, a free-fall coaster, a 360-degree spinning pirate ship, and then a bungee-style drop tower on top of it.

And! He did not experience them only once, but over and over again, without end.

For the first time, Song Yuanxi felt that time passed so very slowly. The warning red dot on the jade token was still there. Amid repeated nausea and vomiting, an indescribable despair rose inside him.

Dizziness, weightlessness, pressure, speed and passion… He wanted to die!

The tsunami assault that lasted for several hours finally stopped. Song Yuanxi lay spread-eagled against the water-repelling Pearl. Aside from his eyeballs still being able to move, he was no different from dead.

Who knew how much time passed before Ji Wuxing’s voice came through the long, narrow passage. That voice was very weak, sounding as if he was about to die.

“Brother… Brother Xi?”

After a long while, Song Yuanxi heard another sentence. “Alive… still alive?”

He did not want to speak. Struggling to raise his trembling finger, he used every last bit of strength he had and tapped the water-repelling Pearl.

Ji Wuxing sensed the movement from the other end. His smile looked even uglier than crying. “Alive… alive… ah…”

The next day, after Song Yuanxi could move a little, he frantically ate Return Origin Pills and absorbed spirit stones, finally recovering to a normal state. But what greeted him was another surprise!

The water-repelling Pearl carrying him had been squeezed out of shape by the tsunami. From a perfectly round sphere, it had become an irregular square. Its surface was full of pits and dents, with many cracks as well, as if it might shatter in the very next second.

“Ji Wuxing, what happened to the water-repelling Pearl…”

Song Yuanxi shouted toward the opposite side. When he raised his head, the second half of the sentence stuck in his throat and was forcibly swallowed back.

Connected to his water-repelling Pearl was a long, narrow passage. This passage was a full hundred meters long. A hundred meters away, another water-repelling Pearl was stuck in an enormous crack between rocks, dented into a strange triangular shape.

Poor Ji Wuxing. It was practically impossible to tell where he was inside!

“Ji Wuxing? Ji Wuxing? Xingxing! Are you still alive?” Song Yuanxi slapped the water-repelling Pearl with all his strength.

A weak voice came from the other end of the passage. “Still alive, but I’m about to die too.”

Ji Wuxing looked at the constantly shrinking space around him, squeezed smaller and smaller, and simply wanted to cry but had no tears. Who could have imagined that this crack in the rocks would be so strange? While sucking in the water-repelling Pearl, it was also continuously devouring the pearl.

“Song Yuanxi, I’m about to be sucked into the rock crack. Half an hour at most.” Ji Wuxing’s mood was low. For an instant, he actually felt bleak. This way of “dying” was simply too embarrassing.

“Crush your jade token and leave the Trial Tower immediately,” Song Yuanxi reminded him.

Ji Wuxing was unwilling. “The final image when you crush the jade token and leave the Trial Tower will be recorded. I don’t want such an embarrassing scene left behind.”

“Nonsense! Do you want to die in the Trial Tower?” Song Yuanxi was furious when he heard this. What kind of brat was this, stubborn to the point of absurdity?

Ji Wuxing felt he could still hang on a little longer. He even placed his hopes in Song Yuanxi. “Brother Xi, didn’t you get in through the back door? Then your family background should be pretty rich, right? Do you have any magical treasures that can help me? I’ll compensate you later.”

Song Yuanxi did not know whether to laugh or cry. “What magical treasures could I have? I just have some…”

His voice stopped abruptly. Then came a chaotic jumble of noise. After that, Song Yuanxi’s voice sounded again, carrying a hint of delight.

“Ji Wuxing, I have a Mutual Appreciation Talisman!”

“Mutual Appreciation Talisman?”

“Mm. This talisman was uniquely developed by Senior Brother Ji for rapid close-quarters combat. I thought it was interesting, so I asked him for some. I’ll give you the talisman. We’ll each take one and chant the incantation at the same time. Using the passage as a medium, you can teleport to my side.”

Ji Wuxing was instantly overjoyed. “My cousin’s talismans definitely work. Hurry and give it to me.”

After several tests and repeated attempts, in the few breaths before the rock crack swallowed the entire water-repelling Pearl, Ji Wuxing successfully teleported into the water-repelling Pearl where Song Yuanxi was. He quickly severed the connecting passage between the two and successfully escaped danger.

The two were silent for a while, then suddenly hugged each other and burst into loud laughter.

“My cousin is mighty!”

“If one survives a great disaster, good fortune is bound to follow!”

Even Ji Wuyi probably never imagined that the convenient combat talisman he had developed would be used by his junior brother and cousin for such a bizarre escape. And afterward, it would work perfectly countless times.

After the endless wild sand and the violent tsunami, the scenery on the first floor of the Trial Tower changed once more. This time, it was a lush green. Everywhere they looked, trees were sprouting and growing.

Song Yuanxi watched those tender green seeds break through the soil and quickly grow into saplings. Yet in the blink of an eye, they shot up more than ten meters and continued climbing higher. Finally, when he looked up, endless branches were tangled together in midair, blocking out the sky and sun, casting mottled shadows.

“Are the challenges set for each floor of the Trial Tower always the same?” Song Yuanxi suddenly asked.

Ji Wuxing thought for a moment, then shook his head. “The situations I encounter every time I enter the tower are all more or less the same, but if you distinguish them carefully, they’re different too. I can only say they’re very similar.”

Song Yuanxi understood. This was like an exam. The knowledge points being tested would not change, and the question types were similar but not repeated. If one did not grasp the fundamentals, doing more practice questions would be useless.

Song Yuanxi pulled Ji Wuxing down to sit. The two were in no hurry to pass the challenge. Instead, they began studying the mechanism behind the first floor’s changes. In simpler terms, they were guessing the test designer’s assessment points.

“Xingxing, you’ve entered the Trial Tower more times than I have. Please tell me what happened each time you entered, so I can analyze the commonalities between the environmental changes.”

Song Yuanxi was full of expectation, but Ji Wuxing hemmed and hawed. “Is that necessary? Can’t we just fight our way through?”

“No! Your Ji family’s Trial Tower is wicked. Every time you fail a challenge and enter again, you have to start over from the first floor. You also said the situations you encounter after entering change every time. If we don’t summarize things, then we’ll just keep doing useless work.”

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