A Good Candidate for Tomb Raiding

Your idea of Ruin Exploration: flying swords + airdrops.

The real Ruin Exploration: wilderness survival.

The primeval forest was thick with vegetation. It lay near a network of waterways, and the air was damp, sweltering, and filled with poisonous miasma. The snakes, ants, mosquitoes, and scorpions were astonishingly huge, leaving almost nowhere to stand, let alone walk.

Fortunately, Zhu Bo had prepared thoroughly. Each person received a Poison Repelling Bead to ward off the poisonous insects, and Sister She's team opened the way ahead, preventing them from being unable to move even an inch.

The river rushed fiercely around the bends, with treacherous undercurrents churning up one huge whirlpool after another. Sister She led them upstream and found a stretch of river with calmer waters, but this delayed them quite a while.

A distance of a hundred and fifty li was nothing to the cultivators present. They could have walked it with their eyes closed, yet because of the rugged and perilous terrain, they had no choice but to rest by the riverbank for a night.

Early the next morning, the team made ready to depart. Once they passed the final stretch of road ahead, they would reach the coordinates of the ruins.

As the saying went, whether it was a mule or a horse, you would know once you led it out for a stroll.

After a day of traversing the wilderness, Lu Bei displayed an astonishing level of newbie incompetence. Being so useless he could barely tie his own shoelaces would have been one thing, but his curiosity was also exceptionally intense, causing Zhu Bo, who traveled alongside him, no small amount of trouble. Sister She's opinion of him kept dropping lower and lower.

They had both been hired as hired muscle to bolster the team's presence, but with Lu Bei as a foil, Luo Ban appeared exceptionally mature and steady. At a glance, he was clearly a good candidate for tomb raiding.

At the final stretch of the journey, everyone stopped at the entrance of a karst cave to rest.

Out of trust in his partner, Zhu Bo left Feng Si to guard the entrance. If anything seemed amiss, Feng Si was to jump into the river to save himself, return to Dasheng Pass, and seek revenge from Zhu Ting.

Sister She's side also left one person behind. If anything seemed amiss, then...

Then he would deal with Feng Si.

Lu Bei took a Hundred Refinements Blade from his Qiankun Bag and polished it. According to Sister She's intelligence, the ruins had once been the residence of a Demonic Cultivator a thousand years ago. With the passage of time, most of the formations arranged back then had stopped functioning, causing floods to invade the residence, and many parts of it to collapse and become buried underwater.

It was precisely because of this that the place had seen the light of day again.

The last time Sister She had led a team here, they had been careless while traversing the karst cave and activated the protective formation outside the residence. As a result, zombies had run rampant inside the cave, numbering several hundred.

The bad news: The zombies had been refined by a Demonic Cultivator. They were impervious to blades and spears, immune to water and fire, and their corpse poison could claim a person's life within three steps, easily wiping out the entire group.

The good news: The zombies had been refined a thousand years ago and lacked daily maintenance. Blades and spears could pierce them, water and fire could harm them, and their corpse poison was long past its expiration date. Aside from there being somewhat more of them and them being somewhat stronger, there was nothing to fear.

To sum up, although this was tomb raiding without the owner's consent, it was a rescue operation carried out through tomb raiding. Their intentions were good.

"Let's go."

The two men raised torches at the front while the group hurried toward the darkness of the karst cave, wading through water that reached their ankles.

At first, the cave was not narrow, and three or four people could pass through side by side. After walking several dozen steps farther, the water grew deeper, and the space opened up even more.

The cave was pitch-black. The torches provided limited illumination, and the rocks were slick, so everyone placed their feet cautiously. Their pace inevitably slowed.

Perhaps they had smelled the aura of living people, or perhaps they had heard the noise. Rustling sounds arose as shadowy figures hidden in the darkness closed in from all sides, lighting up pairs of red, bloodshot eyes.

At first, Lu Bei paid it no mind. Zombies that had been calcium-deficient for a thousand years would snap if touched and break if bumped. With the long blade in his hand, cutting through them was no different from cutting through wooden stakes.

It was not until one or two roars rang out that his expression changed. He realized that something was wrong.

The zombies had consumed flesh and blood, recovering part of their abilities.

As for where the flesh and blood had come from, did he even need to think about it? Sister She's former teammates, of course!

"Not good! These few zombies have fed on blood. Let's speed up and charge through. Don't get caught up fighting!" Zhu Bo shouted a warning, then dashed behind Luo Ban in a single stride.

Bang!

It was a little crowded, and he was bounced out.

Zhu Bo stared blankly. At some point, Lu Bei had already taken his place behind Luo Ban.

Big brother, don't you have any self-awareness? I brought you along to find some hired muscle. How can you duck behind him even faster than I can?

Also, get out of here. This is the personal guard my uncle sent to protect me!

Zhu Bo's eyes widened. Having witnessed Lu Bei's shamelessness, he could not be bothered to say anything more and hurried through the water after Sister She. Luo Ban faithfully performed his duty, keeping his eyes only on Zhu Bo and following closely at his side, completely ignoring Lu Bei and the Liu brothers.

