The Horn Gate in the Seven Sound Gate is located at a 130-degree angle on the fifth floor of Qingyang City, this layer is relatively special compared to other layers, and it used to be inhabited by merchants of the Demon Spirit Clan, which is equivalent to the commercial street in this city.

Most of the houses that used to live on the fifth floor had a three- to five-storey building facing the street as a shop, and behind the shop was a courtyard and a residence, but now it is empty.

After Ouyang Xiaoleng used his spherical compass to determine the direction of preparation, he walked along the shopping street and found a six-story shop in the approximate location. From the outside, the shop looked taller and more spacious than the shops on either side, but even that couldn't stop a towering tree in the hospital. The dense foliage stretched out from the courtyard to the sky, as if to greet the people outside.

There is a plaque hanging on the door of the store, with the words "green sac" written on it, Ouyang Xiaoleng remembered that in the Qin and Han dynasties in the human world, there was a master surnamed Huang Shigong, who had written a book about the feng shui of heaven and earth called "The Qing Capsule Sutra", I don't know what this green capsule has to do with that book.

The store's hidden door creaks and opens with a slight pull, and directly across from it is a long counter with a row of shelves behind it that reads "Know the Way of Heaven and Earth."

Ouyang Xiaoleng recalled that he had seen such a sentence somewhere, similar to if you want to understand the Qing Capsule Sutra, you must know the way of heaven and earth, and thought that the former owner of this store was really interesting. On each side there is a staircase that extends to the second floor, and the door to the courtyard at the back is hidden under the staircase on the right.

For some reason, his heart was always drawn to the tree that he had seen outside the shop, so he didn't go up the stairs but went straight to the courtyard.

When he was under the tree, he realized that its huge umbrella-like trunk and crown looked so familiar, and he thought that he must have seen a tree similar to it somewhere, but he couldn't remember it for a while. After carefully recalling it for a while, it suddenly dawned on me that this tree was the same as the tree of life in the Demon Horse Forest, or that it was a pocket-sized version of the tree of life.

He gently rested his hand on the trunk of the uncle in front of him, feeling his heart and the will of the tree gradually merge. Sure enough, his consciousness was taken to the Demon Horse Forest, through the babbling streams and lush plains, to the real tree of life, where sat an old man, and in front of the old man there was a game of chess.

The crane-haired old man, dressed in a green coarse cloth robe, stared at the chessboard in a daze while twisting his beard with his hands, and sighed from time to time, as if he was stumped by the chess game in front of him.

Ouyang Xiaoleng walked through the demon horses resting around the Tree of Life and walked to the opposite side of the old man, and when the old man looked up and saw that it was him, as if he had known him for a long time, he raised his hand and motioned for him to go to the chair opposite. He also sat down as he intended, and then looked carefully at the game in front of him, only to find that it was not an endgame at all, but more like a gossip formation in Othello.

The old man raised his head and pointed to the chessboard and asked him, "What do you think of this game?" ”

"First of all, it's not a chess game, if I'm guessing correctly, it's supposed to be some kind of formation?" Ouyang Xiaoleng said his thoughts bluntly.

The old man nodded and continued to ask, "Then what do you think should be done next?" ”

This stumped Ouyang Xiaoleng, he recalled that he had just seen the word green sac on the plaque outside the store, the "Green Capsule Sutra" is a number to reflect the mysteries between heaven and earth, and it follows the same principle as the "river map", that is, ten natural number sequences, arranged in two rows, to form five different number sequences, one six, twenty-seven, three eight, four nine, fifty. That is, yin and yang are matched, male and female intersect, a lifetime of one, constituting five trillion, and there are water, fire, wood, gold and earth, spring, summer, autumn and winter, day by day, month by month, running endlessly.

He tried to make up the black and white chess pieces on the chessboard according to this principle, and the old man couldn't stop nodding after looking at it, and there were words in his mouth: "One six water, two seven fire, three or eight wood, four or nine alloys, fifty earth, wonderful!" Wonderful! ”

Ouyang Xiaoleng saw that he was satisfied with his position and wanted to ask him about the horn gate, but just as he was about to speak, the old man asked another question.

"What do you think you can do to gather all the demon horses in this demon horse forest in front of me in an instant?"

Ouyang Xiaoleng looked around, the demon horses in front of him were either resting with one leg bent slightly, or they were leisurely gnawing on the tender grass on the ground, it was quite difficult to let them focus all their attention on themselves, not to mention that there were many demon horses in other places in the forest.

After thinking about it, he suddenly remembered that maybe there was a way to work, the tree of life around him was also called the brain of the entire demon horse forest, and every demon horse here was also under its control, if he tried to harm this tree, then would it gather all the demon horses to protect itself in a hurry? Thinking of this, he got up and summoned the Divine Ice, and swung his sword to slash at the Tree of Life.

