Before Zhang Long could even try thinking of a last minute excuse, his mother slowly opened the door.
"What's going on? I heard shouting," his mother said. "And, oh - when I heard Zhang Long shouting 'Never!'. I assumed that maybe you, Jin Zhen, had told him that he needed to wait until marriage before doing 'those things' together with you, but then he yelled out 'Never!' and was harassing you."
"That is all sorts of not what's going on right now!" Zhang Long said. "Also, when all you heard was the word 'Never!' why was that the conclusion you jumped to?! Do you have so little faith in me!?"
"Why did you keep the door closed when I asked you to keep it open then if you weren't up to something naughty?"
Long story short, Zhang Long did not manage to find a reason to at least stall Jin Zhen in any way.
He kept on thinking of ways of avoiding or at least delaying this incoming calamity as he took a stroll around the village later that day, only to find himself on a path he usually didn't frequent.
"Hmm?" he wondered. He suddenly felt a sudden fluctuation in the Qi in the environment, and found that it was coming from the base of a tree. He went to go inspect it, and brushed his hand against the trunk, only for the scenery around him to change.
"This is…"
Zhang Long had discovered a secret realm!
If the world could be thought of as a huge bubble, there were smaller bubbles inside of it that were called secret realms.
They were worlds within worlds, and could sometimes follow the same rules as that of the regular world, or entirely different ones. Sometimes time worked differently in them, or certain laws of physics or cultivation didn't work the same inside them.
There were occasional stories of normal people happening upon such secret realms and then gaining access to powerful treasures - though in reality, secret realms were actually not that uncommon. Most of them were just tiny areas with nothing of significance inside.
Zhang Long found it strange that no one in the village knew about this one though - if they did, he'd have heard of it.
There were a couple of reasons that this could've been the case.
One, the entrance was usually hidden. The rules under which such secret realms would open up varied. Some would only open up at certain times of day, or would only open up for a specific kind of person, or for a specific rank of cultivator, or if someone was a mortal, etc.
However, all secret realms had to open up sooner or later, otherwise they would collapse in on themselves. The reason for this was that they had no way of generating Qi within themselves, and so, had to open themselves to the outside world to absorb Qi in order to maintain their structural integrity.
If they did not do so, they would eventually run out of Qi and disintegrate. So while it was possible to create a secret realm that would only open for a specific person or under special circumstances, if someone like that didn't visit, you might risk the secret realm collapsing in on itself.
It was possible that Zhang Long had been the first one to discover this secret realm if it had opened up to him because he met some kind of certain condition now that he hadn't earlier when he had passed by this place. Perhaps it was because his cultivation was higher?
Secondly, it could be that this secret realm had only been recently created.
High level cultivators and mages could make artificial secret realms if they knew the required techniques, though someone like Zhang Long could only dream of having that kind of ability one day.
However, they also appeared naturally, though what caused them to appear naturally was anyone's guess.
The possibility of this was discounted immediately though, as Zhang Long 'heard' a voice in his head.
"Welcome, stranger, you have chanced upon the realm in which I have left my inheritance. Clear the obstacles and get to the other end of this realm, and you will find the treasure I have left behind for you."
This meant that this secret realm was either man-made to serve as an inheritance, or someone had found it and then chose to leave their inheritance here by modifying the secret realm somewhat.
It was easier to modify an existing secret realm than to create an entirely new one by yourself, so cultivators who lacked the required cultivation level or skill might opt for the former.
At the thought of treasure, Zhang Long couldn't help but feel a rush of excitement.
Was this one of those rare opportunities where there was something worth finding inside a secret realm?
Granted, there was still the third possibility - that someone already knew of this inheritance, had taken the treasure, and so there would be nothing at the end for Zhang Long to find.
With that said, as the saying goes 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' and he decided to step forward to see what kind of trials awaited him.
The secret realm did not seem to be very large, as there was an area on the horizon where it seemed to 'end' and all that lay beyond was a white void. It was quite disorienting to see a place like this - it was Zhang Long's first time in a secret realm, so it took his brain a moment to process the strange imagery he was seeing. .
What he could also see were areas of tropical jungle all around, and a path paved with stone that went forward, presumably to the 'other end' that the voice in his head had been talking about.
The sky above was bright, but there was no sun or clouds - he had heard that most secret realms were like that as they did not have a true sky or a proper day and night cycle either. But again, it was disorienting to actually see such a thing with his own eyes.
Before he took a step forward, he took a moment to consider the risks.
He didn't know what was living in the jungle - he couldn't see any wild beast groups, and there could be other non-living dangers lurking in this place like traps.
