The initial trial heralds a grand display of might; the recluse shatters foes to awe the immortal sects.

The cyan jade steps gleamed with a cold light in the morning mist. Shen Yi stroked the restless spirit seed hidden within his sleeve, running straight into Jian Chen's venomous glare.

The young man in white leaned lazily against a stone pillar, the dark ice-jade pendant at his waist chiming audibly, clearly driven deliberately by spiritual power.

"Since when is a rogue cultivator worthy of entering the Marrow Cleansing Pool?" Jian Chen flicked his finger, shattering a falling ginkgo leaf, the debris brushing past Shen Yi's ear.

"Has Senior Brother Jian Chen's *Cold Plum Sword Manual* reached the seventh tier already?" Shen Yi suddenly reached out and caught the last leaf fragment. The emerald leaf instantly sprouted and branched in his palm. "What a pity that your sword Qi carries frost poison. You must be careful lest it backfire on your heart meridian."

Amidst the uproar of the watching disciples, the trial bell boomed.

Elder Xuanfeng waved his horsetail whisk, and thirty-six floating islands simultaneously lit up with array patterns.

The jade plaque at Shen Yi's wrist grew slightly warm. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing within a moss-covered stone array, the damp mist faintly veiling barrier boundaries shimmering with golden threads.

"Two hours..." He tapped his finger against a stone tablet engraved with divination hexagrams, and where the moss flaked off in flurries, blood-red runes were revealed.

The system interface suddenly popped up: 【Xu hour, third quarter, Kun palace life gate】, but he dismissed it with a backhand swipe.

The stone array suddenly trembled, and vines three feet away grew wildly.

As Shen Yi swiveled his body to dodge, the seven-absolution heart-eating grass in his sleeve precisely entangled an ice spike shot from the shadows—undoubtedly a lackey arranged by Jian Chen.

Among the ice shards crushed by the poisonous vines, half a scrap of cloth embroidered with a three-eyed snake pattern was mixed in.

"Scum of the Scarlet Sun Sect." He crushed the cloth scrap, and the spirit seed in his palm suddenly grew hot.

The system prompt flickered once more: 【Thirty paces to the northeast, corrupt soil can grow barrier-breaking flowers】. This time, he hesitated.

Screams echoed from the depths of the fog as some cultivator triggered a chain fire array.

Staring at the starmap on the stone wall that shifted with the moonlight, Shen Yi suddenly pressed the spirit seed into a damp rock fissure.

The moment green vines burst through the stone, he leveraged the force to leap onto the eastern broken cliff, narrowly avoiding a fissure that suddenly cracked open beneath his feet.

"The moon shifts three inches, the star positions incline west..." He somersaulted in mid-air past three falling fragments of rock, seven spirit seeds flying from his sleeve.

When the final array stone engraved with the character for "Awe" was entangled by vines, the entire stone array abruptly fell still.

Just as cold sweat soaked his back, the system suddenly flashed with blinding red light: 【Warning! Heavenly-grade spiritual soil fluctuates abnormally!】

Shen Yi jerked his head around, only to see blood-red vines rising slowly from the exact spot where he had stood just moments before—that was never a trial array, but a killing blow bearing the mark of the Blazing Sun Sect.

Shen Yi's fingertips brushed across the damp rock wall, the moss glowing in the moonlight with a phosphorous-like eerie light.

He deliberately bypassed the corrupt soil marked by the system, his toes lightly tapping three floating stones, each face concealing profound mysteries—the first carved with crimson flame patterns, the second faintly revealing tortoise shell patterns, and the third oozing dark red bloodstain threads.

"Kan palace generates water, Li fire opposes..." He chanted under his breath the array essentials from the *Qingnang Classic*, three spirit seeds suddenly shooting from his sleeve.

The spirit seeds burst into emerald light spots in mid-air, precisely illuminating a floating Bagua bronze mirror seven paces ahead.

The instant the mirror flipped, Shen Yi vaulted into the mirror's illusory projection, the pursuing vines behind him shattering violently against the physical bronze mirror.

On the spectator platform, Jian Chen crushed a jade cup, completely unaware of the ice shards piercing into his palm.

That rogue cultivator had actually used spiritual plants as the array core, forcibly transforming a dragon-trapping array into a gate of life.

Even more exasperating was Haoyu, that reckless brute, who was holding a wine gourd outside the trial grounds and shouting, "Brother Shen's 'Flying Flowers Pointing at Emerald' technique is far more crisp than certain people's cold plum swordsmithing!"

