In the selection passageway.
Wen Rou walked briskly and quickly reached the end of the fork she had chosen...
Then, she saw five more forks!
Noticing this, Wen Rou paused, a bitter smile appearing on her face.
Indeed, even if she hadn't separated from Mu Jinyu earlier, they probably would have ended up going their separate ways eventually.
Without much hesitation, Wen Rou randomly picked another fork and walked in.
"Boom!"
"Bang!!"
After walking through this fork for a few minutes, Wen Rou finally began to encounter others up ahead.
About a dozen people were scattered around, continuously throwing punches at puppets made from special wood.
These wooden puppets were what Lin Feng referred to as Wooden Dummies.
They were shaped like humans, with heads, faces, features, arms, and legs. They moved within the small space, their movements so lively they seemed almost identical to living people, as if they were the ingenious creation of Master Luban.
However, whether by design or flaw, these wooden puppets could only move within a three-foot radius and couldn't leave that distance.
For this reason, once the Outer Sect Disciples they were fighting found themselves outmatched, they would voluntarily retreat beyond the three-foot distance, causing the puppets to cease their attacks and stand motionless in place.
Perhaps, this was why, despite their exquisite craftsmanship, they were also called Wooden Dummies.
"Wow, this is so tough. Even though I'm already at the Ninth Layer of Body Refinement, I still can't shake these Wooden Dummies. They're really hard to fight!"
An Outer Sect Disciple created distance from the Wooden Dummy he was fighting and leaned against the wall, panting and speaking in a wistful tone.
Wen Rou overheard his words and looked over. She saw the Wooden Dummy in front of the man. Although motionless, the dummy erupted with the aura of someone in the Half-Step Divinity Transformation Realm.
It was no wonder the disciple couldn't move it.
After all, he was only at the Complete Energy Transformation Stage, far from the Half-Step Divinity Transformation Realm.
Thinking this, Wen Rou felt a stirring in her heart and stepped forward toward the Wooden Dummy.
"Be careful!"
A crisp sound followed as the Wooden Dummy's chest automatically opened up, revealing its empty inner compartment.
Nothing at all.
The male disciple looked on with a hint of disappointment.
Wen Rou, however, didn't feel much disappointment—she had merely come to try her hand. The likelihood of a Wooden Dummy at the level of Half-Step Divinity Transformation Realm having a Pass Token was already very slim.
Having bid farewell to the male disciple behind her, Wen Rou took another step forward, continuing deeper into the passageway!
She wanted to check out the Wooden Dummies in the second and third layers of the Divinity Transformation Realm.
…
After separating from Mu Jinyu and the others at the fork, Wu Lei swiftly marched down the corridor he had chosen.
Soon, several more forks in the road appeared before him, and without any hesitation, he randomly picked one and charged in.
After a few more minutes of running, Wooden Dummies began to appear before him.
"Bang Bang Bang!!"
Wu Lei strode forward, his burly frame causing the ground to tremble as if a minor earthquake had occurred.
The few people who were fighting the rows of Wooden Dummies stopped their battles and retreated to the side upon hearing the commotion.
"Boom!!"
Without uttering a word, Wu Lei threw a fierce punch that directly hit the chest of a Wooden Dummy.
"Crack!"
In an instant, the chest of the Wooden Dummy was shattered, revealing the empty wooden grid inside.
Wu Lei only took a glance before swiftly moving on to another Wooden Dummy, and with another punch, he broke open the hidden compartment!
In the blink of an eye, all of the ten-odd Wooden Dummies in the passage had been destroyed by Wu Lei.
Unfortunately, none contained a Pass Token.
Wu Lei did not show any sign of disappointment; he understood that Wooden Dummies at the level of the Body Refining Realm might not hide a Pass Token even among hundreds of them.
The reason he took action was solely that defeating them was easy, so he tried his luck with the attitude of scavenging.
Wordlessly, Wu Lei once again took big strides and ran forward!
The disciples whose Wooden Dummies had been snatched away watched him leave in silence. Although they were somewhat angry at his domineering behavior, they didn't dare say much.
…
Wu Lei was like this, so were Li Xiaoxiao and Chen Qiuqiao.
After entering the corridor, upon finding Wooden Dummies, they would directly snatch them away from anyone, whether they were currently fighting them or not, and shatter them!
In their eyes, these Outer Sect Disciples were simply not on their level; they could already be considered Inner Sect Disciples—why would they need to negotiate or be concerned about their feelings?
Mu Jinyu did not know how the three great experts from the Outer Gate acted after they entered the corridors to select.
He chose a fork to enter, and soon after, he came across six branching paths ahead, which left him speechless.
He thought to himself that it was good he had given up the idea of tricking Chen Qiuqiao earlier, as even if he had followed the same fork she took, he still wouldn't have been able to find her!
He guessed that this was probably a protective measure from the Sects meant to disperse the crowd as much as possible, to prevent someone from successfully finding a Pass Token, only to have it snatched away by another person.
With so many forks, unless one was really unlucky and encountered someone stronger in the same passage, even if you obtained a Token, Chen Qiuqiao and the others wouldn't know who got it and couldn't snatch it even if they wanted to.
"In that case, I must hurry up," said Mu Jinyu, his expression growing slightly serious as he chose another fork and went in.
After walking for a few minutes, the sounds of chaotic fighting arose in front of him. Mu Jinyu looked up to see a group of people engaging with Wooden Dummies.
First marveling at the exquisite craftsmanship of the Wooden Dummies, Mu Jinyu then started using Divine Sense to see if any of the Wooden Dummies held a Pass Token.
To his finding, it seemed that the Wooden Dummies were engraved with Arrays that shielded against Divine Sense probing, making it impossible to see their insides.
"As expected," Mu Jinyu murmured, having anticipated this outcome; otherwise, there would be no need to fight every Wooden Dummy. With Divine Sense, the first to find a Pass Token would claim it.
"Hm? This…"
Mu Jinyu retracted his Divine Sense, but then, a spark of inspiration struck him, and he tried to sense these Wooden Dummies using the "Green Emperor's Wood Emperor Art."
To his surprise…
It actually worked!