Lin Feng calmly finished reading every word, then slowly rolled up the beast hide and tied it securely again. With the Xuanwei Short Staff, several pattern rubbings, and the locations marked on this ancient beast-hide scroll, the core framework of the entire ancient road had taken shape. The clues he now held were enough to carry him through the rest of the journey. All he needed to do was follow the map to each unexplored location, find the remaining scattered marker tokens, then return to the ring-shaped stone formation and undo the final layer of sealing.
This was not the beginning of a new journey, but confirmation of the final leg of his long search. He had already found most of the signposts scattered along the way, and the locations of the remaining tokens were clearly marked on the beast-hide map.
He put away the scroll and sat quietly on the floating rock to rest for a while. Long winds flowed soundlessly through the void, and his tangled thoughts slowly settled, like a river reaching a bend, briefly slowing its current and steadying its course before surging onward again.
A short while later, Lin Feng rose, checked the next destination marked on the scroll once more, adjusted his flight path, and plunged into deep space. Sparse, dim starlight spread behind him in layer upon layer, like an enormous star chart unfurling without end. His figure moved steadily along its appointed lines, neither hurried nor slow, neither straying nor wavering.
He could not estimate how many more stretches of void he would have to cross before gathering every marker, but all their locations were already fixed. He only needed to reach them in turn and collect them one by one. Once he had all the tokens, he would return to that