Immortality: Grinding Experience Starting as a Paper Craftsman

Chapter 137 Closing the Door to Beat the Dog, The Mystery of Paper Town

Zhao Hai's vision blurred.

As things gradually became clearer, he realized that the hard bluestone pavement beneath his feet had turned into an endless expanse of pale white paper.

Looking up, the sky was gray and gloomy, and huge red paper lanterns hung high in the four corners, casting a thick, blood-like glow.

The surroundings were eerily quiet; there was no sound of wind or insects. If you listened carefully, you could even hear the rise and fall of a heartbeat.

"Senior brother, what kind of place is this?!"

A disciple of the Flowing Cloud Sect gripped his longsword tightly, his voice trembling uncontrollably.

Zhao Hai took a deep breath, suppressing the panic in his heart.

He looked around and found that this blank wasteland was densely packed with paper figures the size of a palm.

These paper figures were crudely cut, their faces painted with pale powder, and their lips drawn bright red. They were all staring at them with their pupil-less eyes.

"It's just an illusion. The eruption of the earth's veins in Changning County has triggered an ancient, buried array. Don't panic!"

Zhao Hai shouted sternly, trying to calm the troops.

He drew the top-grade jade sword from his waist and poured his mid-Foundation Establishment spiritual power into the sword without reservation.

The jade sword emitted a clear, ringing sound, and a three-zhang-long (approximately 10 meters) long azure sword light shot out from the hand, slashing fiercely at the group of paper figures in front of it.

Where the sword's edge passed, a deep ravine was cleaved in the white wasteland.

In an instant, the hundreds of paper figures turned into fragments.

Before the disciples of the Flowing Cloud Sect could show any joy, a strange scene unfolded.

The scattered scraps of paper didn't disappear; instead, they began to wriggle as if they were alive.

The fragments were pieced together and glued back together. In just a few breaths, the shattered paper figures not only returned to their original state but also doubled in size.

They moved with stiff steps, approaching the Flowing Cloud Sect members step by step.

"Remove the armor. Let the land bring wealth."

Hundreds and thousands of paper figures spoke at the same time, emitting eerie, high-pitched, and piercing sounds.

The sound came in layers, like a demonic chant, which shocked several disciples with weaker cultivation levels, causing them to turn pale and cover their ears, kneeling on the ground.

At the same time, an extremely terrifying gravity emanated from the white wasteland beneath their feet.

Zhao Hai's limbs felt increasingly heavy, as if the jade sword in his hand weighed more than ten thousand pounds.

Every step he took required a tremendous amount of physical exertion, and soon his forehead was covered in beads of sweat.

"Don't linger! Form a sword formation and break through towards the red lanterns; that's the key point of the formation!"

Zhao Hai bit his tongue, using the excruciating pain to keep himself conscious.

A dozen or so Liuyun Sect disciples stood back to back with difficulty, wielding their dulled longswords in an attempt to fend off the paper figures that were rushing towards them.

Meanwhile, in a side hall of the Changning County government office.

Gu Yan sat upright in the armchair, with a paper map of Changning County spread out on the long table in front of him.

In the northwest corner of the map, a small red dot is slowly moving, surrounded by a dense cluster of tiny black dots.

Gu Yan picked up the teacup, gently blew away the floating leaves on the surface of the water, and took a sip of warm, coarse tea.

"The swordsmanship of the Flowing Cloud Sect is indeed solid; this tortoise shell won't be easy to crack in a short time. However, once you're in my cage, you won't have the choice to get out."

Gu Yan spoke calmly, tapping his finger lightly twice on another corner of the map.

……

The night was deep in the south of Changning County.

Five evil cultivators from the Valley of Ten Thousand Poisons, clad in black robes, crept silently along the wall toward the storeroom of the Demon Suppression Division.

"The intelligence says that this warehouse contains tens of thousands of spirit stones that Gu Changsheng has plundered. We'll use the Bone-Melting Poison to poison the guards, then take the spirit stones and set it on fire. Once the fire starts, the treasures that have appeared in the City God Temple will be ours."

