Chapter 324 - Chapter 324: Chapter 26: The Immortal Crossing Trial

Chapter 324: Chapter 26: The Immortal Crossing Trial

This time, Lin Jing stayed on the seventy-ninth step for a full month before he fully adapted to the Divine Sense pressure there.

After a month of tempering, Lin Jing felt his Divine Sense had greatly strengthened.

This was the transformation that emerged under the ultimate pressure.

The Trial Grounds seemed more like a place specifically for tempering the body and Divine Sense.

If any Sect had possession of these Trial Grounds, their strength would likely increase significantly.

Unfortunately, the Trial Grounds were within Immortal Crossing Island and could not be moved by anyone.

Lin Jing himself had tried using the System Space, but the pressure here was not formed by the terrain.

Therefore,

even the environmental simulation feature of the System Space could not replicate these Trial Grounds.

……

Having fully adapted to the seventy-ninth step, Lin Jing then stood up, preparing himself, and planned to step onto the eightieth step.

This time, Lin Jing set a goal for himself.

At the very least, he must fully stand on the eightieth step without being pushed down by the repelling force as he was when he first attempted the seventy-ninth step.

Then, Lin Jing called out the system and spoke:

“System, activate the bonus possession function.”

As Lin Jing’s voice fell, a familiar sensation surged over him, and his Divine Sense suddenly soared.

Then came the sound of the system prompt.

“Ding.”

“System Alert: Bonus Possession Activated Successfully. Deducting 5 Harvest Points. After 5 minutes, 1 Harvest Point will be deducted every minute.”

After activating the bonus possession, Lin Jing faced the Divine Sense pressure of the seventy-ninth step with ease.

Having been refined, Lin Jing’s Divine Sense was already very strong, not to mention an additional 40% added to his Divine Sense strength, making him even more formidable.

Feeling his Divine Sense surge so suddenly, Lin Jing had the illusion that he could easily cope with the Divine Sense pressure of even the eightieth step.

However, even with this feeling, he would not attempt it recklessly.

After preparing himself, Lin Jing took a deep breath.

Then, with a determined gaze, he looked towards the eightieth step ahead.

Afterward, Lin Jing raised his foot and stepped directly onto it.

This time, as soon as Lin Jing stepped onto the eightieth step, the repelling force nearly pushed him off.

Lin Jing exerted force to stabilize his form.

In that position, he held on, waiting until he slowly adapted, before cautiously lifting his second foot.

Lin Jing knew that once both feet were on the eightieth step, he would face an even greater repelling force.

So, before he lifted his second foot, Lin Jing was already furiously circulating the Spiritual Power in his body, preparing to resist the sudden onrush of the repelling force.

As Lin Jing’s second foot slowly rose and settled on the eightieth step,

the immense repelling force suddenly struck. Lin Jing, with one foot forward and one back, braced himself against the ferocious repelling assault.

The repelling force was indeed formidable, and despite Lin Jing’s full resistance, he was still nearly pushed down the eightieth step.

At that moment, his leading foot had already lifted off the ground, just shy of falling off.

Fortunately, at that critical moment, the repelling force disappeared, and Lin Jing was not pushed off.

With the repelling force gone, Lin Jing braced for the next challenge.

The crushing pressure and the Divine Sense pressure were about to hit him.

However,

just then, an unexpected change occurred.

The oppressive force and the Divine Sense pressure that should have come did not arrive.

Instead, the eightieth step began to shake.

This was the first time Lin Jing had encountered such a situation, making him wary and ready to transport himself into the System Space at any moment.

Lin Jing stabilized his stance to avoid being shaken off while looking around, trying to understand what was happening.

But as Lin Jing looked down, he discovered…

The steps below were disappearing one by one.

As the steps below vanished, a small stele beside the eightieth step slowly rose.

The steps behind Lin Jing disappeared quickly, and within a short while, all the steps behind him were gone.

Now, behind Lin Jing, there was nothing but empty space.

Once the stairs behind him disappeared, a sandstorm blew in, covering everything tightly, leaving nothing visible to the eye.

Lin Jing couldn’t help but frown.

This sudden turn of events was uncertain whether it was good or bad.

Given Lin Jing’s current location, it probably wasn’t anything good.

Then, Lin Jing looked at the stele beside the eightieth step, and the words on it caused his face to change dramatically.

It read:

“The Immortal Crossing trial officially begins.”

“From this moment, exiting will result in death!”

However, the stele continued to rise.

Quickly, more words were revealed, and Lin Jing focused on the stele, eager to see what the next sentence was.