"Roar, roar, roar!!"

A foul, reeking wind swept over them. Dozens of zombies charged into view, their withered forms resembling dried corpses. Even after soaking in water, they had not swollen up. Only their pair of scarlet eyes still held a trace of vitality.

They were glistening with moisture, as if blood might drip from them the next second.

Lu Bei narrowed his eyes slightly, retreated a step to put some distance between himself and Luo Ban, and swept out with the Hundred Refinements Blade, cleaving a leaping zombie in half at the waist.

The blade wind rolled past with a howl like a wall crashing down. The zombies pouncing at him from one side were all transformed into tumbling gourds, hurled back into the darkness.

Everyone used their own methods to knock aside the zombies blocking the way. Just as the path ahead opened up, a zombie descended from the ceiling, spewing black mist as its sharp claws tore through the air with a rustling shriek.

By an unfortunate coincidence, its target was Zhu Bo.

Clang!!

With the sound of a sharp blade leaving its sheath, White Light flashed through the karst cave. The black mist dispersed, and the zombie that had dropped from above was pitifully cleaved in two. Once it hit the ground, it fell completely still.

Luo Ban sheathed his blade, his movements crisp and decisive.

At the same time, a zombie sprang from a hole beneath the water. Wrapped in black mist, its red eyes flashing, it pounced beside Sister She in the blink of an eye. Its oily green claws came within mere inches of her shoulder.

A large hand reached out and seized the zombie's stiff wrist. The five fingers tightened, clamping down on it like iron pincers.

Crack!

A brawny man from Sister She's team looked unremarkable, but his strength was absurd. In front of everyone, he performed a live demonstration of tearing a zombie apart, using brute force to rip its arm free. Finally, he spread his leg and kicked the lonely head flying far away.

After dealing with the zombie, the brawny man cast Luo Ban a sidelong glance, faintly challenging him.

Unfortunately, his lantern was being shown to a blind man. Luo Ban had no intention of competing with him; his eyes held only Zhu Bo.

With two experts stepping forward from the group, and the zombies truly having passed their expiration date and being far less ferocious than they had been a thousand years ago, everyone crossed the outer formation without incident. They followed the stone steps upward and arrived before a half-open stone door.

Everyone extinguished their torches and switched to Luminous Pearls to light the way.

The brawny man pushed open the stone door with both hands. Sister She led the way inside. Having passed through here before, she knew that the mechanisms and traps had aged and failed, leaving a long stretch of road without any danger to speak of.

Meanwhile, the Liu brothers brought up the rear. Lu Bei had originally been following behind Luo Ban, but Zhu Bo pulled him to his own side. Since his shamelessness was still a few degrees short of mastery, he did not have the nerve to move back.

After a hundred steps, a stone wall blocked the way. Mist swirled around it, appearing and disappearing, making it impossible to see anything clearly.

Sister She raised her hand and called for a halt. Zhu Bo stepped forward and began discussing the matter with her. The two started deliberating over a way to break the formation.

Previously, Sister She had led a team here. After passing through the protective formation outside the residence and slowly breaking several mechanisms, they had ultimately been stopped before this wall.

It was an unknown killing formation that the Demonic Cultivator had created by combining it with an illusion formation. The inside was extraordinarily dangerous. Sister She had once broken it alone, with highly effective results: after several teammates entered, none of them ever came back out.

"A formation that has remained for a thousand years still possesses such power. It can't be maintained by Spirit Crystals alone. If my guess is right, the formation core must be connected to the underground palace's network of waterways..." Zhu Bo analyzed.

"Commander Zhu is well learned. I consulted several experts about this formation and came up with three ways to break it: the superior, middle, and inferior methods."

"Sister She, you never told me about this before we came!"

"I thought this formation wouldn't trouble Commander Zhu, so I saw no need to embarrass myself."

Sister She smiled faintly and said, "The formation has eight gates, some dead and some living. After a thousand years, its power is far weaker than before, and there is more than one living gate. We can simply force our way through. We'll find an exit eventually. This is the inferior method."

"Indeed, the inferior method."

Zhu Bo shook his head repeatedly. With Sister She's former teammates having died to advise against it, this method clearly would not work.

"The middle method is to split into two groups. One group investigates, while the other stays behind to observe changes in the formation and waits for a chance to break it."

"Heh, sacrificing our companions to break the formation. I suppose that's the reason Sister She invited us."

Zhu Bo shook his head again. "Enough nonsense. What's the superior method?"

"The superior method is simple enough. Drain the water and destroy the formation core. The formation will then collapse on its own."

"How is that a superior method..."

Zhu Bo was speechless. He turned around and began discussing matters with the Liu brothers.

Lu Bei stood to one side with a frown. He felt that something was off, but it took him a long while to remember what it was.

That's right, the Side Quest.

Wasn't there still a Side Quest that had not been triggered?

Judging by how they were about to break through this wall, the Ruin Exploration quest was nearly complete. If the Side Quest did not appear soon, he would simply pick up those 200,000 experience points!