The True Tests Begin
I didn't head for my trial right away. Instead, I took Fan Zhongyang and Nan Hong to theirs. The plan was for me to help them deal with Sentinel spawns in case either or both of them failed. That arrangement was going to continue through at least the third layer. Every layer every member of a sect cleared scored major points in the Grand Expedition competition, so in our planning, they'd been forbidden to pull out before getting that far.
The three of us with Sacred Beasts had higher expectations placed on us. However, even we weren't obligated to undergo trials past the 6th layer. From those on, failing a trial simply killed you directly. Our Sacred Beasts didn't need to take trials to pass through the Gates as long as their masters qualified to pass through them, and so their clearing trials didn't award the sect any points, but they all intended to do so anyway in the first three layers, and possibly beyond that, in the hopes of scoring helpful items.