Chapter 9 I Just Wasn't Careful

  "Are you sure you want to go in?" Ao Ran's mouth corners slightly curved with a hint of smile, questioning while also somewhat anticipating, anticipating just how capable this youth who killed Hong Zelong was.

  He hesitantly replied to him: "In an illusion, one person is a world, I have no way to help you."

  Li Mu rolled his eyes, and to be honest, he was also a bit nervous. But facing Ao Feng's repeated provocations, Li Mu had no choice but to defend his dignity with actual actions. If such a small matter required the words of a woman, where would his dignity be? Even if he passed, it wouldn't be glorious.

  "Have you forgotten who taught you your skills? You just need to tell me what it takes to pass, that's all." Li Mu seemed nonchalant on the surface, but was actually extremely concerned. Since he had chosen this path, he would see it through to the end - this was Li Mu's consistent style.

  Awakened from her daze, Ao Ran was well aware of Li Mu's abilities - aside from Earth Escape Technique, he had no other skills. But as a senior disciple of Tongyuan Mountain, it was hard to say whether he might have some other way to pass the test. Faced with someone she had once admired, Ao Ran chose to trust him.

  "After some thought, he told Li Mu the method of challenging the fantasy realm: 'The Seven-Colored Fantasy Realm is formed by arranging seven pieces of immortal stones, and it changes unpredictably. What you need to do is go in and come out. Only those who can come out have the opportunity to enter the next round.'"

  "Is that all?" Li Mu asked nonchalantly. He went in, came out, and spoke very lightly. On the surface, he seemed to be carefree, but his brain was racing rapidly, guessing various situations that might appear in the fantasy realm.

  Actually, Ao Ran didn't say it carefully, and many things in the fantasy world she deliberately didn't mention. Because she believed that Li Mu would definitely find a way to leave the fantasy world. A kind of unconditional trust, just like she trusted Li Mu when he taught her magic.

  As a man with dignity, he naturally couldn't bear to ask a woman. Li Mu looked at the entrance of the illusion and took a deep breath before stepping inside.

  The entrance to the fantasy realm was like a piece of smooth silk, gently swaying. From the outside, it didn't seem special, but inside, it was vast and boundless, as if another world. As soon as Li Mu entered the fantasy realm, a chill wind hit him in the face. Outside, it was a scorching June day, but inside the fantasy realm, it was icy cold, like the Arctic.

  Li Mu tightened his clothes and cursed under his breath: "Damn it, what kind of godforsaken place is this?"

  Ice, above, below, and all around. It's as if it's a world made of ice and snow. Turning back to look, there's nothing behind, empty and desolate. Don't even mention the door from which I came, not even a wall is in sight, I just appeared out of thin air in this eerie place.

  "Come in, go out. Easy to say." Li Mu thought of Ao Ran's words and couldn't help but complain. Originally, they were having a good time traveling, eating, drinking, and playing, why did they have to come here and suffer this way? Li Mu suddenly remembered a saying: "Die for face, live in suffering." It was probably talking about himself.

  The cold air is pressing in on us, staying here isn't a good idea either, let's just take it one step at a time.

  With this mindset, Li Mu tightly wrapped his body with clothes and slowly moved forward. However, after just a few steps, Li Mu found himself in a fully enclosed space, like a huge ice room, with thick ice walls all around him. In the ice room, apart from himself, there were only seven ice pillars as thick as a person, each with a dragon carved on it, with clear patterns and vividly lifelike.

  "It's that annoying dragon again." Li Mu rolled his eyes, recalling that nothing good ever happened when he encountered a dragon.

  "There must be a mechanism." Li Mu thought, looking around at the ice walls. Since there's a way in, there must be a way out. "Illusion, illusion." Li Mu whispered to himself, since this is an illusory realm, all of this might just be an illusion.

  He didn't have time to appreciate the ice sculptures on the pillar, and instead carefully felt around the icy wall with his hand. Who would have thought that this touch would lead to disaster? As soon as his hand touched the icy wall, a square-shaped icicle suddenly protruded from it. Caught off guard, Li Mu was violently knocked upwards, flying several meters backwards before crashing into the dragon pillar.

  "Ouch." Li Mu rubbed his aching stomach and after a while the pain went away.

  "It's good that I didn't secretly eat Master's immortal pill." Li Mu hummed a sentence and said: "The mechanism is definitely here."

  He walked to the ice wall again, but this time with a surge of anger. As expected, as soon as his hand touched the ice wall, an icicle suddenly protruded out. Li Mu dodged to one side, avoiding the attack by a hair's breadth. The square icicle missed its mark and immediately retracted back into the wall, which returned to its original flat surface. But before Li Mu could even catch his breath, the entire ice wall began to protrude icicles like crazy. Li Mu darted left and right, dodging and weaving between the protruding icicles with an agility reminiscent of a slippery carp. Although he narrowly avoided being hit by any of the icicles, his appearance was utterly disheveled.

  Li Mu wanted to use Earth Escape Technique to escape from this place, but all around were ice, and the technique simply wouldn't work. If it weren't for his hands and feet being quite agile, he would have been battered by these icicles until he became a meat paste or at least a meat pie.