The leader of the evil cultivators lowered his voice and gave the order.

Soon, the five men reached the window of the warehouse.

The windows were tightly shut, and the inside was pitch black.

The leader of the evil cultivators took out a bamboo tube and was about to puncture the window paper to blow in the poisonous smoke when he discovered that the texture of the window paper was somewhat off.

He reached out and touched it; it felt cold and rough, not like window paper, but more like paper used for funerals.

"Something's not right, let's retreat!"

The leader of the evil cultivators had extremely sharp intuition and shouted without hesitation.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

The entire warehouse came alive at that moment.

The once sturdy blue brick walls suddenly became thinner, and the wooden pillars turned into flat pieces of paper.

The enormous warehouse resembled a folded cardboard box, with its four walls suddenly folding inward, completely enclosing the five evil cultivators from the Valley of Ten Thousand Poisons within.

"Bang bang bang!"

Inside the cardboard box, the sounds of intense magical attacks and the collision of magical artifacts could be heard.

This seemingly thin layer of paper was as indestructible as meteorite iron from outer space. No matter how the evil cultivators inside struggled, they could not break through it even a fraction.

A tall, slender figure in red emerged from the shadows.

Song Hong toyed with two flaming throwing knives in her hands, looked at the huge, writhing cardboard box, and a cold smile curled at the corner of her mouth.

Immediately afterwards, a swordsman dressed in black emerged from the darkness.

Xiao Chen, carrying the broken sword, walked to the cardboard box.

He made no unnecessary movements, simply drawing his sword, slashing it horizontally, and then sheathing it.

The movements were fluid and seamless, executed in one go.

As the sword fell, an extremely smooth crack appeared on the cardboard box.

Then, the struggling sounds stopped abruptly.

Thick blood seeped from the crack, staining the bluestone slabs on the ground red.

Song Hong stepped forward, reached into the crack, and skillfully pulled out five storage bags, weighing them in her hand.

"Junior brother's formation is really useful; you don't even need to hold down a pig to slaughter it."

Song Hong casually commented.

Xiao Chen didn't speak, turned around and disappeared into the darkness, continuing to the next location to clean up those unruly night wanderers.

……

A side hall of the county government office.

Gu Yan nodded in satisfaction when he saw the black dots representing the Valley of Ten Thousand Poisons disappear on the map.

After clearing away the smaller fish, it's time to harvest the fattest sheep.

He stood up, walked into the inner room, casually tore his brand-new blue robe, smeared some ashes from the incense burner on his face, and made his hair a mess.

The once confident mastermind suddenly transformed into a distraught commander caught in the spell of the formation, panicked and bewildered.

……

In the desolate wasteland of blank paper.

Zhao Hai was already at his last gasp.

His exquisite jade sword was riddled with nicks, and half of his fellow disciples beside him had fallen.

Although the junior brothers were not in mortal danger, their spiritual power was drained by the strange power of those paper figures, causing them to faint and not wake up for a while.

Just as he was preparing to use his trump card and fight to the death.

Suddenly, a gap appeared in the impenetrable circle of paper figures in front of them.

A figure covered in dust and dressed in rags tumbled and crawled through the opening.

"Senior Brother Zhao! Help, Senior Brother Zhao!"

With an extremely emotional sob in her voice, Gu Yan grabbed Zhao Hai's leg and hugged him tightly, her body still trembling violently.

Zhao Hai was about to kick him away when he looked closely and realized it was Gu Yan.

"Gu Changsheng? Why are you here too! What kind of damn formation is this?!" Zhao Hai shouted angrily.

Gu Yan wiped the soot off his face, panting heavily, his eyes filled with terror.

"Senior brother,"

The earth's veins erupted, activating that ancient, deadly formation beneath Changning County! The formation is out of control, sucking anything in its path. I was sleeping in the county government office just now, and they pulled me in, bed and all! We're doomed, we're all going to die here!"

