29 One pendant, two girls

Meanwhile, Nie Li was unaware of their thoughts. He was busy disarming the traps and avoiding the ones that couldn't be deactivated. He also watched girls strictly following his steps. Traps were not very complicated. Especially for Nie Li who had raided more tombs in his previous life than anyone he knew. And the part he inherited from Robert added more excitement to the process. He was tomb raiding with his two potential girlfriends! This is what he would call adventuring in style.

They talked about their home lives. Girls were very interested in Nie Li's life before joining the Institute and Nie Li told them how he worked on family farmlands rearing herbs and other types of plants. Both girls were born with silver spoons in their mouths so the life of ordinary people was new for them. Nie Li told them about his adventures in his home exaggerating and embellishing his tales. Girls laughed at that, lifting the mood in these oppressive underground manmade caves.

Nie Li periodically looked at his compass and marked their approximate location on his mental map. The underground palace was very big. It would take weeks to explore everything here. So he had to follow the direction to the main chamber and then to the underground treasure room he had directed Chen Linjian towards. In the future, if he had time he would send someone to explore and map the entire underground structure. There may be other treasures here.

He also spread his spiritual senses around him constantly. With him reaching 2-star Bronze rank his spiritual senses have also improved. Right now if he wanted to undetailed scan of his surroundings he could cover the area with a radius of 5-6 kilometers. And a detailed scan of a hundred meters of distance wasn't a problem. Of course, he could focus his spiritual senses in one direction and raise his reach up to 200-250 meters but that was not an easy way to scan everything around him. He was not a rotating radar antenna after all.

Underground his reach dropped even more dramatically. Right now, he could scan 20-25 meters of distance from himself. But that was enough. If there was something interesting with a lick of soul force in them in his area of scan he wouldn't miss it.

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It had taken them around 5 hours for them to reach an entrance to a big hall. 'This must be our target' thought Nie Li. Walking inside he wasn't surprised. The hall was filled with bones of different sizes. There were bones of adults as well as bones of children. There were too many of them. It seemed like they had a painful struggle before they died.

Girls who entered the hall behind him gasped. They hadn't expected this.

"What happened here? How could this be?" Ye Ziyun questioned as her eyes began to redden and tears began to fall from her cheeks. Xiao Ning'er wasn't much better. She was listlessly staring at the bones of the children huddled in a corner. Children should be happily running around playing under the light of the sun, not die in some dark underground cave leaving only bones.

Nie Li sighed and said, "This should be the temporary refuge of the Ancient Orchid City. They moved the elderly. Women and children here. They were probably going to get them out after the battle. However, the war was lost and Ancient Orchid City was destroyed, therefore these people were trapped here and starved to death."

Nie Li remembered that in his previous life after the destruction of Glory City they have left many people inside the refuge area. He could imagine what happened to that people. He felt a lump in his throat. Girls stood beside him looking at the piles of bones illuminated by their flashlights, barely holding themselves from crying.

The tragic scenes of Glory City being destroyed were still so clear. Nie Li clenched his fist tightly, 'I will not let the same thing happen again!'

"I think, we should go," Ye Ziyun said, she couldn't bear to stay here any longer.

"No, we can't. We must take the treasures here."Nie Li firmly stated. "They will help us to enhance our strength. The strength we need to protect Glory City so that it won't become the second Ancient Orchid City."

Hearing him, the girls became petrified. They could easily imagine what would happen if Glory City fell. The city was comparably safe, but attacks by demon beasts brought so much destruction and deaths every time. And unfortunately, those attacks were rather common. They firmed their resolve. Although looting the corpses is shameful, can it be compared to the countless lives in Glory City?

All three of them began to search the whole hall. They have found many Bronze rank equipment and a couple of Silver rank weapons, demon crystals, and many other valuable resources. There were also some expired elixirs and empty demon spirit stones. It has been eight thousand years since Ancient Orchid City had fallen, so it was no wonder they have expired.

The most valuable things they have gotten were interspatial rings of the dead. They have found more than two dozen of them. There should be more valuables inside them but they will look into them later.

Nie Li looked towards the coffin in the center of the hall. It should contain a remnant page of the Temporal Demon Spirit Book, the most powerful artifact in this part of the Universe. It must have come from the realm above the Draconic Ruins Realm. Even in his previous life, he didn't have any idea about that realm.

As he approached it he could feel the strange familiar aura around the coffin. Xiao Ning'er who followed him stopped her face straining.

"I can't get closer. There's a strong pressure against my soul," she said.

Ye Ziyun tried her luck next and also failed.

"Okay. Stand back and whatever happens, don't get close," Nie Li instructed the girls. He didn't want them to injure themselves trying to help him. "It must be some kind of inheritance left by Emperor Kong Ming."

Nie Li himself didn't feel the restrictions. Even though he didn't want to become Kong Ming's disciple by reading the ten-word chant he left within the Ten Millennium Spatial Array, this inheritance must be safe. He didn't have to look over his shoulder expecting some insane old men trying to kill him.

Nie Li checked the stone coffin. It was completely sealed with all kinds of inscription patterns. Surprisingly Nie Li couldn't recognize them. And the coffin didn't have any sign of being opened before.

Getting close to the coffin Nie Li could feel his soul realm surging. He could hear the roar of a dragon from the depth of his soul. Nie Li placed his hand on the coffin lid. A pillar of light shot into the sky. The light began gathering on top of the stone coffin.

Boom!

Nie Li was prepared for the rush of energy that bombarded him. He directed it towards the glutton in his soul realm. It began swallowing the energy like a huge whale nonstop. While it did so Nie Li could feel the changes in his soul realm. It expanded and became stronger. Even his body was going through changes. His muscles were becoming more solid, and the impurities within his skin were also being excreted with sweat. Nie Li's physical body felt as though it was going through some remodeling.

When the process finished Nie Li opened his eyes. He felt great if a bit thirsty. He took out some bottles of water to drink and looked around. Girls were looking at him astonished.

They could feel the immense violent surge of energy that bombarded him. Only his warning stopped them from running towards him to help. Seeing unscathed Nie Li they were relieved. They also could tell that he looked a bit different. More handsome?

Nie Li himself was glad as well. He didn't expect that the energy would be so vast. He couldn't imagine how he could have survived it without the mysterious glutton in his soul realm. Most likely this inheritance was designed for people with much higher cultivation than him.

But whatever the case he was very lucky. That mysterious gluttonous structure inside his soul realm after absorbing all those energies greatly improved his foundation. Not only his soul but his body as well. Improving someone's foundation was much harder than advancing in ranks. So he will continue to feed it further whenever he will get a chance.

Nie Li looked at the coffin. Its lid was open. As he expected there wasn't a corpse inside it. Seeing the remnant page Nie Li smiled. He was glad that the novel was right about that. He put the page inside his spatial ring. Another thing inside the coffin was a pendant with an abstruse gemstone. This was another very rare treasure. He looked towards two girls. He had only one pendant so he decided to keep it for now. So he put it inside his spatial ring as well.