  In the chaos, Li Mu saw a gap without icicles protruding and pounced on it with all his might. He thought he could rest well here and at least catch his breath. Unexpectedly, this pounce actually pounced into another world.

  Fire. The hot air rises and the flames shoot up into the sky, this is the world of fire.

  Unconsciously turning back to look at the direction I came from, it had actually turned into a huge lava pool, with the lava inside constantly rolling over, where was there even half a hint of ice.

  "No way!" Li Mugang raised his head, and the sky suddenly started raining fire, with fist-sized fireballs falling from the sky and landing in the lava, splashing up high flames. The density of the fire rain was very large, but there was no place to hide around. Li Mugang had to use his left dodge and right avoid skills again, the scorching fireballs brushing past him, his hair and clothes inevitably getting burned.

  "Damn it, tricking me!" Venturing his life, he continued to walk along this suspected road, only to discover that ahead was a fiery valley. If Li Mu hadn't braked in time, they would have fallen into the fiery valley and turned into charcoal.

  "Not right?" Li Mu quickly dodged a fireball, suddenly feeling something was off. The Five Elements Escape Technique was the lowest level of escape technique, but it was the most practical one. When attributes were the same, it shouldn't be impossible to cast.

  Moreover, he dodged twice, as if his footsteps were the same. The route and time were not different at all. Li Mu looked ahead and indeed found a place that had not been attacked by the fire rain. Thinking of this, Li Mu plunged forward again without hesitation.

  Leaving the world of fire, I came to the world of earth. What caught my eye were seven high mounds of earth. The carved dragon ice pillars, the fire towers, and the earth mounds all numbered seven. Is this a coincidence or is it inevitable?

  Thinking of this, Li Mu's mouth slightly curved upwards. He had basically already determined that the so-called Seven-Colored Illusory Realm was actually an illusionary array. As for illusory realms, Li Mu hadn't come into contact with them before and didn't know how to break through. However, when it came to arrays, a master of array-breaking techniques was a seasoned expert, let alone a genius disciple from the number one great sect.

  It is said that the oldest array was not invented by Taoists, but by the Wu tribe. The Taoists improved it and turned it into various arrays we see today. Tongyuan Gate is famous for its arrays. The Taoist array is different from a battle formation, as it does not use people to form an array, but instead uses ritual objects or spiritual stones to set up an array with mysterious mechanisms inside. A powerful array can trap thousands of soldiers and horses in another dimension, killing them without leaving any trace.

  Every formation has a life gate and a death gate, a formation foot and a formation eye. As long as you find the location of the formation eye, you can break the formation. In the past at Tongyuan Mountain, Li Mu accidentally entered the Dragon Capturing Formation set up by his senior brother Zhong Dashan because he was greedy for fun. When Tongyuan Daxian found out about it, instead of letting Zhong Dashan open the formation to release the person, he secretly instructed Li Mu and let him find the formation eye to break Zhong Dashan's formation himself. Later on, Li Mu specially studied a period of formation techniques, so for some simple formations, it was naturally not a problem.

  This seven-colored illusion array was originally set up by the Four Seas Dragon King to test the young generation of the dragon clan, and it can be broken through brute force. This kind of low-level formation is much lower than the Dragon Imprisoning Array.

  After two attempts, Li Mu roughly determined the location of the array eye. The three worlds of fire, ice, and earth are not three places, but one place with three forms. Whether it's ice, fire, thunder, stone, wood, or gold, they're all just illusions created by changing properties. This makes it easy to explain why Li Mu's earth escape technique didn't work here. Because in the illusion array, there is no element at all.

  Seven mounds, arranged in the pattern of the Big Dipper. If Li Mu wasn't mistaken, the formation's eye was at the position of the North Star.

  But Li Mu didn't think it would be that easy to walk out, we came to break the formation, not escape from it, right? The Seven-Colored Illusion Formation is set up by seven celestial stones, as long as one of them is found, the formation will naturally collapse.

  Looking at these seven earth mounds, Li Mu's smile grew thicker at the corners of his mouth.

  Ao Ran and the others were also breaking through the Seven-Colored Illusory Array for the first time. Although they each had their own skills, facing endless attacks was also a headache. Many of those who were not strong enough had already been eliminated. Only Ao Ran, Ao Feng, and Zhong Shang had broken through six illusory realms and were preparing to break through the seventh. The others either got eliminated at the first realm or struggled to hold on to the first few.

  Just as Ao Ran was about to break through the last illusion and take the lead, the fire rain that filled the sky suddenly disappeared. What appeared before his eyes was the familiar martial arts arena. The other disciples of the immortal clan were standing in different positions, still maintaining their postures from the formation, some covering their heads with their arms, others fleeing in panic. Ao Feng and Zhong Shang reacted quickly and walked over to Ao Ran, asking: "Little princess, what happened?" They had only been one step away from breaking the formation, but it suddenly disappeared, how could they not be furious?

  Ao Ran didn't know why the illusion suddenly disappeared, and was just about to send someone to call his father Ao Guang. Subconsciously, he glanced at Li Mu, only to see that he was holding a yellowish-brown stone in his hand, which emitted a rich and mellow glow, obviously not an ordinary object.

  "Uh, I just accidentally picked up this stone, no need to make such a big fuss about it, right?" Li Mu shrugged innocently under the astonished gazes of the crowd.