"On behalf of the Beasthaven sect, I, Luo Yi, welcome you all, fellow cultivators from the Crimson Snow Sect ."

In front of them was a formally dressed middle-aged woman, her expensive beizi style hanfu flapping in the high sea breeze.

That's right, high sea breeze; the heavy, salty, rough gale that was as pleasant as the scent of wet vegetation it carried.

Upon executing the final step of the Celestial Gateway technique, Han Xuhan's consciousness had finally returned back to its normal state inside his own body, his senses returning slowly. Then he had opened his eyes and received a shock bigger than his experience inside the mass integration of consciousnesses of the Celestial Gateway technique.

Before the execution of the technique, Kong Ye and he had been standing on top of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak, surrounded by many other peaks, rivers, villages, woods and plains as far as his eyes could see.

Now, they were still on top of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak, still surrounded by the other mountains containing the rest of the sect members....except the woods, the plains, the rivers, the villages, the woods, all of those elements had vanished from the picturesque scene he was used to seeing.

The Crimson Snow Sect now was on top of a sea. Not only that, but it was also at least 500 meters above the seawater level from his vantage point.

"Hah, yes. Your eyes are not fooling you! Your sect is now technically a floating island! Ta-da !"

The shout came from the representative of their host, whose unnaturally loud, sing-song voice was surprisingly pleasant, rousing the rest of the disciple body from their stunned reverie.

A commotion rose instantly amidst the floating mountains of Crimson Snow Sect. Even from where he was standing, Han Xuhan could hear the contents of the countless shouts from the nearby mountains.

"Holy heavens! So this was the surprise! Even though the third layer of the technique pretty much spelt out what would happen, I never thought it would be this amazing !"

"What's even more amazing is how much you've been bragging about reaching the third layer, Xu Qing !"

"Oh no! Where did my secret cave go? My adult paintings !"

"My secret spirit stone stash! The boulder isn't there anymore !"

"Ahhhh! My home! It's gone !"

"Fuck surprises! I didn't even ready my equipment for the tournament! Why didn't they say we'd be travelling instantly?"

"Hey, who was the girl shouting about her adult paintings? Asking for a friend."

"But you have no friend, Long Yun ."

"My clothes are gone! I just left them to dry in the sun half an hour ago!"

Han Xuhan redirected his focus, the chaos all around becoming too loud and complicated for his improved auditory senses to analyse. He had gathered a bunch of valuable information from the shouts, however. Slowly getting up from the ground, he walked up toward his master Kong Ye while his mind connected the dots.

Point number one— the Celestial Gateway technique had somehow teleported their entire sect, including a significant portion of its region, to this designated place. Judging by the workings of the technique, the formations laid all over the mountain soil were behind the teleportation. While the residences and general infrastructure were still intact, many elements hadn't been teleported along; such as the cave of that hentai artist, the spirit stone stash of the rich-no-poor kid, and the clothes of the third victim. The natural conclusion from these incidents was that anything not specifically covered by the area of effect of the formations might not have been teleported along.

His heart sank as he remembered how many precious treasures he had hoarded inside his bedroom over the last few weeks.

Point number two— It was intended to happen this way, sudden and silent. The fact that the disciples were not given any time or warning to prepare for the teleportation was not an accident, nor did it stem from the sect master's enthusiasm to surprise them. This was quite possibly a part of the tournament's hidden rules.

Point number three— that Xu Qing name was very familiar. He was that uppity brat with a brother in the mysterious inner court of the Crimson Snow Sect. The first time they had had an exchange, Han Xuhan had generously gifted him with Elder Shen's wrath. Their following exchanges during dao lectures of the elders had been fairly less exciting due to Xuhan's reputation and connections skyrocketing every other month.

So he was one of the nine talents who had reached the third layer of the Celestial Gateway Technique.... which was worrisome. The brat carried the quality of a very annoying template of Shounen protagonists.

By the time he had reached those conclusions, he was standing beside Kong Ye, observing the scene as all the elders from the mountain peaks flew up in the air to greet Luo Yi. Kong Ye himself took off a moment later, leaving an intrigued Xuhan behind.

Truly, having the skills to fly as one wished was a goal he desperately wanted to reach. How exciting and entertaining would it be?

Hurried footsteps came from behind, followed by the stormy reappearance of Mu Ran, Yuen Zhou and Xiao Wu.

"What happened? What did I miss?" Mu Ran said, huffing from exertion.

"There. That lady is a representative of the Beasthaven Sect, here to welcome us to the tournament." Han Xuhan pointed at the spectacle above where the elders and sect master Xuan Zi were exchanging some unnecessarily lengthy greetings with Luo Yi, all of them floating up so high that the disciples couldn't catch much of their words.

"By the way, boss, are our houses intact? Apparently, some infrastructures have been left behind-"

Mu Ran instantly waved off Xuhan's worried enquiry.

"Oh, don't worry about that, underling. Nothing has actually been left behind. This entire floating island of mountains we're standing on right now is just a copy of our real sect. The real Crimson Snow Sect is still in its original place. Except, if any newcomer enters the boundaries of the sect, they'll be transported here via the gateway we have opened through the formations. So our sect there is as safe as a locked-up treasure, and our sect here is a copy made up of materials the host sects kept in here, designed by the formations that constructed our gateway. We can actually return there easily."

". . . . Oh!"

Struck speechless, Xuhan silently digested the information while squinting all around him carefully, looking for evidence that supported Mu Ran's answer.

He found it very fast.

In every mountain, a significant portion of its mass now consisted of black smoke that definitely wasn’t there before the teleportation. After looking around a bit, he found the same element in his own mountain peak, more specifically, in the areas where he himself had laid down formations.

