40 Walking through time. (1/2)

Li Yang walked blindly through the gray mist for a few minutes before the scenery around him finally changed. The gray mist dissipated, the world around Li Yang turning into a vast and empty plain. The ground was yellow and dry, with barely any vegetation growing. The biggest rock Li Yang could see was only the size of his fist, not large enough to provide shade against the sweltering sun that hung high in the sky above him. Li Yang swept the empty plain with his eyes, patting Jinwu on the head slightly as he spoke.

”This should be the time trial, where we have to keep our mind intact.”

Li Yang looked at the plain around him once more, checking if there was anything worth noting. Upon not finding anything, he sat down on the ground, causing a bit of dust to be thrown up. After sitting down, Li Yang picked up some of the earth with his hands, muttering to himself when he saw the earth turn to dust in his hands.

”If the earth here is this dry, I don't think we can expect any rain in this illusion. Let's wait here for a bit and see if anything happens, if nothing happens, we can start walking and see if the scenery changes.”

Li Yang sat on the ground and slowed down his breathing, cultivating in silence as he waited for time to pass. Even though he was silently cultivating, he knew that the Qi he was absorbing was not real, it was only an illusion created by Mengxiang and the array that was the core of this trial.

While Li Yang was cultivating silently, Jinwu flew around his head for a while, before he eventually got bored and landed on Li Yang's thigh. Jinwu laid down on Li Yang's thigh and closed his eyes, but Li Yang was unable to tell if he was sleeping or cultivating.

Li Yang continued to silently cultivate, counting the days while doing so. After cultivating for three days without food, he realized that he would not feel hunger inside this illusion, and after a further five days of cultivation, he realized that he would also not feel tired while inside the illusion. After the eleventh day of silently cultivating, Li Yang opened his eyes and stood up, stretching his body as he spoke to Jinwu, who had jumped down from his thigh and was flying around his head.

”No need to eat, sleep, nor use the restroom. Seems like the amount of time needed to complete this test is ridiculously long, even if it is set to such an easy difficulty because of my cultivation. I wonder what Jing Yimu has to go through.”

Li Yang finished stretching his body, so Jinwu landed on his shoulder and let out a few caws. Li Yang no longer had the robes with the specially prepared shoulder pillow for Jinwu, but it was still better to sit on Li Yang's shoulder than fly next to him. Li Yang pat Jinwu on the head with a wry smile, shaking his head as he looked towards the distance.

”Yeah, yeah, I will buy some new robes once we get out of here. But for now, let's start walking and seeing how much time we will have to spend here.”

Li Yang started walking, simply walking in a straight line and seeing how far they could go. Because of how dry the earth beneath them was, every step he took would cause the earth to turn to dust that would be thrown up into the air.

While walking, Li Yang emptied his mind as much as he could, simply walking mindlessly. One of the first things he noticed after spending some time walking was that he did not feel exhausted, not even after walking for almost two days. Two days of walking was not enough to make him exhausted, but it should have at least made him feel a little tired. Because of this, he guessed that he would not need to rest while inside the illusion, allowing him to spend more time walking.

Li Yang continued to walk in a straight line, the days rapidly passing as he walked mindlessly. After spending an entire year walking in a straight line and not seeing a single change in the environment around them, Li Yang came to the conclusion that the empty plain around them would not change, no matter how much he walked.

After three years of continuous walking, Li Yang noticed the first signs of aging appear on his body as he grew taller, his hair growing longer. As a cultivator, Li Yang's aging was already slowed down, his lifespan increased, but he would still age with enough passing of time.

After another seven years of walking, his body had already turned into that of a youth in his early twenties. He looked like a youth in his early twenties, but because of the dry atmosphere and the sun constantly shining on him, his skin was strongly tanned and dry, wrinkles already appearing on his face.

Yet despite this, Li Yang continued to walk, his speed never dropping. After hearing about how this trial would be done, Li Yang had not worried in the slightest, knowing full well that he could complete the trial with ease. He had two reasons to be this confident, one was that he already had experience from his past life with spending many years in complete isolation and without moving, and the other reason was that he had Jinwu with him. With Jinwu to keep him company and talk with him, he would not be like most others who had his cultivation level and undertook this trial, slowly turning insane from loneliness.

Li Yang continued to walk, no longer bothering to count the days that passed, instead starting to count the years that passed. After he had spent a total of 30 years walking, Li Yang noticed that Jinwu had not changed in the slightest, seemingly not aging despite the passage of several years.