539 End of the First Phase (1/2)

Suddenly, everyone in the maze received a stream of information in their heads.

”Number of participants who passed the first phase - 1.”

”Number of participants who passed the first phase - 2.”

”Number of participants who passed the first phase - 3.”

Everyone was taken aback. First, because they received such a message. No one was expecting to be informed about this. Second, it has only been one day! How did those guys reach the Formation's Core so fast?!

The reason why such information was released was pretty apparent, though. The Dain Universe wanted to increase the pressure over the participants. The closer the number got to 5000, the more restless the participants would become.

Even though the participants understood this, they couldn't help but still feel like that. Especially since a group already arrived at the Formation's core after just a single day. Doesn't that mean that they are too behind, and a lot of groups are far ahead? Of course, that wasn't really the case; it's just that Krune used his cheat.

Outside, Norzulun looked at Wally suspiciously.

'Could it be that Wally guided Krune? The formations inside prevented any type of communication with the participants inside to happen. It could even be considered another Dimensional Realm altogether. However, Wally was an ascender. He might have his own ways to talk with Krune.'

Of course, he didn't ask Wally directly. First, he had no evidence. Second, why would Wally say it in the first place?

Wally, of course, understood what Norzulun was thinking.

”Don't worry. Even though you probably won't believe me, the truth is that Krune found his way to the core by himself. I absolutely had nothing to do with it.”

Norzulun sighed and then kept looking into the competition. It was just the first phase. There were a lot of things to happen in the future stages.

Inside the formation core, Krune, Hanan, and Laka looked around suspiciously. However, they noticed that there were several pools of white light covering the entire place. Other than that, there was nothing else.

Hanan got close to one of them and touched. The surface then rippled as if it was made of water. But it was clearly not the case.

”What are those things?”

Krune and Laka shook their heads. Well, only Laka since Krune is in his wisp form.

”No idea. But as far as I can see, it seems like there is a total of 5000 of them.”

Hanan agreed with them. His Divine Sense didn't seem to be restricted in this place, so he could tell how many there were as well.

Laka then looked at one of those pools and said.

”Well, I don't think a puppet will be enough this time. It was clearly made for the participants of the Heavenly Competition. That being said, there is only one way to test it out.”

However, just as his feet went a few centimeters inside, it stopped.

”Hm?”

Laka forced a little, but his feet could go more than 10 centimeters down. The weird thing was that Laka didn't feel like there was anything blocking him. It was as if one of his feet was an air bubble, and the 'water' inside was sending him back to the surface.

”What a weird thing.”

Krune and Hanan tried as well, but the result was the same. Everyone then applied their full strength, trying to go down as much as possible. Unfortunately, the furthest they could go was only half a meter. In the end, they could only give up and leave the pool.

After that, they tried several other pools, but the results were the same.

”It seems like we will need to wait until the 5000 qualified participants appear. Otherwise, I don't think we can figure out what is happening here.”

”What if the test is to figure out the trick? Wouldn't we be losing time while waiting for the others?”

Krune's group then looked at each and jumped inside the pools again.