He then said, “These are the deeds for the Feng Clan properties in the mortal world. They can be said to own the most land in the region.”
“Is this anything strange?” Monarch Soul Divergence asked. “The noble clans of the Great Jin and the Immortal clans of the Heavenly South have quite a few differences. Interfering with the mortal world can be considered quite ordinary and it isn’t a disgrace to interact with high ranking government officials and the wealthy. Even vagrant cultivators take the initiative to reach out to them for help. Not only does the Great Jin span across a great amount of land, but the mortals living there exist in far greater density than the Heavenly South. As a result, there are fewer desolate areas, and spirit medicines and spirit stones often found themselves in the hands of mortals. This is different in the Heavenly South where mortals occupy far less land and there is much more wilderness. As such, the Heavenly South cultivators don’t interact much with them.”
Han Li doubtfully said, “You mean to say the many sects allow the royal powers of the Great Jin to control their cultivation resources?”
Monarch Soul Divergence chuckled and said, “It isn’t that they allow it. The Great Jin isn’t like the Heavenly South where there are many different countries and clans, but rather, a single powerful imperial court has ruled over the Great Jin’s mortal world since ancient times.
No matter how powerful a cultivator may be, they won’t dare to harm mortal affairs, or else other sects and powers will use this opportunity as a pretext to move against them. As a result, the Great Jin court had reached a compromise with many of the great powers in the cultivation world. If I remember correctly, the agreement would dictate that the powers or sects wouldn’t pressure or interfere with the mortal imperial court, and would even allow the imperial court to directly hire a few vagrant cultivators in order to preserve the prestige of the court. Of course, the Great Jin imperial family can also nurture a certain number of their own cultivators, but the great sects keep a close eye on them to make sure they don’t get carried away.”
Monarch Soul Divergence continued, “For all of these great powers to acquire cultivation resources and manpower, they had made agreements in secret with the royal family and imperial court. A few particularly powerful officials will likely have been backed by various sects in order to prevent other powers from holding the advantage. Under these circumstances, noble clans began to appear from sects and as a result, noble clans gradually accumulated many mortal properties and became accustomed to interacting with the mortal world. However, these lands should have cultivation resources on them since they’ve been so carefully stored away. These are crucial for the survival of any noble clan.”
When Han Li heard this, he stroked his chin in utter amazement.
“Since these documents are so important, why were they placed here?” Han Li pondered, “Did the Feng Clan Master sensed something was about to happen and put them here as a contingency measure?”
“That’s possible, but this has nothing to do with us,” Monarch Soul Divergence said. “Let’s not waste our time thinking about this and instead head straight to the secret cave. Perhaps there could be a Buddhist Technique to dissolve your baleful Qi.”
“It is as you say, Senior!”
Han Li smiled and then put the documents away in a jade box. After making certain of his direction, he flew off on a magic tool towards the Snowmound Mountains.
...
At that moment, in a tomb underneath the Snowmound Mountains, there were two silhouettes enveloped in green Qi. They were kneeling in front of three stone coffins and remained motionless. Suddenly, two streaks of green light flew out from one of the coffins and each entered into the silhouettes’ foreheads.
“Go! Kill him and retrieve the treasure!” A man spoke from the middle coffin with an imposing tone.
The two silhouettes blurred into streaks of green light and circled the room before flying off.
“Alright, I’ve acquired the appearance of the person who took away the vajra barrier and gave it to the incarnations. The prince’s remnant Qi should also remain in the vajra barrier for a short amount of time. So long as he doesn’t immediately leave the Guanning Province, it will be impossible for him to escape.”
“M... Many thanks... Lord Father!” A happy stutter came out from the other coffin.
The man from the center coffin snorted and said, “I will leave it be this time, but there had better not be more trouble!”
“Yes... this will not happen... again!” The stutter now had a fearful tone.
No further words were spoken from any of the coffins. But after the time it took to finish a meal, a loud bang sounded out. The lid of the middle coffin flew ten meters in the air, and a thin silhouette wearing a crown sat up from it.
“My king, why are you...?” A sweet woman’s voice sounded out from the other coffin.
With glowing red eyes, the man said, “The veins of Yin Qi in the earth will soon erupt and a temporary leave from the tomb room won’t cause me a large loss in cultivation. It is a good opportunity to lend General Ge some aid and dispose of some troublesome characters outside of the noble clans. After I head out, I’ll activate all the restrictions in the tomb to prevent any outsiders from entering.”
After a moment of hesitation, the woman replied, “Yes, your majesty! Please be careful!”
“Don’t worry, my beloved concubine. I will return to the tomb after two days. I won’t be leaving much after that.” The man nodded and then stood up from the coffin.
His body blurred several times and then became indistinct, turning into a cloud of grey mist and disappearing from sight. It was unknown where he went.
Soon, silence filled the tomb room, only to be interrupted by a woman’s deep sigh.
...
When Han Li caught sight of Snowmound Mountain, it was already dawn. Without another thought, he rushed into the mountains on his flying magic tool.
Fearing that he would provoke trouble, he concealed his aura and flew at a low altitude, releasing his spiritual sense to only cover a couple of kilometers, and carefully watching everything that happened nearby.
