Inside the pitch-black passage, Li Yan "crawled" forward in a strange posture, one hand raised above his head, the other hanging down to his leg.
He didn't dare to retreat, nor could he. The entrance he came through seemed to have been sealed shut.
Li Yan had kicked backward a few times, and the sensation that came back was identical to that of the walls beside him—completely immovable.
He could still move back and forth along the path he had already crawled, but he certainly wouldn't do that.
In the pitch-black, scorching hot passage that seemed to have no end, a lone person crawled slowly. The confining space, preventing any free movement, brought with it psychological depression and eternal solitude.
It wasn't that Li Yan didn't want to circulate his Spirit Power to move forward quickly. Here, advancing even a short distance consumed an enormous amount of stamina. He couldn't afford to waste Spirit Power without knowing the situation ahead.
In a dark, narrow space, a person slowly loses their sense of time. You don't know how much time has passed. Perhaps it's only been a day, but you feel as if many days and nights have gone by.
In the end, even a moment can feel as long as decades, so helpless and agonizing.
In such an environment, the best course of action is to calm one's mind and slowly seek a way out.
Unfortunately, the narrow, dark passage Li Yan was in wouldn't allow him to calm down, for it possessed a temperature that could melt a mortal in an instant.
The passage constantly emanated a suffocating heat. Even for a cultivator, resisting it continuously drained Spirit Power and stamina, making one increasingly anxious and oppressed.
Here, not a glimmer of light could be seen, not a sound from the outside world could be heard, only one's own heavy breathing and the fiery foul air exhaled with each breath.
Li Yan persisted in silently counting his heartbeats. He needed a rough estimate of how long he had been here.
Two hours had passed, and he had crawled less than twenty zhang. He was barely faster than a snail.
His black robes were soaked, then dried, then soaked again. Li Yan occasionally had to stop and cast the Cloud and Rain Art to catch some water droplets in his mouth. But this only accelerated the consumption of his Spirit Power.
Although the dark passage firmly restrained his body, it thankfully did not cut off Spiritual Energy , so Immortal Arts could still be cast.
Li Yan had also tried to cast an Earth Thorn Art on the passage walls, intending to use his Spirit Power to form a long rope, wrap it around the protruding earth thorn, and pull himself forward quickly.
But unfortunately, even with his current cultivation, after casting the art, aside from a series of rumbling sounds, he couldn't even leave a small hole on the passage wall.
...
The Bright Fire Qilin stared in disbelief at the black passage before it. This was its fifteenth attempt to enter in three days, but each time it was pushed away by an irresistible repulsive force.
"It's been three days! How is that brat not dead yet? This is unreasonable!" The Bright Fire Qilin was on the verge of a frantic rage.
Of the two passages behind the crimson doors, the black passage, while not launching any attacks upon entry, was a place of true terror.
Anyone who emerged alive from the black passage would rather enter the golden one to fight endlessly than ever set foot in the black passage again. It was a nine-deaths-one-life experience, and worse, it left an eternal, terrifying scar on the minds of the survivors.
The black passage robbed you of any hope of life. Decades, even centuries, of cultivating a calm and composed mind would be lost. You would only despair in helplessness, and in despair, you would lose your life.
The golden passage, though filled with constant battle that brought extreme fatigue and weakness, at least offered intermittent rest. Most importantly, it had ample space, letting a cultivator know in their heart that they were still alive, their body was free, and their senses were free.
The Bright Fire Qilin was the guardian of this gate, and it could easily enter both passages. There was no special reason for this; the one who had refined this place had simply allowed it.
But there was a special condition: only one living being could enter a passage at a time. As long as that being was not dead, not even the Bright Fire Qilin could enter.
That was why there were countless "Fire Eyes" on the mountain of the Flame Palace, allowing many people to enter simultaneously.
"Damn human brat, I'd like to see how long you can last! Once the medicinal pills on you are gone, let's see what other tricks you have to stay alive," the Bright Fire Qilin thought hatefully as it stared at the pitch-black passage.
In its view, Li Yan must be a core disciple of some major sect; otherwise, how could someone with such a low cultivation level have reached this place?
He must possess protective magical treasures like that pale yellow folding fan. But any magical treasure required the consumption of Spirit Power. Moreover, the passage was completely unsuitable for cultivation and recovery, so he could only use medicinal pills to replenish his Spirit Power.
The price of seeking a breakthrough here was life itself. A cultivator's Storage Pouch was ultimately limited, and it certainly wouldn't be filled with nothing but medicinal pills.
...
Li Yan felt extremely uncomfortable. He had maintained this bizarre posture for five days. The range of motion for his arms, one up and one down, was limited. He could only rely on slightly bending his legs and pushing off to inch forward.
His speed was agonizingly slow. He also had to stop and rest frequently. This seemingly easy act of pushing off the ground was, in fact, incredibly draining on his stamina.
In five days, he estimated he had crawled less than five hundred zhang. In the beginning, Li Yan was still pondering his mistake and how to get out, all sorts of thoughts flooding his mind. He didn't regret his choice, nor did he resent the Bright Fire Qilin too much. He had survived until today by relying on caution.
Although he was sometimes overly cautious, Li Yan didn't think he was a god. He was human, after all, and humans make mistakes. It was impossible for him to be the only smart one in the world while everyone else was foolish.
One learns from their mistakes. As long as he didn't lose his life immediately, there was always a chance to remedy the situation.
