47 Was that a ghost?

The group entered the lands. Inside there were many damaged buildings. Nie Li used his long-range scanner to scan the surroundings. If there is anything interesting with spirit power he wouldn't miss it.

Right now he could see only the remains of the old collapsed barriers. Their pieces shimmered like broken textures. But Nie Li was the only one who could see that. Because his scanner transmitted the information directly into his mind.

"Girls I'm going to connect my scanner to your phones so that you will be able to see the results of the scan." Nie Li said. When he configured everything girls gasped.

"What's this?" asked Ye Ziyun trying not to touch the flickering glowing glasslike thing. There was nothing in this place just now before Nie Li connected his 'scanner'!

"Those are the pieces of collapsed barriers. They have lost their power, so they are harmless by now." Nie Li said and walked through one. Girls followed him.

The further they went the more serious the destruction around them became. His scanner also didn't catch anything valuable. Those who wiped out the owners of the manor looted the place after. And who knows how many people came to ruins after that.

But it didn't worry Nie Li because he wasn't here for treasures. He wanted to take a look at his new property. And have a memorable date with the girls he liked. His plans were working. They leisurely walked through the ruins talking with each other on unrelated topics. It was much better than their previous adventure in the Ancient Orchid City Ruins. They didn't have to worry about their safety. Still, Nie Li looked around as if expecting that some ghosts would appear out of nowhere.

They passed through some overgrown garden. There were some dried ponds. The scanner also noticed some low-level healing herbs, but with no one caring for them, they weren't in a good shape. The grounds must have been beautiful when the owners took care of them. But there was nothing so they continued on their way. Nie Li must explore the entire territory of the manor and put some barriers around it.

"At least a black gold rank." Nie Li whistled looking at one of the destroyed buildings in front of him. Girls looked in awe as well. The building looked like it was hit by a meteorite and blown up. Some of the walls looked melted indicating the extreme temperatures the attack caused.

The reason they stopped in front of the building was that the scanner was detecting something under the wreckage. Nie Li couldn't identify the glowing anomalies except for one interspatial ring.

"There might be someone's remains under this debris." Nie Li warned the girls, "This small vortex means an interspatial ring. And we may find the skeleton of the owner near it."

Girls nodded. After their last expedition, the skeletons weren't something that could frighten them. "This is an interesting artifact." Ye Ziyun said motioning towards the 'scanner'. "I think the City Lord's mansion would be interested to buy a few of them if you could make them."

Ye Ziyun was more confident than she was at this age in his previous life. Or he just didn't know about this side of hers then. But the fact she was showing an interest in city politics indicates her ambitions. And Nie Li approved that.

"Unfortunately this is a unique artifact. Resources for its creation are very rare. I can make less sensitive versions of it, but right now I don't have time to mass-produce them."

"That's not a problem. A couple of them at the entrances to check if the visitors have any dangerous artifacts would be useful." Ye Ziyun replied.

Ah, she was really quick on the uptake. Not long after learning about the capabilities of the scanner she had already come up with the idea of security checkpoints that use it. In Roberts's world, the idea of using X-ray devices in airports came way later than it was invented.

"What are you looking at?" Ye Ziyun said embarrassed because of Nie Li's gaze.

"I was just thinking how much I love smart women," Nie Li replied.

"Idiot!" Ye Ziyun said blushing. She still wasn't used to being praised.

"So are we going to dig?" asked Xiao Ning'er who was feeling a bit left out.

"Yes, and I have some things for that." Nie Li took out a couple of inscription scrolls he created. They were modified to loosen the ground it was pointed at and transfer the resulting soil into a prepared storage device.

Nie Li put them on a couple of rocks and the ground that was blocking the way. When Nie Li activated the scrolls ground vibrated, a loud stone-crushing sound was heard and a large amount of debris disappeared. Some of the surrounding ground collapsed into the new hole.

Nie Li dumped the soil from his storage device and repeated the process. That was enough to open a passageway to the collapsed basement where crushed remains of a human lay. The trio quickly cleared the basement room where the scanner was showing the treasures. They consisted of some mismatched armor and weapons at the most silver rank. There were a couple of books near the skeleton but only one of them was enchanted, the rest decayed to the point of uselessness.