The location of the Feng Clan’s secret cave was near the heart of the mountain and in a well-concealed area.
After flying around for the day, Han Li looked down at the mountains from the air before dropping down on an unremarkable peak, discovering a huge waterfall that was a kilometer tall. The scene was completely the same as the jade slip described, much to his relief.
After looking at the surging mists of white water, he floated down and formed an incantation gesture. Then he raised his hands and released two streaks of azure light into the waterfall.
A series of muffled rumblings sounded out, followed by the appearance of a three-meter-wide hole in the waterfall. He flew in without hesitation, and soon after, the hole disappeared.
Of course, Han Li didn’t know that in the instant he entered the cave, two green silhouettes were pursuing him from five hundred kilometers away. They snarled with rage and bared their pitch-black fangs, occasionally releasing out series of low roars reminiscent of a dreadful two-headed beast.
However, these two silhouettes couldn’t have known that a few kilometers behind them, there were two hidden figures coldly watching them. They were whispering to each other with lowered heads.
Chapter 914: Entering the Secret Cave
“How about it? Do you have any certainty of restraining King Glorious Blaze’s incarnations? If they manage to escape, we’ll end up scaring them all away.” One of the two figures sent a voice transmission to the other, speaking with a sharp voice.
The other figure snorted and gloomily said, “King Glorious Blaze’s so-called incarnations are created from soul mending techniques, forcefully refining them until they are obedient puppets. Their intelligence is greatly reduced as a result. Although they possess Nascent Soul cultivation, they are easily handled by cultivators of equivalent strength. It won’t be diffi
cult to take them on together. But now that the old devil is releasing his own incarnations by themselves, it will benefit us greatly. Killing them would be the same as cutting off his arms.” The voice was deep and low.
“Brother Heavenwind’s words are very sensible,” the sharp voice said, “However, I am quite curious about the person those incarnations are chasing. It was enough to make the old devil send men away from the tomb at a crucial moment and lose sight of his objective.”
“Who knows? Regardless of who it is, they have no influence over our plans. King Glorious Blaze’s cultivation will greatly decrease when he leaves his tomb. This is an extremely rare opportunity. That old devil is extremely sly and never leaves his tomb for more than a moment at a time. If it wasn’t for the trap I set, I fear we wouldn’t have any opportunities in the slightest. After all, his abilities are no lesser than a late-Nascent Soul cultivator while he is in his tomb.”
The sharp voice sinisterly chuckled and said, “If King Devil Glorious Blaze knew that we have already leaked this plan to the other two noble clans, I wonder what expression he would make. The clans have already invited their sect backers and are waiting for him to take the bait. Besides, even if he manages to escape them through a fluke, we’ll be waiting outside his tomb. It will be impossible for him to escape.”
“That’s right. Us brothers schemed over ten years for this plot. Furthermore, ever since we laid out the trap, we’ve always been outside, keeping an eye on his actions and allowing us to move at an opportune time. With him gone, his beloved concubine and his child won’t be able to stand against us three. Then, the treasures he’s accumulated for countless years and the thousands of corpse soldiers inside the tomb will be ours. And I’ve heard that his Heavenly Corpse Body will soon be completed. From his cautious nature, the Heavenly Corpse Pearl for the body should be hidden somewhere in the tomb. So long as we can find it and rid it of his soul, we can also make use of the body to cultivate body hardening and strengthening techniques. It is the ideal treasure for that type of cultivation.” The deep voice of ‘Brother Heavenwind’ spoke with a greedy tone.
The sharp voice said, “Hehe! My cultivation technique doesn’t emphasize cultivating body strengthening techniques so I have no interest in the pearl. I only want the thousands of corpse soldiers his tomb contains. With those soldiers, I could become a faction of power without leaving seclusion.”
When ‘Brother Heavenwind’ heard this, he spoke with excitement, “But I know what Fellow Daoist Yin would say. He’d only want the Corpse Spirit Arts so that he will be able to control the corpse soldiers with ease. Otherwise, he would have to go and ask us for help to use them!”
“That sounds right.” The owner of the sharp voice then examined the green silhouettes from a distance and proposed, “Now should be time to act. Since Brother Wild Sand is closely following after the old devil, there should be no problems. We should take action before something unexpected occurs. Let’s quickly get rid of the old devil’s incarnations and then returning to the tomb to lie in ambush. If we let the old devil make it back, things will turn for the worse.”
“Yes, it is nearly time. The old devil should’ve left the Snowmound Mountains. Let’s set off.”
Heavenwind paused for a moment before nodding in agreement.
At that moment, the two green incarnations were violently howling, but soon, they suddenly felt astonishing spiritual Qi fluctuations from behind them. They couldn’t help but to turn around to look.
As a result, they saw a large black mist and an astonishing storm of wind chasing after them. It filled up the entire sky and appeared almost as if it aimed to envelop the two.
...
Han Li was currently standing in front of a stone door behind the waterfall, completely ignorant of the great problem that another party had unintentionally resolved. Although he would’ve been able to easily dispatch of the two incarnations, it would consume the last opportunity for him to lift the Soullock Seal.
