The Lair

The ten water buffalo saw that the battle was over and there was nothing left for them to do, so they vanished into thin air and returned to the spirit fields.

"How are you? Can you get up?" Man Gu stepped forward, concerned. Lu Yang's decisive, azure-blue sword strike had won his respect.

Although he and Meng Jingzhou had helped from the sidelines and injured the tiger demon, Man Gu suspected that even without the two of them, Lu Yang's sword would still have slain it.

Lu Yang ate a packet of Qi-Recovery Powder. Soon, his breathing returned to normal, and his energy steadily recovered at a speed that a few packets of powder alone couldn't explain.

"I should've bought Qi-Recovery Pills. This powder's so dry," Lu Yang muttered. He circulated the Water Condensation Art, and a small ball of water appeared at his fingertip. It extended a stream two fingers wide into Lu Yang's mouth.

"Was that Size-at-Will?" Meng Jingzhou asked. He'd seen Lu Yang suddenly shrink and then grow back to normal, and the technique looked familiar—like the Size-at-Will spell one of his uncles had used.

But as far as he knew, the spell was incredibly difficult to cultivate, with a very high threshold. It was impossible to master before reaching the Golden Core stage.

"Something similar. The spell I used is called 'Shrinking to an Inch.'"

"Shrinking to an Inch?" Meng Jingzhou was utterly baffled. As a member of the Meng family, he'd heard of every spell, but this one was completely unfamiliar.

Could it be a spell invented by Senior Sister Yun Zhi?

That would make sense.

"This humble woman, Lan Ting, greets you three fellow Daoists." Lan Ting approached with graceful steps.

"We're all disciples of the Ask Dao Sect. This is Meng Jingzhou, and this is Man Gu," Lu Yang introduced them. The situation had been urgent before, so he'd only introduced himself.

"So you're Fellow Daoist Meng and Fellow Daoist Man." Lan Ting was clearly well-mannered; she treated everyone with courtesy. Even when faced with Qi Wu and the other mortals, she hadn't driven them out and had sheltered in the mountain god temple herself.

"Thank you for lending a hand, Fellow Daoist Lan Ting. If both tiger demons had attacked at once, it would've been a real headache. We might even have failed our mission," Lu Yang said.

That was just a polite remark; the three of them still had trump cards they hadn't used.

"So this is your mission." Lan Ting didn't say much more. She'd come down the mountain this time to complete a secret mission of her own.

She was unfamiliar with the area, and she hadn't gone down the mountain during the day. Then night had brought a storm, and she'd been looking for somewhere to stay when she unexpectedly stumbled into all this.

"This humble woman knows a little about runes. The tiger pelts look quite nice. Would you be willing to part with them and give them to me?"

"Of course," Lu Yang said with a smile. "Is there anything else you need, Fellow Daoist Lan Ting? Please, take whatever you like."

Tiger pelts were valuable, but not as valuable as the help Lan Ting had given them.

Lan Ting shook her head and made no further requests.

Man Gu had lived in the wilderness with his parents since childhood, so skinning animals was second nature to him. He pressed two fingers together, making them sharper than a butcher's knife, and with a few swift strokes, he removed both pelts intact.

After accepting the pelts, Lan Ting politely said goodbye to Lu Yang and the others, then disappeared into the depths of the forest.

Her senior sisters had told her not to approach people from the Ask Dao Sect too casually until she was mentally strong enough. She had to be careful not to get assimilated.

"Jingzhou, do you want the tiger bones and tiger penis?"

Meng Jingzhou was baffled. "What would I want those for?"

Lu Yang grinned wickedly. "To boost your virility."

"Get lost!"

With his Pure Yang Spiritual Root, why would he need a virility boost? If he got any more potent, could his body even take it?

"Keep the two tiger demons safe. They're important evidence that we completed our mission." Lu Yang took out his identity jade pendant and rubbed it with his thumb. The two corpses were immediately sucked inside.

The jade pendant could also be used as a storage ring.

"Let's go. That tigress made quite a racket on her way here, knocking over a lot of trees. We can follow the traces in reverse and should find their lair."

The two tiger demons had occupied Pine Mountain for years, so they must have had a den.

The heavy rain didn't affect the three of them; any one of several rain-avoidance spells would keep them dry.

Following the fallen trees and shattered boulders, the three soon found the tiger demons' lair.

It was a cave three meters high, pitch-black inside, with no way to see what lay beyond.

"Does anyone have a torch?" Man Gu asked. He couldn't see a thing inside, and there might be traps.

He'd read in books that strange caves like this were perfect places for traps. You might step on a brick by mistake, and arrows from both walls would turn you into a pincushion.

Or a cloud of poison might suddenly appear and kill you.

Or, failing that, a boulder might roll down and crush you.

"Who goes to all that trouble setting up traps in their own home? Are they afraid getting home would be too easy?" Lu Yang said, exasperated. He felt Man Gu's imagination always ran wild in the strangest directions.

Even so, an exploration just felt right with a torch.

The rain poured outside the cave while the three of them held torches inside and discovered treasure. Just imagining the scene was exciting.

"Who carries a torch when they go out?" Meng Jingzhou grumbled. They were cultivators, and they had fire-control techniques. Why use a torch?

"You've got to think outside the box," Lu Yang said, pulling out a fried dough stick. A spark landed on it, and the whole thing immediately burst into flames.

It looked like it would burn for a long time.

Lu Yang held the flaming dough stick without fear of getting burned, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

The cafeteria's food really was handy. Besides being good to eat and useful in a fight, it could double as a torch.

Man Gu suddenly understood. As expected, he could learn a lot by following Brother Lu.

Lu Yang led the way with the flaming dough stick while Man Gu and Meng Jingzhou followed close behind.

There were no traps like the ones Man Gu had imagined.

There was only the den of wild beasts.

Rare treasures and gems from traveling merchants, books and essays from scholars, martial arts manuals from warriors...

They didn't need to hand these things over to the sect; they counted as spoils of war.

"Jewelry and antiques..." Meng Jingzhou knew the most about such things, so he took responsibility for identifying them.

"A teacup from a hundred years ago. It's not worth much." To cultivators, a hundred years passed like a white horse flashing through a crack—over and over. Anything in their homes could easily be more than a century old.

In the cultivation world, antiques were the least valuable things around. Only mortals treasured them.

"A rusty iron saber. Why would a tiger demon keep this thing? To sharpen its teeth?" Meng Jingzhou shook his head.

Lu Yang thought to himself, Don't look down on a rusty iron saber. One cut, and you'll get tetanus. Believe it or not?

"Xiangxing Fist? I remember it's a kind of folk martial art that imitates animals." Meng Jingzhou flipped through a few pages, lost interest, and tossed it to Lu Yang.

Lu Yang was somewhat interested and planned to practice it when he had time in a few days.

"The Words of the Sage..." Meng Jingzhou sneered. "What use do two beasts have for The Words of the Sage? They're still beasts, aren't they?"

The Words of the Sage was an introductory text for Confucian cultivators, recording the sage's earnest teachings. Man Gu knew its contents by heart and understood them deeply.

Man Gu put The Words of the Sage away. It wasn't that the book was especially valuable; it simply held a special place, so it deserved to be properly kept.

It was a sign of respect for the sage.

"Hmm? There's a letter here. Is it addressed to the tiger demons?"