We continued to push ahead and had already crossed two-thirds of the mountain.
The others were still stuck at the first third.
Now the arrays were getting harder, and some symbols were completely unfamiliar.
Gu Chaun stared at them for a while. "These are Level 2 symbols," he said quietly.
Half of the array was still Level 1, but the rest had already changed.
We decided to analyze the lower ones first, hoping they would give us a clue about the higher ones.
Hours passed as we compared and guessed, but nothing worked.
The Level 1 symbols had no relation to the Level 2 ones.
Gu Chaun frowned. "No connection," he muttered. "Then maybe…"
He stopped thinking, took a deep breath, and suddenly pressed a few random symbols.
The array shone brightly—then broke apart.
It worked.
Feng Xinyi froze, but Gu Chaun didn't seem surprised for long.
He kept trying again, pressing different random symbols each time.
Every time, the arrays broke.
Narrator: "At this point, Gu Chaun has discovered something big, but he still doesn't realize it. It's one of the five core points. I wonder if readers can see it."
We copied the same random pattern again and again.
It shouldn't have helped our path, but for some reason, both mine and Feng Xinyi's paths improved rapidly.
Maybe it was the randomness—or maybe not.
We kept moving forward and finally reached the top of the mountain.
A stone door stood there, filled with faded symbols.
It looked like the end of this level.
Gu Chaun looked down. Two groups were climbing fast—Long Wei's group and Feng Lian's.
He recognized Feng Lian immediately, the heir of the Feng Clan.
His group was the strongest, so seeing him close behind wasn't a surprise.
But Long Wei's group was different.
They had no array master among them.
Knowing the basics wasn't enough to qualify as one.
Without a personal path of arrays, no amount of memorized symbols would help.
Still, they were almost as fast as Feng Lian's group.
Gu Chaun looked closer to see who was breaking their arrays.
When he saw it, he smiled faintly.
It was Gu Xue.
"It seems she's recovered more of her memories," he said to himself.
She worked fast, her movements natural and steady.
It was clear she had regained a part of her old understanding.
Gu Chaun turned back toward the door. "We should go. If we wait too long, we'll lose the lead."
He placed his hand on the symbols, and the stone door opened slowly.
A calm voice echoed through the mountain.
"Cultivator Gu Chaun and his partner Feng Xinyi are the first to complete the main task of the second level."
The mountain trembled slightly.
Light flowed down the path they had taken, showing the trail from bottom to top.
Feng Xinyi stood beside him quietly.
She hadn't spoken much during the climb, only watching how Gu Chaun handled each array.
There was calmness in her eyes, and something close to admiration.
Gu Chaun didn't say anything.
He only looked at the fading symbols and took a quiet breath before stepping through the door.
The mist behind them began to clear, and their figures disappeared into the next level.