"Slowly, slowly!" The old man hurriedly stopped him, and when he saw that he had finally withdrawn his hand, he continued while wiping the sweat from his forehead, "You young man is so reckless! If this tree of life dies, all the demon horses here will get out of control, and if you want to summon your unicorn in the future, I'm afraid you won't be able to summon it! ”

Ouyang Xiaoleng was stunned for a moment when he heard that he could actually say the name of his demon horse contractor, but he quickly realized who the old man in front of him was, and asked directly, "You are the Tree of Life, right?" ”

The old man did not answer his question, but looked up at the big tree beside him, and then said: "The first question is a test of your ability to observe, and you only remembered it when you saw the green sac in the store, and you also thought of the river map, which shows that you are indeed insightful and knowledgeable; The second question not only tests your reflexes, but also tests your courage, and you have successfully passed both of these problems, and then there is the last question. ”

Seeing that he paused when he said this, Ouyang Xiaoleng asked anxiously, "What is it?" ”

"I'm tired of standing here all day long, I want to have a game with you, do you say?" As he spoke, the old man got up from his chair and clapped his hands, and in the blink of an eye a moderately sized maroon horse came to the wind, barking in front of them and stopping.

Ouyang Xiaoleng thought to himself: This old man is really interesting, he still has to race horses with me at this age, obviously he is not self-sufficient, so he said: "Old man, if you and I lose this comparison, don't say that I bullied you!" ”

"Haha, a competition is a competition, but according to my rules, I can let you try it first!" The old man said with a smile on his face, and it seemed that he was confident about this game.

"Okay, it's a deal!" Ouyang Xiaoleng was bent on completing his test quickly to open the gate of the horn, so he didn't say anything more, and listened to what kind of bizarre rules this old man would say.

"First, you can't ride your unicorn in the competition, but ride a demon horse that I have chosen for you; Second, we compare not only speed, but also the ability to overcome obstacles while traveling. Third, if you win, I will guide you in the way to open the gates of the horns, and if I win, you will abandon your previous plan and leave Qingyang to return to your royal city. The old man put away his smile and said the three rules one by one.

Ouyang Xiaoleng felt that it was reasonable after hearing this, so he didn't raise any objections, but agreed to the rules he said. The old man clapped his hands twice more when he saw the situation, and a jujube-colored demon horse with white flowers ran over like a wind, and it rampaged all the way among the other demon horses, and rolled up the sand with the wind whirl, and when it ran to them, it almost did not stop the brake and overturned the table with the chessboard, and even after it stopped, it kept kicking the ground with the horse's hooves, and its nose was constantly bubbling roughly.

"You just ride this horse! Try to get acquainted with it first! The old man said with a little old naughty prank on his face.

Ouyang Xiaoleng walked up to the demon horse, intending to reach out and touch its forehead, but as soon as he approached, the frequency of rough breath in its nostrils became more rapid, and it kept stepping on the ground to warn him.

He let out a reassuring sound of hush, and after a few tries he reluctantly put his hand on its forehead, but the horse was still obviously resisting, and he turned back to the old man and asked, "What is its name?" ”

"It doesn't have a name yet, because it's so wild and untamable, so there hasn't been a contractor, and even I can't control it, so I can only pat it on the forehead. It took me a long time to do this, and you did the same thing so quickly, and it seems that there is a real hope that you will be able to tame it this time. After the old man finished speaking, he walked to the chestnut demon horse that came first, and one of them flew over on the horse's back, and then bowed his head and said to him, "Try to see if you can get on the horse!" ”

Ouyang Xiaoleng thought to himself and knew that he would not let himself win so easily, but he didn't expect to come up with such a ghost idea, not to mention the demon horse in front of him that had never been tamed by anyone, even if an unfamiliar person wanted to control the demon horse to cross various obstacles, it was an impossible task for the two to climb to the sky, this old man obviously didn't want him to open the horn gate and deliberately embarrassed him, right?!

But since he himself promised to have this game with the old man, he couldn't complain, so he had to continue to comfort the demon horse in front of him, and kept stroking its forehead and said, "Don't be afraid, I'm going to ride on your back now!" ”

He flew lightly onto the horse's back, and at first the tall horse under him was stunned for a moment, and soon it began to ramble around like crazy, trying to throw him down, but he had to hold on to the horse's mane and let it shake itself like grass in the wind!

"Don't you think you're having an advantage at this point, are you?" The old man's voice echoed in his already dizzy brain.

He controlled his body as low as he could, looking back and forth to find balance, and calculating the right moment to tighten his horse's mane and slow down, even if his body was exhausted by its toss, he would never give up, and finally the demon horse under him began to slow down slowly and finally stopped, it no longer resisted him riding on his back like that, although it still tensed from time to time.

The old man nodded with satisfaction and said, "Okay, I'm not mistaken, you really have the talent of horse taming!" Follow me now! ”

Ouyang Xiaoleng controlled the demon horse to follow the old man to the open field, where obstacles had been set up at some point, although the original wild demon horse had become relatively docile at this time, it was still unknown whether it would pass through these obstacles smoothly according to its own will.

The first obstacle is a large serpentine uphill climb, which not only tests the endurance of the demon horse, but also tests the rider's ability to control it, and the slightest mistake will rush out of the slope; The second obstacle is a set of high, dense fences, which mainly test the rider's ability to control the demon horse's continuous jumps; The third obstacle is a blazing gravel road, which tests whether the demon horse can take risks in order to complete the rider's task.

Ouyang Xiaoleng and the old man rode their respective demon horses and stood at the same starting point, and many demon horses came around them one after another, they stood aside like spectators, and these night elves were also curious about what this young man could train this unique companion to be.