This was Ocean Dragon Mountain.Ling Han gazed up, yet he was unable to see the peak of the mountain even with a vision as powerful as his. It was as if that were truly a boundless peak that soared to the pinnacle of the sky. Upon closer inspection, he could see that this mountain bore a surprising resemblance to a raging dragon that was soaring into the sky.

The four of them landed at the foot of the mountain. According to Mo Li, they couldn’t directly ascend the mountain from the air. This was because the mountain was surrounded by terrifying restrictions that would cause certain death if activated!

There were 99 different paths leading to the peak of the mountain, yet each path could only be chosen by one person. Once it was chosen, no one else could walk that path. Of course, this was unless the first person died. This wasn’t impossible, since these paths were also littered with restrictions. It was just that there were fewer restrictions on the paths than surrounding the mountain.

In any case, it wasn’t necessary for them to forcefully ascend the mountain if they couldn’t decipher the restrictions. After all, they would be kicked out of this mystery realm once the time limit of three years was up. They didn’t need to worry about being trapped here forever.

Mo Li reiterated that they didn’t need to push their limits, and that they should give up if they couldn’t advance any further. There was no need for them to risk their lives. Only after reinforcing this point did they each choose a path and begin to ascend the mountain.

In fact, there were many rare opportunities while ascending the mountain as well, with treasures such as cultivation techniques, pill recipes, and precious tools appearing from time to time.

Although there were relatively few people who could successfully cross the sea, the total number after all these years was definitely still very high. Moreover, each of these people would have attempted to ascend the mountain. Thus, all of the lower-level treasures near the foot of the mountain had already been taken.

If they wanted to obtain some treasures, they would need to reach a higher point on the mountain. It was clear that this would become harder and harder by the generation.

The four of them split up, and each ascended a path of their own.

Ling Han had also chosen a path. In fact, there was no notion of difficulty for these paths, with each being pretty much the same.

After climbing for a while, several rocks appeared before Ling Han. Their appearance was extremely sudden, and it was as if someone had purposefully tossed them onto the path as an obstruction.

Ling Han stopped to carefully examine these rocks. These were no ordinary rocks, with all of them having formation patterns carved into them. Each rock was linked to another, and they formed a small-scale formation together.

‘Interesting.’

Ling Han had never seen this kind of formation before, and thus he didn’t barge through it with brute force. Instead, he started to deduce a method to decipher this formation.

‘Although this formation is simple, it’s able to teach me some foundational concepts. These are things that I overlooked while cultivating in the eighth campus.

‘In the past, I was only focused on studying high-level formations, yet I neglected to learn about these simple yet foundational concepts.

‘The path to becoming a Saint is difficult, so if I want to master Saint-level formations, I must ensure that my foundations are extremely strong.’

Ling Han nodded to himself as he continued to climb the mountain. After ascending a mile or so, he saw another formation appear before him. This formation was also very easy to decipher, and he could have actually used brute force to barge through it. However, Ling Han didn’t choose to do this. Instead, he only continued to advance after fully comprehending the formation.

He continued to do this for all of the formations that he encountered on his ascent.

Since most of these formations could be defeated with brute strength, they naturally hadn’t managed to trap many of the people who had taken this path before Ling Han. Thus, Ling Han still hadn’t obtained a single treasure yet. It was clear that the treasures had already been obtained by those before Ling Han.

However, Ling Han wasn’t discouraged by this. After all, no one had reached the peak of the mountain before. In fact, no one had ever witnessed the peak of the mountain before, either. Thus, as long as he was quick enough, he would eventually reach a height that no one had ever reached before. At that time, any treasure that he encountered would naturally become his.

One day, two days, three days… Time trickled, and Ling Han had already deciphered over 3000 formations in just a short 10 days. These had all been extremely simple formations. This continued all the way until the 300th day, by which time Ling Han had already deciphered hundreds of thousands of formations.

After this, however, the formations that he encountered suddenly became more difficult. He had to pause to think for a moment before he could decipher them.

