Alex walked over to one of the empty entryways and looked at the large rock before him. It was nearly twice as tall as him and equally as wide, with an uneven circular shape to it.

'So I just have to take it to the center?' he asked himself. He knew there had to be some sort of trick, but he just couldn't figure out what the trick was.

He placed his palms on the rock, trying to feel something. There was nothing fancy about the rock at all. Since there was nothing else, he began pushing on it. The rock took a strong push to start rolling, making Alex realize only then just how heavy it was.

The rock was a few thousand tons at least, requiring quite a bit of strength from anyone to push it. The uneven shape also made it difficult to roll, so all Alex could do was take his time with pushing.

Or, he could carry it with his Qi, which Alex was only just beginning to realize might've been the point of the entire trial.

"Guys, don't use your Qi," Alex quickly told the other two.

"I figured that out already," Scarlet said. "The damn stone gets heavier when you use Qi."

"It does?" Pearl asked. "I've only been pushing it with my paws."

"Same here," Alex said. "Does it react to Qi?"

He tried, sending a single line of Qi onto the rock. As if activating some sort of Dao of Gravity or the Dao of Heaviness, the rock suddenly became heavier than it already was.

A rock weighing a few thousand tons suddenly grew tenfold in weight when Qi was used upon it.

Alex frowned slightly, pulling his Qi back. "Yeah, don't use Qi. Scarlet, if it's difficult to push with your wings, just transform."

"I'm doing exactly that," Scarlet said, having already become a red-haired woman.

The three began pushing their rocks and slowly moving through the hedge walls. They could see many others that were doing more with their rocks. A lot were pushing with their Qi, but quite a few were carrying them themselves.

Alex wondered if anyone would be daring enough to just place the rock in their Soul Space and walk to the end. As per the fiery bird's wording, they wouldn't have broken any rules.

But of course, after seeing the blue-furred bear die just minutes earlier, no one was willing to get themselves killed. So, they followed what was the spirit of the trial and pushed or carried the stone through the hedge walls.

Alex pushed on his stone, gathering a rhythm as he continued. Since it had momentum, the rock moved much more easily than he had expected it to. However, as he continued, the path became much less smooth, jagged pieces of rock beginning to show along the way.

It was meant to be an obstacle.

Alex took his time through those obstacles. Every broken piece of the rock needed to be brought to the center of the island, which would be difficult to do with just his physical body if it broke apart.

Alex could already see a few of the stones break around the island, but it mattered little to the beasts since they easily carried the rocks with their Qi.

Only a few were willing to be slow enough to take care of their rocks.

Within the first hour, over a hundred beasts had already passed the trial. Within the second hour, the number jumped to five hundred. As the hours passed, more and more participants arrived at the center, the initial 1200 or so beasts in the trial all completing it.

It took Alex 13 hours to be done with the task, as he was very careful the entire time. Pearl was half an hour late, and Scarlet was over 2 hours later than Pearl.

Scarlet was the very last participant to finally arrive at the center and stepped onto the only platform that was available.

It appeared they were all going to go to the very same island next.

Having passed the second trial with relative ease, Alex sat to the side with Pearl and Scarlet, looking at the other beasts that were done long before them.

Unlike the three, many of the beasts seemed troubled. They had used their Qi to arrive as quickly as they could, and only now were they beginning to realize just how difficult it was to absorb Qi.

The island itself had no Qi in the slightest, and even as the beasts tried to absorb it directly from the spirit stones, they were surprised to find it not working. When they brought out a formation plate to form Qi-gathering formations, the formation itself was burned to cinders.

Those that were unaware about the trial had just begun to understand why the others had bothered to take their time with the trial instead of spending their Qi without care.

While they had all passed the 2nd trial with ease, what they had done would make it much harder for them to pass the next trial.

The remaining hours passed, and another new island became visible. As the islands merged, the bird appeared again, giving them the same spiel as last time. Everyone who passed moved on, and everyone who failed remained behind.

No one had to stay behind this time.

Alex crossed onto the 3rd Trial and looked around. This time, he found his spiritual sense completely suppressed. He turned toward Pearl and Scarlet and saw the same look on them as well.

"Well, things are finally getting serious, it seems," he said.

The bird appeared again when the island separated and the third trial was about to begin.

"Before you lies an island with pockets of lava spread throughout. If you move forward, flame birds will emerge from the lava and strike you randomly. None will emerge if you move backward. You have 5 hours to get to the center. Good luck."

The fiery bird disappeared, leaving behind a group of bewildered participants who had come to realize just how dangerous the next task was going to be.

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