Chapter 909 - Start of the Second Stage

Panda Novel

The people from the academy rushed out of the cave with somber expressions.

Grandmaster Yun Cang flew to the top of the mountain. The rest of the disciples spread out and surrounded the examinees.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

Everyone immediately panicked.

A moment later, a loud bell rang continuously from the top of the mountain.

In the next moment, the entire mountain was in an uproar, followed by the entire city.

That was the warning bell of the most serious level. An external enemy had infiltrated Channel Mountain.

Figures walked out from all over the Channel Mountain. They looked at the mountain peak in astonishment.

Channel Mountain was the sacred ground of the southern region’s pill-making world. They received many guests every day, but none of them had dared to cause trouble.

At the mountain peak, numerous figures with terrifying qi auras rushed out and descended on the back mountain.

“Oh my god! That’s a Nascent Soul cultivator! What’s going on?”

The candidates at the back of the mountain became more and more flustered.

A figure stepped down from the sky. His white robes fluttered in the wind, and he looked like a deity.

“A fellow cultivator came all the way to the academy to steal some things. If you ask for it, I don’t mind giving it to you. Why do you have to steal and cause a scene?”

“It’s the dean!”

The crowd cried out in alarm.

That was the dean of the academy, one of the few grandmaster-level pill makers in the southern region.

“Dean!”

The disciples below all bowed at him.

The dean nodded and swept his gaze across the crowd.

Out of the three thousand candidates, more than two thousand had gathered at the plaza at the back of the mountain. The dean could not find anyone suspicious even when he looked closely.

‘Maybe they haven’t come out yet, or maybe they’re very good at hiding!’ The dean thought to himself as he turned his gaze toward the entrance of the cave.

In a short while, more people came out. All of them were shocked by the scene outside.

Tang Hao also came out. When he looked up at the Nascent Soul cultivator and all the disciples, he was shocked.

‘Oh my god, what are they doing here? Right, don’t tell me they’re here to catch me?

‘Damn! Is there a need for that? I only took a few things!’

Tang Hao cursed under his breath.

He acted surprised and asked the academy disciples at the cave exit what had happened.

In an instant, everyone turned to look at him with stern gazes.

However, they soon looked away.

That kid was only in the State of Foundation Establishment, so it could not be him. The culprit was an expert in herbology, and it would be impossible that the culprit was so young.

Tang Hao secretly heaved a sigh of relief and walked into the crowd.

The crowd was fervently discussing what exactly had happened to cause such a huge commotion.

A moment later, another figure walked out from the exit. It was none other than the prodigy of Wood Cauldron Mountain.

“Haha! Look at me and my pass tokens!”

He laughed and walked out proudly, carrying a huge pile of pass tokens in his arms.

Right after that, the smile on his face froze.

Following that, his entire body trembled, and the tokens in his arms fell to the ground.

He was so scared that he almost wet his pants. The Nascent Soul cultivators shot him hostile looks.

His face turned pale, and his legs began to shake. Just as he was about to speak, he heard a loud shout, “Capture him!”

Someone flew over him, and he felt a terrifying force press down on him. Then, several elders of the academy rushed up and tied him up.

The dean and his attendants came up to him and started to pinch and pull his face. Then, they took his bag of holding and searched through it carefully.

“What… what are you doing?”

The young man cried out in terror.

It was horrifying for a bunch of Nascent Soul cultivators to be pinching him.

“It’s not him. He really is that kid from Wood Cauldron Mountain!”

“He probably picked up those tokens!”

Those people were somewhat disappointed. They glared fiercely at the young man before flicking their sleeves and going away, leaving the young man sitting on the ground, gasping for breath.

“Haha! What an unlucky guy!”

“Heh, that’s for showing off! So this is the prodigy of Wood Cauldron Mountain? I’ve seen everything today.”

The middle-aged men burst into laughter and mocked him in various ways.

The young man’s face immediately flushed red with embarrassment.

Tang Hao also chuckled. That guy had picked up the pass tokens to show off, but he ended up humiliating himself.

“It’s not him. It’s not him. It’s also not him!”

After everyone exited the cave, the people from the academy checked each of them one by one. They checked the candidates’ bags of holding, but they did not find anything. They even asked the wood elves, but the wood elves could not recognize who it was.

“That’s right. All 3,120 people are here, and not a single one is missing. Why can’t we find the culprit?”

The dean frowned in puzzlement.

“I think that those over a hundred years old are more suspicious. We’ll have to go through their identities. In the meantime, let’s continue the test!” Yun Cang said.

The dean nodded. “That’s true. Let’s continue! We’ll cancel the first stage. Everyone will enter the second stage!”

Yun Cang acknowledged it and turned to face the crowd.

“Please follow me. The next stage will be the affinity test. You can pass this stage as long as you can obtain one cauldron soul.”

He led the candidates and walked toward the other side of the mountain. They arrived in front of a crystal wall.

The words “Cauldron Tomb” were engraved on the wall.

“This is the place where pill makers since the ancient past have thrown their unwanted cauldrons and pills. After thousands of years, the pills have disappeared, and the cauldron grew souls.

“Your mission in this stage is to subdue the soul of one of those cauldrons.

“Alright, go into the tomb in a single file, starting from candidate number one. Remember, it’s dangerous inside. You must be careful.”

After saying that, Yun Cang flicked his sleeve, and the crystal wall rippled and revealed a passage.

Tang Hao followed the group inside. The next moment, he walked past a foggy space and soon found himself standing on top of a cliff.

Looking down, he saw countless abandoned pill cauldrons piled up in the valley, forming small mountains.

Those pill cauldrons were either broken or rusted. They must have been there for ages.

Faint rays of light flitted quickly throughout the valley. On closer inspection, they were illusory figures in the shape of cauldrons.

Certain spots of the valley were shrouded in dense black fog.

“That’s the fog from poisonous pills. You must be careful. Once you touch it, you’ll be incapacitated until you receive treatment outside. That also means you fail the test,” one of the academy disciples warned.

Everyone on the cliff looked around for a moment before someone took the lead to jump down and land on the small mountain formed by the pill cauldrons.

“Get over here!”

Some people tried pouncing at the cauldron soul that was flying in the air.

The cauldron soul was very nimble. It was impossible to grab it with only bare hands.

“Haha!” The middle-aged and old men roared with laughter.

“They’re all hotheads! That’s not how you subdue a cauldron soul. You have to pick a cauldron first. The cauldron is their true form, and if you pick the right one, they’ll naturally come to you.

“If you have the affinity, the soul will obey you. Otherwise, they’ll snatch the cauldron and fly away,” one of the old men explained.

After listening, Tang Hao jumped down and prepared to give it a try.