Judging from the current leads that he had extrapolated, he had failed the first trial because he had delayed the timing of his grandfather's return to the mountain, and that delay may have resulted in a failure to encounter the Taisui fungus.

This was the most direct outcome. Otherwise, there was no way to explain why he had failed the trial just by refusing to drink the soup.

It was also because of this that his instincts were telling him that there were some hidden circumstances behind the emergence of the Taisui fungus.

There were no clear leads to follow in this trial of inner demons, so he could only extrapolate little by little, making the most of the signs presented to him. Furthermore, he didn't know how many times the trial could be reset, and what consequences would await him if he were to fail it too many times.

He rushed out of the room, and the familiar sight of the village appeared before his eyes.

The barren farms, the dilapidated and uninhabited homes, and the city in the distance beyond the mountain... Everything was so familiar.

This was a true village, one that was different from most of the so-called villages in the 1900s and 2000s. It was virtually completely isolated from the rest of the world, and in order to scale up and down the mountain, there was only one well-trodden path to follow.

It had already...