The light of teleportation rapidly subsided, leaving Shin Sumi with a twisted stomach and a feeling of confusion.

She instantly knew she had left the sect. Where she was exactly, she didn't know.

"The air feels thicker and its harder to breath... But this overflowing Shinsoo..." she muttered.

Her position hadn't changed in the slightest from when she had sat on the stone platform of the North Cultivation Plaza.

Her stomach quickly returning to normal, Shin Sumi ensured she wasn't going to vomit before unfolding her crossed legs and lifting her body from the ground.

Around her was nothing and no one. A slight breeze made her hair flutter behind her head.

"All the people present on the platform, where did they all go? Has the trial started?"

Unbeknownst to her, pairs of deep eyes enshrouded in mystery were watching. In fact the invisible figures were watching everybody that had been teleported by the Spell.

Patriarch Sen wasn't the only one watching the beginning of the Rising Star Tournament. Back in the sect, most of the Elders had gathered in the Grand Hall. A giant stone tablet made of glittering jade that spanned the entire floor of the building relayed images and sounds from the dimensional pocket where the tournament was located.

"Patriarch, what is the meaning of this?" asked an Elder surnamed Ku. He was one of the lesser Elders that had not been made aware of the tournament rules. "Why does it seem like none of the disciples can see each other?"

On the stone screen, two groups of hundreds of disciples, one per cultivation plaza, were slowly regaining their senses.

"Hehehe" started a voice sitting on one of the highest seats of the Grand Hall. The voice that was neither imposing or deep sent shivers down the spine of Elder Ku. It belonged to none other than Grand Elder Chu Xuanba, Chu Erlong's grandfather, after all!

"Elder Ku, you have in front of you one of the marvels of the Star Zheng, wielded by our Patriarch. It is a simple spell but quite a strong one. All the Honorary Disciples are under the impression that they are in a barren land right now. They are merely trapped in an illusion though."

Another Elder from a high seat continued "The first trial is for them to escape this world of illusion. It is a difficult feat testing the mental prowess of each individual as well as their ability to understand their senses."

"The power of the illusion will diminish by one percent every two hours. The fastest disciples should be able to understand in a day or two and will be transported to the next level. In the meantime we get to enjoy watching them run around aimlessly without a clue, hohoho"

And sure enough, as the disciples started recovering from the teleportation spell, all the Elders could see their confusion.

***

Almost as soon as she got up, Shin Sumi was taken by a strange feeling. First the unusual atmosphere and secondly something deeper. Something that seemed to come from inside her.

Unsure of what was going on, Shin Sumi attributed the feeling to the fact that her dantian was bubbling by itself, awoken by the high concentration of Shinsoo in her surroundings.

"This is a great place for cultivation! Although it is a bit strange that the sect leader has not given us any information on what to do..."

Shin Sumi tried to move around a little bit. The sky above her head was a uniform purple grey and the land was exceptionally flat. With her experience of her own vision, Shin Sumi knew she could see as far as a dozen kilometers or so.

Even still, no matter how far she moved, the land was barren and no even the smallest elevation was visible.

Besides with her speed, she had been expecting a strong push of air against her face, but although the air seemed thick, no amount of resistance was felt.

In fact, her hair was still flowing gently with the same breeze as earlier!

"This is strange, I am sure I am facing the wind now but my hair..."

No matter how much she thought about it, something very bizarre was going on.

"It appears useless to explore around. There's not even a landmark visible, and there is no sun to give me a sense of direction" she thought.

Due to the strange sky above her head, Shin Sumi's shadow wasn't visible. The whole world was filled with a gloomy light that broke all of her senses and perception.

It reminded her a little bit of the dark chasm, where senses were altered when one didn't use an artefact like the Copper Bell.

Unable to find a solution right away, Shin Sumi decided to sit back down and cultivate. Leaving a sliver of Divine Sense focused on the present situation, she rotated her dantian, slowly incorporating the outside Shinsoo to her own.

The Copper Bell was still powering her dantian, her appearance that of a slender young boy, looking fifteen of age.

Because of that, the turbulent flow was tinted with red.

After an hour of cultivation, Shin Sumi found that unexpectedly she didn't progress as much as she thought she would. The turbulences in her internal energy were mostly dissipating the newly added Shinsoo.

It was only after another hour and after she retracted the Copper Bell's powers from affecting her Shinsoo attribute that a glimpse of an idea crept up in her mind.

Shin Sumi was a bit surprised to see that her appearance remained that of a young boy instead of the familiar Yan Yan, but quickly attributed it to the fact that she had consumed the Confusion Pill while her Shinsoo was of Yang attribute.

