[Edit] Thousands in the Tunnel? Meh. Research First.

Long Wei didn't give the rest enough time to process his sudden hostility. Elrand and Alresia found themselves flying into the pond, unable to break their fall. They splashed into it. Long Wei shielded himself from the flying droplets of the liquid with a thin film of Void Qi. Once the droplets hit the film, they sizzle as the Void Qi consumed them.

Ten more bodies flew into the pond, spurting droplets of water everywhere. Grunts and even more painful wails soiled the atmosphere. Long Wei then sat a few meters away from the pond, completely relying on his clothes's durability and self-cleaning Formations to not worry about the sticky substance on the floor.

Silver covered his pupils and the dark cave became shrouded in pure silver light. All the dark colors and bursts of the glowing blue liquid turned grayscale under his Heaven Shrouding Eyes. Thirteen flaming black masses filled his vision in the direction of the pond. He focused. The black drained away until the thirteen figures got reduced to their natural shape, only their skin colors remained black, with white strands coiling around within the body. He watched the process all over again.

The water seeped into their pores, reaching their Nine Heaven Nodes, which were located in different locations depending on the individual. Then it seeped through the Mindscape Barrier via the meridians that burst from each node. The Qi Purification process happened right after.

He activated the Void Dragon Arts, summoning the three vortexes. The purified qi dashed to his vortexes like a ferromagnetic substance to a gigantic magnet. His Nascent Soul divided the qi. It let some of it floating around in the skies of his Mindscape and allowed half of it to trickle down to his Dantian through another passage that led out of the Mindscape. Cultivators below the Nascent Soul Realm needed to keep a constant cycle of qi.

Qi came in through the nodes, passed through the meridians, reached the Mindscape, where it was purified, comprehended, and made dense through an automatic process and then gushed out through another passage that led to the Dantian, which was located a few inches above the navel.

Once one established a Nascent Soul, cultivation became a bit different. Instead of letting all the Qi gush down the passage that led to the Dantian, a cultivator could keep the Qi within their Mindscape, either as a reserve or to continue developing their cultivation through a manual process led by the Nascent Soul.

Long Wei's Mindscape was endless. Or at least he hadn't reached its deepest depths after exploring it for the last few years while traveling at speeds far faster than light on a relative scale. The Qi he could store in it was virtually endless and so would be the amount of Qi he'd need to develop the space further. His Nascent Soul pushed the Qi gathered from the Fullreach Academy students down the exit and let it gather in his Dantian, filling it about halfway through.

Most cultivators above the Nascent Soul Ream didn't need their Dantian to use qi techniques, since they could pull qi directly from the Mindscape. But neglecting their Dantian would be a mistake as breaking into the Pseudo-Immortal Realm, the next cultivation realm after the Saint Realm, required a well-developed Dantian.

As the Prince, Long Wei could not neglect any aspect of his cultivation. Every single step he took had to be perfect, to ensure his talents never went to waste. Sometimes that meant taking a little longer than needed in each cultivation realm.

As the last bits of purified qi seeped out of the student's bodies, the pendants hanging around their necks flashed and they disappeared.

Except for one.

Once the last hit of purified qi seeped out of Alresia's meridians towards Long Wei, another burst of qi gushed out of her Mindscape. This new type of qi was a little different from spirit qi. Its presence was ominous and thick with negativity. It pushed through her meridians and broke down the remnants of the purifying power from the pond.

Long Wei stopped absorbing the Qi and simply tuned his spirit sense onto her and senses the odd sensation coming out from her meridians. He drew bits of qi from his Dantian and constructed a large hand with it. He pulled her out of the water and dropped her next to him. It intrigued him that the pendant didn't consider her situation perilous enough to transport her out of the trials. And that saved him a bit of time as well as opened up another avenue of exploration for him.

He got so absorbed in absorbing the purified qi from their bodies that he forgot the primary reason he did that in the first place. If all of them disappeared, he's have no one to observe with his fully powered Heaven Shrouding Eyes. Her staying a little longer saved him some time.

The ominous presence of the new burst of qi that rushed to her aid reminded him of the verified Yin Physiques he'd come across over the past few years. Though there were some minor differences he couldn't quite make out with only his spirit sense. And snuffing out Elrand was another mistake it seemed. He no longer had the recovery pills needed to accelerate her healing.

It seemed that another few hours of his existence would be wasted on that.

Long Wei closed his eyes and started cultivating again. His breakthrough into the Saint Realm was relatively recent. If it were a normal realm, he would have been a Pseudo-Immortal by now. Claiming a Saint Status was much more difficult than he initially thought. At first, he assumed that sticking his name to his family's would count towards building a Saint Status but he quickly realized that was not the case. The most important aspect of the Saint Realm was faith. People's faith in him as the Crown Prince came through his family. It wasn't his. Rather it belonged to the title.

He needed accomplishments. He needed people to chant his name, not because of his background, but because of his accomplishments. That goal would be nigh-impossible within the Imperial Palace, his brothers and sisters would make certain of it. But through the Sect, he could build an identity separate from the Crown Prince.

He opened his eyes to the groaning of the young lady. She looked around, confused about what was happening around her. He didn't fault her. The hours had been nothing less of a mess. Her eyes settled onto his handsome face, complete with mesmerizing black eyes and long hair that floated behind him. First, it was a daze. Then it all crashed into her. The memories of the water seeping through her pores, nostrils, and mouth. The pain that ravaged her meridians was hard to forget. She scrambled as far as she could.

Only, she didn't make it far.

Long Wei bound her with thick ropes made from qi and dunked her back into the water. She screamed. Her voice was a banshee's scream. It tugged the soft side of Long Wei's heart, making him question his decision. He threw that thought aside and watched as the water seeped into her again.

"Why are you doing this? What have I done?" she shouted, just before the water covered her again.

Long Wei didn't grace her with an answer. Instead, he churned qi to his eyes, activating them to the max. Bright silver light burst from his eyes. Countless bits of information rushed to his mind. He saw it all. The crooked bends and the tapering tunnels became darker the further you went in. The thousands of eyes, gazing in his general direction hiding within the walls of the cavern he was in. Qi constantly gathered within the walls, building up to a possible attack.

The creatures that owned the eyes were countless miniature devils that looked like a child's take on what a human was meant to be. Each ugly little thing was short and stocky, with overexaggerated limbs, heads, and eyes. Gooey liquid dripped from their shriveled human-like skin, and they bared their fangs. The creatures weren't watching him, rather they had their eyes trained on the pond. Their cultivation levels varied. Most of them were between the Heavenly Step Realm and the Mortal Transcendent Realm.

Deeper in the tunnels, he saw large clusters of thousands of cultivators battling the small creatures near the blue-colored ponds. Spirit techniques rained on the creaturs. Most of them died but the walls spat out more to replace those that died. The sights he saw made him reevaluate his thoughts about the tunnel.

He draw his focus away from the chaos his eyes showed him and focused on Alresia's mandala.

He didn't care about the 'set up' or perilous situation he was supposedly in. The cultivation levels of the creatures weren't anything to be worried about. he could slaughter them in the sounds with a wave of his qi. His research into the nature of the water was far more important. His eyes peeled to the first layer of her existence, the body. This action revealed the incorporeal Mindscape Barrier that was connected to all her meridians. He punctured through it and saw her mindscape.

The effect the water had on the mindscape had nowhere else to hide.