Currently, Krune was sitting at a corner of the cave recovering his Tribulation Lightning. Just like before, it was absorbing all the lightning energy that he sent in, which was then filtered out. This time, Krune noticed one thing.
'The amount of Tribulation Lightning that it has after I used Heavens Fall is bigger than before I started feeding it for the first time. It's still early to say, but maybe the rainbow core is keeping extra lightning every time. If that's the case, what is it accumulating Tribulation Lightning for?'
Unfortunately, Krune had no answer to that question. Nevertheless, since that was his own future core, it wasn't going to harm him, right? Then again, that's the power of the Tribulation Lightning, the same power that tried to obliterate him! In the end, Krune just let out a sigh and decided to put those thoughts behind to focus on another thought.
'I was able to temper my soul through the power of the Tribulation Lightning during the Heavenly Tribulation. Since I can take some of the Tribulation Lightning out, I should be able to use it to temper it again.'
After recovering the Tribulation Lightning's power, Krune used his Spiritual Energy Meridian to take some of the lightning's power to strike his soul. As expected, the pain was still as strong as it ever was. In any case, by the end of it, Krune felt ecstatic!
'It works! My soul can really be tempered with the power of Tribulation Lightning! With that, my Divine Sense will become even stronger. Of course, I can't use too much of it every time. I have to give my soul enough time to recover, or I might permanently damage it. Steadiness is the key.'
Krune then kept using the power of Tribulation Lightning to temper his soul until he felt that he was approaching his limits. If others were to know that Krune was attacking his own soul with Tribulation Lightning, they would only think of him as a lunatic!
---
It had been three days since everyone went back to the gate's cave. They didn't immediately enter after Krune recovered, though. First, Krune's group waited some time to see if someone would appear. Krune's Heavens Fall was too eye-catching after all, and they might have been followed them without noticing. Fortunately, no one appeared, so they finally decided that it was time to enter.
Krune came forward and told them, "I will enter first. Wait ten minutes before entering. If this gate has some trap that only detects cultivators inside, then it should activate after I pass through. In that case, I will try to send a signal back through the gate before any of you guys enter as well."
Everyone nodded in response and got prepared. After that, Krune didn't say anything else and passed through. The world around him warped and became black for a second. When the light returned, he was already on the other side. Krune then immediately spread his Divine Sense and checked around, waiting to see if someone or something would attack him. However, after waiting for an entire minute, everything was still silent, and no movement could be felt. The gate behind him was still open and didn't seem like it was going to close anytime soon. Krune let out a sigh of relief and then waited for ten minutes to pass by.
Ten minutes later, Yusa and the others appeared inside. Krune was still there, looking around to see if now that they were all inside, it would activate some countermeasure. Fortunately, nothing happened, even with the increase in numbers.
Shinja looked around before saying, "It seems like it really doesn't have anyone. So, should we go up?" In response, Krune and the others nodded.
"I expanded my Divine Sense to the limit, but this secret realm is just like the fog forest. However, unlike the fog forest, it hinders the power of my Divine Sense to a much greater extent. Outside I could penetrate all the way to the gate's cave, which was two kilometers underground. But here, I can't spread my Divine Sense for even 400 meters. How's yours, Shinja?"
Shinja checked out and felt the same as Krune.
"You're right. I can only spread my Divine Sense to a little bit more than 400 meters. It seems like we can only go out and see the outside world with our eyes."
Krune and the others agreed and immediately started to work. The soil in this place was several times harder than outside, and it took them three days to finally be able to see the end of it. So, when they finally stepped outside, they were amazed.
They looked around, and it seemed like they were in the middle of a city. However, it was utterly deserted! Some of the buildings were even on the verge of falling down, while others had already crumbled. It was evident that no one entered this place in hundreds, no, probably thousands of years!
They were expecting a nature-related realm, but definitely not a city. After checking around, they confirmed that not a single soul could be found in the area. Demon beasts? Forget it! They couldn't even find common animals like spiders, rats, or ants. It was a completely dead city.
"What do we do now? Let alone fortunes, I can't even find a piece of metal without being rusted by time," Yusa could not help but say. She was a little sad since this secret realm was totally different than what she expected. Krune looked around and then sighed.
"From what I know about secret realms, as long as we find the direction where there is more Spiritual Energy, we should find where the fortunes are. Also, secret realms are enormous, and this one is just like it. When I went up to a building and looked in the distance, I simply couldn't find the end of it."
Ao then commented, "In that case, let's choose a direction and move out. If Spiritual Energy increases, we keep going. Otherwise, we go back. Just remember to mark this place in your communicator. That way, we can find our way back here."
The group nodded in agreement, and after marking the location, they moved out. The buildings around seemed to never change, though. They found quite some shops, and one of them was definitely selling weapons. However, after entering, the weapons that were left behind didn't even have a strand of Spiritual Energy in them.
Ao took out a rusted sword from a weapons rack and examined it. After that, he let out a sigh and muttered, "The weapons inside this shop don't have Spiritual Energy. But it's not because a lot of time passed and ran out. It's just that they were made to be ordinary weapons to start with. It seems that this city wasn't made for cultivators."
Shinja agreed with the statement. "I believe you're right. All the other houses and buildings we checked so far had no trace of being a place where cultivators would spend their time in. None of the intact tools we found was something that cultivators would use either. They're all common and very old, so I don't believe that cultivators even passed through this place often."
Krune then said, "It's impossible for cultivators to not have been involved. Secret realms are things that only strong cultivators can make, after all. As to why this expert moved a lot of common people to live in this city, I don't know. Maybe it was some experiment or something similar."
"In that case, let's keep moving. Have any of you noticed any difference in the Spiritual Energy in the air so far?" he soon asked, to which everyone responded by shaking their heads.
