50 The Gray Crags

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The old man who spoke didn't even gave them enough time to muddle over those information bomb he threw. He just strictly commanded them to go inside the entrance of the Gray Crags.

People from another branch of Freezing Sky Sect went inside first, the first person that's about to go through was very fidgety, he was extremely uncomfortable and some even started thinking that he was about to faint. In the end, he didn't wanted his fellow disciples and elders to lose face so he gritted his teeth and stepped forward.

*Weng* *Weng*

The portal emitted a weird humming sound as the disciples body entered, then upon entering, the disciple froze and he suddenly fainted. Many people panicked as they saw this but it didn't took long before a faint outline of something emerged from his body. The thing looked like it was made out of blurry water, strangely enough, the mysterious body of water greatly resembles the face and figure of the disciple of just fainted.

"That is his Soul Form." That old man who had a loud voice spoke, the disciple felt very weird, for some reason, being in this form made him feel very vulnerable. As everyone saw the disciple's soul emerged from his own body all of them felt a weird sensation on their spines.

*Whirl* *Whirl*

A loud sound of something startled everybody, they all looked at the source of this sound and found out that another portal opened at the back of the disciple. It was a huge vortex and it was sucking the disciple's soul form inside, the suction was too great that he didn't had the chance to fight it. And even before anyone could warn him, he was already gone.

"Once in Soul Form, the formation would transfer you inside the Gray Crags, your destinations would all be randomized, do not worry, it will only teleport you in the outskirts of Gray Crags." The old man who had a loud voice said again.

The disciples and even some of the elders wanted to shout the words: 'You're supposed to tell us about these things first!' But their minds are undergoing a bit of crisis right now. The old man then continued: "Okay, you guys can go on groups now so that the process would be faster."

Even though they didn't want to, they went according to the old man's arrangements in the end. He is the one who knows more about this place and since he is working for the Freezing Sky Sect, the possibility of him making troubles for them is small so they decided to trust him.

One disciple after another stepped inside the portal, got separated from their bodies and was sucked inside the Gray Crags as a Soul Form.

Time passed and when it was Sieg and company's turn, they just nodded and wished for the best on each other, then entered the Gray Crags as well.

Sieg could now clearly feel the weirdness of being in the Soul Form. As he got sucked inside the vortex, his mind reeled and blurry images went past in his face more than hundred times. He felt a bit of motion sickness and disorientated. Thankfully, this didn't took long before it was over.

He closed his eyes to calm himself, and when he opened them he saw that he was inside a vast bleak and cold plains.

Being in Soul Form made him even more sensitive, the chilling and unfriendly winds inside the Gray Crags greeted him, he saw countless of rusting metals, rotting trees, old carcasses of beast and he also head faint eerie sounds from a distance.

The ground is filled with grayish sands which looked ash. The place is vaguely lit up not because sunlight, but because of the crescent moon existed inside this realm which is a total mystery for Sieg. He also saw that there's no star present, the sky is filled with dark and gloomy clouds except for the place where the moon is.

Sieg paid attention his body, his Soul Form is different from others. Most of the Soul Forms looked like a body of water, in this Sieg isn't different from others, however his Soul looked like a clear body of water compared to them which looked blurry. Sieg accounted this difference to the reason that he is also cultivating his soul. Another thing that others didn't have is the 'gem-like' thing embedded on his forehead.

He tried breathing through his nose and felt it wasn't that different from normal. He also tried raising his arm and taking a step forward, once again he felt nothing different. His experiment towards his current 'body' lasted for a good hour before before he formed a solid understanding of it.

"There's totally no difference from what I normally feel, except that my senses are a bit more sensitive in this form. The only thing is that, my storage bag isn't here and so is my blade, I also can't use any ki in this form because I also left it inside my body. I could, however, use spiritual energies, but I never had any experience on using this in any fights. Well, this is a bit troublesome." Sieg place his hand on his chin and thought for a while.

By now, majority of the disciples who entered also felt the same. They found out that they couldn't use any ki in this form, they weren't like Sieg who cultivated his soul so they don't have any access to spiritual energies, this basically means that they were stripped out of everything they have and was left inside this cruel place, powerless and weak as an infant.

Despair gripped their hearts and they greatly regretted their decisions, if they knew that this trial is going to be like this, staying inside the sect would be so much better, in there at least they weren't as powerless unlike here. Most of these people didn't even dare to think about putting up a fight, they were formulating some plans to stay alive and look for a good place to hide until the whole 3 years is up.

