Chapter 164 – The Mysterious Corpse
Of the four major sects, only the Corpse Sect had returned to Hou Fen after the rank 4 cultivation country came and cleared out the fire beasts.
This move confused many people. Although the fire beasts had been cleared out, the spiritual energy there was too violent to cultivate. As a result, the entire country was a dead zone for cultivators.
The Corpse Sect didn’t give any explanation and just disappeared one night.
The Corpse Sect was very mysterious in the eyes of the other three sects. Although they didn’t have many Nascent Soul cultivators, every time the Nascent Soul cultivators gathered, they could feel a terrifying power within the Corpse Sect’s Nascent Soul cultivators.
Taking that into consideration, the three major sects just kept silent and didn’t attempt to stop them.
In the western part of Hou Fen, below the erupting volcanos, there was a huge cave leading into a network of interconnecting tunnels and caves that formed its own underground world.
Compared to Zhao’s Corpse Sect, the structure was fairly similar, only it was a bit larger.
The current Corpse Sect’s sect head, Zhao Chuanliang, was down on one knee before an irregularly-shaped crystal made of many intersecting crystals.
Zhao Chuanliang was being very respectful. Hints of fear would occasionally surface and then disappear from his face. He whispered, “Shang Zong, please give me just a few more days and I promise I’ll find out what happened to soul number 4876.”
“If I give you a few days, then who will give me a few days? Soul number 4876 is a disciple of the Tian Gang Sect of Tian Gang, which is where I’m in charge, and now they have come looking for him. According to calculations, soul number 4876 should have already finish possessing the body. What am I going to tell them?”
Zhao Chuanliang secretly cursed. His face revealed a look of panic and he quickly said, “Shang Zong, I have already found some clues and found where soul number 4876 disappeared. From a.n.a.lysing the clues, it seems like a disciple of the War G.o.d Shrine named Ma Liang is related. I have received news that he recently appeared in Xuan Wu, so I have sent people over. As long as you give me ten days, I’ll definitely be able to find the truth.”
The face of the person inside the crystal became a little more relaxed as he looked at Zhao Chuanliang and sighed. “Chuanliang, I’ll give you ten days to find it because it’s “that” body. However, if you still show no results in ten days, don’t blame me for reporting this to the rank 5 cultivation country division. With how they work, they will definitely take away your right to choose a body after you have been possessed.”
With that, the face in the crystal slowly disappeared.
Zhao Chuanliang slumped to the ground and bitterly smiled. “If that soul number 4867 is someone from Tian Gang, then wouldn’t it be better for him to just posses a body there instead? Why must he be thrown to me, ah?!” However, in his heart he understood that when someone needed to possess a body, they would always do it in another country.
A cold voice came out from Zhao Chuanliang. “Forget about your chance to choose a body, Zhao Chuanliang. You seem to be in a bad situation!”
Zhao Chuanliang sighed and asked, “Ye Zizai, what should I do?”
“What to do? I don’t know either, but as Zhao’s former Corpse Sect sect head, I have encountered a similar situation. The situation with my junior disciple was similar, but slightly different too. Soul number 4876’s soul lamp hasn’t gone out yet, meaning he is still alive. If you can find him, it will be for the best, but if you can’t, then you will be in danger.”
“However, I’m very curious. Shang Zong said that he would give you ten days because it’s this body. What is your relations.h.i.+p with the former owner of that body?”
Zhao Chuanliang calmly said, “It was my younger brother. Both of us entered the Corpse Sect 400 years ago. His talent was better than mine, so he was picked by Shang Zong.”
Ye Zizai sneered. His voice was filled with discontent. “If it wasn’t for the fact that the perfect body I had prepared for myself was found by the rank 5 cultivation country and taken away from me, I would have already recovered my cultivation and finished the possession.”
Zhao Chuanliang took a deep breath as he placed a piece of jade on his forehead. After a few moments, he threw the jade.
“All Core Formation and above cultivators, follow me on a trip to the Hou Fen Union!” With one order, all of the disciples of the Corpse Sect opened their eyes. A ghostly light appeared in their eyes.
As for w.a.n.g Lin, although the Divine Path was indeed extraordinary, it was not fitting for him to cultivate. He pondered for a bit before letting out a sigh and began to leave. What surprised w.a.n.g Lin was that the Divine Path now remained in his head instead of disappearing like normal.
