Only 26 of the participants passed the 5th trial by the time it came to an end. Of those that passed, five of them were in the Divine realm, the rest in the Immortal realm.

Most of the beasts had clearly used some sort of artifact or technique or some method other than their cultivation base to pass the test, with maybe only five in total doing it without any aid. Not even Scarlet counted among those five.

As the trial came to an end, the next island came into view. As they approached the shore on the other side, many of the people pointed as they saw another island approaching from the side.

As it came closer, Alex and the rest could see past the thick fog at the many beasts that stood atop it. Alex's eyes widened slightly, only then remembering that his was not the only group that was in this trial.

Back in the first trial alone, the group of people had been separated, each having gone through another task before appearing here. Now, they were rejoining.

The third island came into view not long after as the three islands met into the 6th one, the successful participants moving onto it.

Alex could see hundreds of beasts left behind on the other islands, as not even a hundred beasts in total were to take part in the next trial. He looked at the beasts, counting how many there were.

He counted precisely 84, of which 13 were in the Divine realm. Aside from Scarlet, no one else had decided to take their human form, so they were the only two humans in this trial.

The fire bird appeared once again, and Alex got a closer look. His eyes narrowed, trying to see if this could in any way be the Phoenix Mother.

The Vermilion Bird Palace depicted the Phoenix Mother as a large bird with red and orange feathers that gave an impression of lava dripping down the bird's body. There was a patch of purple on its chest, like the color of twilight. Three bright yellow tail feathers trailed behind it, its talons brown and deadly.

This bird showed no such color. Its body was mostly yellow, with no sign of tail feathers or talons. It didn't have any of the darker color that the Phoenix Mother was depicted with. Even if the image on the dais earlier had been this bird, Alex still couldn't see the correlation.

Was he wrong?

The bird spoke, bringing him out of his thoughts.

"At the center of this island sits a platform. Pour your Qi into it. The 15 who pour the most amount of Qi per their cultivation base will pass this trial. The rest will fail. You have two days in total."

The bird disappeared.

"What?"

"Qi again?"

"I barely have any Qi."

"Spirit stones don't work. What are we supposed to do?"

Alex looked toward Pearl and Scarlet. "How much Qi do you have?"

"I'm close to full," Scarlet said after checking her dantian.

"Same here," Pearl said. "I can dump all I have, but I worry what will happen for the next one."

Alex frowned slightly. "Do you think you want to cultivate inside my Soul Space?" he asked.

"It sounds dangerous," Pearl said. "We decided we wouldn't do that, didn't we? We don't know how the bird will react to it."

"I think we should just stick to pills. Everyone else will," Scarlet said, turning toward the others.

Alex sighed. Pills weren't as useful when it came to recovering a lot of Qi, since their effects became drastically weaker when used in succession. Still, what other choice did they have?

"Alright, let's just get it done with."

Alex and the two walked over to the platform at the center and waited in line as everyone began pouring all of their Qi into the platform. It was more or less certain at this point that everyone would dump everything they had, so Alex, Pearl, and Scarlet needed to do the same as well.

When it was Alex's turn, he emptied his dantian and poured it into the platform, before turning all of his blood aura into Qi and pouring that into it as well.

He stepped away, letting Pearl and Scarlet do it as well. As he did, he frowned slightly.

'How does the platform recognize how much Qi we've put in?' he thought. The amount of Qi could not be judged solely based on its quantity alone. An Immortal pouring his entire dantian would not compare to the Qi that a Divinity would lose by pouring just a tenth of his dantian.

'That's what the bird must've meant. Per cultivation base,' he thought. 'So, won't it mean that the amount of Qi that I, as an Immortal Transcendent, pour in is completely different from what a regular Immortal Transcendent would pour in? Their qualities are completely different, so it should count as a different quantity too, right? Or does it completely disregard that?'

It would be better if the bird only judged the quantity, but Alex had a sinking suspicion that it judged quality as well. If that was the case, he and Pearl would be relatively safe, considering their Battle Power of 7 and 9.

But Scarlet, with her Battle Power of 4, would be in a lot of trouble. Her quality of Qi would be much weaker than many others who had passed their trials to arrive here. So, he would have to help her.

"I'm going to create a temporal field for you two," Alex said. "I don't know how long I can keep it up, so the two of you will have to cultivate as quickly as you can."

Scarlet and Pearl raised their eyebrows upon hearing the explanation behind the necessity of such a move and quickly nodded. They brought out their Qi-recovering pills they had, each one with nine pill veins, and ate them.

Alex ate a different pill, one that would help his spiritual energy recover faster, allowing him to keep up the temporal field for a longer period of time.

Once he was ready, he employed his Dao.

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