Chapter 201 - Divide And Conquer
"Seems like heaven isn"t nice enough to allow me to have these types of texts written. However, since I can"t write them here, I might as well use the PaG.o.da." I thought.
If this is the same as when I made that Cloud Vein pill, the heavenly tribulation will sense the "wrongness" of it and will strike down, but the paG.o.da completely hides my presence from the heavens, and the heaven"s lightning will randomly strike around the area, and give up once it can no longer find the inscription.
As tempting as it is to do this now, two reasons stopped me from trying.
The first, and obviously was pretty d.a.m.n important, was that I"m still in the city, and having random Red Tribulation lightning striking here, will pull a lot of attention. Not to mention the waves of divine sense that are already scanning my room, checking what the heck just happened.
The second was that I had a visitor at the door.
I walked up to the door and opened it, finding a half surprised Meng Hao, "What was that?"
"Just a random Tribulation lightning," I said.
"I didn"t cause that, did I?" Meng Hao said.
"Don"t flatter yourself, come on in," I said and walked inside.
Meng Hao"s eyes were on the table that was burnt to a crisp for a moment then he sat down on a chair.
"Seems like you had something happening to you while you were venturing," I asked and then pulled two mugs full of strong liquor from my pouch.
Meng Hao, though he looks like a sixteen year old youngster, downed the mug in one sip and sighed.
"Yes, a lot of annoying trouble. I"m not the kind to ask for help, but I have no real way to solve this." Meng Hao said.
"What"s wrong?"
"Eldest Sister Yan has been kidnapped, and the leads I followed guided me to this area. She was the first chosen among the Sword Sect to come here, and since there were no answers or replies to the inquiries we sent over, they sent another group of cultivators and I was among them."
"Seems like he really has no luck, or this is MC plot moving his actions."
"Where are the rest of the cultivators that came with you?" I asked.
Meng Hao shook his head, "While we were coming here, we ended up discovering a cultivation Cave of an old cultivator."
"And let me guess, you found the bell there?" I asked.
"Yes, I still haven"t thanked you for hiding it," Meng Hao said and lightly bowed his head.
"Don"t worry about it."
Though the words came out of my mouth, my mind was racing, because this is some serious conspiracy theory vibes, and I don"t like it.
The man in black had the bell, and that was before Meng Hao found it. Then, Meng Hao ends up having to go and search for his girlfriend, and "accidentally" ends up in a cave where he"ll find the same bell I saw two years ago on the cultivator in black. Not only that, he somehow made it so that the cave they ended up in belonged to an old cultivator, and only Meng Hao survived with the loot.
The Man in Black is starting to be an annoying presence. Though the Quill and Inkbottle I got from him were powerful enough to write the laws of the world, understanding that I was actually being led to a "destiny" of sorts, or to work in an agenda of another person is really grinding my gears. And I don"t like having all my efforts and hard work, be nothing but the guidance of another person.
"Are you still with me?" Meng Hao said.
"Oh, yes, I was just thinking of something right now, so what were you saying?"
Meng Hao looked a bit vexed for having to repeat what he said, but the gist of it was that his little sweetheart was somewhere around here, within this city. And I could easily guess who kidnapped her. But for him, finding the location is nigh impossible.
"So, this is the ordeal, I"m unable to track or find the person who kidnapped Yan"Er and was hoping that you"ll have an idea or a method to track her, I really lost all leads."
"hmm, right, then, let"s go," I said and that surprised Meng Hao.
"Go where?" he asked.
"To get your girl, I know who took her, and the rest of the Cultivators, let"s just hope he hadn"t started yet," I said and stood up.
Meng Hao didn"t question my reasoning and followed me as we both walked out of the inn.
"Where are we going?" Meng Hao asked.
"Give me one moment," I said then closed my eyes.
i slowly began acc.u.mulating my Qi then channeled a ma.s.sive amount of it into a visual wave above me, then I released it all in a circular wave of Divine Sense. Not to spy on people, because this wave was like a sonar instead of constant use of divine sense that will give me visual information of everyone.
Normally, the one who kidnapped these people would hide them somewhere and have the area locked out of divine sense, so no one can randomly scan the area and discover a bunch of people hidden somewhere.
