No one knows how big the maze guarding this treasure really is. Anyone who tries to explore it just ends up wandering around, totally lost and dizzy, feeling like it stretches on forever. But when Jill Young and her two companions actually made it out of the phosphorescent maze and reached the heart of the formation, they were suddenly hit with a sense of shock and disbelief—like, "Wait, what? This can't be real!"
At the center of the formation was a circular clearing, about a hundred meters across. If you looked up, there was a dome forty meters high, and right at the top, a crack let in a single beam of sunlight that fell straight to the middle of the clearing. Where the sunlight landed, there was a five-meter-tall statue—or, well, something that looked like a statue. "Looked like" because its face was blurred and its limbs were indistinct, kind of like someone wrapped up in a sleeping bag just standing there.
It was fuzzy, but you could vaguely tell it was supposed to be a man.
Other than that, there was nothing else.
"That's it? It's so small!" The three of them moved in a flash, swooping right to the center. Looking around, they saw that all eight directions had their own tricks—classic Bagua formation stuff. But no matter how far it stretched, the area covered by the Bagua wasn't huge. If you did the math, the distance from the entrance to the center was just a few leaps for a skilled martial artist using lightness skill. And the eight sides? Mostly natural walls, barely any man-made stuff, not much mystery to it at all.
But somehow, with all that simple setup, Duke Simon Duan—who’s supposed to be a top expert—couldn’t get anywhere near the center.
"You can't see the real face of Mount Lu because you're stuck inside the mountain." Joan looked around and sighed, "A mustard seed can hold a mountain, a step can span worlds—the person who set this up is a true master. Through the ages, I bet you couldn’t find more than a handful of formation experts better than this one."
Can't see the real face of Mount Lu because you're stuck inside the mountain? Hey, Joan, every time I try to sound poetic it falls flat, and now you jump in and steal my thunder—how am I supposed to be a good sister like this?!
Jill's brain short-circuited for a second, but then she got back to what really mattered: "So, if Dennis Duan put statues of his eight wives at the eight trigrams, using them to preserve each wife's martial arts secrets, then his own skills must be..." Jill drew out her words, and all three of them turned at once to look at the blurry statue in the center. "...right here."
"Yeah, that sounds about right. But then—who's using the Beiming Divine Skill to suck up people's internal energy?"
There was no answer to that question yet, so the three of them started searching, still full of doubts.
The place was totally open—you could see everything at a glance. Super easy to search, honestly, it felt like a piece of cake.
But after searching once, twice, and then again, all three of them started to look pretty serious. No matter how hard they searched, they found nothing. The statue was just one solid chunk, no secret compartments, no hidden mechanisms.
Whoosh—Maggie Monroe soared into the air to get a bird’s-eye view. She channeled all her hundred-plus years of power, her eyes practically blazing like golden spotlights.
Ding ding—Lady Simone let her music flow, taking off her veil and singing a little tune. Her Sound Skill spread out everywhere, just like that wild sonic storm she unleashed in Yihua Village. Within a hundred meters, every little detail was probed by her musical martial arts.
Meanwhile, Jill Young paced around the clearing, sometimes close, sometimes far, stepping carefully. Each step sent vibrations and waves through the ground, helping her analyze its structure.
Each of them had their own specialty, and together they made a pretty unbeatable team. They didn’t dig up the whole place, but honestly, there’s barely anywhere in the world that could hide secrets from a search like this. And if anyone was hiding here, even the best of the best would have a hard time staying undetected.
But after the time it takes to burn an incense stick...
"We’ve searched everywhere—no living people, no dead bodies, no martial arts manuals, no secret compartments, no clues, nothing." Lady Simone reported, totally baffled. "I just checked again, there’s still a faint suction coming from the maze, but it’s getting weaker and weaker. I have no idea what’s going on."
"This is seriously weird." Not finding any martial arts manuals was one thing—they could be hidden elsewhere. But the Bagua formation clearly showed signs of Beiming Divine Skill, and yet they couldn’t find anyone actually using it. That was just plain creepy.
Jill Young walked to the edge of the clearing and pressed her hand against the maze’s stone wall, testing its pull. She found that the suction was way weaker than before. If Duke Simon Duan was pushing at full strength, it used to be a ten out of ten, but now it was down to about three—and still dropping.
Instead of letting go, Jill closed her eyes, focusing on the changing suction from the stone wall. It kept getting weaker—down to two and a half... then two... The weaker it got, the more focused Jill became. She just knew, deep down, that something would happen when it hit rock bottom.
One and a half... one... Jill gently let her Supreme Skill seep into her palm, infusing it into the stone wall. Her power, refined to nearly the 'half-step breakthrough' level, wasn’t going to get sucked away by such a weak pull. Instead, it acted like a pair of special eyes, letting her sense every change at the critical point.
Half a point—zero!
