Chapter 5379: Gathering Everyone in the Hidden Land

Chapter 5379: Gathering Everyone in the Hidden Land
Chu Feng infused his spirit power into the formation blueprint in order to activate it.
Moments later, the hall began to shake intensely. In fact, this shaking extended to the entire Ancient Palace, such that all of the juniors gathered here could clearly feel the tremors.
A strained look appeared on Chu Feng’s face. Activating the formation blueprint was harder than he thought, such that any other world spiritist would have likely failed to do so.
“Activate!” Chu Feng roared.
Light rushed out from the formation, enveloping the entire Ancient Palace.
When the light finally died down, Chu Feng found that he was transported into an ancient forest. It didn’t belong to the Ancient Era, but it had been around for a long time now. It was a vast space unlike any of the other stages they had been in. At the very least, Chu Feng couldn’t sense the boundaries of this realm.
Three figures soon appeared behind Chu Feng—Bai Yunqing, Ling Sheng’er, and Yao Luo.
“Chu Feng, where are we?” Ling Sheng’er ran over to Chu Feng’s side and asked.
Before Chu Feng could answer, another person appeared in front of them. It was Ling Mo’er.
Ling Mo’er breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Ling Sheng’er. She had been worried about her little sister’s safety all this while, so she was heartened to see that she was safe.
Soon enough, more and more people appeared in the vicinity, including Jie Zhou, Jie Yu, and those who entered via the other entrances. Eventually, almost everyone who had entered the Ancient Palace was brought into the ancient forest.
“Young master Jie Zhou, where are we?” the crowd asked.
Bewildered from being suddenly transported here, they naturally turned to Jie Zhou, the prophesied child, for answers. What they didn’t know was that Jie Zhou was as confused as they were, though he didn’t display it outward.
Instead, Jie Zhou kept a calm appearance and said, “Allow me to take a look.”
“Chu Feng, what’s going on?” Ling Sheng’er asked Chu Feng via voice transmission.
Unlike the others, she thought that Chu Feng was more likely to know the reason they had been transported here. After all, he was the first one to appear here.
Instead of answering the question, he posed a question of his own, “Did you enter an illusory formation earlier?”
He wanted to check if he was the only one who encountered his mother or did the others meet her too.
“I did. I saw Lord Jie Ranqing inside the illusory formation, but she looked very young. She said that I could proceed to the final stage if I defeated her, but my spirit power was suppressed to just White Dragon God-cloak. There’s no way I could defeat Lord Jie Ranqing like that. I lost the battle, and shortly after, I was teleported here,” Ling Sheng’er said.
“It’s the same for me too, young miss,” Yao Luo said.
“Me too,” Bai Yunqing said.
“So, we were all brought here after failing the stage? But shouldn’t we be transported out of the Ancient Palace if we failed the stage?” Ling Sheng’er was confused.
Boom boom boom!
A loud rumble echoed as the earth shook. Rising from the ground was a stone monument so massive that it made trees towering at over a hundred meters look no different from a blade of grass. Written on the stone monument were the words:
Congratulations on arriving at the Hidden Land. The way to decipher the secret lies on this land, but only one will be able to retrieve it. Those who failed need not lose hope. The one who clears this stage is a dragon amongst men. It’s your utmost honor to witness his victory.
“Hidden Land? The way to decipher the secret?”
The crowd was excited, but it also left them wondering why they were suddenly transported to the Hidden Land.
“Chu Feng, did you manage to defeat Lord Jie Ranqing?” Ling Sheng’er discreetly asked Chu Feng in a quiet whisper, not wanting to cause unnecessary trouble.
Only Bai Yunqing, Ling Mo’er, Yao Luo, and Chu Feng could hear her words.
In truth, Bai Yunqing and Yao Luo were wondering the same too. They had encountered the younger Jie Ranqing and knew how terrifyingly powerful she was even though it was only an illusory formation, which was why they initially assumed that Chu Feng had failed just like the rest of them.
But thinking about it again, the Hidden Land wouldn’t appear for no reason.
The only logical answer they could think of was that Chu Feng had defeated Jie Ranqing.
“I have indeed defeated Lord Jie Ranqing, but the opening of this stage has nothing to do with that.” Chu Feng told them everything that had happened earlier.
Bai Yunqing, Ling Sheng’er, and Yao Luo were excited to hear about his achievements. They had known that Chu Feng was strong, but they didn’t think that it would be to this extent.
In contrast, Ling Mo’er looked conflicted.
Ling Sheng’er and Yao Luo had already told her about how Chu Feng had dragged them into the left spirit formation gate together with him not to punish them but to share the benefits of the stage with them. The truth was clear just by looking at Ling Sheng’er and Yao Luo’s containers.
Most important of all, Chu Feng actually opened the Hidden Land. This was a feat that no one in the Seven Realms Sacred Mansion had achieved before. Heck, they didn’t even know about the existence of this place!
This made her realize that she had been too narrow-minded.
“Young master Chu Feng, I sincerely apologize for my earlier actions,” Ling Mo’er sent a voice transmission to Chu Feng, hoping to make peace with him.
“Let bygones be bygones, but I hope that such a matter doesn’t happen again,” Chu Feng replied with a smile.
He wasn’t the type of person to spare those who tried to harm him, but he decided to make an exception this time around because he saw Ling Sheng’er as his friend. Besides, Ling Mo’er didn’t seem utterly unredeemable, judging by how she had given him a warning at the end.
Nevertheless, if one thing was clear, she had already lost the opportunity to truly befriend him like Ling Sheng’er.
While the crowd was fervently discussing the reason behind the sudden appearance of this Hidden Land, a loud voice suddenly caught everyone’s attention. It was Jie Zhou.
“I just remembered that I discovered a hidden riddle earlier. It was right after I solved the riddle that the Ancient Palace started shaking, then we were all teleported here. Could it be that the riddle was the key to entering this place?” Jie Zhou asked the crowd.
Bai Yunqing was dumbstruck. “How in the world can that scamp be this shameless?”