Gao Yao's knuckles turned white as she clutched her floating cloud handkerchief, only realizing she had bitten through her lower lip when she saw Shen Yi land lightly with fluttering robes upon the life gate stone tablet.

As that person turned around, he playfully tossed his jade plaque into the air and caught it again, the sunlight shattering into gold dust across his raised brow—a habitual trick he used when he first met her and stole her hair ornament.

"Shen Yi, do you dare to duel with me in swordsmanship?"

The sound of Jian Chen's frost blade clearing its scabbard was like a frozen river cracking open, and fine snow suddenly drifted across the trial grounds.

Elder Xuanfeng's horsetail whisk froze in the air, and the Three-Qian bells rang without wind—this was tacit permission for a life-or-death duel.

Shen Yi twirled a creeping buttercup he had just plucked from the crack of the stone tablet. The petals instantly condensed into a thin blade in his palm. "A sword duel is fine, but I want to add a wager." With a slight flick of his wrist, the floral blade pointed toward a spot on the spectator platform. "If I win, I ask Senior Brother Jian Chen to melt down his Dark Ice Pendant to forge a hair ornament for Senior Sister Gao."

This remark was like pouring water into boiling oil; the entire trial grounds erupted in chaos.

Gao Yao's ear tips flushed crimson as she covered the jade pendant at her waist, tied to which was still the concentric knot Shen Yi had given her last time.

Jian Chen's sword Qi had already transformed into a sky full of ice spikes, concealing seven killing maneuvers within the cold plum illusion.

"The seventh tier of Cold Plum Reflecting Snow!" A disciple cried out in alarm and stepped back.

Yet Shen Yi stepped through strange footwork, weaving among the ice spikes, a spirit seed dropping to take root with every step he landed.

When Jian Chen's finishing move, 'Soul of the Plum Breaking,' lunged forward, Shen Yi abruptly thrust the floral blade into the soil beneath his feet—the spirit seeds planted moments earlier instantly grew madly into iron-eating vines, actually swallowing the sword Qi as nourishment.

As Jian Chen staggered backward, Shen Yi flicked a vermilion fruit from his fingertips.

The fruit burst into crimson mist upon the frost blade, and by the time the mist dissipated, everyone saw Jian Chen's hair-binding jade crown crookedly caught upon the iron-eating vines, while the hem of Shen Yi's robe hooked Gao Yao's inadvertently dropped floating cloud handkerchief.

"I concede the match." Shen Yi tucked the handkerchief back into his sleeve, and as he turned around, the iron-eating vines suddenly burst into brilliant blue flowers.

Elder Xuanfeng's pupils constricted slightly—that was clearly a Soul-Devouring Orchid, which only grew at the edges of the Demon Realm!

The cheers of the spectator disciples gradually shifted in tone.

Several senior cultivators exchanged glances, some noticing that the jade plaque at Shen Yi's waist flashed with bizarre patterns.

Haoyu was about to step forward and wrap an arm around Shen Yi's shoulders, but was quietly pulled back by the sleeve by Physician Lunyuan.

Outside the trial grounds, the pines and cypresses swayed without wind, and three figures wearing bronze masks quietly departed from the shadows.

Shen Yi brushed the ice crystals from his shoulders, his peripheral vision catching Gao Yao's hesitant, unspoken expression.

He deliberately shook the Soul-Devouring Orchid, its blue petals suddenly fading to snow-white under the sunlight—this was the 'mimicry' function newly unlocked by the system.

Yet what the crowd could not see was that fine beads of blood were oozing from his palm, the backlash of forcibly driving a high-tier spiritual plant.

"Will Daoist Friend Shen care to explain the matter of the Soul-Devouring Orchid?" Elder Xuanfeng's voice dropped, laden with oppressive might.

Before Shen Yi could speak, an explosion erupted from the southeastern corner of the trial grounds as a competitor's magical treasure went out of control and blasted half of the arena to pieces.

Taking advantage of the chaos, one of Jian Chen's followers crushed a communication jade slip, its fluorescent light dissolving into the shape of a three-eyed snake as it merged into the clouds.

Gao Yao's gasp of astonishment was drowned out by the din.

She saw Shen Yi's hands forming hand seals behind his back, which were unmistakably the soul-镇ing incantations recorded in ancient texts.

Yet when she tried to look closer, Shen Yi had already turned and walked toward the resting area, the Soul-Devouring Orchid blooming wantonly upon his shoulder, morning dew condensing on its blue petals, resembling nothing so much as someone's irreverent smile.