Chapter 17: Searching the Castle (2)
The effectiveness of this Restrictive Origin Formation that focused on finding hidden mechanisms was shocking, except the results were anything but.
Su Chen had searched every corner of the castle. Apart from some foolish Sand Race individuals who had hidden a few Origin Stones behind a brick, he discovered nothing.
However, Su Chen didn’t grow frustrated. He continued to construct all kinds of Restrictive Origin Formations to probe the castle.
There was an Origin Formation that generated Origin Energy ripples and could sense any Origin Energy responses; another Origin Formation could exert gravitational forces to probe into the depths of the ground; yet another Origin Formation could scan and a.n.a.lyze the castle’s construction materials.
Regardless, all of these Restrictive Origin Formations were totally ineffective.
Su Chen couldn’t find a single point of suspicion.
The Origin Formations themselves were fine. Su Chen had already confirmed that for himself while using them, but it was just that this place really had no hidden secrets. Even if You Tianyang himself were here, he probably wouldn’t be able to discover even a single hair left behind by Kapius.
Su Chen’s failure threw the Zhu Clan’s entire plan of attack out of whack.
Everyone grew anxious, apprehensive, and frustrated because of this.
Even Zhu Xianyao was losing her patience. Every day that pa.s.sed, her expression would grow a bit uglier.
“It’s already been seven days, but we have still discovered nothing! I think that we’re just wasting our time!” Ba Lieyuan yelled in frustration.
This eight-foot-tall, muscular man with a bald head just like An Siyuan’s was You Tianyang’s subordinate. Even though he was only in the Yang Opening Realm, his immense physical power gave him the ability to fight against Light Shaking Realm cultivators. Of course, the prerequisite to this was that the Light Shaking Realm cultivator didn’t use speed to dance around him.
s.h.i.+ Mingfeng and Su Chen could confirm that You Tianyang’s brain was sharp in part because of this guy. According to conventional logic, if the master’s brain wasn’t that sharp, then at least one of his subordinates would need to be in order to make up for the master.
And since Ba Lieyuan was all brawn and no brain, it meant that You Tianyang was definitely not an idiot, although he did have very little courage. This was made clear by the ensuing interrogation.
It was also because of this that Su Chen was able to pretend to be You Tianyang up until now. Ba Lieyuan, who was closest to him, couldn’t even tell that anything was wrong. All he did was pace in the hallway in frustration day after day.
Zhu Baiyu said, “Getting frustrated won’t resolve the problem, Lieyuan. What kind of person was Kapius? It’s not really surprising that his secret stashes are hard to find.”
“But those Spirit Race individuals didn’t seem to think so.”
The few Spirit Race individuals that the Immortal Temple had captured were all going for West Laina Castle. Based on the preparations they had made, it seemed like their plans were all very simple, as if they had never even considered the possibility of not being able to find the stashes.
When he heard Zhu Xianyao say this, a flash of inspiration suddenly hit Su Chen. He blurted out, “Kapius is a member of the Spirit Race, so the secret stashes he left behind should have been specifically prepared for the Spirit Race. Could it be that these secret stashes can only be discovered and opened by Spirit Race individuals?”
Hopeful gazes appeared on everyone’s faces.
Zhu Xianyao said, “That’s right! These secret stashes are most likely aimed at other Spirit Race individuals, which is why all the tactics we normally use are all completely useless.”
Ba Lieyuan was stunned. “If that’s the case, doesn’t that mean that we’ll never be able to find the secret stashes?”
“No,” Su Chen said. “If we know what aspect of the Spirit Race that they’re specifically targeting, we might be able to come up with a workaround.”
Everyone glanced at each other, then blurted out simultaneously, “Consciousness!”
The Spirit Race had ethereal bodies, and their racial trait could be considered to be a powerful consciousness. While humans needed to cultivate bitterly to strengthen their consciousnesses, it was a piece of cake for the Spirit Race.
If Kapius wanted to ensure that the secret stashes could only be opened by a Spirit Race individual, the best way to accomplish this was to use this aspect as the key to all his preparations.
When they understood this, everyone felt like their field of view had suddenly opened up.
An instant later, however, they began to sober up.
