These Cultivators saw Lin Taichu and his party approaching from afar, and their gazes all turned toward them.
Lin Taichu reached the outside of the cave entrance, reined in his horse, and jumped down.
Zhao Feng and the ten Guards also jumped down after him. The Guards rested their hands on their saber hilts, their wary gazes sweeping over the surrounding Cultivators.
A bearded middle-aged cultivator stood up from the ground, walked up to Lin Taichu, and looked him up and down.
"New here?"
"Just here to look around."
The middle-aged cultivator smiled, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth.
"Look around? This isn't the kind of place you just look around. The people who go in are risking their lives. Those who don't care about their lives go in and don't come back out."
Lin Taichu did not reply. He walked to the cave entrance and looked inside. Beyond the opening was a downward slope, very long, with no end in sight. Glowing stones were embedded in the walls on both sides of the slope, but their light was dim, illuminating only a short stretch of the path.
"How many people are inside right now?"
The middle-aged cultivator froze for a moment, not having expected Lin Taichu to ask that.
"Who knows? When there are a lot, a few hundred. When there are few, a few dozen. Luck's been bad these past few days. Plenty of people have gone in, but not many have come out."
"What happened?"
The middle-aged cultivator looked at Lin Taichu, then at Zhao Feng and the ten Guards, as if judging whether these people were worth telling.
"An ancient ruin appeared on the hundred-and-twentieth underground level. There are treasures inside. People from several major forces went in, fought in there for days, and a whole