Nie Li decided to look at the book first. Leafing through it, he came to the conclusion that it was some kind of journal. Nie Li opened to the last entries. Where the author complained about the greed and idiocy of his patriarch. It looks like the patriarch of the Mo family found some treasure from somewhere outside of the city. And somehow other families learned about it and demanded a share. But the patriarch refused and decided to refine them himself.

In the last entry, the author stated that the patriarch went into secluded cultivation to refine the artifacts, and other families attacked. The author didn't even know what those artifacts were. He only knew that it was something very valuable and not something an ordinary aristocratic family like them could keep.

Nie Li snorted. If their expedition to the Ancient Orchid City Ruins had found something really valuable like Nightmare Demon Pot or if they knew the real value of Shadow Devil Demon Spirit no one would allow them to keep them either. Someone powerful would have pressured them to sell those treasures. Maybe the Divine Family would have claimed them all.

In other words, it was impossible for a weak family or a person to keep treasures if someone more powerful also wanted them. Of course, they will try to act civil asking them to sell it. But if the owner refuses then they will find a reason to forcefully take it away.

"Ah!" shouted Xiao disturbing him. She was looking around. "I thought I've seen something," she said.

"What? A ghost?" Ye Ziyun said jokingly after checking their surroundings and not noticing anything.

Nie Li also didn't see anything suspicious but his instincts were tingling. They were telling him that someone was observing them.

"Girls, to me!" he ordered. The fact that someone could avoid his senses worried him. He drew his sword.

Ye Ziyun and Xiao Ning'er seeing his seriousness joined him drawing their swords and pointing at the walls of the room. The three of them were back to back pointing their weapons outside. Nie Li focused the cone of his scanner to raise its working distance. He turned around scanning in every direction. He even scanned upwards and underground, but couldn't find anything. But his instincts were telling him that there really was someone.

"Drop everything you have taken, we are leaving," Nie Li said and reluctantly dropped the journal. He will return more prepared. Girls also dropped the armor and the interspatial ring they have taken from the corpse.

They walked out of the basement carefully looking around. Whoever or whatever it was they were completely invisible to any of his senses. Just when they were planning to return to the entrance they noticed something strange. The scanner caught an enormous glowing wave coming towards them.

"Behind me!" said Nie Li and took out a large shield he hadn't finished to turn into an artifact and put it in front of himself. He also activated his soul force and covered himself with it. Girls hurriedly ran to him and huddled behind him. They weren't able to do anything else before the wall of blue energy hit them.

The metallic shield was useless as the wave simply passed through it and hit him. He was thrown into the girls behind him. All of the Nie Li's senses overloaded and he blacked out for a moment.

When he came to his senses he noticed that he was back in the basement. It looks like the wave has thrown them back into it. He looked around looking for girls and noticed them on the ground groaning. But the most strange thing was a glowing half-transparent figure hovering above Xiao Ning'er. He looked at his scanner. It had shut down after the energy overload. So it was not some anomaly his scanner caught. He was seeing it with his own eyes! Was it a ghost?

While Nie Li was blankly staring at this ghost, Xiao Ning'er also came to her senses and, seeing the ghost above her, screamed and began scrambling back. The ghost, which really looked scary, like an emaciated corpse with glowing red eyes, screeched shrilly and moved towards Xiao Ning'er.

And seeing that, Nie Li awakened from his stupor and jumped towards the ghost and cut it with his sword. With the new modifications, his sword didn't need to be manually activated before attacking. The lightsaber mode activated plasmic edges appearing on both sides of the blade.

The ghost shrieked and faded away. If Nie Li was right any enchanted weapon would be able to hurt them. Nie Li also noticed a small amount of soul force start to scatter from the spot the ghost died. It dissipated quickly leaving Nie Li with more questions.

"Nie Li?" asked Xiao Ning'er from her sitting position. She was breathing heavily from her recent scare.

"Was that a ghost?" Ye Ziyun asked with wide eyes. Her trembling hands were gripping her sword tightly.