Even though the illusion was gone, the entrances to the pockets were still there. All of the Soul Kings standing there looked a little surprised at that, some of them even wrinkling their eyebrows at the sight.

“What a strange pocket this is. Does this mean the entrance will last for a longer time? A pocket that only opens after a set amount of time like this one shouldn’t behave like this....”

The one who spoke was the red-robed elder representative from the Fire School. His aura was blazing wildly so that he looked like a human fireball with his aura intimidating the others. His eyes were glued to the entrances of the pocket as he muttered to himself.

“How truly strange. I’ve never seen a pocket have this many entrances either. It’s almost as if the pocket meant to have multiple people enter it....” The green-robed elder from the Wood School muttered in confusion next to him.

“Who knows how many years this pocket laid undetected.” The elder from the Metal School spoke up. “It’s not implausible to say the Extreme King Pills have been resting here for a thousand years. With how ridiculous the rules of this pocket is, I wonder just what kind of precursor created this pocket. I’d have to wager that someone as strong as a Mid-stage Soul Emperor would have to be responsible for this. Is this the place where he died then? If he’s dead, then...”

He didn’t finish talking, but the other two elders with him knew what he meant.

If there really was the body of a deceased Soul Emperor in there, then the Extreme King Pills would only be the tip of the iceberg in terms of treasure....

It was a guess no one really had the answer to though. If this pocket really did belong to a Soul Emperor, then how could anyone be so easily allowed in? Besides, no Soul King was even able to enter the pocket, so that made this theory a little less plausible.

The elder from the Wood School sighed. “It’s useless guessing about anything with these restrictions in place. We can’t even go in, so we can only hope one of our youngsters will be able to get the prize....”

The other two nodded. “Now that the pocket is open, we shouldn’t have to dwell about these things. But the longer we wait, the more annoying this will become. Those factions who haven’t yet arrived will soon be here, and that only means more competitors for the Extreme King Pills. There aren’t enough pills for everyone, so a battle will surely break out. Once it does, the safety of our younger ones will be hard to guarantee....”

The elder from the Metal School nodded in agreement. “I agree, but nothing can be done about it. It’s not as if we can’t stop the others from going into the pocket, can we?”

His question was more of a joke than a question. Combined, the three of them might be able to push back one or two factions without trouble, but that would be an egregious act, one that would paint them out to be immoral characters. Neither would they care to do such a thing anyways.

......

Aside from those three, the other Soul Kings were gathered in either groups of three, two, or by themselves. They couldn’t enter the pocket or know what was going on, so the only thing they could do was wait outside.

The Soul King from the Hengyang School stood alone next to a tree, his eyes shining with a calculative light. Of all the Soul Kings, he was the one most unnerved by the current situation.

No one knew what had happened really when he touched the pocket and tried to gain entry, and the events that transpired in that moment brought not small amount of vexation to the Soul King.

He withdrew from the barrier almost instantly when he tried to enter, everyone saw that. It wasn’t because of the pocket starting to show signs of instability that he did it though....

In reality, the reason why he left so quickly was because of the repelling force from within!

It was as if the pocket was actively trying to force him out!

He even felt something like the aura of a person furious at him before he was ‘pushed’ out!

“Impossible.....all investigations indicated that this pocket was sealed for a thousand years, how can this be....”

A guess was already formulating in his mind. This guess was a chilling one and his eyes reflected his sentiments with a look of dread and terror.

“I have to be wrong. Those people stronger than me can be found anywhere. The Beast Taming School came into this pocket earlier and felt nothing, I have to be wrong....”

The ‘outside world’ was looking calm, but what about inside the pocket where every single prodigy was?

............

Bai Yunfei felt stifled the moment he crossed over into the barrier. It wasn’t too different than the feeling he got after he crossed the barrier that protected the Underworld School, but this one was far more noticeable in its effects. Everything was a pure white light in front of him, and it felt like all five of his senses, six including his soulsense, had shorted out. But they came back to him after a moment.

“Clack....”

