Qin Ruqing came upon a metal cage with the door wide open, seemingly inviting her in.

However, she hesitated, wondering if it was wise to enter a cage. She hadn’t done anything wrong, had she?

She explored other directions but found only the cage in her surroundings.

Any attempt to move farther was blocked by the darkness.

Darkness blocked her, like a wall. You could say it wasn’t reasonable.

Clearly, the will of the Path of the Marginalized was pushing her into this cage.

Might as well go in. As soon as Qin Ruqing stepped in, the cage door snapped shut with a spring mechanism, like a mouse trap closing.

Then the iron cage began to slowly descend.

After an unknown amount of time, the cage stopped moving, the door opened, and Qin Ruqing hesitantly walked out. She seemed to have arrived in a prison.

Inside the prison was a beast.

The beast looked extremely emaciated, probably because the food provided by the Fifth Family wasn’t good.

Upon sensing a human presence, its yellow-brown eyes opened wide with a frightening vertical slit in them.

In a flash, a black shadow darted out, almost giving Qin Ruqing no time to react.

Qin Ruqing dodged its claw by tilting her head and calmly used a golden chain to trap the beast’s midsection, slamming it hard against the wall.

The beast, resembling a black panther, quickly flipped over and stood up, its front limbs lowered as it growled a threatening warning at Qin Ruqing.

Cat owners know that a cat’s growl is actually a sign of fear; a truly fierce cat would attack directly.

This black panther, realizing Qin Ruqing was formidable from their previous encounter, was now fearful.

Qin Ruqing frowned slightly and quickly subdued the beast.

She didn’t even need to use her major techniques because the beast’s cultivation level was only Foundation Establishment.

This was a stark contrast to her initial high alert.

She didn’t believe the Path of the Marginalized’s difficulty was only this.

With its black fur burned off, the beast now cowered in the corner, completely different from its initial ferocity, looking as meek as a kitten.

Qin Ruqing glanced at the kitten, and the scene began to shift; it seemed she was being teleported out.

Once again, she found herself in a cell with a new beast.

As she fought the beast, Qin Ruqing wondered if this was a prison for demonic beasts run by the Fifth Family.

She recalled seeing the Southern Ridge Director use a bowl-shaped artifact to imprison a demonic beast in the primitive forests of the South.

She had never thought about where the beast went after that.

Could it be that the beasts ended up here?

Moreover, was the Path of the Marginalized, which was supposed to be harder than the Hell Path, really just about fighting demonic beasts?

When she defeated the third Foundation Establishment beast, she noticed something strange.

Given her recovery abilities, she should have found it easy compared to the Foundation Establishment beasts.

But Qin Ruqing realized her spiritual energy was depleting rapidly during the battle.

Just fighting three Foundation Establishment beasts had already consumed more than half of her spiritual energy.

This was completely unscientific. Considering her Dao Physique’s recovery ability and her innate perfection, such a high consumption didn’t make sense.

The truth was confirmed when Qin Ruqing fought the fourth beast.

She deliberately observed the changes in her spiritual energy levels and found that, apart from the energy consumed during the battle, her spiritual energy was also depleting at an additional rate.

Indeed, there was something fishy going on.

Qin Ruqing followed her usual routine and tied the beast in the corner before examining the cell.

The cell was made of gray-green bricks with wall lamps and withered grass. It contained nothing extraordinary.

As she scanned the orange-yellow wall lamp, her eyes suddenly narrowed, and she cast a spell at it.

To her surprise, the spell passed through the lamp and struck the wall behind it.

Something was definitely off!

Qin Ruqing frowned because she had noticed that the lamp had an orange-yellow flame burning inside, yet she couldn’t sense any heat from it.

After realizing something was wrong, she stopped studying the lamp and began to stare at the beast, which was observing her with a mixture of fear and curiosity.

“Strange,” Qin Ruqing muttered to herself. “I can’t touch the lamp, it seems like an illusion.

Maybe it’s just a symbol?

The loss of spiritual energy might be a built-in negative effect of the cell?”

After giving up on the lamp, she focused on the beast.

When dealing with the beasts in the prison, Qin Ruqing made sure not to use lethal force for two reasons:

1. The Fifth House only captured the beasts without killing them, so she couldn’t act as a killer.

2. This trial was named the “Path of the Beasts,” and according to her limited Buddhist knowledge, “beasts” was a euphemism for animals. The name suggested that it was meant to avoid the harsher term “animals.”

Soon, the scene changed, and Qin Ruqing was transported to a new cell.

She sensed the beast’s presence and noticed it was at the Foundation Establishment stage.

It seemed that the beasts’ cultivation level increased gradually with each cell.

She wondered what level of beast she would need to defeat to obtain the Heaven-level token.

Fighting a Foundation Establishment stage beast was not difficult for Qin Ruqing.

