"That sounds amazing. Please, give it to me." Rocky's eye's glimmered with excitement.
As soon as the words left his mouth, the guardian waved his hand and a lotus-shaped lantern on the
side of the palace flew towards him. There was a soft glow emanating from the lantern.
Rocky immediately reached out his hand and caught it. "How does it work?"
"Once you activate the lantern with your spiritual power, your demonic souls can materialize and move
freely wherever the light reaches," the guardian explained. "What's more," he continued, "this lantern
can absorb spiritual power. Once it reaches a certain level, it'll become a very powerful divine treasure."
Rocky nodded. Then, without dillydallying any further, he left the palace, lantern in hand.
"It's time to see what this thing is capable of!" The second he returned to the compass array, Rocky
immediately activated the lantern with his spiritual power.
The lantern roared to life and hovered in the air like a bright beacon, its light covering a hundred meter
radius.
Rocky willed his spiritual power to its fullest potential and the overflow of energy turned into light that
enveloped his entire body.
Without missing a beat, Rocky then created three demonic souls.
Finally satisfied, Rocky and his three demonic souls rushed at the compass array, charging into battle.
As they approached, beast spirits emerged from within the array, hissing and growling at them. The
second the four got close, they were met by some serious foes.
Despite the strength of these beast spirits, they were no match for Rocky and his three souls.
Beast spirit upon beast spirit fell by their hands.
Despite this, countless new beast spirits kept swarming from the compass array like a burst pipe.
From afar, Colton and several elders all wore grim expressions when they heard that Rocky was trying
to break the compass array.
"I never thought he'd run into it so soon. This is one of the most powerful arrays in the entire Divine
Spiritual Land!"
"Truly, this is quite shocking. If it were any other array, he might've stood a chance. But this is the
compass array we're talking about; he's in big trouble now!" The elders broke out into a heated
discussion. Most were convinced Rocky was going to fail.
"Even though this compass array is powerful, it's not that difficult to break. A Spiritual Emperor who is
proficient in arrays would be able to do it." Colton, however, was a firm believer in Rocky's abilities.
"But even if he could defeat all these beast spirits, he'd be too wiped out to destroy the array. He'd
need to be as powerful as a high-grade Spiritual Emperor. This will be no easy feat," one of the elders
responded.
"Well, I guess we shall see," Colton said calmly.
Two hours later, the last of the beast spirits fell. Not a single beast spirit was left.
Rocky beamed excitedly. However, just as he was about to finish this round off, a purple ray of light
shot into the sky from the center of the compass array. The ground began to shake violently, which
would've sent shivers down anyone's spine.
"It's time to face the boss!" Rocky, however, was smiling gleefully, as though he was about to have a
pleasant meal.
Seconds later, a powerful beast spirit emerged from the purple ray of light. It had the face of the human
but the tusks of a boar, rendering it extremely horrendous and fearsome.
The second it appeared, Rocky's three demonic souls charged towards it.
However, the monster just swatted them away like flies. Each of the three demonic souls exploded into
nothingness, vanishing into thin air.
Fortunately, this all served as a clever diversion. While the beast spirit was focused on the demonic
souls, Rocky had summoned all his spiritual power into the lotus-shaped lantern. Remembering what
the guardian had said, Rocky filled it to its highest level. The lantern, charged to the maximum with
spiritual power, rushed toward the beast spirit aggressively. At first, the beast spirit seemed almost
disdainful that such a petty lantern was sent to attack it. Just as it started to realize that there seemed
to be more to it than what met the eye, the lantern exploded in a burst of light, swallowing the beast
whole.
After successfully breaking the array, Rocky moved forward without hesitation.
It didn't take long before Colton and the elders caught wind of what had happened. Shocked, they
began to discuss amongst themselves once more.
"I can't believe he passed the compass array in but two hours! Even a Spiritual Emperor at the high
grade would've needed half a day to do this..."
"It's the first time a low-grade Spiritual Emperor of the Di Clan has achieved anything like this!"
Along with the shock came doubt. Some of the onlookers began to suspect if Rocky was more than he
had let on...
"He is indeed only a low-grade Spiritual Emperor," Colton said affirmatively, quashing their suspicions
and protecting Rocky's identity.
Meanwhile, Michelle and the other low-grade Spiritual Emperors were having difficulties surpassing
their respective trials, since things just kept getting harder and harder.
Rocky, on the other hand, passed all his challenges single-handedly.
Now that he had successfully passed his first trial path, he was immediately sent to another one.
This one was completely different from the previous one. The previous trial was mainly about arrays,
but the trial he faced now was related to spiritual martial arts.
The stela in front of him was engraved with the formula of a spiritual skill. But after reading it carefully,
Rocky found that there was only half of the whole formula recorded, without any disintegration
illustration of each move. It seemed that he had to rely on this incomplete formula to display the
spiritual skill.
It would've been close to impossible to finish this task if he were not proficient in various spiritual skills.
Fortunately, Rocky had inherited the memories recorded in the Scarlet Heaven Jade, which gave him a
glimpse of all unique spiritual skills of the human race, the spiritual race, and even the Shura Race.
Therefore, it didn't take long before he found the relevant spiritual skill.
With all these challenges surpassed, Rocky's progress was only second to that of the high-grade
Spiritual Emperors and some middle-grade Spiritual Emperors with strong strength.
The thought made him smile triumphantly. Not long after passing the spiritual martial arts trial, Rocky
suddenly found himself in front of a temple. The air around it was dank and ominous, and otherwise,
uninviting. However, there was nowhere else to go but inside the temple, so Rocky spared no time and
entered it.
As soon as he set foot inside, he saw some Spiritual Emperors in the hall, walking around aimlessly, as
though in a daze.
But before he could ponder over this, he suddenly heard the voice of Buddhist music chanting in his
mind.
The voice sounded like it was coming from afar, but it seemed to touch his heart, soul, and mind. All of
a sudden, Rocky felt dizzy and his consciousness started to drift away...
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