In his Divine Sense, there was still no end in sight. He could hear his own clear breathing, and in the gaps between breaths, Li Yan could even hear the "thump, thump" of his own heart. It was so loud it almost felt deafening.
Of course, this was all just a feeling. His heartbeat was audible, but not to that extent. It was just that in this place without day or night, with the ceaseless high temperature and stifling heat, there was nothing else to do but listen to his own heart and breath while inching forward. Nothing else happened.
If someone with great divine arts could slice open the passage and look down from above, they would see Li Yan lying in a coffin, struggling to inch his way out.
Li Yan felt fortunate that he cultivated the True Scripture of Gui Water . The generating cycle of the Five Elements could still supply him with enough power for such use, preventing his Spirit Power from being depleted too early.
Li Yan's forward-shuffling movement had become mechanical and numb. In the utter darkness, the simple, tedious repetition of a single action could easily cause one's thoughts to stagnate.
And the stagnation of thought meant a gradual loss of consciousness. Li Yan had already experienced hallucinations several times. Sometimes, he didn't even know if he was still crawling or had already stopped.
Only when he realized this would his mind suddenly clear, and he would know what state he was in.
But then, during the tedious crawling, he would slowly lose consciousness again. All sorts of distracting, jumbled thoughts and bizarre ideas would flood his mind. The thoughts of one moment often had no connection to the ideas of the next.
Sometimes he would wonder how long the path ahead was, or if some sudden change would occur here. Before he could even imagine what that change might be, a scene of his parents sitting at the dinner table, eating and chatting, might pop into his head.
And just as he tried to look closer to see what his parents were saying, the sights of Green Mountain Pass would float before his eyes. Amidst the swaying tavern banners, why was Li Yu peeking her head out from the upper floor again...
Great Green Mountains, Malevolent Spirit Sect, Senior Brother, Seventh Senior Brother, Zhao Min , Gong Chenying ... there was even Lord Stone Stele from the back mountain of Little Bamboo Peak... a chaotic jumble of incomprehensible thoughts.
Suddenly, Li Yan shivered, and his vision returned to the boundless darkness. He had momentarily regained clarity. He was still crawling slowly... and soon, he would once again fall into a state of chaotic, fleeting thoughts.
Just like that, Li Yan gradually lost all concept of time. He knew neither day nor month, neither the passage of hours. He repeatedly alternated between confusion and clarity, and his spirit began to enter a vague state. Eventually, for certain periods, he would even forget where he was and why he had come here.
His heart grew more and more restless. Maintaining one posture for so long made his body extremely uncomfortable. Sometimes, the terrifying thought of chopping off his own arms to make his body freer would arise.
...
Outside, the Bright Fire Qilin was also gradually descending into a frenzy. It had been waiting outside for twenty days now.
Now, it would ram into the black passage every half an hour, only to be thrown high into the air and land on the ground outside the crimson doors, before getting up again with crimson eyes.
After refining that wisp of red flame, the Bright Fire Qilin was ecstatic to find that its soul power had improved by a sliver. This was equivalent to several months of arduous cultivation.
The Divine Soul and Divine Sense were equally difficult to cultivate, and heavenly materials and earthly treasures that could enhance them were exceedingly rare. Even if they existed, they were usually possessed only by cultivators with great divine arts.
This stimulus was enormous. The Bright Fire Qilin's desire for Li Yan to die immediately grew even more urgent. It was now beginning to regret its earlier decision. It should have just killed the brat at all costs, instead of suffering this torment.
...
Li Yan did not know that what he was experiencing was precisely the reason many Pseudo-Core Cultivators came here. Most who reached the Pseudo-Core Realm had already refined their Spirit Power to the level required for Core Formation . What they lacked was the experiential understanding of their State of Mind and a breakthrough on the brink of life and death.
The two passages within the Flame Palace served precisely these two purposes. The black passage tempered a cultivator's State of Mind, allowing for a nirvanic rebirth amidst the sprouting of Inner Demons. This had an effect similar to a Dustless Pill .
However, this tempering was far more domineering and thorough. Taking a Dustless Pill wouldn't kill you, but the black passage of the Flame Palace was perilous to the extreme. Having one's Dao dissipate and body perish was a light outcome; the true psychological scar for a lifetime was the struggle to survive in agony.
Monk Yiming had chosen to enter here after several failed attempts with the Dustless Pill.
The golden passage was a place of endless slaughter. You couldn't stay in one place. Even if you killed all the Vicious Souls nearby, more would just regenerate shortly after. All a cultivator had to do was to keep advancing, keep slaughtering, until they reached the end of the golden corridor.
...
In the eternally silent world, oppression and darkness constantly enveloped Li Yan. Finally, one day, Li Yan stopped moving forward. His consciousness had become chaotic and unbearable. Anyone, after an unknown number of days in pitch darkness, would eventually lose their psychological balance completely. Li Yan was human, and he was no exception.
Listening to his own breathing, sometimes light, sometimes heavy in the darkness, and unable to feel whether his arms still had sensation, Li Yan's vision suddenly ceased to be dark.
Crystalline snowflakes bloomed in the sky, illuminating the world. And amidst the falling snowflakes, many familiar faces appeared, sometimes distant, sometimes near. They seemed to be saying something to him, their expressions anxious, helpless, but Li Yan couldn't hear clearly, only a buzzing sound.
Suddenly, Li Yan experienced a moment of clarity. This was a dream, as chaotic as the many dreams he'd had during this time, only this one was more real, closer.