Ancient Divine Weapon Camp

Dig, dig, dig...

The soil on the ground was extremely loose at the surface, and Wu Tie found it quite easy to dig.

After digging two feet down, the amount of sand and gravel in the soil rapidly increased. The ground grew harder and harder. Wu Tie's fingers were soon ground raw, all ten fingernails mangled to pieces, blood dripping steadily onto the ground.

His arms trembled, his fingers cramped, and Wu Tie stared grimly at the bloodstains on the ground.

For a circle two meters across, he had only dug two feet deep in an area two feet square, yet all ten fingers throbbed with piercing pain. He could not keep digging.

"Idiot..." With a cold snort, a bolt of lightning as thick as a soybean struck Wu Tie viciously.

Wu Tie let out a miserable cry of pain, convulsing as he fell to the ground. Every strand of his long hair stood on end, tiny sparks of electricity leaping furiously between them.

"The difference between intelligent life and animals is that intelligent life uses tools." Old Tie struck Wu Tie with lightning until he convulsed and wailed, then spoke one word at a time. "That tooth hanging from your chest—don't you think it's sturdier than your fingers?"

Wu Tie's expression froze. Enduring the pain, he raised his head and looked at Old Tie. "Why didn't you remind me earlier?"

"Your grandpa wanted to see just how stupid you could be." Old Tie sneered. "Just as expected, you're the stupidest kind."

With a strange laugh, Old Tie said, "Sorry, your grandpa is just such a frank and honest fellow... I simply love telling the plain truth."

Wu Tie gritted his teeth and said nothing. He rose to his feet, removed the necklace bearing Chi You's Fang, wrapped the beast-tendon cord around his wrist, and stabbed Chi You's Fang fiercely into the ground.

When he exerted force while gripping Chi You's Fang, an extremely faint current seemed to flow from within it. Wu Tie's palm tingled, rather like the feeling of being shocked by Old Tie.

The tingling sensation flowed through his entire body, and strength began returning to his exhausted frame.

With a crack, Chi You's Fang struck the ground heavily.

A broad patch of earth and stone shattered into powder. With a casual flick of Chi You's Fang, Wu Tie made a pit the size of a washbasin appear in the ground.

Wu Tie froze for a moment, staring at Chi You's Fang in astonishment. Then he gave a "heh heh" laugh, gripped it tightly, and worked with even greater vigor.

Old Tie had been watching Wu Tie all along. Seeing him smile, Old Tie's eyeballs swiftly spun once, and he muttered in a voice too soft to hear, "He can still smile. Looks like he hasn't gone completely mad, won't become a murderous demon wholly blinded by hatred..."

"But then, what if he did become a murderous demon?" Old Tie gave a few inscrutable chuckles.

A streak of red light flashed. A hundred meters away, amid a patch of mushrooms, dozens of thumb-sized venomous spiders crawling swiftly toward Wu Tie went "sizzle" and instantly turned into wisps of black smoke.

"Little Tie, move faster." Old Tie's voice became somewhat weak. "Your grandpa has poured his heart and soul into this journey. If you don't hurry, I really won't have the strength to keep fooling around with you."

Wu Tie's body stiffened. He clenched his teeth hard and drove Chi You's Fang into the ground again and again, faster each time. Mud and sand flew, dust billowed. The thin muscles on Wu Tie's body writhed rapidly. Soon, he was drenched in sweat, and the dirt scattered over him formed a thick layer of mud.

Chi You's Fang was terrifyingly sharp. Any stone shattered into powder with the lightest strike, bringing Wu Tie immense convenience.

Wu Tie dug with all his strength, and a large pit two meters across gradually deepened.

Whenever he was too tired to move, he stopped to doze for a while, took a nap, ate something, and practiced the Foundation Establishment Form to loosen his body. His energy quickly returned, and then he continued digging.

One day... two days... three days... ten days later, Wu Tie had dug a pit more than five meters deep in the same spot.

Fortunately, the soil layer here was quite stable, and the walls around the pit had not collapsed.

That day, Wu Tie swung Chi You's Fang and had just shattered a stone the size of a human head when Chi You's Fang suddenly struck something hard. With a crisp clang, sparks flew everywhere. Chi You's Fang, which had so effortlessly split earth and stone these past days, failed to break the hard object, and Wu Tie's palm was jolted with unbearable pain.

"Found it?" Old Tie's voice came from above the pit.

Wu Tie used Chi You's Fang to scrape away the dirt. Beneath it lay a deathly pale metal surface.

The pallid metal looked somewhat like the material Old Tie was made of.

"Found it, right?" Wu Tie stroked the cold metal plate. Like Old Tie, this metal plate had been buried beneath soil for who knew how long. As Wu Tie's palm brushed over it, not a speck of mud or sand could cling to it, leaving the metal plate exceptionally clean.

