The entire sect is obsessed with love, but I'm the only one who's truly insane.

While the Supreme Sect had already reached the third stage, other sects had only just completed the first stage.

Because of the excessively fast pace, the bookmaker who originally planned to put up the betting board for the Supreme Sect in the youth team competition quietly put the board away.

What a joke! Even if the cultivators of the Supreme Sect are not as skilled or have spent as long learning as others this year, they are all geniuses!

Even if the latter three aspects are where they are at a disadvantage, the first two aspects are five or six hundred points ahead of other sects, directly crushing all other sects. If others want to catch up, they will have to create a huge gap.

The stands, which should have been packed, inexplicably had several gaps, but the surrounding cultivators seemed oblivious and didn't notice that the seats next to them were empty.

In the empty space, a soft laugh rang out.

"Do you think those few young punks from the Supreme Sect discovered something?"

"That can't be right. The Supreme Sect is just a bandit group. They even took the farm tools. They probably just took them because they were new and interesting, right?"

"What is your opinion on these five individuals from the Supreme Sect, Venerable One?"

"What do I think?" the voice said dismissively. "This so-called unparalleled talent is nothing more than this; he's already showing signs of premature aging. There's no need to pay him any mind. But that successor of the Lu Ban Book is quite interesting. It seems the people of the Supreme Sect haven't noticed him yet?"

"There shouldn't be."

"As for that medical cultivator and the sword cultivator, they're nothing special. And that body cultivator... I'm observing her luck with my Zikun Realm, and it's far too heaven-defying. However... her so-called pure heart is nothing but utter stupidity."

The content of the third level is far more complex than the first two levels. It's as if one second you're taking a final exam for elementary school to junior high school, and the next second you're facing a real postgraduate entrance exam.

The five people were in a deserted city, where all was quiet and there was no one in sight.

Lin Du narrowed his eyes. "This test is about formations. It's okay, I'm a formation master."

She smiled and patted Ni Jinxuan, who was nervously tugging at her sleeve. "Listen to me."

[The third challenge: uncover the secret behind the disappearance of the ancient city's inhabitants, break the formation, and find a way to survive.]

Lin Du released his divine sense and sensed the strangest thing: "There was no airflow at all."

Without airflow, it would be impossible to detect the life gate immediately.

Let's wander around for a bit first.

The group wandered around and entered the first large courtyard. A chilling, gloomy atmosphere greeted them. The courtyard was filled with many stone sculptures surrounding the tightly closed room in the center.

The stone sculptures were all made in human form, with different faces and postures, but they generally had two hands, two feet, two eyes and one mouth.

Yuan Ye shivered. "Why do I feel so creeped out?"

Although the stone sculptures were silent, with rough and dull gray surfaces, the sight of so many human figures standing in the courtyard still sent chills down one's spine.

Upon closer inspection, each stone sculpture appears to be in a moving posture, as if it is about to come to life at any moment.

In an instant, Yuan Ye inexplicably thought of the stark white bones he had seen in the ancient city when he first entered the secret realm. He was truly terrified. These things... it wouldn't be a good thing if he were carrying two stone arms.

Yan Qing, carrying a large knife, said, "I'll go in and take a look."

"Don't move yet, there's a formation."

Lin Du's words made Yan Qing stop in her tracks; there was no other reason than to value her life.

"Come on, kid, count for me: Yan Qing on the left, Yuan Ye on the right."

Yuan Ye and Yan Qing started counting again.

"Report: Thirty-two."

"There are thirty-two here too."

Lin Du walked up to a stone sculpture, examined it for a while, and found a special seal mark on its chest. "I understand, there are sixty-four in total. You can go without worry, nothing will happen."

"If nothing unexpected happens, it's the Eight Yang Formation."

Yan Qing and Yuan Ye then mustered their courage and went inside.

"Junior Uncle, what is the Eight Yang Formation?" Ni Jinxuan's knowledge of formations was limited to the most basic dozen or so commonly used formations.

Lin Du smiled slightly, "Sixty-four people, set up eight small Eight Yang array eyes around the iron coffin. The Eight Yang array is used to... scare away evil spirits, and the eight small Eight Yang arrays are enough to form the Soul-Suppressing Array."

Ni Jinxuan grasped the key point, "You mean... there might be an iron coffin inside the house, and that evil spirit... is it still there?"

Lin Du lowered his eyes. "This is a deadly formation."

"A dead end?"

Before Lin Du could answer, Yan Qing and Yuan Ye had already opened the door to the house.

"It's a coffin!!" Yan Qing's voice was tense. "An iron coffin."

Iron coffins are not common.