Zhu Xianyao frowned. “Then doesn’t that mean that the strength of our consciousnesses must be equivalent to that of a Spirit Race individual in order to open the secret stashes? And is that a low-tiered Spirit Race individual? A mid-tiered one? Or even a high-tiered one?”
Zhu Baiyu shook his head. “Even the level of a low-tiered Spirit Race individual is unattainable.”
The lowest-tier Spirit Race individuals had consciousnesses with a power level of at least a thousand.
To most humans, this was basically a figure that they could only dream of but never achieve. Very few could reach this level even if one only looked at the humans who specialized in cultivating consciousness power.
Su Chen had cultivated the True Spirit Scriptures for ten years and ingested Spirit Sobering Medicines from time to time, but his consciousness power was only at around four hundred or so. His consciousness power was something to be proud of amongst most humans; in terms of pure consciousness power, he was already on par with an average Spirit Burning Cultivator.
But the gap between that and a thousand was insurmountable.
After Su Chen, Zhu Xianyao’s consciousness ability was the highest — around 180 or so. However, Zhu Xianyao also had a treasure that could amplify her consciousness power to around three hundred or so. Below that was Zhu Baiyu. Even though he was a Light Shaking Realm cultivator, his bloodline didn’t have the charm ability, and he had never specifically cultivated consciousness power. As such, his rating was around 100.
Zhu Xianyao said, “There’s always a way. If there’s nothing else we can do, we can also try to temporarily raise it.”
“But we need to find some medicine that can strengthen our consciousnesses,” Zhao Jingwen said.
Zhu Xianyao shot Su Chen a glance. “Can you set up an Origin Formation that increases consciousness power?”
Su Chen replied, “I can try to.”
“An Origin Tool that improves a person’s consciousness energy would be even better,” Zhu Baiyu said.
Zhu Xianyao frowned. “The Lonely Swan Part.i.tion is scarce in resources. Finding treasures like this will probably be difficult.”
“Then we can only go to Long Sang Country to look,” Zhao Jingwen sighed.
Everyone turned to glance at Zhu Baiyu,
The distance between Long Sang Country’s interior and Lonely Swan Part.i.tion was quite far, and finding a treasure that could amplify one’s consciousness power was even harder. If they wanted to do this in the remaining twenty-three days, they needed Zhu Baiyu to make a move himself.
Zhu Baiyu understood what everyone was getting at. He nodded and said, “Then I can only make that trip. But about Xianling……”
s.h.i.+ Mingfeng had sent a few experts to Castle Garrison to cause a few particular incidents, such as the strange deaths of some farm animals, the appearance of vampiric beasts, or the sudden appearance of a strange green light, etc. On the surface, it seemed as if these incidents were bizarre and unconnected, but it implied that there were some mysterious people within the town, making Zhu Xianyao and the others extremely nervous. Every day, they would interrogate He Xu, but He Xu would allow himself to come under the influence of Su Chen’s consciousness. He would only offer up some small amounts of information in this dazed state, making it so that Zhu Xianyao could not kill him.
Under these kinds of circ.u.mstances, Zhu Baiyu’s departure would increase the danger to Zhu Xianyao. However, for the sake of the plan’s success, Zhu Xianyao still decided to take the risk.
From this it was quite apparent that Zhu Xianyao had matured quite a bit after the incident at the Hidden Dragon Inst.i.tute.
That evening, Zhu Baiyu left the ancient castle. At the same time, Su Chen used the excuse of gathering ingredients to leave the castle again. In reality, however, he was going to go and interrogate You Tianyang about developing a method to amplify a person’s consciousness ability.
During this expedition, they hadn’t found any treasure at all, but Su Chen’s skill in making Restrictive Origin Formations had increased greatly.
At the same time, Zhu Baiyu’s departure took a huge burden off of Su Chen. After all, a Light Shaking Realm cultivator with a Demonic Emperor Bloodline was simply too powerful. Zhu Baiyu’s presence had pressured Su Chen quite a lot.
Apart from constructing a consciousness Origin Formation, Su Chen would also take advantage of this opportunity to concoct a few consciousness-strengthening medicines.
No one knew what Zhu Baiyu would return with, so Su Chen could only prepare for the worst possible outcome no matter how much he hoped that these preparations would never need to be used.