"So I can even use Yin type Shinsoo while looking like a man" she thought, interested by the idea.

Initially she had been proud to be able to turn into Yan Yan at will and mask her real identity, but because Yan Yan's little shop had been so successful, now even Yan Yan was known around the lower valley of the Dark Sky Starry Sect.

Something kept ticking in Shin Sumi's mind though. After retracting the Copper Bell, the sensation of a Shinsoo more turbulent as usual had disappeared but because of the link between her and the Copper Bell, she knew it was due to it.

It was as it the Copper Bell was restless, or trying to tell something to its master but without being able to, as it what was impacting it was too powerful in comparison.

It was when the four hours mark since the beginning of the Rising Star Tournament had been passed that the Copper Bell finally reacted.

The Star Zheng's power had diminished only slightly but it was now enough. The Star Zheng was a really powerful artefact and was wielded by the Patriarch of the sect, an expert on an unfathomable level to Shin Sumi.

Because of that, even though the Copper Bell was really powerful, it had been unable to dispel the illusion due to Shin Sumi's lack of strength.

Shin Sumi felt the Copper Bell radiate through her bond with it as soon as the strength of the illusion was weakened enough for the bell to act.

A gentle chime rose up in the air while the engraved rows of characters on the bell's surface shimmered.

The air seemed to distort, twist and finally break. For an entire three breaths of time, all the other participating disciples were fully visible to Shin Sumi.

"The whole time I was in the middle of them," she spoke out loud slowly, not knowing if the others could hear her or not. "It seems like most of the disciples have not realized it yet."

She observed for a brief moment how everybody looked in a trance, some of them running erratically in place, others meditating with confused looks on their face.

The next instant, the light of teleportation and the twisting feeling that accompanied it enveloped Shin Sumi. She was gone.

***

"Oh, three of them are already awakening? This is unheard of. It seems this generation has quite good elements" commented Patriarch Sen who didn't seem to pay much attention to the screen tablet.

Because he was the one using the Star Zheng's powers, he obviously had been the first person to notice the behavior of the disciples. As soon as his voice died down all the Elders in the assembly frantically scanned the magical jade with their eyes, trying to recognize who was in the process of leaving the illusion.

"Jun Qian was the first to realize and break the illusion, that was to be expected. He has been waiting for years for a chance to shine while staying in the lower valley."

"Another yellow robe broke through the Star Zheng's illusion after only four hours. He is Tai Bu, one of Elder Peng's disciples, right?" asked someone, to which Elder Peng responded affirmatively.

"Who is the last one?" asked Elder Ku to himself before finding the last individual. "Here! They're ... a red robed disciple?!"

Silence instantly fell on the assembly. No one could believe what they were seeing. Only Patriarch Sen had a strange light in his eyes that went unnoticed.

"How could a red robed disciple break such a powerful illusion after only four hours?!" said an Elder.

The comments flew from everywhere in the Grand Hall. Who was that individual? How come he was able to have such insight on the first stage of the tournament?

The young red robed boy was unknown. It was normal considering the fact that due to their status, Elders usually didn't pay any mind to anyone under the orange or even yellow talent.

Besides Patriarch Sen and Elder Zhu, virtually all the Elders present were frowning in disbelief. It had taken longer for Elder Zhu to realize who the red robed youth could be, but he finally understood the sly smile on the Patriarch's face.

Everybody was focusing their gaze on the youth sitting in the middle of the crowd of disciples just as the blue vortex of teleportation sprung up, making him disappear.

Most of the disciples in the illusion were still trying to run around, comically moving while remaining in place, not knowing what was going on at all. Only the most clever could realize that it was useless to move and concentrated on meditation.

On the top left corner of the massive jade screen, three squared formed. Each one centered around one of the awoken disciples that had just reached the second stage of the tournament, Jun Qian, Tai Bu and the nameless red robed disciple.

***

Shin Sumi had less trouble getting back on her feet after the second teleportation. She hadn't known what to expect the first time after all.

Upon opening her eyes, a sharp gasp was the only reaction she could have.

"And I thought the barren land earlier was strange and sad..." Shin Sumi commented. The place she had been teleported to was completely different from before. In fact it was different to anything she had ever seen in her short life.

In front of her, a huge landmass rose in the air. Simply judging by her vision, Shin Sumi was unable to tell how big it was. The floating land filled her entire line of sight, only revealing a pitch black abyss below. She was located on a small altar made of grey rock, the only similarity with the previous landscape.

A few steps ahead of her was an incomprehensibly high ledge separating the altar from the next piece of land. It was obvious in a single glance that the only path she could take was to jump from block to block and join the floating continent.

