The search begins

Bai Yun opened his eyes. Things were still blurry in front of him. But he could see well enough to realize that he was in a meadow. Behind him stood a small black gate. He realized that he had come in through that gate.

Bai Yu took a few steps forward to give enough space to those who would be following him. Bai Yun looked at the meadow and he could see a few hills and a few trees and grass. Nothing was clear to him, but he could barely distinguish between various things by now. But he could see no building or anything resembling an abode near him. He could also not see any of the people who had entered before.

As he looked at this place, Bai Yun started to frown. He was getting a weird feeling from this place, as if it was just wrong. It was not just his god sense, even his experience and soul seemed to be getting a bad feeling about this place. But Bai Yun could not see anything that would justify this feeling.

Another thing that did not make sense was the sheer size of the place. For a secret abode, there was no abode in this place. And even if one was to assume that the abode was far away, it would mean that this place was too large. Too large for a simple low graded artifact. But Bai Yun could not understand how a higher ranked artifact could be found in the howling wolf world.

As he stood there, the black vortex behind him started to spin rapidly. One by one the others who had come with him started to come out of the gate. They all stood there and started to look around just like him.

Suddenly one of the members of the inner section walked over and said "The path ahead is unknown. None of us know anything about the dangers of the abode. It is best to move as a group. Why don't you join us?"

Bai Yun looked back at the rest of them. They had already split back into the five groups. Some of them were already approaching others, including the other outer section members who were simply standing around.

Bai Yun turned to the others in the outer section. They were all surrounded by four people each. It seems as if the inner section teams had already decided on the split up of the outer section members. The team that had approached him was not allowed to approach the others. They seem to have come to a consensus beforehand about this. The other few were openly being scouted.

Bai Yun thought about it for a while and then nodded. There was nothing wrong with going as part of a group. It would definitely be safer. Especially now that he was unable to see well. And as they are from the inner section, there is a chance that they knew more than he did about the situation inside the secret abode.

Soon the group split into five. The other three from the outer section had also decided to move as part of a group instead of going alone. The group that Bai Yu had joined seemed to be the strongest group. Other than him there were also six others from the inner section there. The person who approached Bai Yun to invite him was the leader of the group. Once they were all assembled they started to introduce themselves. Bai Yun simply asked them to call his dark shadow.

The leader of the group was named shadow one. According to him when in blood moon, initially they would only get a number and not a name. When they were in the qi condensation realm, their names would be prefixed with the word shadow. It would change to moon in the foundation establishment realm and blood in the core formation realm. Only if they survived and broke through to the soul step would they be allowed to gain a name for themselves.

And among the names, the name of shadow one to shadow ten was reserved for the strongest ones. These names were given a year after they started to train and the ten best students would be given the names shadow one to shadow ten. These names did not mean that they were the strongest now, but that they were the strongest when they were tested. But then again there is a good chance that they would be able to maintain their strength considering their talents.

And in this group, there was shadow one, shadow ten, shadow sixteen, forty four, ninety and one hundred and ten. They were the ones left after many rounds of weaning by the blood moon.

Once the introductions were over, the team decided to set off in a particular direction. All five groups decided to move in five different directions. There was no cooperation between them. It seemed as if this was not only a simple recue mission but also a test for the inner section.

The groups quickly started to move. They were moving fast but not at thier fastest. It was not wise to run headfirst in an unknown location. They were only moving here fast enough to face anything unexpected that migt crop up.

Bai Yun did not interact much with the group during their travel and instead chose to take a wait and see attitude. And neither did the others start to talk. Since none of them knew each other well, they were all taking a distant approach. The only reason they were traveling together was to mitigate the dangers.

But Bai Yun did try to gain some knowledge about the secret abode from them. But they were very tight lipped, saying that there was a rescue request coming from here. From the way they spoke, it was obvious that they knew more, but was not willing to talk.