He could not sense any Qi signatures in the jungle, though that could just be because they were too far away, or so far above his current level of cultivation that he couldn't sense them. Being a Qi Condensation cultivator, he could only sense Qi from Qi Refinement level cultivators and below. Anyone at the Golden Core or higher would be basically indistinguishable from a mortal to him.
Also, there was always a chance that this whole thing could be a trap.
Should he turn around? He had only taken a few steps from the entrance, and leaving a secret realm was usually easy.
Then again, if there was treasure here, it could be some kind of lost knowledge that could greatly help with his cultivation.
Ultimately, he settled on forging ahead for now.
He would need to be cautious at every turn though, and if he found anything suspicious, he would immediately turn around and run.
As it was, he was left wondering who it was that had left this supposed inheritance. He hadn't heard of any famous cultivator or alchemist who had lived in the area in recent memory, unless this was something that had been set up several thousands of years ago. That was a possibility, in which case whatever was inside would definitely be quite valuable, such as a technique or recipe lost to time.
People in this world hoarded knowledge - that which could benefit a cultivator greatly would not be easily shared. As such, it was easy for such knowledge to be lost. Sometimes, when cultivators realized that their final days were upon them, they would create such an inheritance to ensure that a bit of their legacy still continued to exist in the world.
Zhang Long took a few steps ahead, finding that nothing happened in response, and so he quickened his pace a little, though remaining ever vigilant throughout.
The path led up to a raised circular dais, atop which there was a small table with a single chair.
As Zhang Long approached it, the voice echoed in his head again.
"There is a puzzle atop the desk, solve it to move forward, and then the correct path will be revealed to you."
The path beyond the dais branched into seven different paths, and it was highly likely that the six 'wrong' paths either led to somewhere dangerous, or would lead him outside the secret realm, after which he would not be allowed to enter again. The 'correct' one would take him forward.
Either that, or all of them were considered 'wrong' until he solved the puzzle, after which all of them would be considered 'correct.'
There were multiple ways that one could set up an inheritance, but Zhang Long had the benefit of hearing many stories of them and how they were set up.
Humans might be very creative, but their decisions often end up falling into similar patterns.
If this inheritance was made in a hurry, it would be especially so - the creator might not have had time to get too fancy and relied on tried-and-tested ways of setting it up.
That was why Zhang Long could quite reliably theorize on how the paths worked.
So, the only thing to do was to solve the puzzle right in front of him.
He approached the table, and saw there were wooden pieces scattered over it, with markings on them.
It looked like he needed to rearrange these pieces to make a whole - though the issue with that was that he had no idea what they were supposed to look like when they were finished.
There were sixteen pieces in total, with each of them being identical in shape and size, though some of them had a dark green border on some edges.
If the dark green borders were supposed to be the borders of the puzzle, that meant that he could find the outer layer of what the finished project should look like.
Those that had two green edges were corner pieces, and those with only one green edge were those at the edge.
From this he had a rough idea as to how the puzzle pieces were supposed to be arranged - there were sixteen of them in total, and each side added up to four, meaning they were to be arranged into a larger square of four by four puzzles.
He knew where the four corner pieces would be, though he wasn't sure which corner was which or how they should be arranged in respect to one another.
Then there were eight edge pieces. These could be arranged in three different ways depending on which side they belonged to, and could belong to one of two places on a side.
The four middle pieces had no edges, but could be arranged in any of four directions in the four spots in the center.
Zhang Long played around with the pieces for around five minutes before frowning.
He was definitely missing something, wasn't he?
Why did people make inheritances?
It was either because they were going to die, and had not found someone worth bestowing their treasures to while they still breathed, or they no longer had use for them, and similarly wanted to find someone worthy of getting their hands on such treasures.
What was 'worthy' varied from person to person, and it was usually to check this worthiness that trials like these were made in the first place. Trials could test various things - knowledge, virtue, courage, or even lack of morals.
Given that, what was the point of seeing if he could solve this puzzle? It had to be the same point as with solving any puzzle, in other words, it was a test of intelligence.
So that meant that it was highly unlikely that Zhang Long was meant to just sit there rearranging the pieces randomly until they fit together.
More likely than not, he was supposed to have seen something until now that would give him a hint as to what the puzzle was supposed to represent.
But, no matter how hard he tried to think, he couldn't recall anything on his way to the dais that might be able to help. There was no image, or picture, that he could think of that he was supposed to be making. The fragments of a greater image inscribed on each puzzle piece also didn't seem to jog his memory in any way.
It was as he kept fiddling around with the pieces that inspiration suddenly struck him like a bolt of lightning.
The lines on the puzzle pieces did seem to be forming some kind of shape.
It was just a picture he had not imagined he'd be seeing here, which is why it hadn't occurred to him before.
"No… how can this be…?" Zhang Long muttered to himself as he hastily began arranging more of the pieces, to find out that, to his shock, they actually fit together.