But, what I"m looking for wasn"t the people hidden, but they mean to hide these people.
The moment the wave of divine sense dissipated, my mind was a.s.saulted with all manner of inscriptions written all over the city, even stove inscriptions to heat teapots, some crazy man wrote inscriptions to lessen the smell of his own chamber pot, and some had inscriptions that were used to all random daily uses from lights, to heat regulation.
With this ma.s.s of information rocking my mind, I almost keeled over from having to absorb all of this and then sort them out. It took me a long while to recover but once that was done, I opened my eyes, sighed and said, "Found them, follow me."
I then scurried forward with Meng Hao in toe, the two of us navigated the half-busy city streets and slowly approached the centermost buildings in the city. Where the richer parts of the society lived.
Then had to stop in front of a well-known Pavilion.
"s.h.i.+t," I cursed as I looked at the Black Tower Pavilion.
"What"s wrong?" asked Meng Hao.
"They"re inside, on the lowest floor, but I doubt we"ll get an easy clearance. Emm, give me a moment to think."
After few moments, I finally came up with a workable plan, I turned around and went to the nearest ally, then placed many talismans all over the ground and walls of an already broken building from the Tribulation.
Once I judged that enough talismans were there, I went back and met up with Meng Hao, "I got a plan, let"s hope it works." I said as I approached the Pavilion"s entrance.
The woman at the front and reception looked at me up and down, and once judge I was just a Core Cultivator she said, "Sir, there are no appropriate items for your cultivation level currently at the pavilion, but if you wish to partake in the next Auction, you"ll have to wait until next month." She said not giving me a second glance.
I approached her desk and slapped a token on it, "You"re rather rude," I said.
She frowned when I slapped my hand on the desk and was about to call the guards, but the moment my hand slid away from her desk and revealed the VIP Token I got from the last time I visited another branch of the Black Tower Pavilion, she stood up, made a back-breaking bow and profusely apologized.
"My sincerest apologies great patron! I didn"t know that a VIP was invited, usually, VIPs always give us a heads up so we can prepare their rooms. So please excuse my rudeness."
"Whatever, I"m here to look at a few items, I doubt that my cultivation level is gonna be a problem," I said.
"Not at all, please, you"re more than welcome to do so. I"ll have a few attendants accompany you," she said.
"Good, Meng Hao come over, let"s go," I said and walked inside the tower while two overly friendly female attendants came to us.
I sent a divine sense to Meng Hao explaining what"s going on because half of his attention was being used to distract himself from the overly touchy attendants.
"Once we"re inside the room, you"ll have to be quick okay?" I said.
Meng Hao nodded, and soon we entered a private room where I asked for a menu of the items that are in the pavilion right now.
One of the girls left to bring us the catalog, and the other one remained with us.
"Can we have something to drink?" I asked, "Something strong."
The second attendant looked confused as one of them had to stay with us, but seeing the "VIP" token once again made her nod and hurry out to bring us our "Drinks".
I immediately threw a couple of talismans around the room that will block divine sense and then slapped both hands together creating two copies of myself, one of them I had sitting with the chair facing away from the door, so if someone enters they"ll believe that someone was sitting there, and my personal copy had it standing for now.
"Let"s go, we don"t have much time," I said and went outside the room and closed it.
"What was that for?" Meng Hao asked.
"That will buy us some time, if the attendants come over, my clone will take the drinks and catalog and close the door on her, which will confirm our presence and alibi there. We then go underground and look for the people who disappeared.
"I suppose the talismans are there to block divine sense?"
"Yes," now hurry I said as I went down the stairs leading down to the bottom of the Black Tower.
It took us a few turns and twists before we arrived at the area that would lead down, and into where the Inscriptions that covered the whole bas.e.m.e.nt was. but there were a couple of guards there, and bypa.s.sing them without creating a ruckus would be a problem.
"What now?" Meng Hao sent.
I raised my index finger and middle finger and said, "Explosion, is art!" grinning, the world outside the Black tower pavilion rocked as ma.s.sive explosions sounded all over the area. Stunned and stupefied, the Two Guards immediately left their posts and hurried up towards the entrance.
"Worked like a charm, let"s go!" I said and the two of us went down the dark staircase.