Yuan Ye nervously grabbed Yan Qing, muttering to himself, "Open the door and see the coffin, get promoted and make a fortune, make a fortune..."

As if to confirm Yuan Ye's words, the iron coffin inside made a thumping sound, and then slowly rose into the air.

A thumping sound echoed in the courtyard, followed by the inexplicable sound of fingernails scraping against metal, tormenting one's eardrums and mind.

Yuan Ye swayed, turned around, and grabbed Yan Qing, preparing to run away, "Junior Uncle!!!"

Lin Du leisurely stepped into the courtyard, holding the Floating Life Fan in his hand. He infused it with spiritual power and tapped along the way, each tap hitting a stone carving.

The metal and stone clashed, producing a clicking sound.

Lin Du's walking style was very special. He walked in eight steps in a circle, and there were eight circles in total. Every time he passed a circle, eight stone sculptures would move in accordance with the specific steps. In this way, he walked all over the courtyard.

Just after the last door fell, all the stone sculptures in the courtyard came to life. Their mechanical, stiff steps moved one by one, dropping bits of lime as they moved, dragging and scraping the ground, making the sound of the stone statues moving on the ground.

As soon as Yuan Ye turned around and stepped into the stone sculptures, he was swept along by them, forced to move through the flow of stones. He screamed, "Junior Uncle, save me!"

Lin Du remained silent. "Go back. Who told you to move around like that?"

She let living people in to bring in life energy, but who would have thought that after eight years, these two brilliant and promising talents would still be so unreliable?

Yuan Ye and Yan Qing could only retreat with tears in their eyes. They were pushed around by the stone sculptures along the way. They dared not touch the stone sculptures, for fear that they might do something wrong and disrupt the formation. They almost became like sausages rolling on a conveyor belt. Although they seemed to have taken many steps, they had actually been standing still the whole time.

Lin Du was numb. He flew over, grabbed Yuan Ye and Yan Qing, and stepped onto the top of the stone carving, landing inside the house.

"It really is... a chicken in the left hand, a duck in the right, almost on its back..."

Before Lin Du could finish speaking, he suddenly felt a weight on his back and a chill on the back of his neck.

Yuan Ye stared in horror at the dark handprint that appeared on Lin Du's pale, almost transparent neck. "Junior Uncle!"

"Carrying a chubby baby on your back, the chubby baby is here, right?"

Lin Du remained unfazed and elbowed backward, only to feel as if he had bumped into a cloud of fog that created an obstruction.

Or rather, ghostly aura.

Lin Du finally stopped smiling. "Interesting."

It turns out the ghost had already come out; the voice from the coffin earlier was meant for them.

Unfortunately, just as Lin Du raised his hand to form a hand seal, Yuan Ye had already finished chanting the incantation, and a broad-backed sword gleaming with golden light slashed past Lin Du's lean waist.

Lin Du's spiritual energy shield suddenly released its aura, shaking the thing on his back off. He quickly turned around and kicked it.

"What are you doing out here! Getting some fresh air?" Lin Du's tone was icy. "The formation's activated now, you're feeling the pull, aren't you? Getting impatient, huh?"

"Tian Wu Jinxuan, Yang Fire!"

"Yuan Ye, Yan Qing, open the coffin!"

Yuan Ye exclaimed, "Ah! Are we really going to open the coffin?"

Lin Du kicked him, "Stop talking nonsense."

Yuan Ye was kicked to the side of the coffin. He exchanged a glance with Yan Qing, and with a burst of energy, one of them used the switch and the other used brute force to pry open the coffin lid and lift it into the air.

Two streams of yang fire poured into the house from the main door, forcing the evil spirit to retreat.

The Soul-Slaying Array, when activated, can transport wronged souls to a designated location, namely the iron coffin within the array.

Lin Du added two more flames, forcing the evil spirit that had escaped at some point back into the coffin. All that was needed was to put the coffin lid back on, and it would be done.

The power of this evil spirit far exceeds what Lin Du can currently disperse, and... the mystery hasn't been solved yet, so it's best to suppress it for now.

The surrounding array suppressed the ghosts, while the iron coffin also possessed a powerful attraction, drawing the evil spirits back into the coffin.

Lin Du then kicked out, stepping on the coffin lid and pressing it down onto the iron coffin.

boom!

A loud thud echoed through the courtyard, shaking the ground and stirring up a cloud of accumulated dust.

Lin Du squatted down on the coffin lid, his blue robe swaying slightly. His cool demeanor lasted only a second before he wrinkled his nose and sneezed, "Achoo..."

Yuan Ye gripped his right hand, which he had almost managed to pull back, and blew on it vigorously. "That was close, I almost lost my hand."