Chapter 1198: Chapter 1198: The Ancient Temple

Zen's ranking fell dramatically the moment the Illusion Points left his body.

The rankings in the pyramid were volatile given the heavy competition among trillions of warriors in gathering Illusion Points. The positions rose and fell constantly, even a tiny gap in points was enough to make a big difference.

Those in the mid and bottom tiers did not normally merit much attention.

But those at the top did. The top-tier warriors usually just changed spots amongst each other depending on the amount of points they had accumulated. However, the entire system would know if one of them ever lost and died.

This was the case with Nathan who had previously been ranked as number one. It was quite a shock for everyone when he suddenly fell from the top spot all the way to the 40, 000th place.

The only explanation they could come up for this was that he had been killed and had lost half of his accumulated Illusion Points.

There were two points to be noted about this: the first one was that someone had managed to kill the number one warrior, and the second was that despite having lost half of his Illusion Points, Nathan was still at the 40, 000th place.

It was quite a bit of speculation as to who exactly managed to kill him.

Who had the skill to slay a Godly Genius of the Thoughtless Minds such as Nathan?

They didn't know at all.

Back to Zen: his ranking still wasn't that high but he was starting to make a name for himself.

A number of warriors currently watched out for him, recognizing the potential the young man had in the rankings. So it was only natural that those who had paid attention to him were also curious why his name suddenly disappeared.

Yolande, meanwhile, was astonished at this sudden turn of events.

It was highly possible that Zen had been killed considering how much he had fallen down the ranks.

If he lost half of his accumulated points, then she could more or less guess what ranking he was now at.

But to her surprise, she did not find his name there. Yolande continued searching all the way down to the 12 millionth place but still couldn't find Zen's name.

'How could this be?' she wondered.

Even if he died once, it would be impossible for him to fall out of the top 10 million just like that. Or could it be… Did Zen die twice in just a short period of time?!

That shouldn't be possible. Considering the amount of time it would take to bring someone back to life was quite long, dying twice in succession was extremely unlikely. “He didn't. Did he?” she couldn't help but mutter to herself in disbelief.

She wasn't worried, just shocked. Back in the Passing the Torch, Zen's ranking had also started low but had been improved swiftly over the course of time. That young man had no problem bouncing back to the top right after having been kicked to the absolute bottom. The only reason she was still bothered was the fact that his ranking had dropped so dramatically low in an instant. It just shouldn't be possible.

Meanwhile, back in the Illusion Battlefield, Zen was left with only about 10, 000 Illusion Points.

These 10, 000 Illusion Points were by no means impressive.

This amount could be easily farmed by spending a couple of hours in battle.

Right now, Zen had gone down to the forty millionth mark in terms of ranking in this world. And on the Illusion Battlefield, he was outside of the two billionth place - that was how far he had fallen.

He shook his head, trying to deny the frustration that was creeping up on him. “Never mind. It's fine.”

It wasn't as if he could do anything about the 300, 000 Illusion Points he had already lost. The only thing he could do now was to continue moving forward. The cave stood in front of him and he could only hope that he would be able to find some really cool stuff once he explored it.

The spinning light quickly absorbed the Illusion Points and gradually turned into a six-winged worm that floated quietly beside him.

The appearance of this strange creature quickly removed the resistance that had previously been imposed upon Zen.

As he was now set free, Zen lightly took a step and finally entered the cave.

The entrance was only about ten feet wide and the path in front of him narrowed considerably as he continued down the slope.

As he trudged on, he noticed there was a white spinning light that appeared every hundred feet of the path.

His heart immediately sank at the sight. Did he really have to spend 300, 000 Illusion Points per light? That ostentatious amount was truly too much. He'd much rather die for real than spend his entire life farming Illusion Points. řâN𝐨BËṢ

Fortunately, fate was kind and his worries had been unfounded. As he approached the spinning light, the six-winged worm that accompanied him flew and directly absorbed it, maintaining the deactivation of the resistance.