However, when w.a.n.g Lin attempted to make a copy of it, he still couldn’t do it. It felt like there was an invisible force preventing the Divine Path from being recorded.
w.a.n.g Lin pondered for a bit before giving up on writing it down. He looked around at the water mirror doors. All of them were dark and looked exactly the same.
He pondered for a bit before spreading out his divine sense, but there seemed to be a layer of protection on the water mirror doors that would bounce his divine sense back. w.a.n.g Lin’s eyes lit up and he looked at the entrance. The red-faced old man was just probably outside that door.
He jumped and landed before one of the water mirror doors. He reached into the water mirror door with his hand and felt the cool sensation. Soon, he reached a stone wall.
w.a.n.g Lin withdrew his hand and began to ponder. He quickly took out the jade containing the War G.o.d Shrine’s refining methods and began to search through it.
The three main parts of the War G.o.d Shrine’s refining method were extract, melt, and fuse. All magic treasure refining followed these three processes. w.a.n.g Lin quickly found something called reverse refining in the jade.
Reverse refining was originally meant for cultivators to exchange refining methods. To reverse engineer the magic treasure to find out how it is created and then recreate the same magic treasure.
Long term practice of reverse refining can increase one’s refining capability. To reverse refine other people’s products, to learn their methods, and to use those methods to refine your own treasures.
However, this kind of reverse refining can only be used on a treasure that is created through extract, melt, and fusion.
w.a.n.g Lin carefully looked at the process before putting the jade away. He put his hands together before his chest and sent spiritual energy into them. When he moved his hands, there were threads of spiritual energy connecting his two palms.
w.a.n.g Lin shouted, “Go!”
The threads were cut down the middle. The broken ends drilled into the water mirror door with the other ends still connected to w.a.n.g Lin’s hand. As w.a.n.g Lin poured spiritual energy into his hand, more and more threads appeared until there was enough to wrap around the entire water mirror door.
The fusion part of the refining process was similar to balancing the spiritual energy and formation inside a magic treasure to reach a mysterious balance.
The reverse refining process requires the exact opposite, as the first step was to break this balance. Once it succeeded, the balance would be broken. w.a.n.g Lin kept pouring spiritual energy in with a calm expression, but his gaze was locked onto the water mirror door.
His expression suddenly changed as the threads coming out of his hand began to tremble and a very bright ring of light appeared at the center of the water mirror door. This ring released soft crackling sounds until it completely shattered. The moment it shattered, the the light expanded to the edges of the temple and disappeared.
The water mirror door became dim. w.a.n.g Lin knew that the balance inside had been broken. What was next was to split the materials and the spirit core that were used to make the door in the melting process.
w.a.n.g Lin’s expression was serious as he slowly withdrew the threads of spiritual energy.
As the thread was withdrawn, the water mirror door began to shake and the edges of the temple began to s.h.i.+ne. The light slowly withdrew from the edges of the temple and became a ball of light.
There were countless threads on the ball of light, all of which were connected to w.a.n.g Lin’s hand.
w.a.n.g Lin shouted, “Withdraw!”
The ball of light was pulled out of the door as w.a.n.g Lin quickly shook his hand and the thread disappeared back into his body.
w.a.n.g Lin looked at the ball of light with a smile on his face. He completed the second step of reverse refining, which was to split the melting process. The spirit core had been split from the other materials of the treasure.
w.a.n.g Lin took a deep breath and looked back at the entrance. He didn’t know how long he had been in here, but these water mirror doors cut off divine sense and spiritual energy, so no matter how much of a commotion he created in here, no one outside would notice.
In addition to that, the red-faced elder didn’t believe that w.a.n.g Lin could break the water mirror door with only his Core Formation cultivation, so he didn’t wait inside.
This gave w.a.n.g Lin a chance, but he knew that he had to be quick, otherwise the red-faced elder would suddenly come in. Everything would be for nothing if he did.
Thinking about this, he quickly took out the reaction furnace he had made in the 14th valley. He carefully put the spirit core inside the reaction furnace and placed a seal on it. Then the reaction furnace immediately began to spin. It was slow at first, but then it went faster and faster.
After sending out the seal, he walked toward the door.
This water mirror door was made of two parts: the stone door’s device core and the spirit core. Now that he had removed the spirit core, the only thing that blocked him was the stone door’s device core.
w.a.n.g Lin raised his hand and pressed on the door. His divine sense quickly went inside. After sweeping it with his divine sense, his expression immediately became strange.
