Lire couldn't see that ball of Purple Lightning cultivation. All he could do was judge its strength through the power it was showing now. Suddenly, he heard Hiro's voice from behind.
"Lire, I won't intervene as long as it is just you, but don't say that I didn't warn you. Hahaha!"
Those words immediately put Lire on his guard. The last thing that he wanted was to get injured in this place. No one knows what is beyond that barrier, so he has to stay in peak condition for and if it opens.
Lire then snorted and said.
"Whatever, I don't have time to deal with you."
He then turned back and returned to his sect exploration team.
No one from the other teams thought that Lire was afraid. If anything, they believe that he was right in retreating now. They, too, would have done the same thing. This isn't the time to start a battle, especially one that you don't know if you can even win.
The arcs of purple lightning around Krune then disappeared, and he looked at Feifei while sending a Divine Sense message.
"You knew it was going to happen, right?"
Feifei laughed a little and shook her head.
"Before he appeared, I wasn't using my Destiny Core since I didn't feel any danger. Only after he came for you did I check his destiny energy. His cultivation level is on the other side of the Divine Soul Realm, so I could only predict a few seconds in the future. It was only then that I found out that Hiro's bluff was going to happen and work."
Krune sighed and returned his attention to Hiro.
"Well, then. Back to the previous topic. What do you guys plan on doing now?"
Hiro laughed a little and then asked.
"What about you guys introduce yourselves first?"
Only now did Krune remember that they really haven't done that yet.
"Oh, sorry. I'm Jolk."
Tinnian and the others proceeded to introduce themselves as well.
Hiro nodded and then pointed to a specific direction. Krune's group looked there and could see a pillar standing just in front of the barrier. Hiro and everyone else then went there to take a look.
That pillar was quite small, no more than 2 meters high. They could see that there was some kind of seal in front of it. Hiro then turned to everyone and said.
"There is a total of six pillars, including this one. This is probably because there are 6 entrances to the Elemental Path. So each power is holding one of those. Touch the seal, and you will understand why we are waiting for more cultivators and demon beasts."
Tinnian was the first one to do that. Soon, his expression became weird.
"What is it?"
Tinnian sighed and said.
"Check it by yourselves, and you understand as well."
Everyone else then touched it one by one. When it was finally Krune's time, he had to touch it with his core instead. Immediately, several streams of information rushed into his Soul.
"Only when twenty marks of the same type are gathered, shall this path be open."
Krune immediately understood why Tinnian showed a weird expression. The other teams are too far behind, so there will be very little time to explore after they gather enough marks.
"I see, the mark it is talking about is the one we received before entering the Elemental Path, correct? Considering that your exploration team has 7 members in total, we now have a total of 13 members. We still need another 7 to come before we can disable this seal."
Hiro nodded.
"That's why we are waiting here, and it's the same for the other 5 groups. If we just had someone who could use all elemental laws, then we wouldn't need to wait for it. But to find a Divine Soul Realm cultivator or demon beast who can use Laws is already very difficult, let alone all of them. Even I can only use one."
Feifei and Krune looked at each other.
"What do you mean?"
Hiro then drew a seal with spiritual energy on the air and sent it to the Protection Formation. As soon as it touched the barrier, Krune and everyone else noticed several colored lights coming out from it.
Krune immediately said.
"The five elemental Laws."
Hiro looked at Krune, or better, Jolk, surprised.
"You can tell? You really aren't the run of the mill demon beast after all."
Hiro then looked back at the colored lights and continued.
"You are right, those are the five elemental laws. There are several types of each one in it. That's how we determined that this is a Diamond Stars Formation at the very least."
Feifei continued from there.
"Although Golden Stars Formations Master can use Laws in their formations, to use so many Laws would need to be a Diamond Stars at the very least. It is obvious that this formation has quite a few of each of the elements."
Hiro nodded.
"You are indeed a Formations Master. Feier is correct, with this many Laws inside, only a Diamond Stars Formation would be able to control them all."
Hiro then looked at his friend and asked.
"Sassa, can you tell them what you told me?"
Sassa was a 7th Stage Divine Soul Realm cultivator.
"Sure."
He looked at Krune's group and said.
"From what we found, this is the Myriad Elements Protection Formation."
Feifei's eyes immediately lit up.
"Wait, isn't that a Diamond Stars formation from the war era?"
Sassa smiled and nodded.
"You seem to have studied formations a lot as well. That's correct. This is a Formation from the time when the Dalin Universe was being conquered. A way to disable it had long since been found. At that time, the cultivators or demon beasts would need to be at least in the peak of the Semi-Divinity Realm to force their way in. But later, the formations master found out that as long as someone with some control over the laws of each element could also break it."
"Well, 'break' is the wrong way to say it. 'Bypass' would be more correct. With that, we could open a passage on the formation, and then enter it. You only need to allow your five elemental laws to get in synch with the barrier laws, and you can force an entrance to appear for a short time."
Marshine then asked.
"What about getting one person with an elemental sub-law each and joining forces to open the path? Wouldn't it work?"
Feifei was the one to answer that question.
"What they need here is someone who can synch their elemental laws. Those triers would need to understand each other very well and a long time of practice to achieve something like that. But even if we have the necessary elements, the time to learn how to control all together perfectly would definitely be more than the single week we have left."
Sassa then shook his head.
"You can already forget about this possibility. The six powers might not be on good terms, but we at least know that joining hands here would be the best choice. Unfortunately, we don't have enough elemental sub-laws. Hiro can use one of the wind types, while Lire can use an earth one. But the rest of the groups don't have anyone who can use any elemental law at all. We can only use the 20 marks rule if we want to move forward."
It was then that Filio asked.
"So what about those marks? I thought they were just something that your sect created to bring everyone back form the Elemental Realm. But it seems that there is more to this story."
Sassa nodded.
"Indeed, those marks are not something our Elemental Sect created. In fact, the other five powers controlling one entrance each are also the same. To be honest, I don't know much about it either. All that I heard from the elders of the sect is that they found the method to create those marks at the same time they found the entrance."
"From the records available, the Mark Crafting method rushed out of the gate at the same time that the Sect Ancestor found the entrance. We believe that there was some mechanism in place that detected our Ancestor arrival and released the Crafting Method the moment he appeared."
Marshine nodded.
"Well, that is to be expected. How come something you guys created to be used in this place, which is obviously much older than your sect? That would be too great of a coincidence."
While everyone was discussing, Krune approached the barrier behind the Elemental Sect members and his group to take a look.
Sassa then sighed.
"It's unfortunate that this realm only allows Divine Soul Realm and below to enter. Otherwise, we could bring an elder that comprehended some of each of the Five Elemental sub-laws to open a passage to us."
Hiro then laughed and said.
"Well, there is no point thinking about it for now. The chances of a Divine Soul Realm cultivator or demon beast like that to appear is almost zero anyway. Not to mention that controlling his Laws in perfect synch with the Protection Formation ones would need several days of practice. It wouldn't be something that could be accomplished in a day or two. Hahahaha!"
*Swash!*
Suddenly, a tunnel appeared around the Formation, or better, around that ball of purple lightning. Immediately, everyone looked at him with their eyes open wide!
"Oh! That was quite easy."