Far below, a glitter of white caught his eye. Hui blasted off another two, three talismans and zoomed toward it. The snake in his hand diminished, growing even smaller.

Using qi… uses the snake up? Hui’s eyes widened. He measured the distance to the white with his eye and fired one last talisman. The snake let out a quiet cry and shrunk down to the size of his index finger.

The white loomed up. As he grew closer, he made out shapes in the white. Not sand, but bones, human bones. Skulls stared at him, empty eye sockets dark. Arm and leg bones cluttered together, finger bones jostling between them. Vertebra and hip bones poked out of the pile, striking toward the sky.

Hui’s eyes widened. He hesitated, reaching toward another talisman, then looked at the snake. I can’t. The snake might not survive it!

He hurtled down and smashed into the pile of bones. Bones skittered everywhere, clattering over the pile of bones. He blasted a crater in the bones where he landed, but as deep as he smashed the crater, the island remained bones, bones all the way down. It was as if the island… was no island at all, but a pile of human bones, piled from the sea floor until they towered above the sea of blood!

This sea of blood… did it belong to the ancestor snake, while it was alive? And these bones… don’t tell me. Are these the remains of cultivators the ancestor snake ate? Hui glanced down at the pile of bones and shivered. The amount of bones it would take to pile out of a sea this deep, where my wind talismans could barely stir it… if this ancestor snake was still alive, this small cultivator would be helpless to become anything but another skeleton in its stomach!

A faint death aura swirled off the bones, not unlike the Yellow Springs River’s death aura, but weaker. Hui blinked. Quietly, he began to breath in the death aura, changing it to death qi. If you didn’t cultivate death qi, this island would slowly wither your qi and longevity away. As for me, it’s simply a rich land for cultivation.

Hui furrowed his brows. He walked over to the edge of the island and carefully dipped a hand into the blood. Immense blood qi welled up, swirling around his hand.

The pink duck, which hadn’t appeared in a long time, burst out of his arm and hurtled into the sea, beak wide open. It hit the sea and bounced off, unable to absorb a single drop of the blood qi. Annoyed, the duck climbed to its feet and shook its head, then rushed at the sea again. Again, it bounced off and plopped back to the ground.

The character for ‘blood’ appeared over the sea. It glowed with fierce red power, emanating a great aura of sealing. From the character, lines of glowing red appeared over the surface of the sea, extending out in all directions. The lit red lines only stretched a few meters, but they grew more faint the further they reached from the epicenter of the duck’s impact. The entire sea laid under the ‘blood’ seal.

Looking at it, Hui frowned. If I want to use this blood qi, I have to break the seal.

Crying out fiercely, the duck charged at the qi again. Hui reached out a hand and held it back.

“Senior, senior, it’s no use,” Hui sighed. “The qi is sealed. There’s no way past.”

The duck glared, annoyed. It rushed at him and bit him on the nose, then vanished back into his dantian.

Hui rubbed his nose. What was that for? It’s not my fault! He shook his head at the duck, then sat in the lotus pose to contemplate the trial.

Elsewhere, the other cultivators stood in their own blood seas. Snakes of all sizes coiled around them. Most of the snakes ranged from the meter to ten-meter range. Of all the cultivators, only three managed to gather snakes over ten meters. These three individuals were geniuses among geniuses when it came to the Black Asp Sect!

The first was Bai Xue. A snake of fifty meters sat at his feet. He frowned at the blood sea, then swallowed a qi-replenishing pill. Hopping atop the snake, he flew out over the blood sea.

The second was the owner of the fortieth vertebra, Liu Baozhai. She possessed a snake one hundred meters long, a snake so pure black that it seemed real and not shadow. Like Bai Xue, she leaped atop the snake and flew out over the sea.

The third genius, who possessed a snake three hundred meters long, was none other than Xi Guanxi. He emanated fluctuations at the peak of the fourth realm, hair stirring heroically around him. His snake was the opposite of Liu Baozhai’s, so flickering and illusory that it almost seemed about to vanish. And yet, at the same time, it emitted a shocking pressure, as if it, too, had cultivated to the fourth stage!

Xi Guanxi mounted his snake, settling into a lotus pose. It flew out over the ocean, its body undulating. He closed his eyes, meditating, then opened them all at once. Light flashed in his pupils, and the reflections of all the other disciples appeared in his eyes, as if he could see into every iteration of the trial realm. The sight was bizarre to the extreme!

He let out a cold snort. “The fools who didn’t gather shadow qi in the first realm are fated to perish in this second Blood Sea realm! In these trials, the first stage is the most critical. If one fails to gather shadow qi and nourish their black asp in the first realm, they will lack the resources to pass any of the further realms. All other qi, save the first realm’s shadow qi, are sealed in this realm. To overcome them… would take a cultivation base above the fourth realm, which is fundamentally not allowed in this trial realm, or authority at the level of the Sect Master or greater! Most of those who entered this realm have already failed the trial, without even realizing it!”

His pupils filled with the image of Bai Xue and Liu Baozhai, and he narrowed his eyes. “These two are my only rivals. How pitiful. A silkpants and the beloved daughter of Elder Erlan, a delicate flower raised in a walled garden!”

He snorted again. A bizarre green light swirled in his pupils, not unlike the green light that had glowed in Jin Xian’s while Hui slept. “And yet, those two… are the only two worthy to become my new puppets!”

Xi Guanxi crossed his arms and closed his eyes once again, meditating without a care in the world. Unlike the other disciples, he entered the trial not to prove himself, nor grow stronger, nor gain the legacy, but to judge worthy disciples to turn into flesh puppets! As far as he was concerned, the trial itself was dirt under his heel, unworthy of his notice. Naturally, Hui, with his finger-length snake, never entered his vision.

At that moment, Hui sat cross-legged by the shore of the crimson sea. He sat quietly, circulating his qi between his body and the tiny snake. It slowly grew back to its original size, but no larger. A tiny amount of qi swirled in its body, only enough to activate a few talismans.

Hui opened his eyes. The tiny snake sat in his hand, quietly staring out at the ocean of blood qi. I can only use qi through the snake. Whether it’s mine or the snake’s, I only have the qi I brought into this realm. I only have a few qi replenishment pills… not very much, in summary.

He lifted his hand to shade his eyes and peered out over the blood qi sea. I can’t see the other side of the sea from here. I doubt I can pass beyond the horizon using my wind talismans, and I won’t be able to move fast enough if I try to swim… can I even swim through the blood qi? Or will I sink and drown?

He drew a deep breath. I need another way to solve this. There has to be something else. After all, there’s a massive ocean of qi before me! Don’t tell me there’s really no way to draw on this ocean of qi? I can’t cultivate blood qi, but… the pink duck can. I could at least draw on it through the duck, and replenish my qi as I go. With that, crossing the ocean becomes trivial!

“The problem is that seal.” Hui held his hand out over the blood qi sea. Though he couldn’t draw on the blood qi directly even if it were unsealed, he could feel the power of sealing that wrapped the sea. The sensation of constraint spread under his palm, binding the blood qi.

Hui fiddled with his storage ring, thinking. All at once, his eyes widened. Flicking his hand, he summoned the red gem.

Instantly, the gem drew at him, sucking away his qi and longevity. Hui bit it back, slowing the draw. Quickly, he thrust the gem into the sealed sea. Come on!