After they cleaned up all the beasts, Lin Fan and Angela turned to each other and they both said, "I won."
Once this was said, both of them knit their brows as they stared at each other.
Lin Fan was the first to speak as he said, "I won, I took care of two hundred and fifty one of them."
Angela gave a soft snort as she said, "I'm pretty sure you miscounted. The last two were mine, I'm the one who took care of two hundred and fifty one of them."
Lin Fan didn't back down as he said, "Your blades didn't kill them, my final swing was the one that finished the job."
Angela didn't give up as she walked over to the last beast and picked it up. She pointed at the cut at its chest and said, "Look at that, my wind blade was the one that cut through its heart, so it died to my attack. All you did was cut a corpse."
Lin Fan pointed at the head with his sword, "No, it was still alive with its cut heart. You can tell that it was slowly regenerating already. It only died because I cut off its head."
Neither of them would back down in the end, so Lin Fan turned to the three young geniuses and said, "Who do you guys think won?"
But there was no response that came from them.
Rocky had already released its shield, so the three of them were just standing there in a daze.
There had been five hundred beasts in front of them, a situation that had looked completely desperate, but ten minutes later, they were all gone. They still couldn't comprehend what had just happened, but somehow all the danger had disappeared with a blink of their eyes.
If there weren't all these corpses that were lying around them, they wouldn't have dared to believe their eyes.
Of course, not a single one of them dared to make a move towards those corpses. With how strong Lin Fan and Angela were, if they were to make a move towards their loot which was a sign of disrespect among experts, who knew what would have happened to them.
Lin Fan and Angela saw that they didn't get a response out of them, so in the end, Lin Fan decided to be the bigger man and drop this subject.
Lin Fan said, "Alright, let's not argue about this and call it a draw then. We don't have time for this."
Angela gave a soft snort, but she didn't argue with him since she knew he was right.
They had taken quite a bit of time with the first stage and they didn't know how many stages were still left in front of them.
They had saved some time by clearing out this stage so quickly, but that didn't mean that they had much time to spare. Especially since they didn't know how long it took to travel between stages.
Still, they quickly picked up a few things that they earned.
Lin Fan picked up all cores and corpses of the peak Platinum Realm beasts. These cores contained the power of the laws these Platinum Realm beasts had and Lin Fan could absorb them with his power.
Beast cores normally weren't used by humans for cultivation because the power contained within them were too wild for humans to absorb. There were only a few people who could absorb them, normally it would be too hard to control the energy that was absorbed.
Most beast cores were either used to help one's pet evolve or they were used to craft artifacts. Beyond that, there weren't many uses for them, so they didn't have much value.
But these were a hundred peak Platinum Realm beast cores, so they were still worth quite a bit.
Lin Fan was the exception to the rule and he could absorb the laws contained within them. However, they weren't full Legendary Realm laws, so they wouldn't be able to create a full law totem inside him. Still, it was better to have an incomplete totem than to have nothing.
As for the rest of the corpses, Lin Fan wasn't interested in them at all since he couldn't use them at all. The laws contained in anything under the peak Platinum Realm were just too weak that he couldn't form any totem from them at all. So there was no need for him to waste time picking them up.
But that didn't mean the three geniuses didn't want them.
After a bit of hesitation, Yue Jin asked Lin Fan, "Brother Lin, can we take some of the Platinum Realm beasts corpses back with us?"
Lin Fan didn't even bother looking at him since he was busy collecting the peak Platinum Realm beast corpses, he just waved his hand at them to let them do what they wanted.
It took all of them five minutes to finish collecting everything.
In the end, the three young geniuses split the hundred mid Platinum Realm corpses evenly, with each of them taking a third of it. The final mid Platinum Realm beast corpse went to the winner of rock paper scissors, which turned out to be the short haired girl.
Lin Fan quickly collected all hundred peak Platinum Realm beast corpses in the time it took the three of them to collect the thirty three corpses each since he had Rocky's help. Rocky lifted the rocks under those corpses and gathered them all in front of Lin Fan, allowing him to quickly put it in his storage.
Once they were done, they immediately headed across the bridge to the other cliff that had appeared after the last beast had been slain. There was another passage that was waiting for them on the other side.
They quickly traveled down the passage, but this time it took them over an hour just to reach the next stage.
There were various different twists and turns, with various choices that led to dead ends. Even though Lin Fan had Brainy which he used to find all those dead ends to avoid, it still took them over an hour to reach the third stage.
They had spent three hours already, there were only nine hours left before their deadline.
The moment they arrived at the third stage, they were once again surprised by what awaited them.
The room that they walked into was a room that seemed exquisitely made, but there was only a single thing in the room.
In the center of the room, there was a giant mirror that was twice their height. This mirror wasn't the finest looking mirror, but its surface was incomparably clear.
At the very bottom of the mirror, there was a sheet of paper that was attached to it.
All five of them walked forward to stand in front of the mirror and they looked down to see what the sheet of paper read.
"Look into the mirror and face your fears to clear this stage."
Those were the only words on the sheet of paper, there was nothing else written for them.
None of them could understand what this meant and Yue Jin thought that this was just a trick as he said, "What is going on here? At least the rest of the stages made sense, but what is this?"
Lin Fan said, "Don't let your guard down, there might be more to this than meets the eye."
But Yue Jin felt like he was being played with and his pride couldn't take this. He came forward to stand right in front of the mirror and while walking, he said, "I don't believe that there is anything special about this mir…"
But before he could finish, he had looked into the mirror and his eyes suddenly opened wide as he said, "You!"
After saying this, Yue Jin's eyes glazed over and he just stood in front of the mirror in the daze.
It was clear that something was wrong, so Yue Yin came over to shake her brother's arm, but her eyes also turned to the mirror. Just like with Yue Jin, her eyes also opened wide and she shouted, "No!"
And then just like with Yue Jin, her eyes had also glazed over.
The short haired girl had followed since she didn't believe there was anything special about the mirror and she too looked in.
She didn't say anything, but with the way she took a gasp, it was clear that she too had fallen under its influence.
Looking at the three who were standing there in a daze and based on their reactions, Lin Fan and Angela could quickly tell what the situation was. This was a mirror that reflected the trauma of the one who looked into it and that was what the note had meant. They had to face the trauma that was reflected and only by getting past it could they make it through this stage.
Lin Fan released Rocky and Brainy to stand on guard just in case before walking over to the mirror with Angela.
With a shared look between them, they both nodded before looking into the mirror.
Lin Fan heard a soft whisper beside him that said, "Mother…".
But before he could even react to it, the mirror suddenly released a flash of light in front of him.
When that flash of light had disappeared, there was another world that had appeared in front of him.
Gone was the room with the mirror, gone were the three young geniuses, and gone was Angela.
What appeared in front of him was a street that was filled with people and skyscrapers, this was a world that was filled with cars and pollution.
When he opened his eyes again, Lin Fan had found himself back on earth.