Thump-thump. There was no sound, but Jill felt a heartbeat-like vibration. At the exact moment the suction dropped to zero, with that pulse, a surge of internal energy suddenly reversed and washed through the maze. The force was massive, like a tidal wave, flooding every corner and powering up the whole formation.
Rumble! The maze started shifting—stone walls rising, falling, moving, changing.
Splash—water started flowing. Whoosh—the wind picked up. Crackle—phosphorescent flames burned. Snap—sparks jumped. Natural and unnatural, everything started moving and humming with energy. It was like a miniature universe, all the stars rising and setting, the whole maze pulsing in perfect rhythm.
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"Huh?!" Maggie Monroe suddenly perked up, sensing something. She shot over and reached for Jill Young’s collar: "Quick! Focus and pull back!"
The burst of power was just to set the maze in motion—it stopped as soon as it started. But right after the maze finished shifting, the suction from the stone walls shot up, way stronger than ever—like ten, maybe even a hundred times stronger. If Duke Simon Duan had blasted the wall with his True Power at that moment, he’d have lost thirty years’ worth of cultivation, easy. If he didn’t tough it out until the suction dropped again, there’s no way he’d escape.
But Jill suddenly shook her head at Joan, signaling that she was fine.
Jill’s Supreme Skill was being yanked by the super strong suction, streaming from her dantian into the stone wall, bit by bit. Her internal energy wasn’t as deep as Dennis Duan’s, and she hadn’t broken through yet either, so she couldn’t resist such crazy suction.
All that hard-earned cultivation could be wiped out in a flash.
But Jill didn’t feel any panic or fear. Out of nowhere, a thought rose up in her heart. She seemed to hear a distant voice saying—Don’t be afraid.
A surge of golden light, invisible to others, suddenly exploded. The Twin Sigil shot out from Jill's right hand, hovering in the air and buzzing as it branded the void. It grew to the size of a person, its brilliance swirling, merging completely with Jill herself. In that instant, a distant consciousness used the Twin Sigil as a bridge, temporarily piercing through endless time and space to project itself onto Jill.
A stream of crisp, icy internal energy emerged from who-knows-where, joining hands with Jill’s Supreme Skill in her palm and forming a yin-yang spinning ring. The ring wasn’t perfect yet, since her Supreme Skill still had some flaws. But for that moment, hardness and softness, yin and yang, all came together, and her spiritual power spread out instantly, using the ring as a bridge.
In that instant, Jill seemed to see countless detailed pieces of information, and a flash of understanding appeared in her eyes.
Maggie Monroe blinked. For a moment, she thought she saw a hazy phantom appear behind Jill Young. When Jill opened her eyes, the blurry phantom did too, staring at the formation with a cold, piercing gaze. Nothing could hide from those eyes.
This vision lasted only a split second—when Joan blinked again, it was gone. But Joan, who knew many secrets, suddenly understood: perhaps, the telepathic brother of the White-Haired Witch had just lent a hand.
A moment later, the Twin Sigil flew back into Jill’s right hand, and she snapped out of that trance-like state, easily pulling her hand away.
Joan and Lady Simone glanced at each other, both realizing they had no idea what Jill was talking about. "What’s going on?"
Joan and Lady Simone glanced at each other, both realizing they had no idea what Jill was talking about. "What’s going on?"
Jill didn’t seem to hear them. She was so hyped up she looked half-crazy, gesturing wildly and muttering to herself, running this way and that. Suddenly, she dashed straight into the Eight Trigrams Maze. Once you’re in, it’s tough to get back to the center, but neither of the others stopped her—they could see Jill was in the middle of a major breakthrough.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—platinum light flickered on and off as Jill zipped around the Eight Trigrams Maze, constantly appearing and disappearing. Voices echoed through the maze—"Boss?" "Sister Yvonne?" "Young Palace Master?" "Big Sis?" "How’d you get here?" The maze chopped the sound up so you couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but you could still hear it, more or less.
Jill looked possessed, running nonstop through the maze, each step crisp and clear, yet unpredictable. The two at the center knew the maze couldn’t trap her anymore—she’d cracked some of its secrets.
Whoosh—she popped out of the Li trigram, then dashed right into the Xun trigram, tossing out another word: "Always!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—platinum light flickered on and off as Jill zipped around the Eight Trigrams Maze, constantly appearing and disappearing. Voices echoed through the maze—"Boss?" "Sister Yvonne?" "Young Palace Master?" "Big Sis?" "How’d you get here?" The maze chopped the sound up so you couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but you could still hear it, more or less.
Jill looked possessed, running nonstop through the maze, each step crisp and clear, yet unpredictable. The two at the center knew the maze couldn’t trap her anymore—she’d cracked some of its secrets.
Whoosh—she popped out of the Gen trigram, dashed toward the opposite Ze trigram, and waved to the two spectators, calling out a third word: "Feel!"
"No wonder, always, feel?" Joan chuckled. She already knew what came next.