Even before her current level of power, she had managed to fight such beasts during the Hundred Clans Conference.

What troubled her more was the negative effect of the cell, as her strong recovery ability had made her unfamiliar with the experience of insufficient spiritual energy.

But today, she experienced it firsthand!

So this is what it feels like to run out of mana as a mage!!

She had her big moves ready, but without mana, she couldn’t execute them, and missed crucial opportunities! Infuriating!

Qin Ruqing also noticed that as the beasts she fought reached the Core Formation stage, the rest time provided by the cell shortened.

If she had been given enough time to recover, her innate recovery abilities could have offset the additional mana drain.

But now, the time was too short! Qin Ruqing barely caught her breath after one beast before being teleported to the next cell.

Even a robot couldn’t withstand this kind of treatment!

Despite her relentless efforts, Qin Ruqing felt utterly exhausted. To maintain her mana, she had to keep her innate perfected state at maximum power.

Fighting while operating at full power, her energy consumption reached terrifying levels.

To describe it precisely, it was like running at full load continuously, with her CPU on the verge of burning out.

After exhausting her mana to near depletion and replenishing it four times, the cell finally didn’t immediately teleport her away.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Qin Ruqing felt dizzy and unsteady on her feet.

Was it finally over?

Qin Ruqing instinctively used the brief respite to speed up her mana recovery, uncertain if the cell would pull any more tricks on her.

To her surprise, the large iron cage reappeared after a long absence. Qin Ruqing took some time to recover, looked at the cage, hesitated, and walked back in.

The cage began to descend in the darkness again, and Qin Ruqing could hear the creaking of the iron chains.

Click, it seemed they had reached another checkpoint.

Entering the cell, Qin Ruqing noticed that the wall lamp had turned bright red.

This time, the beasts in the cell were at the Core Formation stage.

This was a level where Qin Ruqing had to go all out to fight.

Her expression grew serious as she prepared for battle.

One Core Formation beast, then two…

She was injured in the fight with the first beast, and sustained significant injuries during the fight with the second.

By the third beast, she had her throat clamped by the beast’s claws and was slammed against the wall.

She eventually used the Green Lotus Seal to blast the beast away, nearly killing it with a final blow.

And Qin Ruqing was severely injured.

Her blood flowed onto the blue brick floor, which absorbed it, and the wall lamp exploded in a flare, burning even more fiercely.

Wiping the blood from her mouth with her thumb, Qin Ruqing couldn’t help but curse:

“Damn, what kind of fake explosion is this!”

She had figured out that if the descending levels of the iron cage were divided, the previous fights with Foundation Establishment and Core Formation beasts were one layer, with the negative effect being accelerated mana consumption.

Now, fighting Core Formation beasts was another layer, with the negative effect shifting to slower injury recovery and worsening injuries.

When Qin Ruqing first realized this, she thought her Dao Physique’s recovery ability was being restricted.

After being continuously beaten by the beasts, she discovered that while her Dao Physique’s abilities were still intact, her wounds wouldn’t heal, and only got worse.

She then understood: it was like a swimming pool with problems in both inflow and outflow!

If there were two outlets, one for inflow and one for outflow…

Qin Ruqing was facing a difficult situation in the Path of the Beasts trial.

Her blood was almost drained by the floor, leaving her exhausted.

Despite having a strong recovery ability, the negative effects of the cell—such as the restriction on spiritual energy recovery—were still affecting her.

After defeating numerous Foundation Establishment stage beasts, she was about to face even tougher challenges.

The next stage would likely involve beasts at the Core Formation stage.

Qin Ruqing had only previously fought a Core Formation stage beast once, and that was with indirect help.

She wasn’t sure if she could defeat one directly at her current level.

The gap between the levels was significant and couldn’t be bridged solely by talent or skill.

Yet, she had a sense that if she didn’t attempt to defeat a Core Formation stage beast, she wouldn’t achieve a top rating in the trial.

Without a top rating, she might miss out on rewards.

As the iron cage descended into the next level, Qin Ruqing felt a mix of tension and excitement.

She had sensed something strange about the trial from the beginning.

The negative effects she faced seemed to be similar to her own Dao Physique’s characteristics—spiritual and injury recovery restrictions.

This resemblance led her to a bold guess: perhaps the Path of the Beasts was designed to train and develop her Dao body.

Recalling previous trials, like the Hell Path with its ancient crystals causing subtle changes in her Dao Physique’s innate fire, Qin Ruqing wondered if this trial was meant to enhance her Dao Physique.

She wasn’t sure why this was happening, but she focused on one thing: if she could achieve a top rating in the Path of the Beasts, it might elevate her Dao body to a new level.

Her heartbeat quickened with anticipation.

Maybe she wouldn’t need to rush to the higher levels of the Celestial Library for answers.

The answers she sought might be found in the four trials.