“Miss Feixue, Saintess, please follow me. This Secret Realm is special, so I ask that you both be prepared.”
This Secret Realm was indeed provided by Ten Thousand Flowers Valley.
But any Secret Realm that the valley was willing to give away couldn’t possibly be a good one. Understandable, right?
Eating it is tasteless, but throwing it away is a pity. This secret realm was exactly that kind—it had few valuable resources, and mining them was a huge hassle.
After obtaining this secret realm at some unknown time and conducting an initial exploration, Wanhuagu tossed it into the warehouse and forgot about it.
That is, until recently, when they needed a secret realm to use as a trap.
Since it was just going to be a trap, the quality didn’t really matter—they just needed one that looked passable and was otherwise useless.
When they chose this secret realm, Wanhuagu even bragged about it, claiming they were giving away a brand-new, completely unexplored secret realm and that they had bled themselves dry for it.
Of course, that was just empty boasting. The Qian Family and Jade Pool didn’t believe a word of it.
“We’ve already collaborated with the Qian Family to investigate the spiritual items at the center of the secret realm. The most precious one is a Frost Flower at the Ling Wang Realm quality.”
Leading Qian Feixue and Hua Jian into the secret realm, Hua Xinyou introduced it in a very plain tone.
The things inside this secret realm were absolutely terrible. There were quite a few spiritual items, but their quality was extremely low, and extracting them was incredibly difficult.
The spirit beasts living here were ferocious beyond belief. Wresting the spiritual items from their claws would take a considerable amount of effort.
Compared to other secret realms, the quality of spiritual items here was about forty percent lower, but the strength and ferocity of the beasts were fifty percent higher. It really was…
Hua Xinyou didn’t finish her sentence, but her meaning was perfectly clear.
Truly, few resources, high difficulty. This secret realm was a complete mess.
“Those spirit beasts are also tainted with a hint of demonic qi. It might be because this secret realm suffered a demonic invasion before it fully formed. Anyway, they aren’t very good resources either.”
“Spirit beasts are technically a resource, but ones contaminated by demonic qi are a different story.”
“Their corpses are hard for cultivators to use after death. They have to be burned away with spells to prevent the demonic qi from affecting the world.”
“S-So… there’s nothing valuable in this secret realm at all?” Hua Jian twisted her head and looked around. This secret realm really was different from any she had seen before.
The most obvious difference was the gray, hazy sky. The low grass and shrubs on the ground were covered in a layer of dark gray, giving off a very unpleasant feeling.
No wonder Wanhuagu was so generous in giving this secret realm away. This thing really didn’t look good.
“That’s exactly right.” Hua Xinyou nodded. “But it was meant to be a trap anyway. And this secret realm happens to produce the treasure that Tianmomen wants.”
The things Tianmomen wanted weren’t something that could appear in just any secret realm. They could only show up in secret realms tainted with demonic qi.
So Wanhuagu had good reason for picking this secret realm as a trap.
Still, Hua Xinyou secretly thought the chances of Jade Pool and the Qian Family’s plan succeeding were pretty slim, though she didn’t bother to say it out loud.
And now that the plan had suddenly changed to one of Hua Jian’s ideas, she felt even more like just giving up entirely.
“Anyway, first give me a copy of the secret realm’s terrain map. I need to think about how to make the people who enter fight each other as fiercely as possible.” Hua Jian said to Hua Xinyou.
She didn’t care how many resources or spirit beasts were in the secret realm. Those weren’t her problems to deal with.
The map produced few resources and strong spirit beasts—wasn’t that a good thing?
That way, the players on the map would have a massive free-for-all. How wonderful!
“Terrain map? Fine.”
Hua Xinyou still didn’t know what Hua Jian’s plan was. When she heard Hua Jian ask for the terrain map, she assumed Hua Jian intended to study the terrain and set up traps.
Well, theoretically speaking, it was indeed setting up traps.
While Hua Xinyou went to fetch the terrain map, Hua Jian also got a general understanding of the secret realm’s basic structure.
Compared to other secret realms she had entered, this one was much smaller and more compact.
A cultivator at the Ling Wang Realm could cross it in just one day.
In such a small secret realm, there was a wide variety of rugged terrain.
