Entering the Cave

Translator: Cinder Translations

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Unable to find an opening in the surrounding rock walls, the black-armored insect searched towards the top of the cave.

Effort yields results!

After nearly an hour, it finally found a small hole in a depression at the top of the smaller cavern in the gourd-shaped cave.

The black-armored insect crawled up the hole for more than ten meters, and the hole gradually widened. After climbing a few more meters, the hole became a vertical passage large enough for a person to pass through.

The vertical passage was twisted and meandering as it ascended.

After flying up nearly a hundred meters, the black-armored insect emerged into a cave.

The cave was filled with stalactites and stalagmites, with cracks and crevices everywhere, and occasional drops of water fell from the ceiling.

Song Wen emerged from the lake bottom, guided by his connection with the black-armored insect, and headed towards the cave.

This cave was located inside a small mountain. With the black-armored insect's guidance, Song Wen followed the vertical passage.

Leaping down, he descended the vertical passage for about a hundred meters before it suddenly narrowed to the point where it was no longer passable.

Song Wen took out a mid-grade magical artifact flying sword, which he had purchased in the Eastern Huafang Market for the purpose of remaining inconspicuous.

Holding the flying sword, Song Wen began to cut through the rock, placing the cut debris into a spare storage ring.

This storage ring had originally belonged to Wu Ren and was the largest storage ring Song Wen possessed, with a capacity of two hundred cubic meters, enough to hold all the excavated stones from the twenty-meter vertical passage.

After spending more than half an hour, he finally cleared the vertical passage and entered the underwater cave.

In the rugged cave, after walking for some distance, he finally saw the mysterious altar.

Song Wen circled around the altar and noticed that it, along with the array on the ground, exuded an ancient and mysterious aura that did not match the style of the current cultivation world.

It was clear that Lei Tianyu had used this array to devour Sun Ru's thunder technique talent.

Seeing an array capable of devouring others' talents for the first time, Song Wen felt both amazed and horrified.

If it can even plunder talents, then this array and altar are truly world-shaking.

"Since the thunder technique talent can be devoured, I wonder if the spiritual root can be devoured as well."

If it could even devour spiritual root talents, it might create the legendary Nine-Rank Spiritual Roots!

Song Wen vaguely felt that this altar probably couldn't plunder others' spiritual root talents. Otherwise, Lei Tianyu could have directly transformed himself into a Nine-Rank Spiritual Root, significantly advancing his cultivation without needing to devour thunder technique talents to enhance its power.

In the face of absolute cultivation power, even the most powerful techniques become insignificant.

"But according to Ai Kun, the mainstream theory in the cultivation world about cultivating thunder techniques is that fire attribute spiritual roots have undergone a mutation, acquiring thunder attribute spiritual roots."

"How can this array devour a person's thunder spiritual root?"

"Could it be that the cultivation world's theories about thunder spiritual roots are wrong?"

After pondering for a while with no clear answers, Song Wen decided to stop thinking about it.

He turned his attention to the rubble-filled pit.

Sun Ru's corpse still lay there, face up. Due to the immense pain she suffered before death, her eyes were bulging wide open, staring unblinkingly.

Beside her corpse was the skeleton of an unknown beast with four hooves, already decayed into a rotted skeleton.

Seeing this beast's remains, an image of Kou Chang flying on a green ox flashed through Song Wen's mind.

A smile crept across Song Wen's face as he murmured softly, "Interesting!"

Song Wen took another look around the cave. Apart from the altar and array, there was nothing else in the cave.

He descended to the bottom of the vertical passage, then flew upwards towards the upper cave.

While excavating the vertical passage, he had intentionally made it narrower at the bottom and wider at the top, so he could block it with stones.

He took out suitable large stones from his storage ring and blocked up the vertical passage.

After blocking about ten meters, the large stones were used up, and the remaining small stones were no longer suitable for sealing the vertical passage.

Song Wen flew up to the cave and found a large boulder inside.

He carried the boulder to the entrance of the vertical passage and used it to seal the entrance.

After sealing the passage, Song Wen left the cave and headed towards the Eastern Huafang District. On the way, he casually discarded the stones from his storage ring into some inconspicuous corners.

By the time he returned to the district, it was already afternoon.

Arriving at the gate of his small courtyard, Song Wen glanced over at the neighboring Sun Daxiong's house. The gate was still tightly closed, and the yard was very quiet. Sun Daxiong had not yet returned from hunting magical beasts.

Sun Ru's death had not yet been discovered.

Song Wen pushed open his own courtyard gate and walked in.

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Two days later, in the morning.

Sun Daxiong, injured but in high spirits, appeared at his doorstep, clearly pleased with his recent hunting success.

He pushed open the courtyard gate and, seeing no sign of his daughter, shouted out loudly.

"Xiao Ru, I'm back! Come out! I managed to hunt a green wolf this time. The mid-grade flying sword you wanted last time, I've brought it back for you."

After waiting for a moment, he noticed that his daughter did not come running out of the house with her usual excitement.

Sun Daxiong's smile faded, and he murmured with some confusion.

"Where could that girl have gone? Did she go out to the district for a stroll?"

Talking to himself, Sun Daxiong stepped into the house. When he reached the door to Sun Ru's room, his expression changed drastically.

The door to Sun Ru's room was wide open, and the room was empty.

What truly frightened him was that the six-armored array he had bought to protect his daughter was forcefully breached. The array plate was on the bed, the array flags were still there, and there were still spirit stones in the array's base, though their spiritual energy had not yet been depleted.

But the array had stopped functioning.

The array had been forcibly broken from the outside!

A sense of foreboding immediately overwhelmed Sun Daxiong.

He turned and ran anxiously out of the courtyard, shouting loudly as he ran.

"Xiao Ru! Xiao Ru! Where are you?"

Receiving no response, Sun Daxiong ran desperately out of the courtyard towards the district enforcement team's location.

Two quarters of an hour later, a team of seven late-stage Qi Cultivators from the Beastmaster Sect arrived outside Sun Daxiong's courtyard.

After investigating the scene and questioning the neighbors, they found no useful information.

There were no signs of Sun Ru leaving voluntarily, nor any residual traces of an intrusion.

All the neighbors, including Song Wen, reported that they had not seen Sun Ru in the past two days and had not noticed any unusual activity.

With no information to go on, the enforcement team concluded that Sun Ru was missing and left without further action.

In the Eastern Huafang District, with many loose cultivators coming and going each year, the disappearance of one person like Sun Ru caused no significant stir.

Only Sun Daxiong remained in a state of despair, kneeling in front of his courtyard.

This tall and robust man, who had never uttered a sound even when severely injured by magical beasts, now appeared stunned and vacant. He stared blankly at the empty courtyard and house, slapping his face repeatedly.

His face was swollen from the slaps, blood seeping from his mouth, yet he seemed oblivious to the pain.

It was as if he was blaming himself for not taking better care of his daughter, feeling guilty towards his deceased wife.

And perhaps also blaming himself for not returning earlier...

Despite knowing that the district had been restless recently, with over twenty loose cultivators mysteriously disappearing in the past few months, he still went out to hunt magical beasts.

(End of the Chapter)

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