“I need this worm to get into the depths of the cave,” he muttered to himself upon realizing his illuminating companion's ability.

The rays of spinning light that continually passed were absorbed by this worm.

100 feet...

1, 000 feet...

It wasn't a huge cave and Zen soon arrived at the deepest part of the cave.

There, he found an ancient, decrepit temple.

It was dark and extremely dirty but Zen couldn't help but notice the faint, mysterious aura it exuded from its walls.

“Why is there an ancient underground temple here?” he couldn't help but ask in curiosity.

It was so random finding a structure here. From what he knew, this Illusion Battlefield had once been a supreme world that had been sealed off long ago.

It was previously forbidden to go there. It was only after the Illusion Battlefield was opened that warriors could finally drop by and enter the previously sealed-off supreme world through the light spots cast by the heavens. The only people who were granted entry were also limited to Soul Sea Realm level warriors.

That raised up a question in Zen's head: were there any living beings in the Illusion Battlefield before that?

The three Celestial Mice, the spinning lights, and now this six-winged worm that had served as his guide - they were all obviously prearranged, but the question was by whom?

Zen didn't know. He had just ascended. He was the worst person to ask these things.

The only thing he knew was that out of the three forces of the human race, Buddhism only prevailed in the Blessed Buddha Land.

The tenth-grade sacred places in that land were referred to as blessed places or temples.

Could the ancient structure in front of him be connected to this great Blessed Buddha Land?

There was only one way to find out.

Zen, with no hesitations whatsoever, entered the temple's doors and was immediately greeted by a smiling Maitreya Buddha statue.

This statue had a round face, a round belly, glaring eyes and was astride a majestic horse.

Zen knew it was just a statue but he couldn't help but feel unsettled at the way its eyes glared at him from all directions. He almost wanted to turn away from it though he didn't know exactly why.

Nevertheless, that didn't mean that the entire place was no different. The temple gave him the creeps and Zen just had this bad feeling in his chest that he couldn't shake off now that he was now inside it.

However, this bad feeling was what he needed. This was the only trustworthy radar he had for knowing whether or not he was going to find great treasures in this secret temple - the more he was weirded out, the higher the possibility that this temple hid a great and extremely valuable secret.

Besides, he was still on the Illusion Battlefield which meant whatever death he experienced, it would not be permanent. If worse came to worst, he could just revive back in the main city though he didn't really think it was likely. He had just paid 300, 000 Illusion Points after all, so this trip had better be worth it.

Knowing all this, Zen then made his decision to pass by the Maitreya Buddha and proceed into the temple's adytum.

Unbeknownst to Zen, the statue he had carelessly passed by had now dropped its smile.

The Maitreya Buddha's eyes and mouth had turned upside down, indicating the malice present in its expression.

Truth be told, it was the stuff of nightmares.

Bang!

Zen jumped from the loud noise of the two doors slamming shut behind him. He had just entered the adytum but it seemed he was now trapped inside.

The doors were wooden and were mostly in a state of disrepair. He could easily shatter them from the looks of them but Zen decided against it.

Looks could be extremely deceiving. If an ancient temple had the capacity to trap someone like him, then he didn't think he'd really be able to shatter these decrepit doors so easily.

Realizing he had nowhere to go, Zen quickly glanced around and took in his surroundings.

Four other Buddha statues joined him in this quiet space. These statues wore monastic robes and held long sticks that were pointed towards the center of the adytum where Zen was currently at.

“Are they arhats?” Zen muttered in confusion.

Just as he sized these statues up, his ears suddenly perked up at the sound of something crackling.

He quickly whipped his head and immediately realized the cause of the noise.

The four Buddha statues had cracked but not from damage. They cracked because they were quickly beginning to mobilize.

Within a short period of time, these four, formerly nonliving, statues were fully mobile. They jumped off their lotus-shaped bases and immediately charged towards Zen.

You'd think being made of stone would slow them down, but they ran like average, flesh-and-blood humans which didn't help Zen one bit.