txolops Chapter 99 Seeking Good Fortune and Avoiding Misfortune! Unlocking the Ancient Cultivation Treasure
Chapter 99 Seeking Good Fortune and Avoiding Misfortune! Unlocking the Ancient Cultivation Treasure
Finally, after a long day of cautious low-altitude flight along the Panlong River, Lin Chuan arrived at the mountain range marked on the map.
Wushan Mountain.
This area stretches for dozens of miles, with gentle, unremarkable mountains, sparse vegetation, and scattered rocks. Not to mention the spiritual veins, even ordinary plants and trees are growing more stunted than elsewhere.
Looking around, not to mention immortal cultivation sects, even ordinary hunters and woodcutters were unwilling to stay here for long; there was not a single person in sight for dozens of miles around.
"It's well-hidden..."
Lin Chuan stood in mid-air, his divine sense spreading out like mercury, slowly sweeping across the entire mountainous area.
There are advantages to being desolate. If this place were truly a sacred mountain and beautiful water, it would have been looted clean by cultivators from all walks of life over the centuries. How could it possibly be his turn?
He activated his escape technique and began to carefully explore the mountains.
Half an hour, an hour, two hours...
Lin Chuan explored every place, from the front and back of the mountain to the ravines and cliffs, where there were unusual fluctuations in spiritual energy.
It wasn't until the third hour that he discovered a cave hidden by a simple illusion array at the foot of a shady cliff halfway up the mountain.
The method of setting up that illusion array was extremely crude, and the array flags used were only low-grade items. Under the erosion of time, many of them had become ineffective, and their halos flickered erratically.
Lin Chuan swept his divine sense across the area, and without even breaking the formation, he could see the situation inside through the gaps in the formation—a narrow cave, a simple stone table and bed, with a few ordinary low-grade magic artifacts and a jade slip casually placed on the table.
"A secluded retreat for a Qi Refining stage cultivator." Lin Chuan made the judgment instantly.
He did not go inside to disturb them.
Although the owner of this place is not highly skilled, it is not easy for him to find a place to settle down in this desolate wilderness. Moreover, the ancient remnant of cultivation indicated by the divination is clearly not here.
Lin Chuan turned and left, finding a secluded crevice in the rocks, where he sat cross-legged and waited for dawn.
The night was as dark as ink, and the mountain wind howled.
As the first rays of sunlight pierced through the clouds, Lin Chuan opened his eyes precisely on time, and golden light appeared before him.
Today's divination result: Very auspicious.
[The divination reads: Today, you discovered a buried ancient passage three hundred feet underground in the secluded cave of a Qi-cultivating cultivator. The stone gate at the end of the passage, though its protective barrier has stood for millennia, is mostly incomplete; you can break it with your power. Within the stone chamber lies the legacy of an ancient cultivator, awaiting a destined one.]
"Three hundred feet underground!" Lin Chuan's spirits lifted, and he understood.
No wonder this place is so desolate yet no cultivators visit it. No wonder even he couldn't find anything when he repeatedly scanned it with his divine sense. The depth of three hundred feet is beyond the limit of ordinary cultivators' divine sense. Moreover, the cave entrance is buried deep underground and there is no leakage of spiritual energy.
If not for the guidance of the divination, even if he stayed here for a year, he would never have discovered any clues.
Without further hesitation, Lin Chuan immediately took out an earth-yellow talisman with flowing spiritual light—a mid-level Earth Escape Talisman.
He infused his magic power, and the talisman transformed into a layer of soft yellow light that enveloped his entire body.
The next moment, his figure swayed, like a fish entering water, silently disappearing into the hard rock.
Underground, there was complete darkness and deathly silence.
In his Earth Escape state, rocks and soil are like viscous water to him, allowing him to pass through them but making him unable to see.
Lin Chuan used his divine sense to pinpoint the location, precisely descending towards the direction indicated by the divination—directly below the cave dwelling of the Qi Refining cultivator.
One hundred zhang, two hundred zhang, two hundred and fifty zhang...
When the depth gauge approached 300 zhang, his divine sense finally detected the anomaly.
It was a hollow that had been buried by a landslide several meters thick.
The rocks surrounding the cave are completely different from natural rocks, clearly showing signs of artificial cutting and smoothing by a cultivator's magic!
Lin Chuan emerged from the soil, his feet firmly planted on the ground, and stood on the edge of the landslide.
He summoned his flying sword and began clearing away the rocks and mud blocking the passage.
About an incense stick later, an ancient passage, sloping downwards and paved with a single piece of bluestone, covered with thousands of years of dust, appeared before him in its entirety.
The passageway was narrow, allowing only two people to walk side by side. On the stone walls on both sides, faint traces of murals, blurred by the erosion of time, could still be seen—the murals seemed to depict scenes of ancient cultivators subduing demons and monsters, with a simple and vigorous style that was completely different from the style of the current cultivation world.
Lin Chuan did not venture deeper into the area rashly.
He released several pangolin golems, ordering them to cautiously explore the passage.
The puppet successfully traversed the hundred-foot passage and reached its end without triggering any mechanisms or remaining restrictions—except for that door.
It was a stone door over ten feet tall, dark blue in color.
The door is engraved with dense array patterns, most of which are worn and incomplete, but some patterns still retain a faint spiritual light, clearly indicating that it is a defensive restriction that has not completely failed over the long years.
The puppet tentatively touched the door.
"Buzz..."
