98 Chapter 98

Amon spent the remaining days with his routine, enlarging his plantation during the day and cultivating at night. He didn't meet any other youths again after his encounter with Yang Li. He had collected many different plants that contained ingredients described inside the first few pages of the 101 Primal Poison Tome. With this plantation, he should have renewable ingredients to continually experiment with the first few poison recipes in the tome. One day, eighty-nine days after he woke up inside the Mind Demon's lair, he felt the air around him vibrate. It was as if the space itself was getting loose. He then watched the space around him being literally torn apart. The pieces dislodged slowly until everything around him became nothing but void. Then he felt himself getting sucked by a strong force, similar to when he entered this dimension. His body turned into light and he traveled through something like a wormhole. Before he knew it, he found himself inside the large spherical hall with the stone formation. He was standing on his feet but he felt a sudden sense of vertigo. He quickly took hold of his senses and rebalanced his body. He saw many other youths were back in this hall as well. All of them were either sprawling, sitting, or kneeling on the floor. Only he remained standing. Some White Cloud disciples were checking the youths as well as counting them. Not everyone came out from the dimension. Pai Kuan was standing near the entrance overseeing the process. A disciple came to Amon and was rather surprised to find him to be able to stand straight. He asked for Amon's wrist. Amon extended his hand. The disciple held Amon's wrist and checked his blood pressure. Lei San was the next to stand. Pai Wuci of the White Cloud sect saw the two and forced himself to stand, but fell again soon. He looked at the two with disbelief. How could these two from inferior clans be able to recover so fast? The next to stand was another White Cloud youth named Pai Siwang. Amon observed everyone while waiting. Most everyone had scars that were not there when they entered the dimension. He guessed everyone underwent conflicts inside the dimension. Not long after, more youths started to be able to stand as well. The White Cloud disciples were also done with their checkings then. After receiving the reports from these disciples, Pai Kuan approached the youths. "Congratulations for surviving the dimension. There are casualties, but this is expected. Such is the price for growth," Pai Kuan told the youths. Amon was amused. The people of this world threw their underage youths into a foreign place with deadly beasts without any supervision and called it a process of growing. Amon felt right at home here. "Now, we will be collecting your spoils," Pai Kuan said. "First, the White Cloud youths, stand in formation, please? Go one by one to that table." Pai Kuan pointed to a table that had been prepared. Behind him were several White Cloud elders. There was a high stand with a curtain next to them. "The rest of you wait," Pai Kuan told the clan youths. Amon made a count. Out of the White Cloud youths, forty-two returned. That meant eight had perished. While out of the fifty finalists from the White Cloud tournaments, only thirty-seven remained. One of the elders near the table took the space ring from the first youth, who was Pai Wuci. Pai Wuci was ushered by another elder to behind the stand with the curtain. From the silhouette on the curtain, Amon saw Pai Wuci was told to undress. All the things he had carried out of the dimension were being checked thoroughly. The elder who checked the ring made some notes, comparing them to the note that had been taken before Pai Wuci entered the dimension. Everything not on the list was taken away. After the long checking process, the clothes were returned with the space ring, minus all the loots Pai Wuci had gathered inside the dimension. "Pai Wuci, six hundred and twenty-two points," The elder holding the note announced. While the White Cloud youths underwent checking, Pai Kuan explained to the clan youths. Those points would be the way everyone who entered the dimension was ranked. The more ones' loots were, the more points they were given. For White Cloud youths, these points would determine the rewards they received from the sect. As for clan youths, the clans with youths that produced high points would earn White Cloud's favor. The clans with youths that reached the top ten would have the right to get the top ten treasures gathered within the dimension. Lin Fen lifted her hand to ask a question, "How do we know what are the top ten treasures?" "After we collect all the treasures you have gathered, we will appraise them one by one. Once we have finished with our appraisal, we will inform your clans of the result," Pai Kuan answered. "Then… how do we know if they are truly the top ten?" Lin Fen asked again. "… You just have to trust us," Pai Kuan answered. Lin Fen was about to open her mouth again, but Pai Kuan's cold stare stopped her. Amon made a mocking grin. He thought nothing strange about this arrangement. It was the strong who made the rules. The weak could only follow. This tournament final was nothing but getting free labor for the White Cloud sect to collect the treasures inside the secret dimension. They might entice the clans with top ten treasures but in the end, the top ten were decided by the White Cloud sect. They could take a mediocre treasure and call it the number one treasure found in this run, and no one could complain about it. Amon believed the clans should also be aware of this, but they still went along with it. To them, this tournament was just a venue to curry favor with the sect while training their potential youths at the same time. The checking proceeded slowly. It took around three hours for the checking process of the forty-two White Cloud youths. After that, it was the clan youths. They also went one by one. Amon stayed at the back, letting the others go first. During the checkings, there was one boy who was told to open his mouth after undressing. "Why?" "Open it!" The elder who gave the order said curtly. ​ The boy opened his mouth. He tried to act normal but cold sweat started rolling down his forehead. "Wider!" The elder commanded. The boy widened his mouth slowly. "Pull up your tongue," The elder asked. The boy froze. "Pull up your tongue!" The elder asked again. The boy shook his head. He was then awarded a punch in the gut. The air was forced out of his mouth as well as a metallic object. It dropped to the floor with a clink. It was a space ring. The elder picked up the space ring and checked its content. He then glared at the boy who had dropped to the ground. "You dare to keep the treasures?!" The elder bellowed. "Take him away!" A White Cloud disciple came and grabbed the boy. Still naked, he was dragged away. "No! Please! I'm sorry! I realize I've done wrong, please give me a chance!" He pleaded. None of the White Cloud people gave his beggings any mind. He was dragged out of the hall while continued to beg. "Foolish boy," Pai Kuan scolded, then turned to the rest that had yet to be checked. "I hope none of you are having the same stupid idea. We can detect unusual items that contained aether. You have better not try to trick us." Several of the youths seemed to become uneasy. Perhaps they had been thinking of hiding something as well. 'Detect items that contained aether?' Amon thought. He looked at the black space ring on his finger. 'Can they detect if the aether content within this black space ring is more than before?' He hoped not. It's too late to back out now, he could only leave it to fate. The checking continued sluggishly. After what seemed like a long time. It was Amon's turn. By now, the highest score was held by Pai Siwang, at Eight hundred and forty points. The second place was Lei San, the Lei clan's prodigy, who had also gotten the Thousand-Year Mandrake. Amon wondered if Lei San had successfully gained a special constitution. Lei San's score was eight hundred and fifteen points. Two other youths that Amon knew also got good scores. Yang Li had gotten a rather high score at seven hundred and fifty points. A large portion of the scores was due to the cultivation book that Amon had given her. Amon hoped that she had finished memorizing the book because it was unlikely the White Cloud sect would let her read the book again. Xin Wuming, who had followed Amon during the preliminary round of the tournament, had also gotten a good score. His score was seven hundred and ten. Amon considered it a stellar achievement considering he was from a small clan. Both Xin Wuming and Yang Li were in the top twenty. But if considering only the clan youths, they were among the top ten. Amon took off both his normal space ring and the black space ring and put them on the table for the elder to check. Then without going behind the curtain, he just undressed there and gave his clothes to the other elder to check. Some of the girls turned away due to the scene, some made disapproving chatters, while the others admired Amon's body, which was full of muscles. Most of the boys threw Amon irritated glares for his antics.