Alex encountered a few people but usually went in a different direction, so he didn't interact with them. Sometimes, a few of them followed him to steal his talisman, but he simply teleported behind and stole theirs instead before running away.
As he was walking forward, he started noticing slight whiteness on the leaves of the plant making the wall. He went close to it and checked, "Frost?" he said in surprise.
The further he walked, the more snow there was. During intersections, there was usually a patch that had more frosts than the other one. Alex chose that and never encountered any dead ends.
Finally, he came across a small, but frozen land. "So much ice," he said in surprise. Snow was a very rare occurrence for him even in his home that was towards the north. There were a few mountains where it snowed, but they were far from his house.
"What do I do now?" he thought. The moment he moved and stepped into the frozen land, a gust of wind appeared and his face directly. He instinctively closed his eyes and very soon his eyes were shut from the snow.
He forcefully opened his eyes and removed the frost that had got it to shut. He needed to see to walk upfront, but the gust with the snow wasn't helping it.
He took a deep breath and moved his Qi until it enveloped his whole body and moved forward. The gust made ice stick to him, but they simply melted when they touched his hot Yang Qi.
Now, all that remained was for him to have a way to see where he was actually going on. 'Should I do it?" Alex thought. He was already doing it on small scale, but he didn't want to tip any of the staff off just in case.
'Argh, f*ck it,' Alex thought and sent out his Spiritual Sense in a 20 meters area horizontally. He acted like he was using his eyes to see, but really he just used his Spiritual sense.
'There's someone there,' Alex thought and walked towards the person. The man was trying to walk forward in the snow with near 0 visibility. With their Qi, no one had to worry about the snow, but visibility was still a problem.
PING
Suddenly, he heard something and looked back. However, he couldn't see anything. He didn't know what had happened, so he kept moving forward. After a while, another PING sounded.
"What's going on?" the man asked while turning back, but still couldn't see anything. In the end, he turned around and kept on walking.
PING
He heard it once more and wanted to turn around but he was suddenly pulled up and got out of the snowfield.
The staff who pulled him up looked at him and said, " You have been disqualified for losing all of your talismans."
PING PING PING
Alex walked around searching for people to steal their talismans off of. At some point, he stopped.
"What the hell am I doing?" these talismans barely take 10 seconds off and I am wasting a minute for this. He was lost in the allure of the talismans and forgot the main purpose of the competition.
He immediately started walking in the correct direction, when he sensed something.
A talisman was floating through the air a few meters away from him on the right. He walked in that direction and caught the talisman.
'Is this?' he thought and read it.
-50 seconds subtracted from the result-
"Oh, that's nice," Alex thought and kept it before walking towards the front. He finally crossed it and came across another plant maze.
'Is there a pattern? Maze, followed by a difficult place to trek?' Alex thought.
He walked through it once more. He still had no idea how to navigate it properly and came coming across dead ends. 'There must be something. Otherwise, it will all just be a game of luck for the most part,' Alex thought.
Suddenly, he came across a disciple wearing a light blue robe with a cloud pattern on it. He wasn't moving at all and was looking at Alex with a slight smile.
'What is he up to?' Alex thought. Just then, he saw something behind him. He suddenly turned around and slashed his sword behind him.
CLANG
The sword hit the talons of an eagle beast. On its talon was a red talisman stuck to it. 'Smart,' Alex thought. He then immediately rolled away from the bird and disappeared.
"Huh? Where did he— " the man spoke a single word when heard a sound.
PING
He turned around just in time to see Alex catch his talisman and run away. "Stop," he shouted, but Alex wasn't going to listen to him. By the time he got to an intersection, Alex had disappeared in one of the two, and he couldn't find Alex at all.
The Flickering Shadows technique was truly amazing and useful in this competition. He could easily steal the talismans of an unguarded person.
Alex ran into a few dead ends again and finally found his way into another location. He looked at the part in front of him and said, "Swimming pool?"
A large patch of the land in front of him was water. It was still 500 meters long and the distance was also about 100 meters wide.
He could see the various disciple taking part in the competition. They were all flying over the water as expected. That was after all the correct choice.
"But that seems wrong," Alex thought. It couldn't be that the competition holders made such a massive piece of the lake just to have the participants fly over it.
A few other disciples also seem to have the same idea and they jumped inside the lake. Alex too jumped in without hesitation.
During the quicksand part, he had used Fluctuating Friction dance to increase friction and stay above the wetlands, but now, he was using it in the opposite way to reduce friction and easily maneuver in the water.
