125 Special Pendan (1/2)

When the gates finally opened, the female disciples all ran into the left entrance of the cave while the men ran into the right. Once inside, they all followed the path underground.

10 meters, 50 meters, 100 meters, the path led them deeper and deeper underground without any end in sight.

At this point, Xiao Fang had already created a large gap between himself and the rest of the group. He was currently more than a kilometer underground and could see two large doors in the distance.

Just as Xiao Fang approached the door, he saw an elder wearing inner court robes standing in front of it. To Xiao Fang's surprise, she didn't seem like an illusion.

Seeing Xiao Fang arrive, the elder became a bit confused.

'Didn't the exam just start?'

At first the elder thought she was just losing track of time, but she noticed that no one else was even close to catching up to Xiao Fang.

'It seems there is some talent in the men's side this year,' she thought.

Xiao Fang stopped when he reached the elder. The elder noticed the blindfold over his eyes but didn't comment on it.

”You're a fast one. What's your name?”

Xiao Fang was a bit confused as to why she'd be asking for his name. He didn't want people knowing who he was, but he couldn't be impolite to an inner court elder either. So Xiao Fang just said the first name that popped into his name.

”Long Wang.”

'Dammit. Why did I say that,' Xiao Fang thought.

He knew he sucked at improvising, but he really felt like beating himself up this time.

”Well, I have high expectations for you, Long Wang,” the inner court elder said while handing him a pendant.

”This is the first part of your exam. Behind me is a vast cave hidden deep beneath the sect. Inside you will face many dangers. Your objective is to defeat the beasts and collect as much spirit energy as you can. Once the pendant shines red then you may proceed to the next part of your exam. You should've already been given a quick run down on how the pendant works, so I won't waste your time,” she said while opening the large doors for him.

The elder at the start of the exam only instructed the disciples to wear the pendant around their necks when they reached this stage, so Xiao Fang did just that.

The pendant that hangs off of the necklace was palm-sized, white, circular, and there seemed to be special inscriptions written on it, but Xiao Fang couldn't understand what it meant.

Xiao Fang finally walked through the door that the elder held open. The moment Xiao Fang stepped through, he gasped.

”It's huge!” Xiao Fang's voice echoed out, alerting every living thing of his presence.

Although Xiao Fang was being unnecessarily loud, he really felt like he was walking into a separate world.

'There's no way something this big was created by the sect. The sect was probably built on top of it,' Xiao Fang thought.

To get a better look at it, Xiao Fang lifted his blindfold, letting it rest on his forehead.

Despite being more than a kilometers underground, there were several beautiful lights illuminating the dense, lush forest below. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

'Incredible.'

Not wanting to waste any more time, Xiao Fang quickly ran into the forest. Almost immediately after he ran in he could already sense the presence of several tiered beasts ranging from the 3rd tier to the 4th tiered beasts. Unless the men behind him grouped up into pairs of 2s or 3s, they could easily lose their life in this forest.

The first beast Xiao Fang encountered was in the 3rd tier. It had a large rock head, it was proportioned like a komodo dragon, but it had a longer neck and a shoulder height of nearly 1.5 meters high.

Xiao Fang moved quickly.

[ No Sword Style: Cutting Iron ]

The beast split into two, then Xiao Fang collected its core. However, the moment Xiao Fang took the core out of its body he noticed something strange about it. The core wasn't black, it was white.

'If I remember correctly, the colours were: Black(Ordinary), Blue(Saint), Purple(Demon), Red (Legendary), Gold(Celestial),' Xiao Fang thought.

Before Xiao Fang could analyze it, it suddenly began to transform into pure spirit qi before getting sucked into the pendant around his neck.

Once the beast core was gone, Xiao Fang noticed that the pendant was starting to glow a dim blue light.

'I see. So that's how this works.'

Xiao Fang quickly hunted down several more tiered beasts. The higher the tier of the beast the more spirit qi the pendant gained from absorbing it.