Chapter 432: The Tower of Farewell

Ye Feng and the others dived nearly ten thousand meters deep yet still hadn’t reached the bottom of the lake. The depth of this lake seemed utterly unbelievable to them.
What was even more peculiar was that as they continued to dive deeper, they noticed that the area covered by the lake water grew larger. It felt as though the cross-section of the entire lake was a giant trapezoid—narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. The lake’s diameter, which was only a few hundred meters at the surface, had expanded to several kilometers at a depth of ten thousand meters.
What puzzled Ye Feng and the others the most was that the creatures in this lake became smarter as they went deeper. At ten thousand meters deep, they even saw schools of fish hunting in a special formation. Those fish, no larger than the size of a palm, consumed a giant fish monster over a hundred meters long in just a few breaths, leaving Ye Feng and the others in awe. Fortunately, these aquatic creatures had no combat skills at all. Their teeth couldn’t even break a pearl or a strand of Long Tian’s hair, let alone Ye Feng. Yet the formation these fish used raised some doubts in Ye Feng’s mind—he felt it resembled some simplified combat formation.
Ye Feng and the two continued diving, and more strange things happened in the lake. A lobster no bigger than a palm managed to pry open the shell of a turtle dozens of meters long. Then that lobster was killed by a toothless fish the size of a finger. A hundred-meter-long crocodile had its tail cut off by a crab the size of a palm…
Such strange events kept occurring, leaving Ye Feng and the others speechless.
“What’s going on with this lake?” Long Tian asked, his expression strange. “These creatures aren’t even considered magical beasts—they’re just ordinary beings. There’s no difference in strength at all. But everything happening here defies human common sense…”
“Could it be an illusion?” Pearl looked at Ye Feng and the other man.
“It can’t be!” Ye Feng shook his head. “If someone really could create such an illusion so seamlessly, it would be easy for them to kill us three. There’s no need for such tricks.”
“Then what’s going on?” Pearl couldn’t think of any other explanation.
“I don’t know,” Ye Feng shook his head and turned to Long Tian.
“Don’t look at me! I’ve never encountered something like this either!” Long Tian quickly waved his hands.
Suddenly, Pearl let out a cry of shock before disappearing. Before Ye Feng could react, Long Tian also vanished abruptly.

“What happened?” The thought flashed through Ye Feng’s mind, and suddenly everything around him turned dark. When he regained consciousness, he found himself in a strange small black room. The room was less than four or five square meters in size, barely over two meters high, and completely enclosed with no exits. “Where is this place?” Ye Feng frowned, wondering if Long Tian and Zhenzhu were in the same situation as him. At that moment, an old but firm voice came from all around, “Once you’re in my game, you must follow my rules. This Selection Tower has nine floors; only by passing all nine can you leave.” “Where are my friends?” Ye Feng calmed down slightly. “They’re in the same situation as you.” “Alright, then I have a question: what if I fail?” Ye Feng asked. “Then why keep you here? You’ll surely perish!” Ye Feng was stunned. “What if I succeed? Can you release my friends?” “No, unless you complete all the remaining tasks before their time runs out.” “What tasks?” “I can’t tell you yet!” The old voice refused to answer without hesitation. “What do you mean by ‘time runs out’?” Ye Feng pressed further. “The Selection Tower has nine floors, and you’re given nine hundred years to complete them. If you haven’t passed by then, you’ll die! If you do pass, I’ll arrange the subsequent tasks based on how quickly you complete them.” “It seems the tasks change depending on the time taken…” Ye Feng voiced his doubt. “Yes. In fact, after this trial, there are nine tasks in total, each more difficult than the last. I’ll determine which task you start with based on your completion time. The shorter the time it takes, the more tasks you can skip and go straight to the later ones. If it’s fast enough, you might only need to complete the ninth task!” “So, as long as I complete the ninth task within nine hundred years, I can free my friends?” Ye Feng grasped the key point. “Exactly. If there are no issues, I’ll start explaining the rules.” “Okay, no problems. Go ahead!” Ye Feng nodded.

