Eternal Star

Luo Jun recalled that his Master had called him before and mentioned that the exchange group from the Federation was investigating Gong Shiyue, and that Gong Shiyue had been arrested in his room. This meant that the two foreigners were likely members of the exchange group.

I remember Gong Shiyue stole a treasure from the Hell Creek Family, right...?

These days, Luo Jun has also learned some information about the Hell Creek Family through the forum.

If we're talking about the most profound Cultivators Lineage in Zhendan, then the Ling Family family is undoubtedly the one. After all, they control a single gate, which means they practically possess all the resources of the entire Savage Wilderness. The Ling Family's foundation is unmatched by all other Lineage combined; only the official Yuan Cultivation Society can surpass them.

However, if we look at the world, there is still a Lineage that can be compared with the Ling Family.

That is the Hell Creek Family of the Federation.

Like the Ling Family, the Hell Creek Family also controls a door, behind which lies a world known as the [Wasteland].

It was through this door that the Hell Creek Family became the number Great Family in the entire Federation and even the entire Western world.

Moreover, unlike the Ling Family family, which has a wide variety of abilities, the Hell Creek Family has an unusually high proportion of Shapeshifting Faction. Therefore, in the circle, the Hell Creek Family also has another name: the Monster Family.

To be honest, it's normal for members of Lineage with shared bloodlines to have similar cultivation paths. In contrast, the Ling Family, with its diverse abilities, is an anomaly. While this characteristic makes the Ling Family members' abilities very diverse and balanced, it also makes it difficult for the elders' experience to be passed on to the next generation. The Hell Creek Family, on the other hand, is different. In terms of research on the Shapeshifting Faction's abilities, no one in the world can match the achievements of this Lineage.

I bought it because I saw someone selling rare-quality Noble Phantasms and they weren't too expensive. I never expected it to come in handy here.

"These foreigners are really despicable. With such a powerful Lineage backing them, what's wrong with buying this dilapidated house and investigating it at their leisure? They just leave after making such a mess of it. Their robber mentality is deeply ingrained."

This thing is called Dust of Replication. It's a rare treasure that Luo Jun found in the Savage Wilderness. Its effect is that once it's sprinkled, it can recreate what happened in that place, up to six hours, providing comprehensive monitoring. Normally, one bottle can be used five times, but when Luo Jun bought it, there was only a little left, enough for just one more use.

The area is within this house, the time is the evening of the 28th of last month, and the maximum duration is six hours, so let's say from 6 PM to midnight...

It seems those guys haven't made any progress in their investigation of Gong Shiyue; they've even come all the way here...

Luo Jun glanced downstairs. Apart from a few elderly men taking a stroll and some chatting old ladies, there was hardly anyone in the courtyard. Taking advantage of the moment when no one was paying attention, Luo Jun suddenly flipped over the landing, leaped up, opened the fifth-floor window, and nimbly slipped inside. The whole process took less than two seconds, more agile than a monkey.

The two foreigners searched the room several times without finding anything. Finally, one of them spoke up.

Peeking out and looking diagonally upwards, I saw the window of the room from before.

They arrived at the landing on the fourth and a half Fourth Floor, where Luo Jun leaned against the window.

As Luo Jun cursed, he took out a small bottle from his Hundred Treasure Box, which contained a small pile of silver powder.

Luo Jun ordered a bowl of noodles at a nearby noodle shop. While slurping the noodles, he kept an eye on the neighborhood. Only after seeing the landlord come downstairs and leave did he quickly finish his meal, pay the bill, and head towards the building where he had rented for more than two years.

In these old residential areas, most of the windows in the Corridor are gone, leaving them empty and drafty in winter, making the Corridor feel like iceboxes.

After successfully entering, Luo Jun felt a pang of heartache seeing the room that had been ransacked. After all, it was his home, where he had lived for several years, and he had an emotional attachment to it.

Is it that realistic?