However, this still wasn’t enough to stop his advance. Judging from the lack of treasures along the way, Ling Han guessed that these formations hadn’t been able to obstruct the large majority of cultivators who had walked this path, either.

Another 200 days passed, and the difficulty of the formations increased again.

By this stage, the formations would already be relatively difficult to overcome with brute strength. Only those who possessed a physique as freakish as Ling Han’s or those who possessed the power of big shots had the right to defeat these formations through brute strength.

Ling Han started to use the Black Tower. More precisely, he started to use the Reincarnation Tree that was planted inside the Black Tower. He analyzed the formation patterns under the Reincarnation Tree, and this allowed him to greatly reduce the time that he spent.

His pace was almost unaffected, and he continued to ascend the mountain at an astonishing speed.

However, the formations also continued to become more and more difficult. This meant that Ling Han needed to spend longer and longer thinking and analyzing in the Black Tower.

Of the three years time limit, there was still one year remaining. Anyhow, after deciphering a formation, Ling Han coincidentally found a jade plaque on the ground.

‘Hmm?’

He picked it up and tossed it into the Black Tower before analyzing it.

This wasn’t some trap, but rather a recording of a secret technique called “Flying Dragon Shadow Hands”. This wasn’t a high-level technique, but Ling Han instantly knew that it was an extraordinary technique after taking a quick glance.

He nodded to himself. Although those who ascended this mountain later would reap fewer treasures, the quality of the treasures that they obtained would definitely be much higher simply because of the height at which they were located as well as the difficulty associated with obtaining them.

A good analogy would be the others obtaining 1000 Divine Fruits while Ling Han only obtained one Saint Fruit. Even though it was much less in number, it was definitely much higher in value.

He smiled happily as he continued forward.

The formations became more and more difficult to decipher. If Ling Han deciphered them conventionally, he would need to spend at least a few months on each formation. However, with the help of the Reincarnation Tree, these formations didn’t pose a problem at all.

The speed of his advance was astonishing, and he also started to obtain more and more treasures.

In fact, he would discover something on the ground each time he deciphered a formation. Most of these discoveries were jade boxes that held alchemical pills or Divine Fruits, though none of them had reached the Saint-level. This left Ling Han slightly disappointed.

Quickly calculating the time, he realized that they were already very close to reaching the three-year time limit. There were only seven months remaining.

‘I wonder if I can reach the peak’, Ling Han thought to himself. ‘If I can’t reach it, then I won’t be able to obtain the Chaos Source Rock. In other words, I won’t be able to receive the power boosts from the Black Tower.

‘I’ll try my best.’

Ling Han hadn’t had a wink of sleep in these past two years. However, as an Eternal River Tier elite, he naturally didn’t need to sleep anyway. This wouldn’t cause any detrimental effects.

Decipher, decipher, decipher…

Three months before the time limit, the peak of the mountain finally appeared before Ling Han’s eyes.

There was a temple there, and on its roof rested the stone statue of a True Dragon. Ling Han could already see this quite clearly from where he was. Although that was only the stone statue of a True Dragon, it still exerted a powerful pressure on him. It was as if it could come alive at any moment and soar into the skies, causing all the beings of the world to kneel before it.

There were still three months, and this was probably just enough time.

He continued to decipher the formations and advance.

At this moment, he realized just how wise his decision not to bulldoze through the low-level formations had been. This was because he needed to use the foundational knowledge that he had mastered thanks to them to decipher these high-level formations.

If he had bulldozed his way through, he definitely would’ve been at a complete loss now. His only option would be to randomly try his luck.

“Hmm?”

“Oh!”

“Ah!”

Ling Han continued to exclaim in astonishment. Foundational knowledge was only foundational knowledge, after all. Now, however, these high-level formations were giving him insights into how he could combine these foundational elements into more complicated structures.

All of the complicated matters in the world could be broken down into more foundational elements. Similarly, as long as one had mastered all of the foundational elements, they could use them to construct more high-level and complicated structures.

For example… Saint-level formations!