27 Chapter 27: Spoils of War

To my utmost frustration, right after the army of stone soldiers bent their knees to display their submission to me, they crumbled away into dust. And here I had thought I would be able to add them to my collection of summoned spirits. A chance to get an army of my own…and now it was gone.

Oh, well. I guess the powers that be decided that they didn't want me to be too overpowered. I was already defeating my peers with little more than a single war spirit. Imagine if I obtained an entire army all of a sudden.

Of course, I would have to cultivate them from scratch. I wouldn't immediately have access to a fully-fledged army. I would need to slowly nurture them over several years before they reached their current level of strength. On the plus side, it also meant that they had the potential to grow stronger instead of stagnating at their present strength.

"Don't worry," Mu Rong Shu assured me, sensing my drop in mood. "You'll find something better in the main chamber."

"Yeah, I hope we will." I couldn't keep the frustration out of my voice. My wife placed a hand on my arm.

"Definitely. Given how powerful the guardians of this tomb are, I would be surprised if they aren't protecting something very valuable."

"That's true." I nodded, feeling my spirits lift a little. "Let's go check it out!"

The chamber wasn't too far from here. Turned out that the tomb was built like a fortress, as befitting as one known to be a war god. There were overlapping lines where soldiers could spring ambushes and fall back whenever the front rows were breached. However, against a single enemy – or two enemies – they wouldn't resort to such tactics. These were meant to be utilized against enemy armies, not individuals.

With just me and Mu Rong Shu, we weren't even enough to make up a squad. And that was counting my war spirit that I could summon. I doubted Xiao Hei, who had yet to make his debut in battle. As I said before, nurturing a spirit took years. Xiao Hei wouldn't be ready for combat until a while later.

We made our way past the empty trenches and barricades, going straight for the central chamber. There were no traps, nothing. Not even a hint of wraiths. I guess the terracotta soldiers replaced the wraiths completely.

There were plenty of weapons in the chamber, gleaming treasures that exuded power. None of them suited us, but we took them anyway. They would be suitable for a lot of other cultivators, so we could just sell them for high prices. Despite what he said, Mu Rong Lao was going to be happy when he saw that we would be giving him a lot of stuff.

The Mu Rong family, already rich, was going to get a lot richer. And given my grandfather-in-law's promises, Mu Rong Shu and I would be getting a massive percentage for the sales this time. The other relatives would be looking at us in envy if they realized the truth.

Not that Mu Rong Shu and I intended to show off our wealth or successes to them…even if we did, they wouldn't believe us anyway. Mu Rong Qiu and the others insisted that I was trash, no matter how many relics, artifacts and techniques I brought back to Mu Rong Lao. Even if their grandfather told them the truth, they refused to listen.

In their eyes, I would always be trash. No matter what I did, no matter what achievements I got, they would always deny reality. Don't ask me why. Apparently it was so that I could repeatedly slap their faces over and over again. Talk about contrived. It wasn't as if I was like the other cliché sons-in-law who hid my identity and didn't say anything when my in-laws insulted me. I told them, but they refused to believe me, instead denying reality and continuing to wallow in their delusions.

Whatever. I focused on the present, sweeping the relic weapons into my storage device. Looking through the swords, armor, spears, halberds, axes, shields and even bows, I briefly wondered if there would be anything that was useful to me. Mu Rong Lao claimed that I would find plenty, but right now I couldn't see anything…

"What about you, Shu Er?" I asked, glancing at her while she worked opposite me, also retrieving the priceless relics. "Find anything that you like?"

"Hmm, I guess this would be cool. And this too."

Fortunately, Mu Rong Shu found a couple of relics that suited her. She picked up golden gauntlets that gleamed under the artificial light of the tomb. Trying them on, she tested them by flexing the armored fingers before throwing out a palm thrust. A blast of qi resonated in the air, blowing up dust.

"Excellent, this fits well," she said, pleased.

"Great!" I couldn't help but be delighted. "The trip wasn't a waste, after all! Anything else?"

"These too." She picked up a pair of black, armored boots and tried them on. Stomping on the ground, she executed a kick that lasted a hole into the wall a few meters away. Without even touching it with her foot. Whoa, that was impressive.

"Nice." I grinned. "These will help you out in the future."

"Yeah. I'll need to get used to fighting in them, though. Nothing a little training wouldn't help." She then regarded me hesitantly. "What about you?"

"Nothing yet."

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find the relics that grandfather was talking about eventually. He wouldn't send you here for no reason."

