The Rich Cultivator

The group sat in tense silence, each member lost in their own thoughts. Tyler and the others consumed their Aura Pills and Prana Pills. Without natural Aura or Prana in the Abyss, these pills were their only way to maintain their strength. It had been over a week since they had arrived at this mysterious floor, a place where reality and illusion blended seamlessly.

Their objective remained unchanged—to find a way into the strange village without succumbing to its illusion.

"Do we really need to save him?" one of the grandmasters suddenly asked. "We just need to drag him to the spatial passage, right?"

"But we don’t know where the spatial passage is," another grandmaster countered. "Divine sense doesn’t work inside. If we go in blind, we might get swallowed by the illusion before we even find it."

"And how exactly are we supposed to drag him out?" someone else added. "The moment we step inside, we’ll start turning into illusions too."

"We don’t need to fully integrate," the first grandmaster argued. "The moment our bodies start changing, we grab him and pull him out before it’s too late. As for the spatial passage, we’ll use the compass to navigate."

The compass still pointed toward the village—their next Abyss floor passage was inside.

Grandmaster Silver took a deep breath and proposed, "Speed is everything. We go in, check a specific spot, then run back out before the illusion takes hold. We repeat the process until we find the passage."

"Sounds like an average plan," Grandmaster Ayla, a woman who had shared a night with Tyler, remarked.

Silver turned to her. "Do you have a better suggestion, Grandmaster Ayla?"

Ayla shook her head. "No. And honestly, we don’t seem to have any other options."