A red sky enveloped every part of the landscape in blood, as to give a taste of what would happen if one were to fall down to the abyss below.

A countless number of altars were located all around the landmass, and Shin Sumi was on one of them. The pillar of light she had come out didn't dissipate like she thought it would.

In the distance, two more pillars were visible. One was relatively close to her, maybe ten to fifteen altars away, and the other one was almost hidden by the landmass. It was still too far for Shin Sumi to see clearly the silhouette of the person coming out of the closest pillar but she guessed that it should have been another disciple that woke up from the illusion of the first stage.

"There is only one way to go now..." Shin Sumi thought. "It is strange that we don't have any instruction as to what to do but I guess it is part of the trial."

And that was when Shin Sumi started her journey through the floating rocks, only slightly behind the other two trial takers that were on the same stage.

After a hours of running and jumping from one land to the next she realized that the number of landmasses was way bigger than she expected. They were also progressively getting more massive.

Her first pause was on a chunk of rock that was as long as the entire lower valley. Running low on stamina, Shin Sumi sat cross legged to replenish her Shinsoo levels. In the distance she noted the appearance of more pillars of light.

"Ah, other disciples are joining progressively. So the fastest you complete the first stage, the most advance you get on the second. It is a race!"

The blue white pillars contrasted aggressively against the dark red sky, as if they were telling the contestants to hurry. Far behind her, Shin Sumi saw the pillar she came from. It already seemed so far away even though she didn't feel any closer to the huge floating continent ahead.

Two days later, Shin Sumi was still running along the landmasses. They had now become as big as the entire Dark Sky Starry sect, or at least she thought so.

"For a mortal, crossing one landmass would take around a whole day!"

Of course that was in the case a mortal could even get to this place, which was impossible due to the crazy jumps one had to take between each platform. Even Shin Sumi who was already well used to jumping and running at full power found the abyss below disturbing and feared falling down.

She realized though that she was now much more confident in jumping almost ten meters in one go.

"The high concentration of Shinsoo in this place, it is like constant training!"

By this point almost all of the light pillars were lit, indicating that nearly everyone had joined the trial dimension with the floating continent.

"Yue... I hope you're here to and we'll get together soon" Shin Sumi couldn't help but think.

Xiao Yue was an orange robed disciple, which represented less than ten percent of all the disciples participating. According to Shin Sumi's calculations, Xiao Yue should have arrived at least a few hours prior.

Both girls were looking at the pillars in the sky, hoping for the best for the other. Shin Sumi had tried sending a divine sense message via her jade identification medallion, but the strange laws that governed the place didn't allow such means of communication.

"If we're going to meet, it will be by chance... or fate."

***

Back in the Dark Sky Starry Sect's Grand Hall, the Elders all wore serious faces.

"By now, ninety percent of the disciples have passed the first challenge. Some of them are even quite advanced along the daunting Path of the Hell Island."

"Elder Won is right, two of the three contestants that did great in the first trial have even reached the first crossroads. The red robed youth that was with them doesn't seem that impressive after all. He is still about three quarters of the way there."

"He must have a great mental aptitude to have broken the Star Zheng's illusion, but in the end he can't cut it. He is only a red robed disciple after all, no matter is aptitude he is far behind the yellow robes."

Patriarch Sen remained silent. Sometimes the Elders would turn to look at him waiting for his input, but he stayed quiet. His lack of response was not unusual though, considering his personality.

All the Elders had learned along the years that the cunning Patriarch was good at hiding his thoughts. When he spoke it was often with great wisdom but when he didn't, it was impossible to know what to think of it.

His face partially hidden in the shadow of the high seat of the Grand Hall, not one person present was able to discern where his eyes were focusing.

Looking at a certain corner of the jade screen, he was thinking "She is still a bit behind of course, but I wonder what tactics she will use in the long game..."

***

It took another few hours for Shin Sumi to reach the first crossroad. Crossroad was a big word, considering that it was a platform like any other along the way. But contrary to the others, it was where the path coming from different pillars joined.

For every ten pillars, there was only one way to reach the main landmass, and it was through one of these crossroads. If by any chance all ten disciples coming from these ten pillars of light were to arrive at the crossroad at the same time, it was very possible for them to start fighting to gain the advantage in the trial.

As such, if a disciple arrived way before the others like it was the case for the two yellow robed disciples in front of Shin Sumi, they would have the choice to take another path backwards to confront the incoming disciples.

Or it was the best occasion to lay down a trap and stop the nine others who would pass through there from advancing.

As fate would have it, Shin Sumi was only second in arriving to the key platform on her path.