“The rules of the game are simple. There are six surfaces in total—the four walls, the floor, and the ceiling of this room—on which a complete maze will appear. At the entrance of the maze lies a chess piece. You just need to use your mental power to move this piece and find the exit. Once the piece reaches the exit, the entrance to the next level will open, allowing you to leave that level. Of course, each level gives you only three attempts; if you fail all three times, it’s considered a complete loss,” the old man explained simply.

“Don’t waste time looking for cheating methods, as I’ve made special adjustments to the game process. Any cheating attempt will cause the piece to automatically return to the entrance, only wasting more of your time. Don’t even think about escaping, because the level of this Tower is no less advanced than the palace within you.”

When the old man said this, Ye Feng was shocked beyond measure. He never expected that the person who set up this game could see the most powerful virtual treasure inside him, which meant the other party’s cultivation level was likely on par with his adoptive father—at least much stronger than Nian Cangsheng and Wu Kuang.

After the old man’s warning, Ye Feng fully realized that no trick of his could deceive the other party. Helplessly shaking his head, he said, “I understand everything. Senior, please start!”

“Timing begins now!” The aged voice reached Ye Feng’s ears without any emotion.

On the six dark surfaces—walls, ceiling, and floor—milk-white maze patterns quickly appeared. In the blink of an eye, the patterns were fully drawn.

Above Ye Feng’s head was the entrance to the maze, with a golden dot flashing continuously there. Ye Feng floated in mid-air, his feet off the ground, unleashing his mental power without reservation. In just a few breaths, he had scanned the maze map hundreds of times.

In his mind, hundreds of simulations were completed in mere moments, but even the farthest he had gone was less than one-tenth of the total distance.

Ye Feng slowly sat cross-legged, floating in mid-air. Since he embarked on the path of cultivation, he had never felt as strained as he did today. This was purely a mental battle—repeated calculations, repeated simulations, and learning from failure again and again.

You should know that although this enclosed room is small, the total area of its six walls is at least over twenty square meters. On such a large space, a maze with passages less than one centimeter wide has been drawn—just imagine how complex it must be.

The maze is difficult to solve because it has countless paths, but only one leads to the exit. With only three attempts allowed, the only solution is to simulate it in one’s mind. Such simulation not only requires strong computational abilities but also mental strength to handle such a large-scale simulation.

A cup of tea passed by in no time. After trying over 30,000 different routes, Ye Feng finally found the correct path. He immediately directed his mental energy toward the pieces in the maze, aiming to move them along the route he had deduced in one go.

But after sending his mental energy, the piece only shifted slightly, not moving an inch forward. “What’s going on?” Ye Feng was slightly stunned. He had invested nearly 50% of his mental energy just to complete this level quickly, yet the piece seemed rooted at the maze’s entrance, unable to move.

“Is it because my mental energy isn’t strong enough?” Ye Feng frowned slightly. He increased his mental energy by another 20%, and the piece, like a huge boulder, was finally pushed forward a little.

This time, Ye Feng noticed something unusual—seemingly more than half of his seven layers of mental energy were blocked by something. “How is this possible?”

He sent his mental energy again, this time not to push but to observe. He then realized that his mental energy came in two colors: white and black. The golden piece absorbed the white mental energy while blocking all black mental energy from reaching it.

Ye Feng also discovered that although his mental energy was originally half black and half white, its color could actually be changed. Identifying the problem, he converted all his mental energy to white and fed it into the piece. The piece, as if nourished, moved continuously in the direction Ye Feng guided. In just a few moments, it avoided all dead ends and reached the exit.

A rumbling sound slowly arose, and a hole two meters long and one meter wide appeared right in the center of the ceiling.

Ye Feng hesitated not for a moment and rushed in immediately. He knew that even a single second was precious at this time. After Ye Feng left, the entrance to the cave was sealed again, leaving no trace at all. All the maze diagrams on the six surfaces disappeared, and the confined space returned to its original darkness and silence, as if no one had ever been there…