Go outside and face the Fire Crow King directly? That was essentially a nine-out-of-ten death sentence — or worse, a guaranteed one.
Stay put? With the raging flames spreading this far, Jiang Chen doubted he could withstand the searing heat, let alone the fire that was closing in by the second.
He thought about summoning the Gold-Munching Mouse King, but even if he did, there was no guarantee it could bore a tunnel through the cliff wall in time. The situation was already at a critical point.
Worse, summoning the Gold-Munching Mouse King would definitely alert the Fire Crow King. If these two peak Spirit Realm beasts clashed, the whole situation would spiral into even greater chaos.
"No good. The Mouse King is cowardly. The moment it senses the Fire Crow King's aura, it'll lose its nerve, and its combat power will drop drastically."
Jiang Chen dismissed the idea.
"Ice Fire Demon Lotus?" A new thought suddenly struck him.
"Yes — the Ice Fire Demon Lotus!" He recalled how during the second trial, the talent assessment, he had faced the Celestial Fire Spirit Vein cavern with its powerful flames. Back then, he had used six fire lotuses to shield his body and keep the fire from searing his flesh.
But this fire was burning across a hundred-li radius, and its power was at least ten times worse than that cavern. After all, the Celestial Fire Vein cave had been a controlled test environment — the flames never spiraled beyond a manageable range. Today's fire, on the other hand, was being driven wild by the entire Fire Crow clan, its destructive force far surpassing anything from back then.
The moment the idea took hold, Jiang Chen activated the Ice Fire Demon Lotus.
The powerful vines of the Ice Fire Demon Lotus plunged deeper and deeper into the earth beneath him.
After breaking through to the Spirit Realm, Jiang Chen could now control as many as twelve Ice Fire Demon Lotuses at once. Six fire lotuses formed the outer ring, six ice lotuses formed the inner ring.
Jiang Chen contracted his body and slipped directly into the petals of one of the ice lotuses. The twelve lotus vines drilled steadily downward, digging ever deeper.
At first, he could still feel the scorching heat from above, as though the fire were about to burn straight through the earth's surface and reach its core. But as the Ice Fire Demon Lotuses burrowed further underground, the heat faded — growing weaker and weaker.
"Hmm?" High in the sky, the Fire Crow King's spiritual sense flickered, as if it had detected something. Its fierce eyes shot toward Jiang Chen's position like arrows.
After a careful scan, it found nothing.
"Strange. I clearly sensed a disturbance, but there's no one there?" The Fire Crow King was puzzled but ultimately too proud to dwell on it. It figured it must have been some burrowing beast — an armadillo or something similar — fleeing into the depths of the earth. The Fire Crow King's arrogance made it disdainful of investigating further.
Besides, though the Fire Crow clan was formidable in the sky, they were useless underground.
Seated cross-legged on an ice lotus, wrapped within its petals, Jiang Chen had already descended deep into the earth. He had no idea how far down he had gone. All around him was cool darkness.
He figured he must be deep enough that the fire and heat above could no longer reach him.
"The Fire Crow clan really is savage. Burning a hundred-li radius — who knows how many mortal martial artists will perish in those flames? Out of the eight thousand who entered, I'd wager at least a third, maybe even half, will be burned to ash."
Jiang Chen sighed quietly at the cruelty of the crows, though he was not the type to wallow in sentiment. Though he felt a flicker of sympathy for those sharing his fate — like a fox mourning the hare — the martial path had always been this ruthless.
This trial was testing one's fortune. It was simply that those within this hundred-li range lacked the luck to survive.
"Judging by those flames, it'll take at least three days and nights before they die down. I'm in no rush to go back up. What a pity, though, about the Cloud Flame Ginseng..."
The thought of the Cloud Flame Ginseng still stung with regret. But with the Fire Crow King hovering nearby almost constantly, there was nothing he could do.
No matter how many tricks or divine abilities he possessed, snatching the Cloud Flame Ginseng right under the noses of the Fire Crow King and its army of thousands was virtually impossible. Even if he somehow managed it, a single blast of true fire from each of those thousands of crows would be enough to incinerate him on the spot.
No matter how powerful a single person might be, facing thousands of opponents was a fight no one could win — unless he possessed overwhelming force capable of wiping out every last crow in a single sweep.
And if he had that kind of power, the Cloud Flame Ginseng probably wouldn't even be worth his attention.
After thinking it over, Jiang Chen found no clear path forward. He let it go, calmed his mind, and settled into cross-legged meditation to cultivate.