Luo Jun had initially thought it was just a semi-transparent image, like Holographic Projection, but now it seemed as if it were happening right before his eyes. He reached out and touched the table by the window, passing through it without any hindrance. It seemed to be just an illusion, but its realism was so convincing that it could easily be mistaken for reality.

"￥%#@*&%￥#..."

After activation, the scene in the room began to change. The dilapidated walls were restored to their original smooth state, the floorboards that had been lifted were put back in place, and the furniture that had been moved was returned. Inside the room, there were two foreign-looking people, a man and a woman, who were using an unknown device to probe the room, as if they were looking for something.

Luo Jun was somewhat curious.

But what exactly are they looking for? What treasure did Gong Shiyue steal that they are so concerned about, offering a huge reward and even traveling thousands of miles to Zhendan to investigate...?

Open the bottle, sprinkle some outside, and the room immediately becomes filled with a hazy, dreamlike atmosphere.

The bottle in his hand indicated that Luo Jun could now set the range and time.

Forehead...

Luo Jun then realized that his foreign language skills were terrible, and he couldn't understand a thing...

Luo Jun quickly took out his phone, opened the WeChat smart translation mini-program, and turned on smart translation. Soon, an electronic voice, one sentence slower than the foreigner's, came from the phone.

Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence technology is advanced enough now. Although machine translation is not as accurate and natural as human translation, it is fast and can basically understand what is being said.

"Nothing found..." one of the men sighed. "Looks like they're not here."

"Could it be that the detector isn't sensitive enough?" the woman asked.

"Impossible." The man shook his head. "This instrument was specifically designed to search for items from other worlds. The rules of different worlds are slightly different, and items from different worlds will emit different fluctuations. I've already adjusted the detection fluctuations to the frequency of the [Wasteland]. As long as the Eternal Star is in this room, it will definitely be detected."

"Could it be that we're going in the wrong direction? Gong Shiyue was simply arrested here and didn't leave anything behind?" The woman frowned.

"No... The official Zhendan organization has confirmed that Gong Shiyue has no suspicious items on her except for the Hundred Treasure Box. And the Eternal Star is not a Noble Phantasm, so it can't be stored in the Hundred Treasure Box. Therefore, the item shouldn't be on her."

"These Zhendan people are completely untrustworthy!" the woman sneered. "They even accompanied and supervised our entire conversation with Gong Shiyue... If it weren't for these Zhendan people interfering, I would have just ripped her brain open and found out where the thing was!"

"There's no use saying all this." The man sighed. "The official stance of the Zhendan is very firm. We can only look for clues from other angles. At least there's a high probability that the Eternal Star isn't with her. Even if there's only a sliver of hope, we can't let it go."

As he spoke, the man tightened the instrument in the Hundred Treasure Box, opened a box next to him, and unfolded a new detector inside.

"We'll have to use the most basic method." The man turned on the device. "Even if that woman uses some method to block the interdimensional detector, she still needs space to hide things..."

Luo Jun frowned slightly. As the instrument was turned on, he heard a piercing, sharp sound.

Ultrasonic detection?

Ordinary people can't hear this thing, but Luo Jun, Perception Over Hundred, can hear it clearly. Are these two foreigners planning to find hidden compartments in walls or furniture by using this thing?

Sure enough, after turning on the device, the two started causing destruction. It's normal for old houses to have uneven walls or even small cracks. Once they found anything unusual, the two of them started smashing walls and digging at the floor, keeping themselves very busy.

For the next few hours, the two of them spent most of their time rummaging around in the house, until finally, after they had drilled the house into countless holes, they still hadn't found anything.

"It seems he's not here after all..." The man sighed and wiped the dust off his face.

"What are we going to do? We're going back to China the day after tomorrow..." The woman frowned and slammed her fist on the wall. "These Zhendan people are too cunning. They're hindering our investigation at every turn. When we went to other countries before, they were terrified if we coughed. Unlike these Zhendan people, they're so arrogant!"