Inside the stone room was only a corpse that contained an invisible power that prevented it from rotting. The corpse was sitting there with its finger pointing to the ground. A trace of black aura was going from the finger into the ground.
w.a.n.g Lin’s divine sense carefully examined the inside of the room before he withdrew it. What he saw inside made him start rubbing his chin. He reached out toward the reaction furnace, causing it to stop and making the spirit core come out. The spirit core was now dimmer than it was before.
w.a.n.g Lin looked at it before throwing it back into the reaction furnace. The furnace began to spin again when the spirit core was inside it. His gaze fell onto the next stone room. After opening ten more water mirror doors, his expression became ever more strange.
w.a.n.g Lin muttered to himself, “What the h.e.l.l is the War G.o.d Shrine doing? Could this place be a grave?” Every single stone room contained a corpse and nothing else.
w.a.n.g Lin looked around and began to ponder. He quickly opened the water mirror doors, checked inside, and then put the spirit cores back to return the water mirror doors to normal. After checking everyone single stone room, he finally found something abnormal.
One corpse was clearly different from all the others. Instead of sitting down, it was floating in the air. Slivers of black gas were coming out of the walls and making their way into the body.
w.a.n.g Lin’s heart immediately tightened.
This person wasn’t dead; there were signs of life on him, and the amount of life in that body would shock anyone.
w.a.n.g Lin was about to exit the room when he noticed the black, silk bag under the body. This was obviously a bag of holding. w.a.n.g Lin’s eyes narrowed after he had looked at it for a bit. After pondering for a while, he didn’t act recklessly but instead withdrew his divine sense and backed up.
After backing out of the room, w.a.n.g Lin looked toward the reaction furnace. The speed at which the reaction furnace was spinning had slowed down and the spirit core had already melted into a clear liquid. Without a second thought, w.a.n.g Lin reached into the liquid.
He grabbed a portion and molded it back into a ball before throwing it back at the first door he had opened. That door immediately returned to the way it was before.
After that, he revealed an undecided expression. That bag of holding appeared to be very different from ones he had seen before. However, this was the War G.o.d Shrine’s temple. They allowed him to view the Divine Path, so it was really hard to justify taking something from here as well.
If the stone rooms contained refining materials, he wouldn’t mind taking some of it, but only this one stone room was different from the rest.
After pondering for a bit, w.a.n.g Lin suddenly gained some insight. Could it be that all of the corpses in those stone rooms were in fact used for the person in the abnormal room to cultivate with?
While thinking about this, a thought struck w.a.n.g Lin. The black gas going into that person’s body was the same as the black gas the corpses were emitting.
w.a.n.g Lin’s face was filled with terror. He was now convinced that his guess was 80% or 90% correct. This person had to be cultivating some type of technique. He had looked at the more than 100 stone rooms. The corpses inside them must have been prepared for this person to use.
w.a.n.g Lin pondered for a bit. He began to suspect that this person was not a member of the War G.o.d Shrine. It was likely that the War G.o.d Shrine didn’t even know this person, or else the red-faced elder wouldn’t have been so casual in here, and more importantly, he wouldn’t have left w.a.n.g Lin in here by himself.
Of course, there was a chance that the red-faced elder had evil intentions, but after thinking about it, w.a.n.g Lin’s death would bring no benefit to the War G.o.d Shrine. There was really no need for all this trouble.
The more he a.n.a.lysed it, the more he was certain of his own speculations. This place must have been the resting place for the War G.o.d Shrine’s ancestors. For some reason, it attracted this person to cultivate his technique here.
Thinking about this, w.a.n.g Lin backed up a few steps. He felt waves of cold air pa.s.s by. It was like a pair of eyes had been staring at him these past few days.
But his eyes quickly moved back onto the bag of holding. He spat out a mouthful of spiritual energy and the crystal sword appeared.
The flying sword cut into the bottom right corner of the door and carved out a hole. w.a.n.g Lin held his breath. His whole body was tense as he used the attraction force technique to bring the black bag of holding out from the hole.
He didn’t look at it as he held it against his chest and immediately backed up. His hand moved very fast to quickly return the spirit core to the door. In the blink of an eye, the door returned to normal. However, there was a not-so-noticeable hole at the bottom right corner.
w.a.n.g Lin didn’t pause for a moment before quickly exiting the temple. As soon as he came out, he saw the red-faced elder cultivating outside.