His eyes were focused on a corner of the stone door and there was a slight protrusion there with an inch large hole on top of it.
He reached for his storage pouch and took a sparkling silver key into his hand. He flicked his finger and shot it into the hole in a silver streak.
The key smoothly entered, leaving the outer half outside of the hole.
He smiled when he saw this and pointed his finger at the key, shooting out a streak of azure light towards it. Then, the key slowly turned a half circle and the stone white gate begin to glow in a layer of white light. With a faint tremble, the stone doors slowly opened, leaving a small opening for someone to walk through.
Han Li glanced at the opening before calmly heading in.
After walking over thirty meters inside, there was a three-meter-large transportation formation in front of him. There were eight grooves around the spell formation that were completely empty.
When he saw this, he let out a faint smile.
If one didn’t have deep knowledge of formations, they would put their spirit stones on all the grooves, resulting in the formation’s spatial power to completely disintegrate them. Whoever designed this hidden storage was quite shrewd.
He walked up to the spell formation and his eyes flickered several times. His sleeve trembled and five low-grade spirit stones shot into five separate grooves. Then, he struck the spell formation with a spell seal and the transportation formation began to hum.
With Han Li’s attainments in spell formations, he could see if there was anything amiss with the formation. He was able to quickly tell that it was safe and then walked into the center of the formation.
White light then wrapped around him and he disappeared from sight.
The distance he was teleported was quite short. As expected, he didn’t feel much of a headache from the teleportation due to his strong spiritual sense. Then in a flash of white light, he appeared in a large hall.
He swept his gaze across it and took the entire scene in.
It only spanned about sixty meters long and was made completely out of cleanly cut Warmstone. There weren’t many things in the hall: two rows of green shelves and three meter-long silver chests.
To Han Li’s surprise, the Feng Clan’s secret cave was quite small.
The wooden shelves were made of precious wood. Its color hadn’t changed despite its vast age and it still possessed some sort of fragrance.
An arrangement of over thirty magic tools were placed in one of the shelves, all of them at mid-grade quality or higher. There were several unknown magic treasures mixed amongst them and they appeared exceptionally eye-catching. On the other shelf, there were over a hundred various jade slips that were densely arranged.
He didn’t take another look at the magic tools and treasures, nor did he pay any attention to the silver chests. Instead, he walked over to the jade slips.
He swept his gaze past them and casually took one into his hand before quickly sweeping his spiritual sense through it.
His powerful spiritual sense allowed him to look through the jade slips in the time it took to finish a meal. To his surprise, none of them contained anything that was related to Buddhist techniques.
‘Could it be that Feng Yue had lied?’
Han Li shook his head and tossed the thought to the back of his mind. He had used the Dreamtear Technique to make sure that Feng Yue had been telling the truth. It was impossible for him to deceive him.
After some further thought, his eyes dropped down to three silver chests. Pondering to himself for a moment, he walked over and opened each of them with a wave of his sleeve.
One of the chests were filled with several hundreds of mid-grade spirit stones. Another one was filled with jade boxes of varying size.
Han Li swept his spiritual sense past them and discovered that they contained rare materials and pills. At a first glance, it was about as valuable as the chest of spirit stones.
After looking through these two chests and failing to find what he
wanted, he unconsciously wore a gloomy expression.
After he looked into the final chest, he found various talismans sparkling with light. He immediately expressed disappoint after seeing this, but regardless, he carefully swept his spiritual sense through the chest. Then, his expression stirred and he reached his hand out towards it.
In a gust of wind, an object underneath the talismans flew into his grasp.
It was a scarlet wooden box that was a half-foot long. It had a faint yellow talisman sealing it and the surface of the box was engraved with Buddhist talisman characters.
He glanced at the talisman on the box and saw that it was a common Qi concealing talisman. He tore it off without hesitation and opened the box.
As a result, he saw seven-colored light shoot out from the box. The source of the light was a milky-white thumb-sized pearl.
“A crystal relic!” Han Li yelped in joy. The crystal relic wasn’t the only thing inside of the box. There was also two Buddhist Sect magic tools and a yellow jade slip.
The magic tools were a dharma wheel and a bracelet of golden prayer beads. They both glowed with faith spiritual light. As for the jade slip, it appeared unremarkable but Han Li’s interest was completely captured by it.
With a sweep of his hand, he took the jade slip and impatiently shank his spiritual sense into it.
Chapter 915: The Brightjade Arts
“Righteous Prevailance Technique... Reincarnation Cycle Arts... Brightjade Arts...” Han Li quickly swept his spiritual sense through the jade slip and muttered the name of the techniques it contained. These names alone suggested they were Buddhist techniques.
When Monarch Soul Divergence heard the name of the latter, he shouted out in amazement, “I heard of that name before! The Brightjade Arts is a very rare technique passed down by vajra protectors in Buddhist sects. It is also exceptionally difficult to cultivate. How was the Feng Clan ancestor able to acquire it? Give me the jade slip and let me see whether it can be used to dissolve baleful Qi.”
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