I smiled grimly, wishing I could share in her optimism, but she was right. Mu Rong Lao had never lied to me before, and I doubted he would do so now. That said, most of what he told me was speculation. He didn't actually know what was inside this tomb, but he guessed that it would be useful to me because of its nature and he knew the true identity of my war spirit.

That came to my mind the moment I caught sight of a very familiar spear. A polearm, perhaps. Stopping before it, my jaw dropped.

It was the exact same spear that my war spirit used, and also whenever I condensed him into a weapon for my own personal usage.

"This…"

"What is it?" Mu Rong Shu stopped whatever she was doing to look in my direction. Then she saw the spear too. "Isn't that…?"

"Yeah, it is." I reached for the spear, but before I could touch it, the spear vanished. Turning into golden energy, it surged into my chest, causing me to stagger backward. Grunting, I dropped to my knees and the volatile qi raged inside me, flooding my system with power. "Ugh!"

"Dear!" Mu Rong Shu hurried toward me, but I shook my head and gestured for her to stay back.

"It's for my war spirit. I just need to consolidate these energies and I will…" A realization came over me while I fought to control and assimilate the qi. Or at least to calm them down for now. "…I might be able to finally restore his full form!"

"Really? That's great news!"

"Yeah." Taking a deep breath, I rose shakily to my feet. Closing my eyes, I shook my head and smiled. "Just this alone makes the trip here totally worth it. I managed to cut down the cultivation of my war spirit by years."

"Excellent." Mu Rong Shu genuinely looked happy for me. She helped me up when I staggered and I turned to look at the coffin.

"What other secrets is this tomb hiding, I wonder?"

As it turned out, the dead commander inside the coffin was holding onto something called the Nine Yang Divine Flame. When I pried the manual out of his hand, his corpse crumbled away to dust. I felt a sense of connection with the technique, my fingers tightening on the bamboo parchment.

"Do you mind if I keep this?"

"Sure." Mu Rong Shu nodded, slightly surprised. "But that doesn't look like something that is useful for your summoning techniques."

"I don't know…I just feel a connection with it," I admitted, scratching my head. Holding the scroll up, I felt it resonate with a bow and a quiver of specialized arrows inside my storage ring. I took the bow out and studied it, puzzled. It looked pretty majestic, gleaming golden. The arrows themselves were imbued with blazing energies, making them look as if they were perpetually ablaze. That made sense, given the skills. They suited each other, but right now I couldn't establish any sort of connection besides their shared element.

They simply resonated, but they didn't combine. Perhaps the technique was to create more arrows like these?

"I'll keep these as well. Perhaps they will be useful for the future."

"Didn't you used to practice archery as well?" Mu Rong Shu asked, noticing the specific weapons I had taken out. I grimaced and nodded.

"Yeah, well…but I stopped a few years ago." I didn't want to think too much about it. Back then, I practiced archery to please my parents. I wasn't exactly good at it, but I had worked very hard. However, my parents were more interested in my brother, who always stole my bow and arrows for himself.

Eventually, I was sick of what seemed like a futile effort and gave up. If my brother loved to show off in archery and suppress me in doing so, then he could have my bow and arrow. I wasn't going to compete against him for our parents' approval.

Well, it seemed that I had a bow and special arrows of my own for now, so I didn't have to worry about giving them up. I wasn't going to hand them over ever again. These were mine. Nobody else could touch them, save my wife but she wasn't an archer so she probably wouldn't bother.

There was one last thing inside the coffin. Reaching inside, I stared at it in shock.

"The Treatise of the Red Cliff. A report on the battle and an analysis."

"What?" Mu Rong Shu started when she heard me read out the title. I passed it over to her and she flipped through it. "My goodness, it's a chronicle of the battle of Red Cliff. It's written by Zhu Ge Liang? Could the owner of this tomb be…?"

I then studied the coffin, where the corpse used to lay. Suddenly the quantity of weapons inside the tomb made sense. It reminded me of the time when a general from the era of the Three Kingdoms led a small force to block Cao Ren's supply lines in the aftermath of the Battle of Red Cliff. He lost, but even so he still managed to seize a good number of armaments. Pushing my glasses up my nose, I considered for a few moments.

"God of War. I don't think the guy is Zhu Ge Liang. Could he be…Guan Yu?"

"You might be right. Guan Yu is the God of War…"

"Too bad his spirit isn't here." I sighed. It would have been great if I could collect Guan Yu's spirit and nurture it, but reality often wasn't that generous. Well, I still benefited a lot from this expedition. Both Mu Rong Shu and I had obtained priceless relics that would help us greatly in our cultivation. I would be too greedy to ask for more.

With the Tomb of the War God cleared out, the both of us left.