"Bring your grandpa down there. You can't open this door." Old Tie spoke impatiently.

"A door?" Wu Tie carefully examined the metal plate beneath his feet. It did not look like a door at all.

Climbing back to the surface along the small footholds carved into the pit wall, Wu Tie picked up Old Tie. After standing at the edge and thinking for a moment, he tossed Old Tie directly into the deep pit.

"Little Tie, you brat!" Old Tie hit the metal plate with a thud, lying face-down on the ground as he roared angrily.

"I wasn't stupid this time... If I held you, there was no way I could climb down." Wu Tie climbed back to the bottom along the footholds and said seriously to Old Tie, "So I threw you down. You won't break from the fall anyway."

Old Tie said nothing for a long while.

After quite some time, Old Tie said dryly, "Your grandpa really does have a talent for being a teacher... Such a stupid child, and after only a few days, I've taught him to be this clever... You brat..."

Two beams of red light suddenly shot from Old Tie's eye sockets, thick rays landing on the white metal plate.

The incomparably hard metal plate, which even Chi You's Fang could not damage in the slightest, rippled like water. The ground vanished beneath Wu Tie's feet. He gave a startled cry as he and Old Tie abruptly passed through the metal plate.

Strangely, Wu Tie and Old Tie fell through, but not a single grain of sand passed through the metal plate.

"Ahhh~~~!"

His body kept falling, surrounded by pitch-black darkness. Wu Tie was terrified beyond measure and instinctively let out a shrill scream.

After an unknown length of time, his rapidly falling body suddenly stopped.

There was no sensation of solid ground beneath his feet. He was still suspended between heaven and earth, yet his body had indeed stopped.

"Light." Old Tie's voice sounded in the darkness.

An extremely gentle voice rang out from every direction. Cold white light illuminated the surroundings.

Wu Tie's eyes widened.

This was an enormous square space, at least ten times the size of a Wu Family stone fortress. The ground was smooth as a mirror, made from the same deathly pale metal.

Wu Tie floated about three inches above the ground. He struggled slightly, and the force supporting his body vanished. He landed easily on the floor.

With a thud, Old Tie landed as well.

Wu Tie raised his head. The ceiling stood nearly a hundred meters above the floor. Like the ground, it was seamless and whole. Wu Tie could not understand where he and Old Tie had fallen from.

The ground, ceiling, and walls around them were all made of deathly pale metal.

The white light shone through the ground, ceiling, and surrounding walls. These metal plates, of unknown thickness, were actually translucent?

"Pick your grandpa up and walk forward." There was an added urgency in Old Tie's cold voice. "Little Tie, you brat, now we'll see what luck you have."

"Luck?" Wu Tie reached out to pick up Old Tie, but his movements suddenly stiffened at Old Tie's words. "What do you mean, we'll see what luck I have?"

Old Tie's eyeballs rotated once. "I mean, there's something here that can greatly increase the efficiency of your cultivation. But whether that thing is still here, and how much remains, depends on your luck!"

"You..." Wu Tie nearly lost his breath. He clenched his fist and waved it at Old Tie. After thinking it over, he grasped Chi You's Fang and made a vicious gesture at Old Tie with it.

"You've gotten smarter. You know how to use tools... Congratulations, you've taken an infinitesimal step forward on the road of evolution, changing from a primitive savage into Homo sapiens." Old Tie said dryly. "But pick your grandpa up first and walk forward. Don't waste time."

"I..." Wu Tie felt stifled with frustration.

He had no way of dealing with Old Tie. Hanging Chi You's Fang back in place, Wu Tie picked up Old Tie and headed toward the wall he had indicated. "Old Tie, you lied to me..."

"So remember this lesson. Don't easily believe what others say in the future." Old Tie said dryly. "If that thing is gone, wouldn't you have worked these past few days for nothing? Right?"

Wu Tie gritted his teeth angrily and carried Old Tie to the smooth wall.

"What is this place?" Though angry, Wu Tie could not suppress the curiosity in his heart and could not help asking Old Tie.

"Your grandpa is Bian Que's ninth-generation medical-care Ancient Divine Weapon... An Ancient Divine Weapon, haven't you heard of one?" Two beams of red light shone from Old Tie's eyes and landed on the smooth, seamless wall. "Your grandpa is an Ancient Divine Weapon. This is your grandpa's old nest, so naturally it's the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp!"

Blue lightning flowed endlessly from the deathly pale wall like water.

The lightning spread in all directions. The deathly pale metal wall writhed, and a doorway twenty meters wide and fifty meters high silently opened within it.

Beyond the door was a smooth passageway, likewise forged from deathly pale metal. There were no seams in its walls either, and cold white light shone from behind the metal.

"Go in." Old Tie gave the order.