Soon the group left the meadow far behind. None of them made much sound. But with each step, Bai Yun was still unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong with this world.

Suddenly something appeared in front of their eyes as they crossed over a small hill. In front of them, the meadow stopped at a steep cliff. No one could see the bottom of the cliff. There was only a darkness there extending as far as the eye could see.

But on the edge of the cliff, there was a simple hanging bridge. But this bridge was unlike a normal bridge. The bridge went a short distance from the cliff into the darkness before it sharply turned upwards and went towards the sky. This bridge seemed to connect the earth and the sky. As the few people stood there, they followed the bridge and watched as it seemed to disappear into the clouds.

The moment Bai Yun saw this he frowned. There was something wrong about this place. When they were behind the hill, they were unable to see the bridge to the skies. It almost seems to have magically made an appearance as they crossed the hill.

Bai Yun thought that maybe he missed it because of his blurry vision. He decided to head down back the hill to check it out once again. But just as he turned, he heard a shout behind him "Hey come on. Hurry up. We don't have much time."

Bai Yun looked over to see that the other members of his group had already walked up to the bridge. They were standing there and looking back impatiently at Bai Yun. He decided to ignore the bad feeling and walked up to the bridge to join the rest of them.

Right next to the bridge there was a small plaque. Bai Yun quickly read through it.

"Welcome young ones. My name is Tian Ming. I found this world fragment when I traveled the world by accident. Since my time has come, I am leaving this world fragment and my secret abode behind. I have set up a restriction that only qi condensation realm cultivators can enter my secret abode. But I will not let anyone have my inheritance so easily. I have prepared three tests on the way. If you wish to gain control of this world, then continue along this path. But beware, the path forward is filled with danger and death haunts at every step."

When Bai Yun read this he was stunned. He already had doubts that the place they were in was a secret abode. It seemed to be too large. But if it was a world fragment, the in would make sense.

A world fragment was an independent space. They usually had their own small region that operated outside any other world. They could be a few meters to many thousands of kilometers in size. It was like a small world on its own, that floated in a dimension parallel to the main one. There were usually no suns or moons in such a place, but there were still magical changes in a world fragment that caused a day and night rotation. The most important fact about a world fragment was that it was impossible to enter unless you had a precise location coordinate, or came across it by lucky chance.

There were three ways by which a world fragment could be born. One was at the beginning of the universe when many world fragments were born. The second was when a god step qi cultivator dies, their internal worlds that they gain when they break through to immortal step has a small chance to become a world fragment. The final way was if a great world breaks up, some of the pieces could be kicked into a parallel dimension due to the power of the explosion that caused the breakup. For example, many world fragments were born when the Grand Immemorial plane broke up. There were even theories that all the worlds in high, low and middle planes were simply extremely large world fragments.

If this world was indeed a world fragment then the huge size of it made sense to Bia Yun. But he still had a few doubts. If this world was born from an explosion or the death of a god then the heavenly daos in the world fragment should be skewed. But he could not sense such a thing. And if this world fragment was born at the beginning of the universe, then it would usually be in the hands of the powerful forces, and they would use it to hide their forces from other people. After all, if no one else knew where the world was, it was impossible to invade it. Not only that, for all the worlds born at the beginning of the universe the qi density should be different from the outside world, not identical to the howling wolf world. Bai Yun had seen many such worlds before. They all had different qi densities. The fact that the two worlds had the same density was highly improbable.

But just because it was improbable doesn't mean it was impossible. The previous owner could also have placed a formation that stole some of the howling wolf worlds qi to equalize the qi densities.

By now the others in the group had already stepped onto the bridge. Bai Yun figured that they were already informed of the situation inside the secret abode by the people who entered earlier. They were not at all surprised by what they had seen. They were now waiting impatiently for Bai Yun to join them.

Bai Yun quickly dismissed the voice in his head that was telling him that there was a bigger secret here and stepped onto the bridge.