Even after walking an entire hour, they didn't feel any difference whatsoever. There was Spiritual Energy, that's true, but it looked like this secret realm was built exclusively for common people to live in.
Krune then asked the others something. "For those experts, is it possible to move the secret realms with them when they want to leave?"
Everyone shook their heads in response. They had no idea. This information was far from what low-level cultivators like them could have access to.
"What is your idea?" one of them asked.
Krune looked around and then said, "I just feel like this is some sort of display. A place that an expert or maybe several experts built to watch the common people live."
Yusa and the others were taken aback. "Why would they spend their time in something nonsensical like that? It doesn't make sense."
Krune shook his head in response. This was just a feeling, nothing more. With that, he said, "In that case, let's keep moving. If what you said is correct, then there is bound to be a place where those experts stayed while they looked at everyone. If there's any fortune, it's there."
Krune's group moved out and walked for an entire day. Sadly, they found nothing different. The Spiritual Energy hasn't become thicker or thinner either. It was reaching a point where their group was already starting to feel depressed.
Yusa could not help but sense the surrounding Spiritual Energy and say, "So, it seems like we're getting nowhere. This feeling of wandering without finding fortune is already making me feel numb."
Krune's eyes suddenly widened after hearing that, exclaiming, "We screwed up!"
The rest looked at him with confused expressions, waiting for him to explain. Fortunately, Krune did so. "Can't you see it? It doesn't matter if there were any cultivators inside this city before back then or not. There's no way that Spiritual Energy could not have changed even a bit after walking for so long. Let alone a secret realm that works because of Spiritual Energy. There's only one way for that to happen, and that's if we haven't left the same place at all!"
Ao and the others' expressions had finally changed as they realized what was happening. "We're walking in circles!"
Yusa then asked, "But how's that possible? If we really were walking in the same place, we should have been able to recognize some of the places that we passed by before."
Shinja shook her head as she told Yusa, "This is only the case if the place we're trapped in is small. But what if this formation that's trapping us inside is enormous? It simply happens that we haven't walked into a place that we recognize yet."
Krune nodded in agreement. "In that case, we will need to find the core of this illusion formation and destroy it. Otherwise, there's no way we can ever move forward."
Ao didn't have too big of an expectation after hearing that. "We are talking about a supreme expert here, someone with a level of cultivation one wouldn't be able to find in Makui Planet. What are the chances of us being able to find it with our strength? Even if we find it, can we destroy it?"
They looked at each other and felt helpless. But it was then that Krune's eyes suddenly lit up! He looked at Yusa and Shinja and then asked, "What if we just cut off the Spiritual Energy that's feeding the illusion formation? Would we be able to find it easier due to the lack of Spiritual Energy?"
Yusa and Shinja looked at each other and then nodded as one of them explained, "It should be possible. If the main source of Spiritual Energy is hindered, the core will try to gather Spiritual Energy from the surroundings. A formation of this size will definitely cause some ripples on the Spiritual Energy inside it since the Spiritual Energy will move towards the core. We should be able to pinpoint the location of the core with that."
One of them continued, "But if we know where it is, it would be better to use the Spiritual Energy from it to find the core of the formation first. It's better than waiting for the energy outside to move to it. In fact, it should be much easier."
Krune nodded. "That's even better. In short, we just need to find the source first."
Everyone looked at Krune, and it seemed like he had an idea. With that, one of them asked, "But how are you going to find the main source of Spiritual Energy that feeds the formation?"
Krune suddenly laughed out loud and replied, "Find it? Why should I? We all know very well where it is!"
Only then did the three of them understand the crux of the situation.
"Right! The gate to the outside world! Now I understand why there was no trap and why it was hidden deep underground. It was the source of the core! Not only that, since the gate is the source, the core is bound to be close!"
But then, Yusa asked, "But how are we going to find our way back? As far as I know, even our communicator's markers won't work inside this formation. Even if we follow the place shown on the screen, we won't ever arrive there. Formations have evolved to cover such technological flaws a long time ago."
Krune heard that and laughed out loud once more. "That's where you're wrong! Does this city look like a place where technology was developed before?"
"Ah!" Everyone's eyes suddenly lit up after that!
"Correct! This is a formation from far too long ago. Obviously, it's from a time before technology took its place in our universe. There's no way that the expert who created it would have counted for the fact that our technological devices exist. Chances are that he died even before technology itself was invented."
With that being said, they immediately moved out. Krune's group moved in the direction shown on their map screens and were even more surprised by this illusion formation. They were sure that they hadn't passed through some of those buildings before. They even felt like they were, in fact, walking in circles. Nevertheless, their communicators did not disappoint them. Ten hours later, they were back at the entrance of the cave.
They descended into the gate's cave, and sure enough, the gate was still open. To be more precise, it would always be open. The core of the formation couldn't do without it, after all.
It didn't take long for them to find the formation's core after following the flow of Spiritual Energy coming from the gate. Finding the core, Yusa looked at it and sighed. "There's a barrier around the core. If we want to destroy it, we will need to stop the flow of Spiritual Energy first."
Shinja nodded. "There is no other way. It's not something we can break through with our strength. Let's go back to the gate first."
Back at the gate, Ao asked, "How are we going to stop the Spiritual Energy from passing through?"
While everyone was thinking about a way, Krune looked at the gate, and his eyes lit up. "Should we destroy it?"
The others' hearts almost stopped after hearing that! They then looked at Krune like they were looking at someone beyond salvation. Fortunately, Krune noticed their eyes and felt a little embarrassed.
"Cough, cough. It was just a joke."
Ao and the others felt a chill behind their backs when they heard that. They were absolutely sure that Krune was being 100% serious just now!