When the last sentence was revealed, Lin Jing’s face grew even more unsightly.

“Success, live! Failure, die!”

So this was the nature of the eightieth step.

Fail to cross, and you would die.

There wasn’t even a hint of a way back.

It was likely that the true difficulty lay in the eightieth and the eighty-first steps.

Otherwise, why would there have been so many years without a single cultivator leaving Immortal Crossing Island?

Keep in mind, those top cultivators who came to Immortal Crossing Island, each one of them a peerless genius, who didn’t have countless extraordinary methods at their disposal?

Yet still, not a single person had been able to leave Immortal Crossing Island, which speaks volumes about the difficulty of the final trial.

As the stele slowly rose, the swaying of the eightieth step also started to diminish.

Lin Jing could feel that the real trial was about to begin.

It should be when the shaking stops and the stele has fully risen.

Lin Jing hurriedly adjusted his condition in anticipation of the true trial ahead.

As the trembling reduced to a calm, the stele rose slowly until with a “click,” it seemed to lock into place, motionless.

It was at that moment…

An enormous pressure descended, overwhelming like the end of the world, causing Lin Jing, who stood prepared to face it, to fall “plop” on one knee to the ground.

Simultaneously, a divine sense carrying the aura of world-ending might rushed toward Lin Jing’s sea of consciousness.

This divine pressure was incredibly domineering, forcibly pushing back the divine sense Lin Jing had extended and trying to invade his sea of consciousness.

Thankfully, Lin Jing was under the effects of an enhancement, making his divine sense very strong.

Thus, he was barely able to keep the divine pressure at bay, outside of his sea of consciousness.

However, it was not over.

Just as Lin Jing thought he had resisted the pressure…

The immense pressure and the terrifying divine pressure kept intensifying.

Lin Jing felt as if his bones were beginning to creak under the massive pressure.

And from various parts of his body, wounds began to appear.

These injuries were caused by the compression of his body, unable to withstand the force, leading to ruptures.

As the all-encompassing pressure and divine sense’s oppression grew stronger, Lin Jing finally couldn’t hold on any longer.

He had no choice but to call out to the system:

“System, enter System Space.”

With Lin Jing’s words, he entered into the System Space.

Inside System Space, Lin Jing could no longer bear it and collapsed to the ground.

The dual pressures on his body and divine sense were too much for Lin Jing to resist, forcing him to temporarily retreat to System Space.

After returning to System Space, the enhancement automatically wore off.

The pressure was too immense; it took Lin Jing a long while in System Space to finally recover his strength.

Subsequently, Lin Jing began to furrow his brows in thought.

If he wanted to leave, he still had to break through the eightieth step and the one above it, the eighty-first step.

But the pressure of the eightieth step increased gradually; the first thing Lin Jing had to do was to figure out the limit of this increasing pressure.

If the pressure truly increased without limit, then there was no point in attempting to break through; he should look for a way to exit the Trial Grounds instead.

With that thought, Lin Jing called out to the system:

“System, enter Observation Mode.”

As Lin Jing finished speaking, his perspective shifted abruptly, appearing outside.

When Lin Jing used the observation mode to view the outside, he realized the gravity of the situation.

Now the entire place was enveloped in a tempest of wind and sand, and all Lin Jing could see were the eightieth and eighty-first steps amidst it, as well as the formation on the stone platform.

Everywhere else, including the way back, had vanished.

Lin Jing then controlled the observation perspective, searching around, and found that it was indeed the case.

One could say that the Trial Grounds were now reduced to these three spots where someone could stand.

Even if Lin Jing wanted to exit now, it probably wouldn’t be possible.

Lin Jing understood then, the true meaning behind ‘death upon retreat.’

In the tempest, virtually invisible to the naked eye, there were faint glimmering lights, mixed within the sandy wind, covering the entire area.

Merely looking at it gave Lin Jing a deep chill in his heart.

The moment he disappeared from the eightieth step, the entire Trial Grounds would turn into a killing field brimming with danger.

With this in mind, Lin Jing continued to operate the observation mode.

This time, he probed downwards.

As Lin Jing controlled the view to its limit, he finally uncovered another secret of the Trial Grounds.

Below the Trial Grounds, numerous bones were piled together.

They formed a small mountain.

These bones, many of them broken into pieces, had no spot left intact.

And there were not just bones; there were jade bones radiating golden light, almost transparent crystal bones, and more…

The remains of once mighty cultivators.

All received the same treatment, discarded together like trash.