Chapter 361: Mountain Gate
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The wispy yet unpredictably clear mountain, or the muddy and horrifying swamp of the Witchcraft Mountain Gate would never appear again. Just like the specific bracelet you would receive in a normal bathhouse after having your members.h.i.+p done, the worker dressed in white produced and handed over a black iron bracelet to Zhang Lisheng after finis.h.i.+ng his registration for him.
Dumbfounded, the young man looked at Su Deli. With Su Deli’s smug demonstration, he put on the bracelet on his wrist under the envious gaze of many people in the bathhouse and then proceeded to split ways with Min Lan and the gorgeous woman called Ruo Zhen. After pa.s.sing through the corridor, he walked into the locker room of the male bathing pool.
Then, it was like going into a real bathhouse. Zhang Lisheng copied Su Deli and the black-clothed old man’s actions. No longer thinking about just how absurd this was, he stripped off his clothes and wrapped himself with the bath towel given by the worker before entering a large bathing pool filled with water vapor.
There was a large and a small pool in the hall. Other than the wall where the door was located, the remaining two sides were filled with shower heads, looking completely like a genuinely simple bath.
“Don’t tell me that we’re really going to take a bath?” Looking around, Zhang Lisheng muttered to himself. However, Su Deli’s retroflex sound resonated in his ears, “Enter the pool and activate the wizard power in your blood. Swim forward and then dive downward.”
“Huh?” Zhang Lisheng was astonished. However, he saw Su Deli had already ignored him and had gradually walked into the pool not far away together with Old Man Chen’s disappearing silhouette. Then, they entered the water and disappeared without a trace.
After pondering for a while, Zhang Lisheng finally understood that the bathing pool must be the entrance of the Main Hall. He also tried to tread on the slippers and entered the pool with a towel wrapped around him. Holding his breath, he lowered himself entirely in the pool that was less than one meter deep and activated the wizard power in his body before swimming forward and diving downward.
He felt as though his head had smashed the bottom of the pool open that was covered with blue tiles. The water in front of his eyes suddenly became bright and clear, and suddenly a gush of buoyant energy could be felt under his body as he felt it lift his body out of the water.
When he looked at the surrounding environment again, he realized that he had already entered a brook in the wild where many people were soaking in it. From the vague shadows on the far sh.o.r.e, he could make out the shape of an ancient town formed by wooden houses and wooden buildings built near the mountains on different levels of terrain.
“Mr. Su, this is the Mountain Gate of the Witchcraft’s Gate of Death? T-This is a different dimension!” Dumbfounded, Zhang Lisheng remarked to to Su Deli, who was beside him.
“Inner Disciple Zhang Lisheng, since you’ve already entered the Gate of Witchcraft, please call me ‘Deacon Su’ here in the Mountain Gate but call me ‘a.s.sistant Su’ in the secular world. You’re not guilty this time for you weren’t informed but don’t make this mistake again next time.” Upon hearing the young man’s words, Su Deli, who was by the side, had his expression turned grave as he replied to Lisheng’s words. “I’ll go look for the secret cultivation method that you want now. Min Lan, you’re old acquaintances with Disciple Zhang so go and find a place for him to settle down. ”
“Yes, Deacon.” Min Lan, who had only just come out from the brook, answered as she bowed while still wrapped in the bath towel. Then, she watched him take Old Man Chen and the gorgeous woman called Ruo Zhen as they slowly walked away, not before cupping his hands together in front of his chest with the bearing of ancient custom in an imposing appearance towards the crowds who stepped aside in awe and made way for them in the brook. In a whisper, she motioned to Lisheng, “Lisheng, let’s go, I’ll look for a place for you to stay in the mountain city.”
“Sure, Sister!” The young man nodded and slowly walked up to the sh.o.r.e from the brook. The strange scenery around him and the shadows of people standing up from the brook from time to time could not help but make him mutter, “The reality is completely different from my imagination! I first thought that the Witchcraft Mountain Gate is hidden in a barren mountain or a vast marsh but who would have ever thought that I can actually reach here just by taking a bath.”
“Stop prattling. There is a range of mountains spread outside and wasn’t it a barren mountain and a vast marsh thousands of years ago?” Without turning her head around, Min Lan brought Zhang Lisheng to walk towards the ancient city far away. As they were walking, she suddenly sighed and lowered her voice to say, “Lisheng, if I were to say that you’re unlucky, you actually went and survived the inexorable doom from the self-detonation of the demons on Shrimp Island instead. But if I were to say that you’re lucky, you’d have now become an elite disciple if you hadn’t disappeared because of the detonation and had followed Senior Uncle Ouyang and Junior Uncle Zheng directly back to Mountain Gate. Sigh, right now, things have changed with the pa.s.sing of time. It’s very difficult now if you want to have a meteoric rise…”
Min Lan had only spoken a few sentences but she had revealed a lot of information. At that time, when they were on Shrimp B1 Island, Ouyang Boxiong had indeed told Zhang Lisheng before that it would be very easy for him to obtain a secret method if he followed him back to the Mountain Gate, heck, it would also be easy for him to be bestowed the t.i.tle as a B-ranked disciple.
The reason he would hang such a cookie in front was because, first, that time during the process of hunting for Gold Cores on the foreign world’s island, Zhang Lisheng was an indispensable a.s.set to them; second, it was indeed worthwhile for the witchcraft to woo this young man, who knew the situation of the foreign world quite well, who was also a US citizen and who had just so happened to practice witchcraft too, and grant him a position of elite disciple if the Gate of Witchcraft really wanted to continue to hunt for the spiritual monster’s Gold Cores in Shrimp World No. 2.
