Gu Zhi rushed at the spell caster as fast as he could once he dropped off his wife. They didn't need to exchange words in the heat of battle trust got you farther then plans.
Gu Zhi full on sprinted, as a body cultivator his speed was no joke as he rapidly closed the distance. His opponent didn't sit still... or rather he did sit still and began casting a new spell. Right when Gu Zhi was about to reach the man, he stopped casting and placed both of his hands to the ground.
The earth beneath Gu Zhi rapidly shot up as it seemed the mans plan was to shoot him up in the air and make him take devesting damage from the fall.
Gu Zhi already knew he won once he realized the man's plan. He fell on purpose, before the earth could shoot up any higher he leaped from it voluntarily.
Using the moment of the fall Gu Zhi breached the distance and used a devastating kick with gravity and momentum on his side.
The last thing the man saw was a foot, as the kick was so violent it turned his head into meat paste splattered on the floor.
-----
Gu Xiao immediately went to fight the poison user when she was brought to the surface. Seeing the location that the person was in, she immediately started to cast one of her offensive spells.
The biggest problem with spells was that they required time. With the location that she was in however the poison user wouldn't be able to get to her in a short amount of time. Meaning now was the perfect time to cast a spell.
Gu Xiao slowly started to cast an incantation as she gathered her qi and flowed it through her body in a precise way.
When she was done the poison user had climbed out of the ravine and quickly threw some projectiles her way.
It didn't matter to her the battle was already over, she ducked and placed her hands to the ground just like the earth mage had done before her. With her spell however solid tree roots shot out of the ground binding her opponent in its grasp.
With the strength and durability that those thick tree roots had the battle was already over. She had incapacitated her opponent while Gu Zhi had killed his.
They quickly regrouped to set a new plan.
"What should we do with her?" Gu Zhi asked.
"That's easy we torture her for information, maybe we could get something useful out of her" Gu Xiao replied.
"Like what?".
"Like who they've killed, who they are, how have they survived this long, any relevant information that could potentially help us".
"Alright let's do it".
They walked up to the poison user, only to find her already dead. They found out pretty quick that she had committed suicide by poisoning herself.
"Well we wouldn't have let her live anyway" Gu Zhi said.
Not wasting anytime they quickly searched their bodies for anything useful. They found leather water skins half full. Various weapons and obviously local made poison.
"Check the water skins for poison, given these local poisons they shouldn't have had access to any poisons with no taste or smell. Even if they did they would be sure to carry the antidote on themselves to not risk accidental suicide" Gu Zhi stated.
Gu Xiao brought a water skin to her nose and took a sniff, smelling nothing she poured the smallest droplet on her tongue. Tasting nothing she said "it's clean, I smell no scents from the water and it tastes fine",
"Good check the other one and well take their supplies".
They then searched their bodies for anything useful, they found: dried meat, poison needles, clothes, homemade poison, and nothing else.
"Time to eat" Gu Zhi said as he brought the bodies towards a tree.
They repeated the process as they had more fruit to munch on, with even some dried meat.
"They should have killed a wild animal to acquire this meat and leather" Gu Xiao said.
"That means their are wild animals here to hunt".
"Un".
The biggest difficulty in this trial was resource expenditure. Could they stretch their resources to be able to make it to the palace in time. That was what this trial was all about. Could the contestants be able to have enough food, water, and will to make it to the end. For Gu Xiao and Gu Zhi the answer was most certainly yes. As long as they managed their water, food wasn't a problem. With Gu Xiao's ability to produce food with her wood element, their focus was mostly on potential enemies. People would attack them not just to reduce future competition but also so that they can steal their resources, finding food and water in this rather barren and rough forest wasn't easy. But what was easy, was to bait enemies into thinking your an easy target. With an ambush like this, they counter attacked and manage to refill a lot of their resources.
All they needed to do to pass these trial was to look oblivious and head north. Their competitors with their pride and arrogance would hand over their heads on a plater to them.
After two months of traveling north however, they did not expect that the amount of people attacking them dropped considerably. Perhaps due to a culling in numbers, a lack of couples making it this far, or due to the size of this world they didn't encounter any more couples.
They had to conserve water, saving it and replenishing it when they could, as for food they used whatever little nutrients the soil and environment had to boost the growth of fruit on trees using a spell from Gu Xiao.
It wasn't until a little over one month later that they noticed something strange in the distance.