Amethyst
Ye Hanyun's ears twitched, and she turned to ask Nangong Xu, "Senior brother, did you hear any strange noises?"
"You must have misheard. Don't be so nervous." Nangong Xu shrugged.
"Wait, there are two people there!! Senior brother, run!" Ye Hanyun grabbed him and ran forward frantically.
Song Yu and Ye Munian saw two fleeing figures ahead and quickly gave chase.
The four people ran faster and faster, and the distance between them grew closer and closer. Ye Munian finally recognized one of the figures from behind and shouted as he ran, "Holy crap, it's Ye Hanyun!"
Ye Hanyun recognized the voice and ran even faster, not forgetting to turn back and roar angrily: "Idiot!"
"Don't run away!!" Ye Munian gasped for breath.
"Then don't chase after me! I'll give you my life or my life!" Ye Hanyun was panting heavily, but she still didn't stop.
Nangong Xu ran more easily in comparison, and looked at Ye Hanyun with confusion: "Why are we running? The trial has just begun. If we want to grab something, we'll wait until we have more points. Besides, it's not like we can't beat them!"
"Oh right!" Ye Hanyun suddenly slammed on the brakes and stopped. Ye Munian, who was right behind him, didn't react in time and tackled him. The two of them ended up lying on the ground in a sorry state.
Song Yu and Nangong Xu also stopped. One of them was still confused about the situation, while the other stared speechlessly at the two fellow disciples on the ground.
"You're finished, Ye Hanyun! How dare you call me an idiot!"
"Damn, what are you if not an idiot? I'm just cursing you! What can you do about it?"
The two started fighting, and Ye Munian completely forgot the tactics he had used to gain the other party's trust, and began to beat Ye Hanyun without holding back.
Noticing that Ye Hanyun was trying to take his storage bag, Ye Munian slapped him angrily: "Damn it, where are you touching!"
Ye Hanyun fought back, but they didn't get up and just kept fighting on the ground. Moreover, the two seemed to have forgotten that they could use spiritual power and were really relying on pure hand-to-hand combat.
Song Yu interpreted it as a fight where they were completely at odds, and he uttered two words: "Please instruct me."
Seeing Song Yu launch an attack, Nangong Xu was still in a daze. He blocked the attack and peeked out from behind his hand: "Wait a minute, Senior Brother Song, is there some misunderstanding between us?"
"..." Song Yu remained silent, only launching a relentless attack.
The disciples outside the secret realm were dumbfounded, still not understanding what was going on.
To think that... they would actually start fighting on the second day of the trial is unprecedented.
"I remember Senior Brother Ye and Senior Brother Ye were from the same sect, right? What's going on with them?"
"They're from the same sect. I'm from the Silver Bamboo Sect, and actually, their relationship has always been terrible..."
"Then what about Senior Brother Song and Senior Brother Nangong?"
"Who knows?"
"..."
Qi Yuan deliberately walked up the hillside in the opposite direction from Ye Munian and the other person, but only found a few small spirit beasts, each worth 35 points.
She walked uphill step by step, praying that she wouldn't run into the three people who posed the greatest threat to her.
"Qi Yi! There's another one over here!"
It was Sima Chu's voice.
She couldn't take it anymore. The secret realm was so vast, how could she run into people everywhere? Qi Yuan felt numb; was fate playing a cruel joke on her?
It seemed that only Qi Yi and Sima Chu were there. She continued uphill until she reached the mountainside, where she saw two people squatting down to pick spiritual herbs.
Qi Yuan's gaze swept over them, but the two were so engrossed in picking their fruit that they didn't notice Qi Yuan passing by.
She quickened her pace and ran, soon reaching the summit. The summit had a relatively open space, scorching under the blazing sun.
A giant spirit beast she had never seen before was sleeping in the shade of a tree.
This could very well be one of the hidden quests! Fearing that the two people on the mountainside would catch up, she set up a barrier at the summit and launched a fierce attack on the spirit beast.
The giant beast let out a rough roar that echoed throughout the mountain peak, and it watched the approaching people warily in a defensive posture.
It pounced on Qi Yuan. She originally intended to defeat it in one fell swoop using the old method, but she did not expect that the giant beast could spit out spiritual power to attack, and ordinary attacks could not harm it.
Qi Yuan swooped down from under its back. The giant beast's reaction speed was different from that of ordinary beasts; it was incredibly sharp. It opened its blood-red maw and unleashed a burst of spiritual energy, its sharp teeth biting towards her.
She dodged instantly, only managing to tear a small hole in the hem of her clothes, but it didn't really matter.
After a long and arduous battle, both the giant beast and she were injured, making this point truly difficult to obtain!
"Frost Leaf!" Qi Yuan, who had been holding back because she knew that people outside the secret realm were watching, no longer concealed herself and summoned her killing move.
Under her relentless onslaught of frost leaves, the behemoth finally collapsed to the ground. Unlike others, the behemoth did not leave a corpse after its death; instead, it dissipated into the air, leaving only an amethyst on the ground.
She always felt that the scent of amethyst was strange, as if she had smelled it before.
The moment Qi Yuan placed the amethyst into her storage bag, a plume of smoke made of spiritual energy rose into the air above the secret realm, barely noticeable in the sunlight.
Accompanying the fireworks was a recording stone playing throughout the secret realm. Yun Xingjun's joyful voice reached the ears of every disciple: "Live report: Qi Yuan of the Silver Bamboo Sect has killed Xi Zhen's hidden spirit beast, earning 1000 points. This is hereby announced." (This was repeated twice.)