However, the fact that Min Lan was saying this was undoubtedly implying that Zhang Lisheng’s value had become almost negligible now. Or, to be more precise, it meant that Shrimp World No. 2 was no longer that important to the Gate of Witchcraft.
Many thoughts coursed through Zhang Lisheng’s mind in a short period of time. He lowered his head as a brilliance flashed across his eyes and said in a whisper, “Sister, the Gate of Witchcraft is no longer going to Shrimp World No. 2 to hunt for the Gold Core?”
“You’re indeed smart.” Min Lan, who was walking on the stone road, nodded in surprise. “This matter is no longer a secret. The situation has changed. A foreign world that has emerged in China is said to have many poisonous bugs and ferocious beasts roaming around, just like the Cretaceous Period on Earth last time. Now, that place has become the most wanted target of our Gate of Witchcraft. As for the foreign world in the US that is an ocean apart from here, it is no longer important.”
Upon hearing China discovering a true primitive world, Zhang Lisheng’s eyes widened right away. “Oh, I see!”
“Lisheng, actually, even if you couldn’t become a B-ranked elite disciple right away, you could still slowly obtain the gate’s attention step by step if you’re working hard enough. But now that you’ve offended Big Boss Su… Sigh… If you want the secret cultivation method of both Gate of Sacrifice and Life, you can just slowly pay attention and gather them since the Three Gates of Witchcraft have a very harmonious relations.h.i.+p. You’d be able to find it in time as long as you have the determination so why did you have to go ask Big Boss to give it to you? And to think that you actually thought that you’re seeking for fairness. In fact, you should know that nothing is fair in this world…”
“It’s exactly because nothing is fair that I’d ask D-Deacon Su to carry out a simultaneous trade with me,” Zhang Lisheng smiled peculiarly as he interrupted Min Lan’s words. “Oh yeah Sister. Deacon Su is the Big Boss Su that you said right? He seems to be very young and his strength is not particularly strong so why does his position seems to be quite high in the Gate of Death?”
“It’s because he’s the direct great grandson of Old G.o.d Su. He’ll definitely obtain the True Witch inheritance of Shed and Restore. When he was born, he was directly a B-ranked elite disciple and when he became an adult, he became A-ranked right away and became the deacon who held real authority!” The young man’s ignorance made Min Lan frown. After the girl explained in detail about Su Deli’s background, she stopped talking until they walked into the ancient city.
The mountain city was built on the mountain. The entrance was none other but the foot of the mountain. When the stone lane leading from the brook to the city entered the foot of the mountain, two wooden six-story buildings were built on both left and right of it, one was written with ‘male bathroom’ while the other was written with ‘female bathroom’ on the front door.
“After entering the building, hand the black iron bracelet to the disciple working there. Change your clothes before entering the city.” Pointing to the wooden building on the left, Min Lan informed Zhang Lisheng and then ignored his mumblings of “Bathroom means toilet isn’t it? It should be called a dressing room instead…” before walking into the wooden building on the right.
Purposely putting on an act of a stubborn, quirky, but a little short-sighted character, Zhang Lisheng muttered to himself while following a group of naked men wrapped in white bath towels into the wooden building on the left ridiculously.
As soon as he entered the wooden building, a wizard disciple wearing a black robe hurriedly walked up to the young man and looked at the black iron bracelet that he showed to him. Dexterously, he handed a wooden token to the young man and proceeded to walk away.
Zhang Lisheng hurriedly stopped the black-robed man and said, “Brother, please don’t go first. I’m a newly entered inner disciple so I still don’t know the rules of the bathroom here yet.”
“New disciple?” The black-robed man studied the young man from top to bottom. “What rules do we have on changing clothes? You and I are both E-ranked disciples. You only need to go to the third floor and change into a clean black robe using your wooden token. That is all to it.”
“Thank you, Brother!” Zhang Lisheng nodded and walked towards the stairs.
The first and second floors of the bathroom seemed to be the changing floors for the wizards who had not yet officially joined the Gate of Witchcraft, the clothes available there seemed to be parti-color pants made of coa.r.s.e cloth. The young man walked straight up to the third floor and put on the black robe. When he walked down, he had even attracted a few envious gazes.
When Zhang Lisheng saw so many people of his own kind who regarded ‘wizard’ as a profession or power attribute instead of an intrinsic nature, Zhang Lisheng could not help but smile coldly.
As he walked out of the wooden building, he secretly pondered over it. By the time he obtained the secret cultivation method, if he could not sneak his way into the foreign world that was similar to the Cretaceous Period in China in the shortest time possible, he would just leave this place as soon as possible, lest he waste his time.
After making up his mind, Zhang Lisheng waited for a while on the stone path at the foot of the mountain and finally saw Min Lan slowly walking out of the wooden building on the right wearing a golden slim dress.
The brightness of the gold long dress looked very ugly to the young man’s eyes but after the girl had brought him to a courtyard in the ancient city, after crossing a few gentle slopes and two to three inclined streets, he saw how the disciple in-charge was so respectful to her when she ordered the green-robed disciple to find a room for them to stay. Finally, it made Zhang Lisheng realize the extraordinariness of the ugly golden brilliance.
The Gate of Witchcraft had a strict hierarchy. An elite disciple who seemed to submit to a Grand Wizard like Ouyang Boxiong and a deacon like Su Deli actually had a distinguished position in the Mountain Gate.
However, what made Zhang Lisheng feel ridiculous was that these group of wizards who should be believing in the law of the jungle the most had deviated from their innate nature and gathered together to form a sect that had its hierarchy completely based on relations.h.i.+ps like father-children or master-disciple, instead of level of strength and wisdom. In that case, how was it different from other mortals then?