"Three days have passed, boy… This lord has selected a guiding elder for you — one suited to you."
Suddenly, the mysterious being's voice rang out.
Immediately after, the space around Chu Feng shifted and blurred.
When the shifting stopped, Chu Feng had already left the cave and entered an entirely new world.
He now stood upon an endless grassland. Not far away on that grassland sat a small house built from stacked stones.
Though the house was small, it was remarkably refined.
Standing upon the vast grassland, it looked perfectly natural — as if it had always been a part of this very landscape.
"Surely this isn't an illusion this time?"
But what concerned Chu Feng at this moment was whether the place he was in was still an illusion.
It was no fault of his to be so suspicious. The illusions he had experienced inside the Wo Long Selection Formation before had been far too realistic.
So realistic that even now, Chu Feng could not be certain whether everything before him was real.
And the reason Chu Feng doubted this place was simple.
The world on the surface seemed normal — but only the ground did. Above, in the sky, things were anything but normal.
Dark, heavy clouds blanketed the heavens, rolling and churning like an inverted ocean that swallowed the entire sky.
Piercing booms erupted one after another, and with each thunderous crack, two bolts of purple lightning flickered within the black clouds.
There were too many purple bolts, and they always appeared in pairs.
They looked like pairs of enormous violet eyes hidden among the dark clouds, secretly observing the mortal world below.
Though Chu Feng felt no oppressive aura or sense of danger, just the sight of that sky was deeply unsettling.
He tried using his Heavenly Eyes to observe, but could not detect anything unusual. He couldn't even make out what the purple lightning within those clouds truly was.
Whether it was a supernatural phenomenon or an actual catastrophe descending, Chu Feng couldn't tell.
In any case, the sight of that sky filled him with unease.
Rumble rumble rumble.
Just as Chu Feng was observing, the door of the stone house opened, and an elderly man with a full head of white hair, a neat and clean face, but plainly dressed, stepped out.
"Did you come here for some reason?"
The old man looked at Chu Feng and spoke first.
Before Chu Feng could answer, the old man's body suddenly trembled — the motion was as though he had been possessed by a spirit.
But the episode lasted only a moment, and the old man returned to normal.
However, when he looked at Chu Feng again, his gaze had become deeply conflicted.
It was as though he recognized Chu Feng, and yet didn't — a look of self-doubt and confusion.
"This man's name is Duan Liufeng. His name also contains the character 'feng,' the same as yours, so there is some karmic connection. Let him be your guiding elder."
"Remember: you encountered Duan Liufeng while cultivating outside. After he informed you that you could enter the Wo Long Martial Sect and were qualified to become a disciple, you came directly here with him."
"You know nothing beyond this."
A secret voice transmission reached Chu Feng's ears — it was the mysterious being from the Wo Long Selection Formation.
"Senior, may I mention your existence inside the Wo Long Martial Sect?"
Chu Feng had intended to respond to the mysterious being, and he asked this because he felt the being was truly shrouded in mystery.
He had a vague sense that his connection to the Wo Long Martial Sect was real, yet somehow different from ordinary ties.
But though his secret transmission followed the same path as the mysterious being's, he received no reply.
"Chu Feng, come with me."
Suddenly, the white-haired elder named Duan Liufeng spoke to Chu Feng.
The look of self-doubt was gone from his eyes now. He appeared as though he truly knew Chu Feng.