The airship reached the small world that would serve as the Heavenly Battlefield two days later. As expected, the Martial Body Sect and the Myriad Phenomenon Sect were already there waiting for them.
This time, he didn’t look at their floating mat. He was among the many people who weren’t interested in the fact that a flat mat could fly and carry more than a hundred people on it.
But the fact that he didn’t look didn’t mean that no one would look. The forgers who were seeing this kind of thing for the first time were interested in it and stared at the floating mat for a while.
This initiated the ridicule of the Four Directions Sect by the disciples of the Myriad Phenomenon Sect. It went on and on for a long time before someone on the airship decided that they had had enough and began to mock the Myriad Phenomenon Sect, too.
So even though Loki hadn’t asked how the Forging Pathway was stolen, the two sects still engaged in an exchange of insults and barbed words. The only difference was that the argument was short since no one brought up how the Forging Pathway was stolen.
No one brought up that sore spot, so the people of the Myriad Phenomenon Sect didn’t behave like cats whose tails were stepped on. They still defended their sect, but they didn’t take it as seriously as they did in the last timeline.
After a while, the Sword Way Sect arrived with their white-robed and red-robed cultivators. Then the Nexus of Truth Sect arrived last with their three-eyed freaks and their cloaked counterparts whose figures couldn’t be seen at all.
Two hours later, the five divine beings arrived. This marked the official start of the Heavenly Battlefield. Everyone was finally allowed to enter the small world.
When Loki appeared in the small world, he found himself in a completely different place. In the previous timeline, he had appeared in a mountainous area. But now, he was in a large grassy plain with no trees in sight and nowhere to hide.
He looked around for a while and quickly spotted the manifestations of the three rank 5 cultivators of his sect. This time, he was closer to the golden cloud made of coins.
The golden cloud was even closer than the giant black hammer was in the previous timeline. So it would take him less than an hour to reach it.
But he only sneered and said, "Forget it. I’m not taking the risk."
Then he began digging into the ground. He transformed the Shifting Armor into a pickaxe, which he used to break the soil, and a shovel, which he used to dig the soil up.
As he worked to dig up a large hole, he said to himself, "It is a good thing that this area is not mountainous, or I wouldn’t be able to dig it so easily. I especially won’t be able to dig it silently like this."
"Then again, if I were in the mountains with caves and trees around me, I wouldn’t need to dig the ground to find somewhere to hide. So maybe it isn’t a good thing that I didn’t appear in the mountains."
The ground was truly easy for him to dig. If he were an ordinary man, the work of digging would have been strenuous for him. But he is not an ordinary man. He is a rank 4 cultivator capable of destroying a continent with enough time and dedication.
He can break a continent into pieces if he so wishes. So digging a hole in this ground is like scooping up butter to create space within it. The work was effortless.
After he dug a large hole with the same dimensions as one for burying a coffin, but deeper. He lay in it before using tentacles grown from his hands to pour the excavated soil back into the hole in the ground and over him.
So he buried himself in the ground. He didn’t look like he was preparing to join the fight at all. His actions resembled those of the soldiers who were told to hide in the ground to avoid a disease.
To be fair, he is also hiding in the ground to avoid something. He doesn’t want to encounter any rank 5 cultivator, which is why he buried himself. But he very much intends to fight and earn merit points.
He just doesn’t plan to rely on the normal way he fights. This time, he plans to behave like a true Mind Hunter.
After lying down, he closed his eyes and activated the Mind Network Metac. This Metac caused the minds of every sentient creature around him to light up in the darkness.
Every creature with a substantial mind, from that of a human to that of a rat, appeared in the darkness as a white light. The size of their mind dictated the size of the white light, and the more active the mind, the brighter it shone in the darkness.
So the larger and brighter a ball of light is, the more powerful the mind it represents will be. This is all he can tell about a mind right now. He can’t tell what the mind belongs to or how the owner of the Mind appears.
But this is all he needs anyway. So he carried on with his plan.
Since the Mind Network has shown him the minds of the things around him, the next thing to do is use the Mind Network Metac to link up with a mind.
So he chose the largest mind that he could find in the darkness. Then he made the Mind Network Metac try to establish a link with that mind. This caused a thin line to extend from his mind towards the large, bright light in the distance.
Not every mind in this small world was shown to him. Only the minds within the power of the ability could be seen.