Holding Old Tie, Wu Tie cautiously entered the passageway and peered ahead curiously.

The passageway extended straight downward at a thirty-degree angle. The immense corridor was spotlessly clean, without a trace of dust.

As Wu Tie walked, he always had the illusion that his back was growing cold, as though countless invisible eyes were peeping at him from every direction.

"I don't feel very good." Wu Tie shivered and muttered softly to himself. "It feels like a lot of people are watching me."

Countless incredibly fine rays of light, invisible to the naked eye, densely filled the ground, ceiling, and walls on both sides throughout the passageway. Countless rays swiftly swept across Wu Tie's body.

Old Tie's eyes likewise emitted countless fine rays invisible to the naked eye. These rays leaped and flickered rapidly, intertwining and converging with the light emitted from the four walls.

Hearing Wu Tie's muttering, Old Tie said in a deep voice, "Your perception... isn't weak, is it? A few days ago, you weren't this sensitive. It seems the Foundation Establishment Form is working well on you."

"Is someone really watching me?" Wu Tie asked instinctively.

"Not a person... This Ancient Divine Weapon Camp is watching you." Old Tie laughed a few times. "Since this Ancient Divine Weapon Camp was built, you're the first creature of flesh and blood to enter, aren't you? It's only natural for it to be curious about you."

A thin ray of light swept over one of Old Tie's eyes.

"The second?" Old Tie's voice suddenly rose. "Who was the first?"

Another extremely fine ray of light swept past.

Old Tie's voice became exceptionally urgent. "Listen to my command, Little Tie. Run... Hmm, the ground is slippery here. Put your grandpa on the ground and kick me along. Ready, one-two-one, run!"

Wu Tie was more than happy to obey this order from Old Tie.

He tossed Old Tie onto the ground, then kicked him.

Thud thud thud thud! Old Tie bounced, hopped, and rolled forward down the thirty-degree passageway, while Wu Tie sprinted wildly close behind him.

After cultivating the Foundation Establishment Form for nearly a month, Wu Tie's physical condition had improved greatly. With Old Tie's deliberate training and constant electrical stimulation, he ran like an agile rock rat, keeping tightly behind Old Tie.

Whenever Old Tie was about to stop, Wu Tie gave him another hard kick.

Thud thud thud thud! Clang clang! Wu Tie and Old Tie raced through the passageway, eventually reaching its end. This too was a square room, several times larger than the chamber at the passageway entrance.

They had run madly for a full hour. Wu Tie was soaked in sweat, and both legs were trembling.

Old Tie shouted impatiently. Wu Tie picked him up and went to the wall on the left.

Just as before, blue lightning flashed, and a massive doorway silently appeared in the wall. Beyond it stood an incomparably huge hall.

A square hall with walls of deathly pale metal.

Transparent crystal spheres more than ten meters in diameter floated in the air, some filled with white fluid.

Only one crystal sphere was bright red, and only that crystal sphere contained a towering figure.

"So, you're the second..." The bloody glow in Old Tie's eye sockets suddenly brightened as he stared fixedly at the figure within that crystal sphere.

Drawn by an indescribable atmosphere, Wu Tie carried Old Tie step by step to a spot diagonally beneath the crystal sphere.

The fluid within the crystal sphere should originally have been white. Too much blood had dyed the white fluid red. Within the translucent red liquid, the towering figure was clearly visible.

He stood nearly three meters tall, huge and perfect in build, with a handsome yet hard, imposing face, his divine majesty like that of a god.

He wore an incomparably magnificent suit of white heavy armor. Both its design and its ornate, complex patterns had reached the utmost pinnacle of art. Wu Tie had never seen such a beautiful creation.

Unfortunately, a washbasin-sized hole had been torn through the armor at the chest, and the hole had also pierced through the towering man's chest.

Wu Tie looked at the man with reverence.

He was certainly dead, yet he still radiated a terrifyingly sharp aura that made Wu Tie almost afraid to look directly at him.

"Who is he? Why does he have three eyes?" Wu Tie asked Old Tie reverently.

In the middle of the man's brow was a vertical eye one size larger than his ordinary eyes. The wide-open vertical eye faintly glowed with golden light, majestic and sacred, filled with an aloof, overwhelmingly tyrannical power.

"Lesser Manifested Sage True Lord... Yang Jian." Old Tie spoke slowly. "A shameless fellow... It was bad enough that he withheld your grandpa's wages... He even changed his own name to Yang Jian."

"Did he really think that having a third eye made him the legendary Erlang True Lord? Bah!"

"Ha, he's dead... Your grandpa isn't sad in the slightest!" Old Tie burst into loud laughter. "Hahaha, your grandpa is truly delighted!"

His cold, stiff laughter echoed through the hall, buzzing reverberations rising all around.