Although the Ancient Secret Realm was merely a secret realm, its size was several times larger than any major map in the outside world, resembling a small world unto itself.
Even though Shi Feng and the others were all Third Rank classes, without the ability to use mounts, they still spent the better part of a full day before arriving at a magnificent city towering within a canyon.
The entire city was enveloped in layers upon layers of magical formations. Through the magical barriers, one could faintly make out all manner of towering magic towers and buildings hundreds of meters tall—even floating structures that couldn't be found in any kingdom or empire. Its prosperity was far beyond what any royal capital or even the great imperial cities could compare to.
Even Shi Feng, seeing this majestic ancient city for the first time, couldn't help but feel a surge of awe in his heart.
After all, even standing over a thousand yards away, they could feel a terrifying oppressive force bearing down on them constantly, making their bodies unbearably heavy. If a Second Rank player were to try approaching, they probably wouldn't even be able to get near the ancient city.
"Be careful of those statues inside the city walls. Even though they're wrapped in magical formations, it's best not to look at them. If you stare too long, it's easy to fall into a state of mental exhaustion." Silent Red Star looked at everyone, who were filled with curiosity about the ancient city, and couldn't help but warn them. "If your mind falls into that weakened state, it'll take four or five days to recover. Forget about attempting the trial—you might not even have enough time to make it back."
"Mental exhaustion?"
Shi Feng couldn't help but glance at the carved stone statues wrapped in magical formations. Instantly, a terrifying spiritual pressure invaded his mind, and an ancient figure surfaced in his consciousness—one that he dared not look at directly.
In just that brief instant, Shi Feng felt a jolt of alarm, though mentally he was still able to barely hold his ground.
"Fourth-Rank Divine Will?" Shi Feng sensed the spiritual pressure emanating from the statues and felt a mild sense of surprise. "No wonder the Violet Sword, who obtained the Ancient Secret Realm in my previous life, had so many Fourth Rank experts."
Within the Divine Realm, the ancient gods had long since vanished—even demigods were rarely seen. However, in certain dangerous locations throughout the Divine Realm, there remained sites of inheritance left behind by the ancient gods, and within those sites lingered traces of divine will.
On the surface, this divine will imposed immense spiritual pressure, making people afraid to approach or even look at it. But it held an enormous benefit.
It could temper one's spirit!
In the Divine Realm, both stamina and spirit were hidden attributes for players. The spirit attribute in particular had no clear method of improvement—it generally could only be enhanced through rank advancement.
Initially, few players paid much attention to spirit. But as more and more players learned combat techniques—especially as top-tier experts took on high-level combat arts—everyone began to understand just how important spirit truly was.
A strong spirit not only allowed players to utilize more combat techniques, but also reduced the cost of using the same techniques.
Most critically, without a sufficiently strong spirit, one couldn't even learn to use those powerful combat techniques.
Unfortunately, there was virtually no way to improve a player's spirit in the Divine Realm. The only options were to painstakingly increase one's brain activity or advance in rank.
However, as more and more experts began to explore those ancient sites and encounter divine will, they discovered something astonishing: divine will could be used to raise a player's maximum spirit capacity. Though the effect was faint, over time the cumulative gains were quite substantial.
The trouble was that divine will wasn't easy to find. Moreover, it couldn't infinitely improve a player's spirit—the amount of improvement varied depending on the strength of the divine will itself. If a player's spirit was already very strong, some instances of divine will might have no effect at all.
The stone statues inside this ancient city contained divine will that could temper a player's spirit to the Fourth Rank level—which was why it was called Fourth-Rank Divine Will.