Chapter 184: Ch 184: Beginning of the Trials
As soon as Rein's group reached the top, a golden barrier surrounded their group. They were not the only group of people who had managed to reach the top as there were two more groups of powerful clans that had managed to do the same. But they all had lost a few of their members in the process and were extremely worn out.
Rein checked the barrier and found that it was extremely powerful. Even Rein would not be able to break without activating his Rain Gain boost again. The other two teams were also protected by the same type of barrier and it looked like the secret realm was giving everyone a much needed rest before the start of the real trial.
That was fine as Rein was not planning to start a fight with the other groups in the first place. He told everyone to rest for the time while he also started doing the same. The panic rush was way taxing for everyone's mentality so all the disciples started to meditate in order to calm their frightened and disturbed mind.
...
As everyone rested, other groups started to show up. These groups were also extremely tired and had lost a few of their members. After another whole day all the remaining groups had reached the top of the mountain. Everyone else was either kicked out of the secret realm or had unfortunately died.
A total of eight groups had managed to reach this position. The strongest group which was the group of the royal family was the last one to arrive and they were also the group that had lost most members. As the overall strength of this group was very high, the demons attacking them were also extremely powerful. So the losses they suffered were also greater.
After all the groups had gathered, the palace present in the centre started to shine with bright multicolored light and then eight beams of light appeared and got connected with the eight barriers. Then a hole opened in the area why the beams hit the barrier and a tunnel-like path appeared before everyone.
It was clear that all the teams were getting invited to enter the palace for the trial. After a little bit of hesitation everyone gathered their courage and stepped foot toward the path that led to the final trial.
...
After going through the path Rein and his group found themselves in the middle of a valley. There was a stone tablet before them with the instructions of what to do next written on it. Everyone read the stone tablet very carefully except for Colinde and got ready to do whatever was written on it.
What they needed to do in the valley was very simple and quite complex at the same time. There were a total of 18 special seals hidden in this valley and there were also 18 keys of those seals which were also hidden. The disciples just needed to search the whole valley very carefully and then they needed to release the seal.
Doing so would summon a powerful demon and the disciples needed to defeat that demon without taking help from any object or method that was above their own level.
It sounded like a very simple mission but this valley was extremely large. So it would be very difficult and time consuming for just 32 people to search all of this. But at the same time it was also mentioned in the stone that there were no demons and beasts in this area so the disciples were safe for the time being. There were various traps though and the disciples needed to still worry about that.
Rein told everyone to make 7 groups of three people who would be in charge of searching the northern side and the remaining 11 people that included Rein and Colinde would search the southern side. The first group also had Lan and Lu Shi who would be keeping an eye on the other students.
Lan and Lu Shi both were extremely intelligent and quick witted so Rein was confident that they would not miss anything. And even though Lan was a little bit weaker if compared to other disciples who had cultivated for a much longer time, with Lu Shi supporting her, she would face no trouble.
...
Rein had few members in his group because the southern side of the valley was mostly a plain whereas the northern side was a mountainous area. So many people would be needed to search the mountains with countless caves and hollows. Where everything was visible in the plains except for some bushes, so this side obviously needed less people.
Just as Rein had expected, their group was done searching everything thoroughly after just 10 hours or so. They had managed to find 7 seals and 6 keys. As for the teams who went to search the northern side, they were having a lot of troubles and had only managed to cover about 40 percent of the areas.
So Rein and the other 10 people who were done with their part of the job started to help them. After 15 or 16 more hours, all of them finally decided to take a long break after thoroughly going over the whole northern area. They all had been working non-stop for over a whole day so to reward their hard work, Rein took out some rare and extremely delicious meat as everyone's reward.
But there was a massive problem. Even after going through the whole area very thoroughly Rein's group was still short of finding one of the seals and two of the keys. There were definitely some spots that all of them had missed but for the time being no one had any idea where that spot could be.
It's not like all the seals and keys were hidden in easily accessible locations. Lan was truly the NovelFireP of the day as she herself had managed to find three extremely well hidden keys and seals. So all the disciples were really hoping that she would be able to do another miracle and would be able to find the last few hidden items.
Even though there were still quite a few worries left for the disciples, they were not that tensed. There were quite a few riddles that they needed to solve in order to reach some of the seals and in that process the disciples needed to work together.
All of them were already very close to one another after fighting side by side in a life and death battle and then after this experience they had become even closer. So with their unity, the disciples were confident in taking care of any problems that would be thrown in their way.
So currently the atmosphere in this camp was very bright and good. But that was not the case for some of the other camps and they were in great trouble.