(A/N: did someone ask for a bonus chapter? As the caring author that I am, I decided to drop a bonus chapter for all the powerstones that you have wasted on the novel last week. *~*)
——(POV Li Huang)——
The formation was in front of me and without hesitation, I stepped inside.
After a flash of light, I was inside the test location. It was a small room with no decoration in it, there were only two doors here and an oil lamp there.
'It seems that I have to choose one of these rooms and from what I can see, the doors are created and reinforced in a way that you can't use Qi sense to see behind them.' I thought.
Using the peeping eye of heaven, I looked at the doors but they were not different and both emitted the same amount of light so I can't cheese my way as I did with the formation.
Turning my head, I looked at the only clue that was placed in this room, the oil lamp. It was a double-nozzle bronze-colored oil lamp. It wasn't anything extraordinary at a glance and looked ornamental, but I decided to take a look at it with the peeping eye of heaven so that I don't miss a clue.
The moment that I looked at it, I was shocked beyond my expectations. It wasn't ordinary at all and was a unique oil lamp that could be used to burn medicinal herbs that are resistant to fire and need higher temperatures. This oil lamp is so resistant that our sect's standard disciple sword wouldn't even scratch it, I reckon that the sword would probably even chip In the collision.
'This is something that grandpa Long would really need as he needs to absorb many medicinal herbs.' Giving this to grandpa would be for the best.
If you process the herbs the absorption speed would increase but you would need the necessary tool to do so and this lamp is one such tool.
As these tools would be damaged after a couple of uses, they cost a lot so having such a lamp that from what I can see doesn't have a single sign of deterioration on it after all these years, is significantly effective.
'This is why they say never judge a book by its cover…' I thought.
Looking closer at the oil lamp, I tried to see if the peeping eye of heaven can detect this oil, while I readied an antidote just to be safe.
From the memories of the artifact, I detected that this oil is from the [red snake tongue] herb. This herb is one of the herbs that form in extreme conditions. The herb looks like a snake's tongue, hence the name and as this herb was formed near lava, it is called red snake tongue.
This herb's oil burns very slowly so this has to be burning for a very long time. This shows the quality of this oil lamp and frankly, I can't be happier with this.
Now it doesn't really matter if I get anything else from either of these doors, I'm content with what I have.
As I was going to enter the right door aimlessly, I stopped on my track suddenly.
There is another reason for naming these herbs snake tongue. When you have one type of this herb, using its oil you can find any snake tongue herb nearby.
What I figured out just now is that the oil lamp is leading me to the other door, and there have to be more snake tongue herbs there for this reaction to happen.
Shrugging, I changed my target to the other room. I had the oil lamp in my hands but if I can get more, why not?
Opening the door, I got pushed into the room by some power and the door closed behind me. I didn't know about this until later because my attention was somewhere else.
The room was full of alchemical herbs and tools. All of them were top quality and would give me a good sandbox to learn alchemy.
After a moment of silence to give my thanks to the generous senior who left these items, I started packing them into one of the storage rings.
I have some storage rings for storing the loot ready. They are arranged like prayer beads, where, instead of beads you have storage rings.
I have to commission a custom modular storage ring when I get back to the sect, this is a really ugly way of managing my inventory.
After I cleaned the room, I again thanked the generous senior and went toward the formation in the back of the room and stepped on it.
Just as I imagined, I got teleported back to the trial where I entered the 'test'.
I didn't waste time and started running to find new loots.
…
Do you remember that I thought my plan to judge the loot by the strength of the formation was brilliant?
Yeah, that. Scratch that.
I didn't think that the formation might be there to hid a creature and not the loot. So a strong formation could mean a strong beast and that is not okay.
I had good gains in a couple more formations until I came across another very bright formation. When I got inside, instead of big loot, a big alchemical golem was waiting for me.
Alchemical golems are artificially created humanoids that have high physical power. Creating these golems involves the employment of intensive care to its formation runes and Qi control. What makes them harder to counter is their ability to nullify Qi.
You can't attack them with your Qi because it is like charging them with more power as they have cores that store Qi.
Although I was shocked from seeing it, it was sad that I had to destroy such high-quality creation to survive.
From what I know from my artifact's memory, there is an unwritten rule amongst golem creators that they carve their own face on their creation to leave a legacy behind.
This golem had a beautiful face and the character 'He' on its chest, showcasing its creator's name.
As I was marveling at its creation, the golem decided to attack me without wasting any more time.
The moment I know of his plan, I didn't even think of retaliation, all I did was rolling on the ground to move out of his hitting range.
As the golem's fist hit the ground, tremors spread in the room in an instant, and the floor beneath the fist caved in.
Looking at the spider web cracks in the floor and imagining myself there, I couldn't help but shudder.
'Now I can say for sure that my plan to loot everything has some minor flaws…' I thought.
The golem got on his feet again swiftly and attacked me with what I could presume is its full power.
Without any pause, I reacted to this development and used the [Mirror of Reckoning] to reflect the golem's physical attack back to it.
The golem hit the mirror and I could feel my leg bones breaking under the pressure but I persevered.
'You can break my bones but not my storage rings.' I laughed at my own thoughts.
Luckily for me, the mirror was able to absorb all of its attack power.
The golem was shocked and I was also shocked but for different reasons.
The golem didn't understand how his attack was completely ineffective and I was shocked because nothing happened.
'…why isn't it reflectin—' I wasn't able to finish my thought because a powerful physical attack came out of the [Mirror of Reckoning] and blasted me and the golem to the opposite sides of this room.