The clues connected easily in his mind after he personally examined the smoky substance. It was very malleable under a high amount of force but didn’t show any response toward qi. It did not seem to have any impurities or mixtures of other elements regardless of its vast amount all over the mountains, unlike regular soil on mountains where small rocks, litter and vegetation could be found everywhere.

The smoky substance was the result of the first level formations of the Celestial Gateway Technique, he realized. That type of formations was supposed to treat everything within its range as pure mass.

The second-level formations should have been the ones behind the creation of the rest of the infrastructure that was identical to the original sect then. As for the third level...it was supposed to grant the practitioner the power to modify and control the affected area as he wished.

Han Xuhan whipped around, curious to see what new changes might have been implemented by the elders and geniuses who had reached the third layer of the Celestial Gateway Technique.

However, at that moment, a voice came from above, stopping him in his tracks.

"Uh-oh! Take cover, everybody!"

Before he could understand what was happening, the booming sound of a tsunami wave hit him square in the eardrums, which was followed by actual tsunami waves that seemed to have come from at least three different directions.

Water washed over the mountains like a legendary flood from epics. None of the disciples was in the position to investigate what exactly was going on, least of all Han Xuhan whose physical prowess was the worst of the lot.

"Glllrrg! Grrrr~"

Han Xuhan's world was spinning. He couldn't even find the opportunity to throw up properly, carried along the mighty waves down the slopes of the mountain. Thankfully the waves hadn't come from behind or all of them would have been thrown off directly from the top of the mountain peak.

"Aaaah, fuck! I can't- grrrr....swim !" Someone yelled miserably from his back. Han Xuhan was in no state to tell who it was. He himself was barely holding up.

BANG!

THUMP!

THWACK!

Several crashes that should have killed a mortal followed soon once he rolled into the more floral side of the mountain. All of the trees had been teleported with an unnecessarily amount of care, it seemed. Their thick, sturdy trunks, gnarly branches and the wiry creepers seemed to be actively punishing the 'passersby'.

By the time his world had stopped consisting of whirly, lukewarm seawater, Han Xuhan was sprawled alongside his martial siblings at the foot of the mountain, where the ground was made up of the smokey black substance, as nobody had bothered to put much importance on those less eye-catching places while designing the formations.

Groaning audibly, the four of them got back on their feet after much struggle, some of their bones and joints creaking in cacophony with them. Han Xuhan counted five different parts of his body that were now missing generous chunks of skin and meat. Had his expensive clothes not been magically reinforced, albeit pretty weakly, he would probably be missing a limb or two by now.

"Where the fuck did that water come from? And where the fuck did it go ?" Mu Ran yelled furiously at the sky.

"I think we will have to figure those answers out ourselves....." Yuen Zhou muttered.

"Wait a minute, why aren't your clothes wet ?" Mu Ran asked in alarm after taking one glance at her. Han Xuhan and Xiao Wu instantly turned to look at her and found that Mu Ran's observation was true.

"Why do you want my clothes to be wet?" She asked in monotone.

". . . .Never mind."

While the two of them glared at each other, Han Xuhan tried his best to calculate whether it was possible for a tsunami wave in the middle of the sea to be so large that it could drown somebody 500 meters high in the air. But the answer kept coming out negative unless he counted in magical factors....which implied that the disaster, as short-lived as it might have been, was purely man-made.

Was it a goddamn prank? He had some pretty vicious plans bubbling inside himself for the prankster.

The harsh, salty taste in his mouth was nowhere near as harsh as the words that he was about to fire at whoever was in charge of the event management. But before he even gathered up the energy, Xuan Zi's booming voice rang across the mountains.

"Disciples! Now that all of you have familiarized yourselves with your new surroundings so practically, gather at the centre of our sect, at the foot of my mountain."

Exchanging gloomy looks among themselves, the four disciples of the Heavenly Hailstorm mountain peak limped along the serpentine path amidst the mountains, finding it rather unfamiliar due to the clashes of the smoky black portions and normal elements that they were used to seeing.

On their way, countless disciples who had suffered the same fate as them created a largecrowd. Some of them had been seriously injured during the flood and would have to be carried to the medicine pavilion, although they weren't sure if it had been teleported along with the rest of the sect. Han Xuhan quickly slipped into some close-knitted groups to gather information.

"Ei, brother Hui ! Damn, that's a deep cut. Gonna leave a scar for sure! I'd advise against healing it completely, though. Grade A jade beauty magnet right there! So what's up with....."

"Huh, sister Feng! Here, take my outer robe and cover your back. I saw some perverts staring at you. What's that? Oh, you want their names....? Er, one of them was called Xu Qing, I think. By the way...."

By the time they had reached the foot of the sect master's mountain, Xuhan had gathered up a significant amount of information. A rough picture of the entire sect at its current had taken shape inside his mind.

The most important change that he had found to have taken place was what the cultivators with the highest level of proficiency in the Celestial Gateway technique had done.

Apparently, the sect now sported three giant castles that could be moved, modified and controlled down to every brick at will. Each castle would house the disciples according to their cultivation levels. The dividing system was much like the one used during the slot allotment during the Celestial Gateway technique. So there would likely be not much change from the initial divisions of talent.

While Xuhan mentally noted down a few other details that he would need to rely on later for some of his preliminary objectives, the elders, the sect master, and the host lady Luo Yi floated down in front of the entire disciple body, looking completely dry and unharmed by the visit of the overly intimate seawater just a few minutes ago.

The air reeked of discontent, pregnant with a rebellious buzz amidst the disciples.