Bai Song is not in a rush to enter the cave, instead, he activates his sneak skill.
His footsteps are soft and his figure slightly warped, his breathing is almost like the air current in the surrounding. This is the difference between an expert using sneak compared to a newbie.
Those haphazard thieves even when using sneak can be easily found when Bai Song activates his perception. On the other hand, when Bai Song uses sneak, he is the current peak expert in its usage.
[ED: Looks decent, probably could do better but it is 2:14 AM as I am editing this because of a Hectic day so meh]
Silently like cat hunting, Bai Song enters the cave. In the cave, there are no signs of people staying in it, looking completely like a naturally formed cave, but when Bai Song sees this, he is very happy.
The cave is not very big but it is also not small, there is nothing in the cave, it looks completely like an abandoned cave.
Bai Song only knows that the lair inside is a cave within the cave, but Empty Hand did not mention the method to enter the lair, furthermore he did not even mention if the 40th bandit head is a male or female, old or young. Although the 40th bandit head is only an NPC, he is also considered half a master in Empty Hand’s heart.
[ED: Sorry but I will a.s.sume gender here and use he for 40th Head]
Hence Empty Hand did not mention anything regarding 40th bandit head at all.
Looking at this bare cave, Bai Song can only shake his head and smile bitterly. Don"t even talk about making changes, if he can follow Empty Hand’s old path it is good enough already. The question now is how on earth is he supposed to find the hidden mechanism.
Since he is unable to thinking of which method Empty Hand used, Bai Song can only rely on his own methods.
His very first thought was that since this was supposed to be a cave within a cave, the walls will be hollow. Hence he immediately deactivated sneak and started knocking on the walls.
But after knocking on all sides, with Bai Song’s current hearing senses, he actually is unable to differentiate if there is any difference. "Did I knock too softly? If I knock harder would I be noticed? Forget it… Let"s not care anymore, if I am unable to find the lair everything is nothing but empty words."
Hence Bai Song took out his chopper, using the chopper he started to hack at the walls, but after going in a circle, he is still unable to obtain any results.
"That’s alright if it is so easy to discover, the 40th bandit head would never be famous." Bai Song sits on the ground and sighs.
As Bai Song sits on the ground he keeps thinking of ideas to find the hidden mechanism, a few of those ideas were immediately vetoed and the others were ineffective after trying them out.
Just as Bai Song is about to be at his wit"s end, he sees a dark brown insect flying into the cave from outside. The insect hides its wings and starts crawling on the ground.
Bai Song takes a closer look and realizes that it is a mole cricket. The mole cricket in also called LaLaGu, RockDog, PlowDog, it is also called an Earth Dog in Sichuan district, it is a type of cricket that is able to fly in the air and bore in the dirt, a miraculous species.
This gives Bai Song a bright idea.
It must be known that a mole cricket has phototaxis1, towards sweet foods such as half-cooked millet, stir-fried bean cake, wheat bran, horse manure and other organic fertilizer they will have an intense reaction and go towards them. As such loose and moist mud or wet sand are the best for their larva.
[ED: Yeah still 2 something AM, Still not able to go 100% on this one, I’ll re-edit it later when I have the time]
In this cave, there is nothing that the mole cricket likes to eat so it like is more likely that it is the latter possibility.
Mole crickets like loose soil, hence if there is a place in which the soil has been frequently moved, that areas soil will definitely be looser than other areas.
Bai Song walks over and kneels down, using the chopper point and scoops out a bit of dirt, placing the dirt between two fingers and pinching it. Afterward, he moved over to another location and did the same thing, comparing how loose the dirt is. Indeed the dirt in the first location is the looser of the two.
Bai Song immediately became more suspicious, "There is indeed something odd in this area."
Hence Bai Song faces the closest wall and does a more detailed investigation. Bai Song takes out a millet porridge from his backpack and instead of drinking it, he pours it into his hand.
The millet porridge is very clear, almost everything is water and there is hardly any millet in it. Bai Song smears the water onto the wall. As the water flows downwards, a very fine seam appears on the wall. If there is no water marks for comparison, it would be impossible to find the seam.
The mole cricket is still working hard at digging, swimming all over the place in the dirt. Bai Song drinks the leftover millet porridge and intentionally leaves aside a few millet grains.
He throws those few millet grains besides the mole cricket and says: "Enjoy this grains little fellow."
When the mole cricket sees the food, it immediately climbs out from the dirt and happily carries the grains into the soil. Apparently underneath the soil is its lair.
Bai Song sighs deeply before placing both hands on the seam and using his strength to push. After pushing for a while, the wall only moves slightly, despite that there is a gurgling echo.
"If I did not find the correct location, if I went all around and tried pushing the walls, even if I had used up all of my stamina, I would not be able to find the cave within the cave." Bai Song rests on the spot and thinks: "I wonder what method did Empty Hand use to find the mechanism in the past."
But no matter what method Empty Hand used, his reputation was absolutely not undeserving. Under Bai Song expectations, even if he had s.n.a.t.c.hed away some of Empty Hand’s opportunities, in this lifetime he will still shine like a diamond.
Under the strenuous pushing, the stone door finally opens. Without any hesitation, Bai Song immediately chooses to jump into the cave and throws his body over. The moment Bai Song finally enters the cave, the stone door closes on its own.
Bai Song climbs up from the ground and looks in front of himself. For a moment, he is unable to believe what he is seeing.
In the past, the legend said that the 40th bandit head h.o.a.rded a fortune that rivals a kingdom treasury, rare and valuable family heirlooms, innumerable tools of renowned masters. But hearing it from legend is one thing, seeing it for himself is another.
In this area, there are a few famous Artifacts. Precious pearls, gold coins and gems, all of these are usually the most precious objects in this world, but in this main hall, they are like a coa.r.s.e woman who can"t enter the main hall.
All of the descriptive words in the world are not enough to describe the amount of wealth in this cave. There are a lot of items in this area, every single one of them is unique and famous equipment, every single one of them has their own legend. If anyone was able to own all of the items in this cave, then his wealth would able to create ten…no a few hundred supreme guilds.
Furthermore, it is enough to buy a country and become a king. When a kingdom’s treasury is compared to this area, it is conspicuously poverty-stricken.
[TL: I want this cave to be my treasury >.<>
Despite Bai Song’s steady temperament from rebirth, he cannot help but feel conceit when he sees this area and starts to fantasize about what he would do if he possessed all of these items.
The greedy desire, in the end, is pushed deep down by Bai Song. 40th bandit head is no ordinary person, hence Bai Song does not believe that every single unique and famous item in this cave is not rigged with traps.
"Really I do not know if Empty Hand was able to obtain any of them." Since entering the cave, Bai Song keeps comparing himself with Empty Hand.
Based on what Empty Hand had said, although he had never indicated if he had managed to obtain an item, the 40th bandit head is considered half his master, hence the item which he had stolen should have been discovered by the 40th bandit head. But later on he did not punish him, instead, he rewarded him and pa.s.sed down some of his technique to Empty Hand.
1 Phototaxis is is a kind of taxis or locomotory movement, that occurs when a whole organism moves towards or away from stimulus of light. This is advantageous for phototrophic organisms as they can orient themselves most efficiently to receive light for photosynthesis. Phototaxis is called positive if the movement is in the direction of increasing light intensity and negative if the direction is opposite.