Upon hearing that it was an ancient, deadly formation that had gone out of control, Zhao Hai's heart sank to the bottom.

He had already suspected that this was an ancient restriction triggered by the eruption of the earth's veins, and Gu Yan's words just confirmed his guess.

"Aren't you the commander of the Demon Suppression Division? You've been stationed here for so long, don't you have a way to break the formation?"

Zhao Hai grabbed Gu Yan by the collar and questioned him sharply.

Gu Yan was so choked that his eyes rolled back and his hands flailed wildly.

"Yes! I have a way! I just explored the edge of the formation for a while and found that the energy of the big red lantern in the northwest corner is the weakest. If we use a large number of spirit stones to forcibly fill the formation node there, we can open a gate of life and escape!"

"How many spirit stones do we need?" Zhao Hai asked eagerly.

Gu Yan bit her finger, feigning extreme distress: "I just used up all three thousand low-grade spirit stones left in the county government's treasury, and I'm still short. Senior brother, did you bring any spirit stones? Quickly, give them to save our lives!"

Zhao Hai glanced at the paper figures that had surrounded him again, and feeling the spiritual energy in his body almost depleted, he no longer hesitated. He directly took off the storage bag at his waist and poured out all the more than a thousand mid-grade spirit stones inside.

"This is all the spirit stones I have, is it enough?"

When Gu Yan saw the glittering mid-grade spirit stones scattered on the ground, greed flashed in his eyes, but on the surface he was so anxious that he kept stamping his feet.

"Oh, Senior Brother, mid-grade spirit stones are good, but there aren't enough! This formation's nodes are extremely large; these alone won't fill that hole. Do you have any high-grade talismans? Fragments of magical artifacts will do too—anything containing spiritual energy can be thrown in!"

Zhao Hai was so angry that the veins on his forehead bulged, but at this critical moment of life and death, he couldn't care less about anything else.

He took out several third-tier attack talismans, two spare high-grade magic weapons, and even several bottles of healing pills from his storage bag and stuffed them all into Gu Yan's hands.

"Hurry! If you can't break the formation, I'll kill you with my sword first!"

"Don't worry, senior brother, I've got your back!"

Clutching the huge pile of treasures, Gu Yan scrambled and crawled towards the northwest corner, quickly disappearing into the dense thicket of paper figures.

Zhao Hai gripped his sword, staring intently at the direction where Gu Yan had disappeared, his heart filled with anxiety.

He didn't notice that the moment Gu Yan left, the paper figures that had been attacking them frantically suddenly slowed down and their attacks weakened considerably.

And beyond the mist of the white wasteland.

Gu Yan straightened up, dusted himself off, and calmly sorted the treasures Zhao Hai had contributed, putting them into his storage ring.

"Young masters from aristocratic families are really straightforward. If you scare them a bit, they'll even pull out their underwear."

Gu Yan was in a great mood.

He didn't dispel the formation, but merely adjusted its trajectory, leaving Zhao Hai and his group with a false opening to slowly advance, allowing them to be worn down inside.

Now, it's time to get down to the real business of the night.

Gu Yan's figure flickered and disappeared into the night.

……

The former site of the City God Temple in the south of the city.

A large area of ​​the ground collapsed, revealing a huge crater.

In the center of the deep pit, a dark blue stone tablet, about three zhang high and one zhang wide, stands.

The stone tablet has no inscriptions, only an extremely ancient and boldly drawn totem of a tortoise and snake intertwined.

That is a symbol of the ancient mythical beast Xuanwu.

The stone tablet emitted an extremely thick yellow halo.

Wherever the halo reached, the soil hardened like iron, and the air was filled with the earthy smell of ancient times.

Gu Yan emerged from the darkness, stood at the edge of the pit, and stared intently at the stone tablet.

Within his dantian, the towering structure was resonating with longing.