The plains beneath their feet were the best place here. Everywhere else was harsh mountains and treacherous waters.
Many areas were filled with poisonous fog, radiating hostility toward the outside world.
“Great place! Absolutely perfect!” Hua Jian couldn’t help but exclaim at the state of the secret realm.
“I know your ‘perfect’ isn’t meant as a compliment for this secret realm, but… it still sounds weird.” Qian Feixue rubbed her forehead and muttered.
Even she couldn’t help cursing Wanhuagu a couple of times after seeing all the details of this secret realm.
Those bastards were really stingy. How could the secret realm they gave be this terrible?
“If we were developing this secret realm, it would of course be garbage. But now it’s an arena prepared for others—isn’t that perfect?” Hua Jian replied with a smile.
The team Wanhuagu had sent to help was stationed on this plain. Most of the cultivators had already gone out, exploring the secret realm alongside the Qian Family’s cultivators.
The few who stayed behind were grabbed by Hua Jian to serve as guides on the secret realm’s conditions.
“How many Ling King cultivators do you think this secret realm can accommodate for exploration?”
This question made the Wanhuagu cultivator who had been grabbed fall into deep thought.
She herself was a Ling King. After some consideration, she gave a rather vague answer.
“If we’re only talking about resources, it can’t even feed three Ling Kings. If we want every Ling King to have ample space to explore, then at most ten Ling Kings can fit here.”
“This secret realm is way too small. Ling Kings might run into each other halfway through their exploration.”
Just then, Hua Xinyou walked over with the detailed terrain map of the secret realm and heard the second half of what the Wanhuagu Ling King had said.
“That’s right. This secret realm is too cramped. Ten Ling Kings is already an overestimate. I agree with her assessment.”
As she spoke, she tossed the jade token in her hand to Hua Jian, wanting to hear what she thought.
Hua Jian caught the jade token Hua Xinyou threw at her, poured her spiritual power into it, and projected the information from the token into the air.
But the very first segment of the token’s information seemed a bit problematic. After taking one look, Hua Jian quickly slapped it away.
“Can you stop putting this kind of indecent stuff into work tokens?!”
Hua Xinyou naturally saw the image Hua Jian had slapped away. She shifted her gaze, coughed lightly into her fist, and muttered a small explanation.
“Ahem, I forgot to delete the old content. You can get rid of it for me.”
“After all, she’s from Wanhuagu. Having some Wanhuagu-flavored stuff in the token isn’t a problem, right?”
She only realized after Hua Jian projected it that it wasn’t really suitable for public display.
“Forget it. You delete it yourself later.” Hua Jian didn’t take away what someone else liked.
She shoved all the useless stuff deep into the token and only pulled out the secret realm’s terrain map.
Feeling a bit guilty, Hua Xinyou stepped forward and lightly tapped the map. Her spiritual power slowly spread out, forming a huge circle on the map.
“This is the area a Ling King realm cultivator can explore in one day. With the scarce resources and many beasts here, the range should shrink a bit.”
As she spoke, the circle began to shrink, its diameter decreasing to about three-quarters of the original.
“But what use is knowing all this? Are you trying to see if we’re slacking off?”
There was a hint of aggression in her words.
“If I wanted to know if you’re slacking off, I wouldn’t need to use this method. I can tell at a glance.”
Hua Jian reached out and took the circle Hua Xinyou had made, then wiped it into the corner of the map.
Then she swept her hand across the map, and a large number of such circles filled the entire map.
“One day is still too long. They need to run into each other and fight the moment they land.”
Hua Jian thought these circles should be packed even tighter—a blitz was an indispensable part of the plan!
Hua Xinyou was getting more and more confused about what Hua Jian was thinking. She coughed loudly a couple of times, signaling Hua Jian to explain things clearly first.
Otherwise, everyone here would be in the fog, completely unable to keep up with Hua Jian’s train of thought.
“Oh, you don’t know? I thought you already knew about the new plan.” Hua Jian showed a surprised expression. Hadn’t she sent her plan to Wanhuagu?
What, only her fake orders had been delivered here, but not her actual plan?
The Wanhuagu cultivators present all shook their heads.
Looks like she would have to waste her breath explaining again.
