The large room was one hundred yards wide and long, and was completely empty except for the floating ball of light in the center. John sent out his divine sense to inspect for any dangers, and hastily retracted it as a sharp pain entered his soul.
"What a strong formation! My divine sense didn't even touch it, but it was almost overwhelming. If it had touched it, it probably would have wiped out my soul entirely."
His divine sense had revealed an amazingly profound circular formation on the ground. The violent tempest of energy that crashed into the temple and was absorbed within seemed to slowly meld into this formation.
"This entire whirlpool seems to be powering this formation! Just what type of formation needs this much power? "
John had seen some formations in his life, including the amazing illusion formation in the lightning world, but none of them came even close to this one when it came to its power source.
"What do I do? It seems like this is a defensive formation, protecting whatever that ball of light is…"
While standing there, a small bone from a beast's corpse appeared in his hand. After taking a few steps back, John threw the bone forward, and took in a deep breath of cold air.
As soon as the bone hit the perimeter of the formation, it evaporated into nothing immediately, as if it didn't exist.
"That was the bone of the Qi Condensation Hawk, and it disappeared as if it was nothing. I guess there's no way i can enter this…
John started walking around the perimeter of the formation, in an attempt to test any weaknesses. Objects were constantly thrown into the formation, but the result was the same as always; complete annihilation.
Suddenly, the entire temple glowed brightly, and John found himself locked down by a divine sense so powerful he couldn't even begin to fathom its true power. All he knew was that he felt like he was an ant facing against a hurricane.
"Shit! I've gone and done it now," John grumbled, panic evident in his voice. He was completely at the mercy of whoever or whatever owned this divine sense.
John felt the powerful divine sense lock onto him and sweep through his body several times. The sense started with his soul, and John was completely shocked to find that it was able to penetrate his soul space and explore every inch inside.
The soul space of a cultivator was one of their most important and secretive areas. It contained all their memories, and other secrets as well, such as John's egg he found in the lightning world. With his soul space invaded like this, John knew the power could snuff out his soul instantly and kill him without him being able to resist slightly.
While the soul attacks of soul cultivators were occasionally able to breach the soul space of another cultivator in hopes of snuffing it out, John never heard of a divine sense itself being able to do so as well.
The divine sense inspected John's soul, pausing temporarily on the egg before moving on to the rest of his body. John was relieved to find that the divine sense had not read his memories.
It slowly scanned his body, until it paused at his dantian. John felt himself sweat as the divine sense lingered on his dantian for several minutes.
'Will a divine sense this powerful be able to detect my second dantian?'
No one had ever been able to detect his body dantian, and he was hoping that this powerful being wouldn't be able to either. Although it hadn't killed him, who knew if that would be the case if his dantian turned out to be an amazing treasure even this divine sense would covet.
The sense continued to scan for quite some time before it finally faded, returning the room to normal. John breathed a deep sigh of relief.
"A pity. Your soul is quite strong, but it's not what I am looking for. A pity indeed."
A soft voice spoke out directly inside John's head, surprising him once more. The voice was soft, but even the soft words spoken seemed to pierce to the core of his soul, as if the voice could eliminate his soul just through words if it wished.
"Who, or what are you?" John asked.
"It matters not who I am. As I said, your soul is not what I'm looking for in my successor, so I can only wipe your memories and send you out of this place."
John felt the divine sense lock onto him once more, and he quickly thought of something as it began to invade his soul space.
"Wait!" John shouted, and the divine sense quickly halted.
"You mentioned your successor..and a strong soul...are you looking for an heir, or are you trying to steal a powerful soul for yourself?" John asked. He had an idea, but wanted to probe the intentions of the mysterious party.
He had heard of some stories of powerful cultivators using the souls of others to increase their power, so John was still wary.
"Do not accuse me of being lowly enough to steal the souls of others," The voice responded in slight ire, sending sharp pains into John's soul. Although the voice had not meant to hurt him, just the fluctuations of the divine senses' emotions was enough to almost overwhelm John, shocking him once more.
'It seems to despise stealing the souls of others, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. It could have easily read my memories, but chose against it. In that case…'
"If you are truly looking for a soul heir, I may have someone who would fit your criteria," John stated.
"Oh? If you truly can find me a suitable successor, I will be greatly in your debt. But I doubt you understand how stringent my requirements are...who is this person you speak of?" asked the voice.
John could tell that its monotone voice became slightly excited at the mention of a potential successor, but it hid its excitement extremely well.
"He's my friend." John said..
The voice was silent for some time before John saw a passage in the formation open up directly in front of him.
"You may enter," the voice stated.