"Saying all this is useless..." the man sneered. Just then, his phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, his face lighting up. He answered, "Charles, how's it going over there? Have you found that kid named Luo Jun?"

Hearing that it concerned him, Luo Jun immediately leaned forward, shoved his phone into the man's head, and pointed the receiver at the man's microphone, trying his best to hear the sound. Soon, the translated electronic voice came through:

"That kid's phone is off, we can't reach him at all. He didn't seem to take the college entrance exam either, so we don't have his university registration information... Just in case, I even tried to get the student list from the Explorer Academy, but I still didn't find it..."

"What about past records?"

"His past was clean. He's an orphan, lives on welfare, and wasn't a good student... The most recent reliable information is that he went to Donghai City a few months ago and hasn't been heard from since. I guess he probably went to work somewhere else and got a local phone number... What about where you are?"

"Nothing was found in the room either..."

"Then it seems this direction is wrong," Charles said on the other end of the phone. "Although Gong Shiyue was arrested at this kid's house, she was only there for a few minutes at most. She wouldn't hand over something as important as the Eternal Star to a complete stranger she just met..."

"Alright, there are less than two days left, let's look for other directions!"

After hanging up the phone, the man and woman walked around the room one last time, somewhat reluctantly, before finally opening the door and leaving. A short while later, the effects of the Dust of Replication wore off, and the room returned to normal.

Luo Jun stroked his chin. So that's how it is. They really are from a Hell Lineage. When my student status was removed, Song Yi said it was because I got into trouble... It seems he was referring to this... If they find out I entered the Explorer Academy, their suspicions about me will intensify.

Before this, my identity as Luo Jun was only involved in the Polluter Incident and the Ningdong Entrance Examination, which connected me to the extraordinary world. Polluter Incident, the authorities protected my privacy, and the outside world did not know that the person involved was named Luo Jun.

During the exam, a video of me fighting against Mechanical Puppet circulated online, but it was filmed from a distance, so the clarity was limited and I couldn't see the puppet's face... From then on, I basically operated under the identity of Night. According to the information, the only thing that still connects me to the cultivation world is my student status at the Ningdong Academy.

The dean removing my student status definitely saved me a lot of trouble.

After silently thanking the dean, Luo Jun began to organize the intelligence he had just obtained.

First of all, what the Hell Creek Family is looking for is called the Eternal Star, and this thing is not a Noble Phantasm, but something brought out from another world.

However, aside from Noble Phantasms, only living beings can pass through the Otherworld Gate. Could this Eternal Star be some kind of creature?

Wait, what if it's done using a method similar to the Gate of Myriad Realms? Luo Jun hasn't tried it yet. Is the gate created by the Gate of Myriad Realms like a normal gate, only accessible to living beings?

Even if it's not possible, there's no rule out the possibility that non-living entities could pass through the 'door'.

And if it's not a treasure, what could possibly be so important to the Great Family like Hell Creek?

These days, Luo Jun has also learned a lot from the forum. The differences between different worlds are not just in culture and customs, but also in some core rules. A weapon that is extremely powerful in one world may become a dud in another. A treasure that is priceless in one world may be worthless in another.

What could it be that's not a Noble Phantasm, yet is highly valued even in the Main World —an otherworldly item?

The information was still too scarce, and according to the landlord, the two guys left after a day of fussing around, so no more information could be found.

As he was pondering this, Luo Jun glanced out the window and saw the landlord rushing towards them in a menacing manner.

Why is he back again?

Luo Jun suddenly remembered that he had just replayed the scene of the foreigner smashing the wall, and the neighbors were probably complaining again...

Hurry, before the landlord came upstairs, Luo Jun opened the door, closed it behind him, and ran towards the roof. Once the landlord opened the door and came in, he ran downstairs at lightning speed, successfully avoiding the landlord's sight...

(End of this chapter)