Hua Jian rubbed her forehead and took a deep breath. “Then listen up. My plan is…”
She laid out her improved plan in detail, answering several questions Hua Xinyou raised along the way.
By the time she finished presenting her entire plan, the Wanhuagu cultivators there were looking at her as if she were a god.
Their eyes seemed to say, ‘As expected of our Saintess. Only she could come up with a way to screw everyone over like this.’
Hua Jian naturally understood they were praising her cleverness.
“So, I need to know the maximum number of cultivators this secret realm can hold, and which areas, once people enter, will force them into immediate combat.”
“I see…” The way Hua Xinyou looked at Hua Jian changed.
Originally, she hadn’t thought much of Hua Jian, considering her a mere “vase”—all show and no substance.
But after hearing Hua Jian explain this plan, she mentally removed the “vase” label from Hua Jian.
Someone who could come up with such a diabolical idea definitely wasn’t a sweet, naive girl.
She was a sinister woman with a thoroughly black heart.
And when she thought about Hua Jian’s usual pure and innocent demeanor… Hah, her acting skills were pretty good too.
“This Saintess… she’s got some real substance.”
“Just laying it out flat won’t work. That would make our approach look too greedy. And when there are that many people, others will realize something’s wrong.” Hua Xinyou began seriously considering the plan.
Even though she didn’t like Hua Jian much, she, like the other Wanhuagu cultivators, loved messing with people.
Now that she had a chance to really screw someone over, she wasn’t going to refuse.
“Exactly. So I want you to gather information on the secret realm and mark out several resource clusters. We can use these resource points as our foundation.”
As Hua Jian spoke, she drew a circle in the center of the map, using it to represent one such resource point.
“We can have the cultivators entering the secret realm spawn near these resource points, but they won’t immediately encounter each other. They’ll reach the resource point at almost the same time, and once inside, they’ll directly run into one another.”
That way, two or even three groups would get caught in a chaotic battle. Only the victor would leave with the spoils.
“Ling Kings have decent perception. They can sense something’s wrong and leave.”
Hua Xinyou thought the cultivators entering this secret realm wouldn’t be stupid enough to rush into a free-for-all.
“Don’t worry about them being cowards. Not a single cultivator entering here is a pushover. They won’t hide in the gutter hoping someone lets them off easy.”
Hua Jian shook her head, indicating that wasn’t a problem.
Was there a single good person among the cultivators who paid a huge price to enter this secret realm?
They were all here to kill and steal treasures. They definitely wouldn’t back down from a fight.
Even if they hesitated at first, they’d have to fight eventually. If they didn’t, they’d disappear along with the secret realm.
“Besides, we can set up arrays of bewilderment near the resource points to disrupt these cultivators’ perception, making them unable to sense nearby auras. That’s not hard, is it?”
Hua Jian tilted her head and looked at Hua Xinyou.
Shielding zones were a wonderful thing. In a map with only one exploration opportunity, they were the perfect tool to create conflict.
“Not even giving them a chance to pay tuition. Happy?”
“Not hard at all. Leave it to us.” A sinister smile also spread across Hua Xinyou’s face.
Just thinking about what those poor saps would encounter once they entered this secret realm made her heart race.
The original plan was far too rigid and boring. This new one was right up her alley.
“Don’t worry, Saintess. Within three days, we’ll have everything you need organized and sent to Freezing Winter City.”
“Three days?” Hua Jian frowned. “Hua Xinyou, can we shorten that a bit? Like one…”
Before she could finish, Hua Xinyou reached out and pressed a hand on Hua Jian’s wrist, shaking her head seriously.
“Two days. Even with cultivators exploring nonstop day and night, it’ll take at least two days.”
Hua Jian nodded, pretending to be disappointed. “Fine. I’ll give you one more day. Three days from now, I want the most detailed secret realm map.”
This Saintess was actually pretty reasonable? The thought crossed Hua Xinyou’s mind. She hadn’t expected Hua Jian to be so easily persuaded.
“But if I find any omissions, don’t blame me for being ruthless.” Hua Jian narrowed her eyes, sweeping her gaze across the surrounding Wanhuagu cultivators.
“You know a thing or two about the Flower Heart Punishment, right?”
“Trust me. You don’t want to experience that feeling.”