Sieg walked around aimlessly, he remembered the old man saying that there's a lot of inheritance scattered inside the outskirts of the Gray Crags. The old man also said that some of those inheritance are also fragmented, this made him thought that if one managed to collect every single fragment of said inheritance, then that inheritance might be one of the strongest inheritance that existed inside.

"I'm guessing that the inheritances they placed inside this are should be complete right? They wouldn't place any incomplete inheritance in here right? Hopefully they won't." Sieg thought while walking.

"It doesn't matter if I don't get the strongest, I just want to find the most suitable for me, and I need to prepare for that."

After a bit of walking, he decided to look for a decent place to rest first. He needed to figure out the things that he needed to do and also practice using his spiritual energies more so that he could walk in peace along this land.

Sieg found a rather nice place to hide, this place is littered with a lot of rusting metals, he figured that he could just form a little shelter out of these metals and spend majority of his time inside.

He walked towards the place and started working on his little shelter. After a few hours of working, he finally finished, his shelter looked very similar to his old hut which is located inside the Dark Bamboo Forest, though this one is a bit rougher since it's made out of metals, but he really didn't have much choice so this would do.

He sat down inside and started thinking, Sieg just like everybody else couldn't clearly tell what time it is since the place is just dark, and the moon along with the dark clouds didn't looked like it's going away anytime soon.

Sieg manipulated his spiritual energies, just like before he started playing with them, he formed different shapes, wrote his name and did a lot of things using it, so far he could manipulate 5 threads of these spiritual energies continuously for half an hour before getting completely exhausted. He had an idea of forming an image of his blade using spiritual energies but that would consume a massive amount of energy and he won't be able to keep the form for too long anyways, that's the reason why he decided to form them like needles instead.

Time passed like a blur and Sieg's routine of playing with spiritual needles, and resting went on for a month already. Sieg had no idea that it was already been a month since he entered here, he couldn't tell the time so he decided to completely forget about it during his training.

He made a lot of progress during these past month. He could now manipulate the five needles up until a kilometer's radius around him, the flight of these needles are also very silent and fast making it very hard to defend against, his shelter was even filled with holes because of these needles. Although for whatever reason he couldn't access the Inscription Lands which would certainly make his recovery faster everytime he ran out of spiritual energies, the spiritual energies present inside the Gray Crags isn't that bad, he only needed to make these energies more purified and that's it.

After a month of closing up, Sieg thought that it's finally time to move. He went outside for the first time in a month feeling confident. Now he could at least defend himself if something happened.

The metal door that he used made a loud creaking sound since it didn't made any movements at all for a month, rust started falling off from it and it was even bending as Sieg pulled it, nonetheless he managed to get out of his metal shack and started walking in search for something.

Souls.

He remembered Ghost Emperor Duan Zhen's words from his mind, he said that there's a lot of souls wandering inside of here that would devour them, he figured that these souls have something to do with the scattered inheritance. Sieg is of course a bit scared but he refused to just hide inside for three years and get absolutely nothing because of fear, if he did so, this moment would be a heart demon that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

Sieg luck however is a bit bad, he's walking for quite sometime now but he still didn't find any souls at all.

'Good thing that hunger isn't a thing if you're in soul form or else I would've starved to death in here.'

Sieg continued walking further, everything that he see here is nothing but pure negativity, even the plants that grew here looked incredibly sketchy. Sieg was like a lost lamb that doesn't belong here but it certainly didn't stopped him. He walked further in further until he heard a ghastly sound not very far from him.

*Oooouuuu*

Sieg didn't know what the sound was, it sounded like a deep-otherwordly bellow that came from ancient past. It echoed around for quite sometime and spooked everything that it touched.

Sieg swallowed hard and decided to walked towards the source of the sound, he was being careful not to make any noises, his breath became very faint and even his heart beat slowed down, his facial expression went blank and suddenly his whole presence blended to the wind. He rejoiced as he found out the he could still use 'Walk of Innocence' in soul form.

He made careful steps one by one and arrived at big land cavity, it looked like some sort of asteroid fell and caused this land to look like this, there were some scorch marks every where and some claw marks as well.

Sieg looked at the very center of the pit and saw something. It has a massive frame that looked like a mammoth. The fur on it's body was white and has four short limbs, it's eyes were like two black holes with a faint light at the center, on it's face where the nose-trunk should be is filled with wriggling tentacles, the body of each tentacle was blue-ish in color while it suction cups were a bit pinkish, however some of the tentacles of this beast were covered in blood signifying that it just murdered something/someone.

Upon looking at this disgusting thing, cold sweat filled Sieg's back and he started questioning his decisions.