The earth element aura emanating from this Xuanwu stone tablet was extremely pure, unlike any ordinary magic weapon. It resembled an ancient array base used to suppress the earth's veins.

"No wonder so many demons and monsters flocked to Changning County tonight; it turns out it's all for this. If I can refine it and integrate it into my Tower of Babel, my Dao foundation can be raised to another level."

After testing the waters with a paper figure to ensure there was no major danger, Gu Yan jumped into the deep pit.

As soon as he approached the stone tablet, an extremely terrifying recoil force surged forth like a tsunami, attempting to repel him.

Gu Yan's expression remained unchanged as he quickly formed hand seals.

"The paper industry, stripped away."

The paper-based array formation shrouded in the night in Changning County contracted, and the immense power of the array transformed into an invisible giant net, directly covering the Xuanwu Stone Tablet.

The stone tablet trembled violently, emitting a deep rumble, as if an ancient beast was roaring underground.

A fierce glint flashed in Gu Yan's eyes, and his Divine Demon Dao Foundation erupted in full force.

The true essence, half golden and half demonic, flowed wildly into the cracks of the stone tablet through the paper net.

He didn't care about the origin of the stone tablet; since it appeared on Changning County's territory, it naturally belonged to him, Gu Yan.

"Take it!"

Gu Yan let out a low growl.

The paper net tightened abruptly.

With a screeching sound, the massive Xuanwu stone tablet was forcibly pulled from the earth's veins, hovered in mid-air, and suddenly shrank, transforming into a beam of azure light that directly entered Gu Yan's storage ring.

Without the suppression of the stone tablet, the soil around the deep pit collapsed instantly, burying most of the pit.

Gu Yan clapped his hands, took a deep breath of the cold air carrying the earthy smell, and looked up at the clouds.

At this time, the sky was just beginning to lighten.

The eastern sky began to lighten with the first light of dawn.

The red paper lanterns at the head of Changning County were quietly extinguished.

The paper-world array that had enveloped the entire city receded like a tide.

Zhao Hai and the remaining disciples of the Flowing Cloud Sect felt a blur before their eyes, and when they could see their surroundings again, they found themselves lying next to the stable in the backyard of the Heavenly Inn.

The surroundings were made of blue brick walls, and the air smelled of horse manure.

Zhao Hai's face was as pale as paper, and there wasn't a single clean spot on his body.

Looking at the exquisite jade sword in his hand, now riddled with cracks and devoid of its former spirit, he recalled the terrifying wasteland of white paper from the previous night, and his heart was filled with the relief of surviving a calamity.

"He survived... Gu Changsheng, that good-for-nothing, actually kept his word and broke the formation."

Zhao Hai let out a long breath.

He touched his empty waist and felt a pang of heartache.

This trip to Changning County not only yielded nothing, but also cost me my entire fortune. It was a huge loss.

Just then, the courtyard gate of the inn was pushed open.

Gu Yan walked in carrying a basin of hot water, with a white towel draped over his shoulder and a big smile on his face.

He was still wearing that blue long gown with several tears, but his face was clean and he looked exceptionally energetic.

"Oh, Senior Brother Zhao! You're finally awake! The formation suddenly broke last night, and I was so worried because I thought you hadn't escaped!"

Gu Yan placed the basin of water on the stone table and offered a towel with great courtesy.

"Senior brother, quickly wash your face. The doctors from our Changning County clinic are already waiting outside; they're all experts in bone setting and treating internal injuries, passed down through generations. However, in this small place, medicinal herbs are precious, and the consultation fee and the cost of dispensing the medicine..."

Gu Yan rubbed his hands together, revealing an extremely shrewd and unassuming smile that was impeccable.

"If you're short on cash, Senior Brother, writing an IOU is no problem. The interest is negotiable; just follow the rules of the Flowing Cloud Sect's money exchange."

Looking at Gu Yan's smiling face, Zhao Hai was so angry that his vision blurred and he almost spat out a mouthful of blood into the basin of water.

He never wants to come back to Changning County again in his life.