Interference

In the real world.

As the black aura spreading over everyone grew denser, large numbers of people were continually sent out of the Heart-Questioning Path.

Almost everyone who had just been expelled from the path wore a lingering look of fear. As they instinctively followed those around them and moved aside to make room for the people emerging behind them, their expressions remained dazed, and they were unable to recover for a long time from the dream they had just experienced.

Sun Yigao, Qin Jianghe, and the others hurried over to check on them.

There were simply too many people. Those at the Foundation Establishment Realm or above activated the “Heavenly Net,” using spiritual power to form a web that enveloped the area around them as they examined the crowd.

The Qi Condensation cultivators, meanwhile, were still mostly checked one by one.

Everyone from the Lingxian Sect was doing their utmost to examine the people as quickly as possible and make sure they were all right.

Fortunately, although most of those who emerged looked dazed, both their bodies and minds appeared to be in stable condition.

The number of people on the mountain path continued to dwindle, while the crowd at the foot of the mountain kept growing.

Seeing that everyone was too busy to spare any attention, Sun Yigao immediately took out a voice transmission talisman and sent a message to Liu Yunan inside the sect, informing him of the situation.

Watching so many people who had come to take the Lingxian Sect’s disciple examination suddenly being eliminated in such rapid succession, the onlookers had no idea what had happened.

But some recognized Sun Yigao and Qin Jianghe. Seeing them appear and noticing their solemn expressions as they examined those who had been eliminated, everyone instinctively retreated a little farther, giving them more room.

The discussions that had originally continued without pause gradually faded away until they disappeared altogether.

At the same time, in the central control room, the console finally displayed a series of messages to Liu Yunan.

[Notice: The dreamscapes of all participants on the Heart-Questioning Path have been interfered with by a third party and are now interconnected. The difficulty of the participants’ heart-questioning trials is being synchronized.]

[Notice: Third-party interference detected. The Heart-Questioning Path has activated emergency protection mode. The trial will end before the examinees’ psychological defenses are completely destroyed.]

[Notice: Based on a comprehensive assessment of the interference’s intensity, the current strength level of the Heart-Questioning Path is insufficient to terminate the third-party interference. To terminate it, 500,000 spirit stones from the sect’s spirit-stone mine must be consumed to forcibly upgrade the strength level. Would you like to upgrade?]

Three successive notifications appeared on the console, hovering before Liu Yunan.

Looking at their contents, he felt somewhat puzzled.

Why had this so-called “third-party interference” suddenly appeared? And how had it managed to link together the dreams of everyone on the Heart-Questioning Path?

Just then, Sun Yigao’s voice transmission arrived.

After hearing about the situation on the Heart-Questioning Path, he finally gained a rough understanding.

It seemed that the source of the problem—the so-called third-party interference—had most likely come from Tong Jialiang.

For some unknown reason, Tong Jialiang’s condition had suddenly become this severe…

Then Liu Yunan suddenly thought of the cause of Tong Jialiang’s illness.

That incident in the Thunderstone Mine.

In a flash of insight, he seemed to understand everything.

At that moment, Sun Yigao’s second voice transmission arrived.

“Yunan, I just questioned some of the people who came out. Every one of them said that during the latter half of their respective dreams, a major change suddenly occurred almost overnight.”

“Judging from the situation, it’s very likely that everyone’s dreamscapes were affected by Jialiang’s illness, forcibly causing the difficulty of their trials to rise substantially.”

“This was my oversight. I never imagined Jialiang’s condition had become severe enough to interfere with the Heart-Questioning Path…”

After hearing what Sun Yigao said, Liu Yunan became even more certain that his guess was correct.

As someone who had experienced the Heart-Questioning Path many times, he knew exactly how powerful their sect’s trial was.

And precisely because he knew, he could be certain that the psychological illness of an ordinary mortal like Tong Jialiang could never have become a factor capable of interfering with the Heart-Questioning Path.

Not even with the Heart-Questioning Path after Brother Xiao had raised its difficulty several times.

Brother Xiao had also told him that even a cultivator at the Deity Transformation Realm would have to obediently undergo the trial on their sect’s Heart-Questioning Path.

Therefore, he believed that the sudden situation before him had to be connected to the Thunderstone Mine.

He had figured out the cause, but he had no good way to resolve it.

Should he terminate the examination?

Looking at the two options before him—[Yes] and [No]—he hesitated.

If he terminated it directly, the sect’s spirit-stone mine would be depleted by 500,000 spirit stones in a single stroke.

After all, their sect’s spirit-stone mine was not some enormous deposit. Moreover, they had used up quite a lot of spirit stones not long ago when upgrading the Heart-Questioning Path’s capacity.

Although the mine’s current reserves should be enough to cover 500,000 spirit stones, doing so would still cause considerable damage.

The spirit-stone mine could recover because the sect possessed a spirit vein, but if it were completely emptied all at once, restoring it would be far more difficult than extracting a small amount at a time while allowing it to recover gradually.

Besides, the console’s notification had also made it clear that, under the current circumstances, the Heart-Questioning Path could identify the participants as having failed and teleport them out before their psychological defenses collapsed completely.

Yet if he chose not to terminate the trial, he had no idea what the people still inside were experiencing.

Nor did he know whether another sudden change would occur later…

And this was the recruitment drive their sect had spent so long preparing for…

While Liu Yunan was still hesitating, dark clouds suddenly gathered above the Lingxian Sect—and across the entire hundred-li radius surrounding North Mountain!

The churning cloud layers grew thicker and thicker.

As the dark clouds collided, thick bolts of lightning flashed through them from time to time.

The flickering lightning and increasingly thunderous roars instantly drew everyone’s gaze from the ground.

The people who had just emerged from the Heart-Questioning Path looked up and saw this familiar scene.

Yet unlike the dark clouds in the final moments of their dreams, which had pressed down on them so oppressively that they could barely breathe, these roiling clouds and flashes of lightning gave them a sense of new life born from destruction.

They looked forward to the brand-new world that would appear once the dark clouds were torn open.

The people at the foot of the mountain could not help but stop and stare at the sudden change in the sky.

Those who had initially thought it was about to rain and wanted to return to the village to take shelter even forgot that they had been about to leave.

Naturally, the commotion also alarmed Liu Yunan in the central control room.

Hearing the disturbance outside, he hurried out.

At the foot of the mountain, the people from the Lingxian Sect, like everyone else, raised their heads and gazed at the flashes of lightning and peals of thunder in the sky.

For some unknown reason, everyone suddenly hoped in unison that the lightning above would strike down.

Sun Yigao and the others at the foot of the mountain, Liu Yunan on the mountain, and all the other members of the Lingxian Sect suddenly felt relieved.

As if they shared a single understanding, they curved their lips into smiles and looked up at the sky where the thunderclouds twisted and tangled, their eyes filled with delight.

Their sect master was coming out!