This was exactly why Jie Fu Lian always emphasized the importance of analyzing the situation first before making rash decisions.
This wasn't a cave, it was a summoning ground filled with multiple arrays.
Huo Feng was certainly lucky considering the fact that he was still alive.
If he had taken a different passage, he would have probably been caught under a different array that might have been fatal to him.
Jie Fu Lian sighed as he suddenly stood up and walked along the walls of the cave.
At first glance, it looked as if he was simply admiring the beauty of the rough stone structure.
Because of the sudden appearance of Huo Feng, who had presumably been walking for ten days, nobody paid any attention to Jie Fu Lian and that was exactly what he had wanted.
"Something inside this cave is disturbing my spiritual Qi," Duan Luoyang closed his eyes and sighed with a bit of irritation, "If it weren't for that, I would have already found a way out."
'You can't even see what's in front of your eyes. I'm afraid you wouldn't have been able to sense the problem even if you had full control over your spiritual Qi,' Jie Fu Lian wanted to mock the man as he heard Duan Luoyang's words but he kept it in and continued to act as if he was deaf to this conversation.
Hua Tianshu suddenly sighed, "Look around a bit closer."
It seemed that Jie Fu Lian wasn't the only one who had completely deciphered the situation they were in. However, just like Jie Fu Lian, Hua Tianshu was also not planning on spelling out the answer.
Since he was Duan Luoyang's teacher, it made sense that he wanted his disciples to find the answer for themselves.
Hua Tianshu looked to be quite patient, but unfortunately enough, the same couldn't be said about Jie Fu Lian.
He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible and in order to do that, he needed to make these bunch of thick-skulled disciples find their way out.
If they were given enough time, it was only natural that they would be able to find a way out, but time was something Jie Fu Lian couldn't afford to waste so he chose to force these disciples to find the answer.
"It's you!" Jie Fu Lian suddenly exclaimed out loud, pointing at a certain disciple from the HuiXue sect whom he had never met nor seen.
"Me...?" The boy pointed at himself with a bit of shock and confusion.
"It's you, isn't it?!" Jie Fu Lian started walking over towards the boy with hostility as he spoke, "You stole my turtle!"
"Eh?"
Everybody turned to look at Jie Fu Lian with great interest. Even Hua Tianshu was looking over at him with that same unbothered gaze that he always held in his eyes.
"Don't try to deny it! I remember your face very clearly!" Jie Fu Lian shouted as he continued to falsely accuse the boy of stealing his non-existent turtle.
"Fellow Daoist, I-I think there has been a mistake," The boy stuttered a little as he tried to calmly solve this situation.
However, Jie Fu Lian was simply not planning on cooperating.
"It's you! I know it's you! There is no use in denying it! You stole my little turtle TianTian!"
The boy gulped and his eyes looked as if they were ready to pop out of his sockets.
Hua Tianshu almost laughed as he heard the words 'my little TianTian' and surprisingly enough, for the first time in ages, he looked to be a little interested in this unknown man who had suddenly started accusing one of his disciples.
"Brother, I never stole a turtle nor have I ever seen a turtle named TianTian," The boy looked to be intimidated by the approaching Jie Fu Lian and he slowly backed up on instinct.
"I saw you steal TianTian! Don't you dare lie!" Jie Fu Lian suddenly lifted his feet and kicked the boy, sending him flying all the way to the wall on the opposite side of the cave.
Although he had tried his best to hold back on his strength, that kick was still too strong and as soon as the boy's back hit the wall, the stone wall cracked a little.
Jie Fu Lian felt a little guilty and worried for the boy but he was a master at hiding away his inner thoughts and on the outside, one could still see his character 'TianTian's angry father' being masterfully played out.
The young disciple groaned as he hit the floor and it looked like the rest of the disciples from the HuiXue sect were no longer amused by Jie Fu Lian, and on the contrary, they now held hostility towards him.
"He said it wasn't him!" Duan Luoyang exclaimed with anger as he glared at the man.
"There! Look there!" Xian Li suddenly interrupted the conversation as she cried out.
Everyone's attention was immediately caught by the woman who pointed at the wall that the kicked disciple had cracked.
"It's a formation!" Ling Rong also joined in as she exclaimed.
A few of the disciples. including Duan Luoyang walked over to the wall and took a closer look at the faint formation that was still visible even after being covered with layers and layers of dirt and dust.
Nobody cared about the unfortunate young disciple who was still rolling around with pain on the floor.
"It doesn't look like a transportation array but I've never seen a formation like this so I can't say anything for sure," Duan Luoyang spoke up with his eyebrows creased together in confusion.
"There is one here as well!" Another disciple cried out as he pointed at the wall on the opposite side of the cave.
While walking along the walls of the cave, Jie Fu Lian had purposefully brushed off some of the dust in order to make the arrays more visible and now, it seemed that his efforts hadn't been wasted.
"There is one here too!" One more disciple shouted.
Duan Luoyang gulped as he looked around and it took a minute for him to put the pieces together as he spoke, "North... West... South... East. There must be one on the East wall as well!"
Everybody suddenly looked to be very enthusiastic and soon enough, they found the identical array on the east wall of the cave as well.
Jie Fu Lian slightly smiled as he saw this.
Since he had already spelled the method out for them in secret, he expected them to at least be able to use the method in order to find the answer.
However, it seemed that the current disciples of both these sects weren't as bright as they used to be back when Jie Fu Lian was still at the top of the cultivation world.
"I've never seen an array like this but it must be a transportation array of some kind!" A young enthusiastic disciple from the HuiXue sect spoke up.
Duan Luoyang nodded his head in agreement.
"The array must have a trigger of some sort. If we can find the trigger, we can probably use this array."
Jie Fu Lian mentally face-palmed.
Had nobody in this cave ever heard about a demon-summoning formation...?
Even having the base knowledge about demon-summoning formation would probably be enough for them to recognize these arrays.
The disciple who had been wrongfully kicked by Jie Fu Lian finally managed to push himself off the ground and it didn't look like he cared about the arrays. His eyes were focused only on Jie Fu Lian and he looked rather angry.
"I never stole your turtle!" The boy roared as he took out his sword and jumped at Jie Fu Lian.
This sudden attack was a bit unexpected and shocking, but if Jie Fu Lian had wanted, he could have easily avoided it.
However, he suddenly had an idea.
Instead of avoiding the sword, he stepped aside and let the sword slash his upper arm, splattering blood on the array.
The boy still looked to be dissatisfied and tried to attack Jie Fu Lian once again, but this time, Hua Tianshu interfered and stopped him on time.
"Blood!" One of the disciples exclaimed, "The trigger is blood!"
Nobody knew who acted first, but in the next few minutes, a few of the disciples had already cut their palms and smeared blood on the other three arrays as well.
Jie Fu Lian took a deep breath in as he looked at the floor with an expectant gaze and it just so happened that Hua Tianshu noticed this small reaction.
The arrays started glowing and the ground began shaking.
Most of the disciples had an excited and relieved expression plastered on their faces, not exactly knowing what was happening.
'This is a demon summoning formation. Activating it with blood can only lead to one thing,' Jie Fu Lian thought in his mind and at that exact moment, the floor started to glow, revealing another bigger array that was engraved on the ground that they were all standing on.
These bunch of disciples certainly lacked experience and base knowledge about demon-summoning formations, however, now, even they could sense that something wasn't right.
From the ground, something started to come out. To be more exact, it was a hand that was too big to be considered a human hand.