The remaining array patterns on the surface of the stone gate suddenly lit up, and a gentle but resolute repulsive force gently pushed the puppet away without attacking.
"It's just a simple defensive barrier, without any killing moves. And it's really weak."
After confirming that everything was alright, Lin Chuan personally walked to the stone gate.
Although his array formation skills were not particularly profound, he was cautious. Instead of rashly breaking down the door with force, he took out the basic array formation jade slip he had purchased from the Yellow Maple Valley market, and a talisman brush used to draw array patterns. With extremely light and fine magical threads, he traced and probed along the array patterns on the door little by little.
This was an extremely demanding and meticulous task. He had to distinguish which patterns were still "alive" and functioning, which had completely failed, where the core of the restriction was, and where the entry point to break it was...
One hour, two hours, three hours...
As fine beads of sweat appeared on Lin Chuan's forehead, he finally found a "gap" formed by the breakage of the array patterns at the weakest edge of the restriction.
It's now!
He concealed all his magical power and carefully probed the inside of the restriction through the gap with a wisp of extremely pure, almost non-existent divine consciousness, like the finest silk thread!
They found the core of the restriction—a thumb-sized, cyan jade talisman embedded deep within the stone gate.
Lin Chuan gently wrapped his spiritual threads around the jade talisman, using a soft force to pull it outward little by little...
The jade talisman loosened.
The light from the restrictive patterns suddenly dimmed.
"Click—"
With a soft sound, the stone gate, silent for ten thousand years, finally slid open a crack in front of Lin Chuan.
It worked!
Lin Chuan did not rush in, but waited for several more breaths to confirm that there were no mechanisms or residual spiritual energy movements behind the door.
Then, holding a moonstone, he slipped sideways into the doorway.
Behind the door was a stone chamber, about ten feet in circumference and three feet high.
In the center of the stone chamber, on a lotus platform carved from a single piece of green jade, a skeleton sat cross-legged, maintaining the same meditative posture that had remained unchanged for millennia.
The skeleton was crystal clear, with a faint silver glow emanating from its bones. It was unclear whether this was due to the cultivator's cultivation level in life or the unusual phenomenon that the body had not decayed even after ten thousand years.
But what is certain is that this ancient cultivator's cultivation level far surpasses any Core Formation cultivator Lin Chuan has ever seen—perhaps, he is at the Nascent Soul stage?
Even higher?
Lin Chuan did not approach rashly.
With a slight thought, he opened the mouth of the spirit beast pouch at his waist, and a beam of white light shot out—it was the Blood Jade Spider that he had just subdued.
"Go, use your silk to hook that storage bag over to me."
Lin Chuan issued commands through the consciousness connection.
The Blood Jade Spider obediently moved its eight long legs and quickly approached the lotus platform. Without touching the skeleton itself, it precisely shot out a thin spider silk, which stuck to the simple and unadorned gray storage bag at the skeleton's waist, which faintly exuded spiritual power, and gently pulled it.
The storage bag detached and, guided by spider silk, landed steadily in Lin Chuan's hand.
Throughout the entire process, not a single bone was touched.
Lin Chuan was relieved and took the storage bag, probing it with his divine sense.
The bag contained an enormous amount of space, far exceeding that of similar storage bags in the current cultivation world, clearly the work of an ancient cultivator. However, it contained very few items—only a few things lay quietly in the void.
Three jade bottles. Three spirit stones. One jade slip.
Lin Chuan first took out the three jade bottles.
The first jade bottle has a light blue body and feels warm and smooth to the touch.
A single pill, about the size of a longan, lay quietly in the bottle. It was pure white and had faint cloud-like patterns on its surface.
The second jade bottle has a pale gold color and feels slightly heavy to the touch.
Upon opening, there was also only one pill, but this pill was pale gold in color, about the size of a thumb, and had faint lightning-like fine lines on its surface.
The third jade bottle, with a light gray body, is the least conspicuous.
Upon opening it, there were seven pills inside! Each pill was dark red, about the size of a thumb, and exuded a warm and peaceful aura.
"Three bottles of pills, two bottles of rare pills, one bottle with seven pills... but I don't know their specific effects." Lin Chuan carefully put away the three jade bottles, not daring to try them rashly.
He then took out the three spirit stones.
Upon seeing this, even Lin Chuan, who was usually calm and composed, couldn't help but slightly shrink his pupils.
High-grade spirit stones!
The three spirit stones were each the size of a baby's fist; one was entirely azure, one was fiery red like flames, and one was pale blue like the wind.
Its spiritual energy is pure, powerful, and restrained, far surpassing any mid-grade spirit stone that Lin Chuan has ever seen or used!
The total amount of spiritual energy contained in a single high-grade spirit stone is comparable to that of one hundred mid-grade spirit stones or ten thousand low-grade spirit stones!
More importantly, high-grade spirit stones are already legendary items, extremely rare in the Tiannan cultivation world.
This is because the spirit stone veins of this grade were exhausted in the Tiannan region as early as ten thousand years ago.
What's circulating in the market today are all "stock" left behind by ancient repairmen or occasionally unearthed from certain hidden relics. And since each one is used up, there are fewer and fewer available, so no one is willing to put them out for trade.
Lin Chuan knew perfectly well that if these three high-grade spirit stones were to appear in the world, even an old monster with a cultivation level of Nascent Soul would not hesitate to try and snatch them!
This item has irreplaceable uses for breaking through cultivation bottlenecks, driving large-scale formations, refining top-grade magic weapons, and even rough prototypes of magic treasures!