Hearing the sound of something solid beneath his feet, Bai Yunfei looked down to see a boulder about the size of a dinner table. He had entered the pocket through the air, but somehow, he was now standing at the ground level almost.

The very first thing Bai Yunfei did afterwards was call out his Cataclysmic Seal and adopt a defensive position to scan the vicinity.

Wind blew through the area, blowing parts of his uncut bangs over his eyes.

All was clear.

Verifying that there was no danger around, Bai Yunfei let out a sigh of relief and looked ahead to the mountain in front of him. “Mingfeng, why do I feel like this pla—”

Already turning to Jing Mingfeng as he spoke, Bai Yunfei came to an abrupt stop when he realized something.

He was alone.

Jing Mingfeng had entered with him through the pocket, but now he was nowhere to be found!

He got over the shock soon enough to think about what might’ve happened. “The entrance....how strange. It splits us apart even if we enter through the same entrance at the same time. Is....is that why Lin Dongxiao was all by himself....?”

He was one of the people that saw Lin Dongxiao running by himself earlier and thought it was strange to see since he had entered with three other people. But now he knew the reason. He didn’t know why exactly, but the pocket was forcibly separating everyone so they would have to be by themselves.

“But....what’s the point of splitting everyone up? There’s no one within a kilometer of each other.....what is this pocket trying to do?”

Bai Yunfei looked up to the skies. It was a blue sky with a few white clouds, but he didn’t see the sun here. This was very clearly not the real sky and just a ‘fake’ rendition of it from within the pocket. Staring at it for two seconds longer, Bai Yunfei took off into the skies to check the ground from there.

But after he leapt, Bai Yunfei nearly stumbled back face-first into the ground—he wasn’t able to Skywalk into the sky!

Skywalking meant the formation of elemental energy to act as a temporary platform for the feet to either kick off or stand upon. By Skywalking, Soul Exalts could ascend into the sky!

Steadying himself so he didn’t fall, Bai Yunfei’s eyes were wide open now. “What’s going on now?!”

He raised his right hand and circulated his soulforce to it. There was a bang as a fireball appeared in his hand. No problems there.

Bai Yunfei vanished the fireball and scratched his head.

He tried to leap into the skies again.

It was a fruitless endeavor that resulted in the exact same result as his first attempt. Hew flew a good few dozen meters into the air before his legs tried to kick off against the sky again—only to fall back down.

Elemental fire had indeed formed underneath his feet, but it hadn’t condensed to form solid enough ground for him to leap on. For all good this was, it meant his feet were basically just burning elemental fire.

“We can’t Skywalk in here then?!” Bai Yunfei concluded after his second attempt. “There’s even a ‘restriction’ like that?!”

This situation was something Bai Yunfei knew to be special to pockets in general. ‘Restrictions’!

A spatial pocket in the simplest sense of the word is a separated bubble of space that exists outside normal space. The most basic ones came in the form of space-type soul armaments and could only store dead objects inside its otherwise small area. More advanced pockets of space had generally very few differences between them and reality and allowed people to go into them. Strong enough factions had one or two of such pockets to store their more peculiar things in there.

There were also very special types of pockets a few of the even stronger soul cultivators had where they could stay and train in without disturbance. These pockets are bigger than their weaker counterparts and would normally replicate the outside landscape such as the mountains, trees, and water. In a way, the pocket ‘copied’ what was outside into the inside so as to make it very hard to discover. These types of pockets would not allow entry from anyone else without the master of it saying otherwise.

And lastly, there were a few very special pockets that had its own ‘rules’. ‘Restrictions’ that it could impose, such as not being able to burn anything inside, having a stronger force of gravity than outside, etc. But of course, these types of pockets were extremely rare.

And if Bai Yunfei’s guess was right, then this pocket he was in was very much one of those very rare pockets!

He couldn’t Skywalk in here!

Bai Yunfei hadn’t the strength to unravel or even explain the restriction in this place. Giving up on trying to experiment with it, he looked around the place to see if there was anything else.

To come across such an annoying problem right off the bat was a bit vexing, and it made Bai Yunfei worried on what other problems he’d run into in here....