Staring at the obvious truth of the spiritual pond, Jiang Feng quickly turned from his initial shock to excitement. Wasting not even a second, he quickly submerged himself into the water as the back pain caused by his fight against the stone sculptures disappeared, replaced by a soothing warm flow that spread throughout his body.
Despite the fact that only 2 minutes had just passed, Jiang Feng had already experienced what seems to be a full recovery, and all of this, was because of the spiritual pond.
As its name suggests, it's a pond filled with a special energy called spiritual energy.
Spiritual energy is said to be the energy that gave birth to all life. It has different form for different uses, in this case, however, it gave the pond special properties to heal and its glistening, star-like surface.
…
Lying in the pond, Jiang Feng had his eyes closed as he soon fell into a defenseless state.
His experience in these 10 minutes can be described as heavenly for him. Before the challenge had started, his body was already weakened as he puked out due to what seemed to be the remains of the police officers that entered 19 years ago.
The subsequent battles against the relentless stone sculptures had only worsened his condition, leaving him with several injuries, including a heavy blow to his back and left arm.
Now that all of his negative conditions were cured by the spiritual pond, Jiang Feng subconsciously lowered his mental fortitude as the pleasuring warmth from the pond assaulted his consciousness, letting the sleepiness creep in and take over.
"The individual 'Jiang Feng' has spent 10 minutes within the 'Spiritual Pond'."
"The individual 'Jiang Feng' has passed the third challenge."
"The individual 'Jiang Feng' will now be teleported to the fourth challenge."
"Huh…?"
As the feminine voice sounded in his head, Jiang Feng's sleep was disturbed as he sat up from where he was. Without giving him to react, a formation carved exactly in the same pattern as the teleportation formation he used earlier lit up on the ground beneath him.
"Wait wha-"
Sobering up in an instant, Jiang Feng quickly got up as he attempted to get away from the coverage of the formation. But since the formation was already activated before he had awakened from his slumber, it didn't bother to gave him time as an intense light shone.
…
Laying on the floor of yet another cave, Jiang Feng held his stomach while covering his mouth as the headache made him heard ringing sounds inside his head.
'I swear to god I am not taking another teleportation formation after this.' Jiang Feng thought to himself as the headache slowly subsided.
Placing the sword on the ground, but close to him for easy grabbing in case an emergency appears, Jiang Feng stood up as he brought his backpack to his front and checked its insides. Thankfully, it was water-proof, so his phone was safe.
"I guess I should have taken off my clothes first before sleeping inside that pond." Jiang Feng mumbled to himself as he stared at his clothes that was dripping wet.
Ignoring the discomfort by how his clothes was sticking onto his skin, Jiang Feng picked up his sword and looked around the cave he was currently in.
Just like how it was at the start, there was only one path for him to take. The path was a little narrow for any battle, but he could manage as long as he was careful enough. What intrigued him, however, was the gate on the other side of the room that the path would lead to.
The gate was made from what seemed to be metal as square holes formed between each bar. Soft blue light continuously emitted from the holes, meaning that there was a barrier to block humans or any small size creature from entering through it.
"Or to defend the challengers from what is locked inside…"
Despite the long distance between Jiang Feng and the metal gate, he could see multiple rust stains all over the metal bars as it had long become dull, signifying how long things had been here.
After taking a nap in the spiritual pond, Jiang Feng's pent-up stress in such a condition was all cleared, allowing him to take a step forward without the fear of death embracing him.
Holding the sword before him, Jiang Feng remained alert as he walked through the path and reaching the entrance of the other side. Doing so, the familiar voice sounded inside his head once again.
"The fourth challenge will now commence."
Saying so, the ground trembled with intensity as dust and dirt fall all over the ground from the ceiling. Gulping down the nervousness as he stared at the cause of all this, Jiang Feng patiently waited to see what was behind the rusty gate as it rose up.
As the ground stopped trembling, the gate that divided Jiang Feng from the unknown behind it fully rose into the ceiling, allowing Jiang Feng to stare straight into the darkness. Just then, the feminine voice sounded in his head again.
"Defeat all 'Undead Soldiers' to move on to the second part."
As soon as the voice finished talking, sounds of metal clanking reached the ears of Jiang Feng as he stared at his opponents that were coming out from the darkness.
"Those are…skeletons?"
A group of skeletons appeared in his sights as they sat on decayed horses with weird blue fire shining at their hollowed eye sockets. Each of these skeletons were clad in heavy armor as they held the iron spear in their hands tightly, despite being mere bones.
'How am I supposed to defeat a bunch of walking bones?! Do I just hit them like I did with those stone sculptures?' Jiang Feng pondered.
Before he could think of an answer to his questions, the skeleton that was surrounded by the others rose its sword up before pointing it towards Jiang Feng on the opposite side. The surrounding skeletons quickly followed the order of that skeleton that seemed to be the leader of the group as they rushed towards Jiang Feng on their horses.
Seeing one approaching him quickly, Jiang Feng didn't wait for it to reach him as his closed the distance between them and swung his sword at the neck of the Undead Horse, if that's how its supposed to be called.
Surprisingly, the Undead Horse crumbled as the bone pieces fell all over, causing the Undead Soldier on it to fall too. Without giving any time for the Undead Soldier to react, Jiang Feng swung his sword again as it soon met with a similar ending to the Undead Horse.