The disciples watching the competition were stunned. In previous years, there was a custom that whenever any hidden spirit beast was killed, it would be reported in the secret realm to celebrate. But this was the Heavenly Bird Secret Realm!
"My god, 1000 points... It would take killing more than thirty ordinary spirit beasts to equal this one."
"I already said to just bet on Senior Sister Qi! You people who criticize her deserve to lose spirit stones."
"..."
"What? 1000 points?" Ye Hanyun and Ye Munian had just finished fighting and were both injured. When they heard the announcement, they both exclaimed.
Ye Ting was entangled with a group of spirit beasts. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and, without even having time to reflect on the broadcast, continued to throw himself into the battle.
Cheng Jin and Cui Que walked together. After hearing the announcement, they looked at each other and understood each other's thoughts.
Lu Wenxing was searching for the score alone when he heard this, he paused, smiled, and then parted the grass to look for the spirit plant again.
Why did you have to say it?! Qi Yuan gasped for breath, her hair plastered to her face with sweat.
Having exhausted most of her strength, the barrier automatically disappeared. Qi Yi and Sima Chu, who were trapped outside the barrier, naturally heard the announcement and stared intently at Qi Yuan, who was sitting on the ground.
Qi Yuan knew something was wrong, and as they rushed over, she stood up and ran down the other side of the hillside.
While she still had spiritual energy, she kept running downhill, then turned back and struck a tree, causing it to fall and block Qi Yi and Sima Chu's path down the slope.
But it only served to delay them, as the two men broke the tree trunk and caught up.
Qi Yuan's body was about to give out. With dusk approaching, she ran with all her might towards the complex terrain of the forest. Fortunately, Sima Chu spotted a demonic cultivator leaning against a rock. She couldn't care less about Qi Yuan anymore.
Qi Yi watched the figure grow increasingly blurry with resentment, but could only helplessly follow Sima Chu. He knew how deep Sima Chu's obsession with demonic cultivation ran.
Qi Yuan, clutching her injured arm, stumbled and ran toward the secluded corner. Before she even got there, she was exhausted and tripped over a pebble.
She used her hands to support herself as she crawled to a corner, gasping for air, and curled up, hugging her knees.
She was finally safe. She breathed a sigh of relief.
After resting for a while, Qi Yuan took out the amethyst from her storage bag, and the more she smelled it, the more something seemed off.
Thinking of something, she quickly took out a brocade pouch and a scroll from her spatial storage and compared the scents. The brocade pouch only had a slight grassy scent left, but the fragrance was completely identical!
What exactly is this strange smell? The brocade pouch and scroll belong to that old man, but this is the Heavenly Bird Secret Realm.
Within the Heavenly Bird Secret Mirror, only the hidden quests were deliberately set by the sect leaders, and the amethyst stone was a byproduct of completing these hidden quests. Which sect leader was behind the behemoth she defeated?
Qi Yuan clutched the amethyst in her palm, and after some thought, decided to put it in her storage bag. She could easily earn those 1000 points by killing more spirit beasts, but the amethyst was the key to her breakthrough, the clue she had yet to find.
The audience couldn't see her position at that moment, but the disciples who saw the rankings asked in surprise, "Why doesn't she want those 1000 points?"
"Tch, it can't be that they think there aren't enough and they don't like it, right?"
"What's with the sarcastic tone? If you're so great, why are you sitting in the spectator seats?"
Sitting at the front, Yun Xingjun had a gloomy expression. He looked at Ouyang Lanyue, seemingly wanting to say something but then stopped. Ouyang Lanyue put her finger to her lips in a shushing gesture, and Yun Xingjun had no choice but to look away.
What exactly went wrong? The spirit beast that Qi Yuan defeated was created by him, so why would she give up those 1000 points?
After Qi Yuan lost 1000 points, her ranking dropped, but she eventually stabilized in fourth place.
Qiu Yanyu said in surprise, "Senior Sister! Look, Senior Sister Qi's ranking has dropped!"
Dongfang Yilin checked the rankings with the jade token, and Qi Yuan had indeed dropped to fourth place.
"Junior Sister Qiu, do you know who this Pei Yin is? The name sounds familiar, but I haven't met him many times. There's no reason I wouldn't remember someone this powerful." She asked, frowning.
It was already evening, and most people chose to find a safe place to rest and recuperate. However, the name of the first place was changing from time to time. One second it was "Ye Ting" and the next second it became "Pei Yin".
The score of the first place winner is still rising, it seems that these two are still killing spirit beasts at this point.
Lu Wenxing came in third, remaining steadily motionless.
“Senior Sister, I had a turn with him in the competition. He was not only strong, but also very aggressive! I think he had been hiding his strength all along for this trial, just to make a name for himself here!” Qiu Yanyu said with a tense expression.
“I don’t think so. He’s been a personal disciple for four years, how could he have known about the Heavenly Bird Secret Realm trial so long ago? Even this was only decided not long ago this year. I think he was indeed hiding his strength before, and this time he fully revealed his true strength because of some opportunity.” Dongfang Yilin seriously considered this question.
Several more hours passed, and the moonlight was at its brightest. The secret realm finally returned to silence.
The team members huddled together to rest, finally able to relax after a long day.
Only Duan Yu, Ye Ting, Pei Yin, and Lu Wenxing were sleeping soundly in relatively safe places, all of them acting alone.
The forest was filled with the scent of earth, and moss covered the tree trunks under the moonlight.
Qi Yuan was destined to have trouble sleeping tonight. She leaned against the corner, looking up at the moon quietly, lost in thought.
Her eyes dimmed slightly, lost in thought. Only when her trembling fingertips touched her wet face did she realize she was crying.
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