After his meditation, he finally calmed down as he resumed his digging, attempting to discover the entrance of the next floor. Mud splashed onto Shen Long's face as his muscles started to turn sore. Even as a cultivator, Shen Long could not escape the pain of the build-up of lactic acid. Shen Long took a break as his hand slowly came to life again.
"Welcome back... my arm... I've missed you."
"Shen Long, I will never abandon you! You are the most handsome guy, my master!"
"Well said, but don't flatter me too much. I gotta be modest, even though you speak the truth. Let's get back to work, arm-san!!"
Shen Long spoke to his arm for a while as he was dying from boredom. Of course, Shen Long didn't forget to praise himself while talking to himself. Sorry, error: his arm, I meant. Devoting his full attention to his digging again, he finally felt like he had made actual progress.
The mud below Shen Long's feet changed colour as it now appeared slightly golden. The brown, disgusting mud actually started smelling nicer as well. Taking a temporary break, Shen Long scooped the abnormal mud with his bare hands as he bent down.
Lifting it closer to his eyes, the colour suddenly changed back to the old, brown colour. Its fragrance also suddenly vanished, and it appeared to be no different from normal mud. Shen Long couldn't believe his eyes as he scooped another handful of mud. After confirming that he wasn't dreaming, he paused a little as he analysed what he saw again.
With his experience from light novels, Shen Long more or less figured out the reason behind the change in colour. It was definitely due to some strange formation beneath the mud, causing the change in colour and smell. Unexpectedly, Shen Long was completely right with his educated guess.
There was a Spirit Gathering Formation below the mud, similar to the one he encountered before. There should also be some hidden mechanism below the soil layer, to trigger an instant teleportation to the next floor. Even though it wasn't Shen Long's first time, seeing formations, Shen Long had zero knowledge on it besides its obvious use.
The exit method obviously required Shen Long to break through the formation, to use the teleportation machine. However, breaking through a formation was easier said than done. Usually, a formation could be broken in three various ways.
First, one could disrupt the energy flow of the formation; however, it required lots of knowledge and experience. Only through a thorough understanding, one could accurately stop the energy flowing. With Shen Long's expertise on this matter (which was none), this method obviously would prove no use to him.
One could also destroy the energy supply of a formation. Even though some formations were able to draw in spiritual energy, there would usually only be a few "cores" where the absorptions took place. By destroying every single one, the formation would be rendered useless as it could not function without energy.
Lastly, one could use brute force to destroy the formation. However, judging from the effect of the formation, it was probably impossible for Shen Long to use brute force neither. It seemed like Shen Long was out of options, and he would probably be stuck in this for a while.
This trials really was brutal. From killing to mathematical problems to formation problems, this test required one to be versatile in every aspect. However, this was unfair for Shen Long since he wasn't familiar with any professions. Formations, alchemy, beast-taming, apothecary, corpse-refining, and all professions required knowledge, and Shen Long never had the chance to study them as he was a newcomer to the cultivation world.
Light novels, after all, never explained any of the professions in depth. Plus, they were probably all fictional, so they proved no use to Shen Long neither. Shen Long had no choice, but to randomly swing his swords, hoping to randomly trigger some mechanism.
After an hour of luck-testing, Shen Long realised that it would never work. Shen Long decided to give up, and visit the library. Since Shen Long had cleared twenty stages, he had twenty hours to spend in the outside world.
After deciding on what to do next, Shen Long painstakingly flew back up from the 10-meter hole that he dug. Then, he found his way back to the entrance as he shouted, "Get me out of here!"
Upon finishing his words, spacetime twisted as he was sucked into the void. After regaining his consciousness, he realised that he was lying on the floor in the cube room. Since Shen Long was unwilling to waste any of his precious time, he got up immediately to leave the room.
However, the doors didn't respond, and they couldn't be opened no matter how hard Shen Long tried. Confused, Shen Long stared at the ceiling as he pondered on his next step. The shiny, gold button caught his attention, and Shen Long decided to give that shot, to leave this room.
"Please confirm the duration of your leave. You have twenty hours remaining. If you do not return by the designated time, you will be forcefully teleported back in." A mighty sound resonated across the room after pressing the button.
"Six hours!" Shen Long shouted as the door suddenly opened. Not wasting a single second, Shen Long dashed towards the exit as he ran through all 108,000 doors. It took Shen Long thirty minutes to leave the room, and Shen Long flew to the library immediately.
The sun was shining furiously as Shen Long enjoyed the natural warmth. Shen Long felt nostalgic, upon seeing the outside world again. However, Shen Long had only been in the trials for one day, though he felt like a long time had passed inside the trials.
Shen Long directly headed up to the fourth floor of the library where books regarding the Dao of Formation were located. He didn't bother speaking to the library guardian as he was short on time. Focusing intensely, he managed to read four complete books about formations in just three hours.
Although he was far from becoming an expert, he now understood briefly how formation worked. There were four main types of formations here: illusion formations, spirit gathering formations, confinement formations, and formations. Of course, it was possible for one formation to fit in all four categories. So there were actually 16 types of formations.
What Shen Long encountered was a spirit-gathering formation with a teleportation spell. As long as he managed to discover the weak points of the formation, he should be able to break it easily. For the majority of these formations, one could detect the weak points by sensing the spiritual energy near them.
The weakest points usually were the ones which had little to none spiritual energy, also known as the "flaw" of the formation. Since Shen Long still had some time, he decided to pay Chen Mei and Daoist Fireblade a visit before leaving.
He first went to Daoist Fireblade's palace, chitchatting for a while, as well as complaining about the trials. Of course, his Master consoled him and reminded him of the benefits of the trials. Then, Shen Long left to visit the Apothecary Guild to find Chen Mei.