The red-faced elder looked at w.a.n.g Lin and said, with a deep tone, “You stayed inside for seven days. Did you comprehend it?”
w.a.n.g Lin shook his head and bitterly smiled. “The Divine Path is simply too strange. I kept on forgetting what I had read and was unable to comprehend it. Senior, I want to ask, what exactly is in those stone rooms sealed by the water mirror doors? Can you tell me?”
The red-faced old man looked at w.a.n.g Lin and said, “All of the ancestors of the War G.o.d Shrine are placed in a stone room after they die.”
w.a.n.g Lin’s expression remained the same, but his heart trembled. He was now sure that his guess was correct. He clasped his hands and said, “Junior will no longer bother you anymore. Goodbye!”
The red-faced old man nodded and walked into the temple. The moment the red-faced old man old man walked into the water mirror door, w.a.n.g Lin quickly flew out of the mountain.
In the blink of an eye, he left the Hou Fen Union’s mountain and saw the old man sitting on top of a cloud. He opened his eyes as w.a.n.g Lin got close and snorted. “If you had stayed in there any longer, I would have gone inside to look for you.”
Without a word, w.a.n.g Lin flew away. The old man moved his body and the clouds quickly dispersed, revealing the gourd underneath him. He quickly followed behind w.a.n.g Lin.
w.a.n.g Lin stepped onto the gourd and disappeared into the sky along with the old man.
The gourd’s speed was very fast. It was even faster than w.a.n.g Lin’s earth escape technique. They could slowly see the border of Xuan Wu and Hou Fen coming into sight.
Along the way, the two of them didn’t say a single word to each other. w.a.n.g Lin could feel the bag of holding in his clothes, but he didn’t check what was inside it and he didn’t use his divine sense to probe it.
After all, the old man was right next to him. If he were to make any unusual movements, there would likely be more problems.
It didn’t take long for the gourd to reach the border of Xuan Wu and cross into Hou Fen. One day later, they arrived at the border of the Sea of Devils. The Sea of Devils was completely covered by thick layers of rolling fog. One could sometimes see spirit beasts appearing and disappearing in the fog.
Outside the Sea of Devils, the old man slapped the gourd, causing it to shrink. It land in his hand. w.a.n.g Lin jumped off the gourd and landed on the ground. The old man put the gourd away and said, “We are going to wait here for a few days for one more person. Once that person is here, the three of us will go together.”
With that, he sat down in the lotus position and closed his eyes.
w.a.n.g Lin stared at the Sea of Devils. The layer of fog rolled before him and sent out waves of cold energy. He pondered for a bit before sitting down to cultivate.
Not much time had pa.s.sed before w.a.n.g Lin suddenly opened his eyes. A mysterious scene occurred above the Sea of Devils. Eight rays of purple light suddenly appeared out of thin air. Each ray of light condensed into a wooden pillar, making eight pillars in total. The pillars intersected to form a circular formation. The spiritual energy fluctuations coming from it were so powerful that all of the fog around it was pushed away, revealing the whirlpool underneath.
There were many strange symbols and images carved onto the eight wooden pillars, making them a very shocking sight. There were interconnecting rays of light that formed rings inside the eight wooden pillars. Looking closely, there was total of 49 rings.
The old man opened his eyes, let out a snort, and said, “That is a special teleportation formation from the Corpse Sect. I wonder what made those freaks have the guts to come here.”
w.a.n.g Lin was very familiar with the Corpse Sect. Even this formation looked familiar. It was the same formation he had seen back in Zhao, only it was many times bigger.
At this moment, the rings of light began to s.h.i.+ne one after another until all 49 rings were s.h.i.+ning brightly. More than 30 dark figures appeared. Although their spiritual energy was a bit unstable, their eyes all contained a ghostly light. Every single one of them was at least at the late stage of Core Formation, with five of them having reached the Nascent Soul stage.
Aside from the five people at the Nascent Soul stage, everyone else had a black coffin floating behind them.
Zhao Chuanliang was among the five Nascent Soul cultivators. He stood in the center of the formation as his gaze stopped on the old man for a while before moving onto w.a.n.g Lin.
He hesitated for a bit before reaching out with his hand. It turned into a giant, black cloud of smoke that reached toward w.a.n.g Lin.
w.a.n.g Lin sneered. Instead of dodging, he continued to sit there as if nothing was happening. As the black smoke closed in on w.a.n.g Lin, he could feel the cold air coming from it. Just as it was about to touch w.a.n.g Lin, the old man’s face darkened and he waved his right hand. The black smoke disappeared without a trace.