Peaceful Yin Talisman Scripture

The day of departure arrived in the blink of an eye.

With his medicine chest on his back, Xia Dong left Pingyang County with practiced ease and raced toward the remote mountains eighty li away.

Though the famine and epidemic had eased somewhat, plenty of corpses still lay scattered across the wilderness. Relying on his spiritual sense, Xia Dong had steered clear of groups of refugees suspected of belonging to evil cults and villages that seemed strange.

A day later, he reached Tiger Hill.

This was a perilous stretch of deep mountain forest, where the trees blotted out the sky and a lingering miasma hung in the air.

Xia Dong circulated the Evergreen Qi-Circulation Art. The miasma, potent enough to poison even a martial artist, naturally turned into pure primordial qi when it encountered "qi."

He didn't blunder around the mountain like a headless fly.

Drawing on the terrain descriptions he'd read in the Eagle-Wolf Guard's case files and his spiritual sense, Xia Dong soon spotted a large patch of foul-smelling shrubs crushed flat beneath a sheer cliff, hidden from view.

From deep within the thicket came a heavy breathing that made his heart sink.

"Found it."

Xia Dong drew in all his blood and qi and hid like a ghost in the crown of a towering tree. Through the dense branches, he cautiously probed the area with his spiritual sense.

Beneath the cliff coiled a terrifying giant serpent, its body as thick as a barrel and covered in dark green-black iron scales. It was lazily basking in a shaft of sunlight filtering through the leaves.

This was the demon serpent that even Zhao Ting's group had failed to take down.

Xia Dong didn't rush into action.

The demon serpent had rough, thick skin and immense strength. It could spew poisonous miasma and had astonishing vitality.

Though he had reached the peak of the Bone Forging Realm and had both mana and the Wind-Riding Technique at his disposal, he still lacked long-range offensive methods.

That was a major weakness of martial artists compared to cultivators. Even those who reached the Mortal Transformation Realm or even the True Intent Realm could easily be worn down to death if a cultivator with powerful magical artifacts kept their distance.

That was why Xia Dong placed such importance on cultivators' methods.

It was also why he was willing to risk seeking out the talisman inheritance.

The predecessors of this world had carved out an immortal path over countless years. His task was to make the most of the Bronze Ancient Bell's power, turn those immortal methods to his own use, and forge a path best suited to him.

Facing the Great Serpent, Xia Dong decided to outwit it.

He took several specially prepared ceramic jars from his medicine chest.

Inside was Muscle-Softening Powder, which he'd concocted with painstaking effort and rare medicinal herbs, using the toxicology chapter of the Evergreen Medical Classic as a guide.

The powder's chief purpose wasn't to kill the demon serpent, but to leave it sluggish and extremely drowsy for a short time, with no desire to move.

Demon beasts had such powerful vitality that even if the Great Serpent took the powder, Xia Dong didn't intend to go straight in and kill it.

That could well provoke a desperate counterattack as it neared death.

Instead, he would first incapacitate the demon serpent, giving himself the time and space to find what he was after.

Xia Dong crushed a pig's heart he'd prepared beforehand, spread the powder evenly over it, then used the deft force of the Dragon-Capturing Hand to toss it silently to a spot downwind, dozens of zhang from the demon serpent.

Before long, the scent of blood mingled with a strange fragrance and wafted over.

The demon serpent, which had been dozing, abruptly raised its head. Its forked tongue flicked out as it caught the scent, then it slithered over with its massive body and swallowed the drug-laced morsel whole.

Xia Dong waited quietly in the treetop.

About half an hour later, the Great Serpent crawled back beneath the cliff, but its movements had clearly slowed. It curled into a coil, its enormous head drooping limply to the ground as its breathing grew heavier and heavier.

"The powder's taken effect."

Xia Dong's heart leapt. He immediately jumped down from the tree and used the Crane Shadow Step to silently slip past the sleeping demon serpent, heading deeper beneath the cliff.

At the base of the cliff lay a huge cave.

It was dark and damp inside, reeking of snake. Xia Dong spread his spiritual sense like a web and carefully searched every corner of the cave.

To his disappointment, however, there was nothing inside but mountains of animal bones and scales shed by the demon serpent. There was no sign of a cultivator's cave abode, much less any inheritance.

"Was my guess wrong? Or did the Great Serpent or some other cultivator get Zhang Ping's belongings first?"

Unwilling to give up, Xia Dong withdrew his spiritual sense and decided to search the very depths of the cave himself.

The farther in he went, the narrower the cave became. At the end, there was barely enough room for one person to squeeze through sideways.

Just as Xia Dong was nearing the end, the Mysterious Yin Scripture mana that had lain dormant and peaceful in his dantian suddenly grew restless without warning.

It seemed to answer a call from something of the same origin, surging back and forth through his meridians.

"Something's amiss!"

Following the mana's guidance, Xia Dong fixed his gaze on what appeared to be an ordinary, solid stone wall at the end of the cave.

His spiritual sense had swept over it earlier, but the wall was too thick for him to penetrate, so he hadn't detected anything unusual.

Xia Dong stepped forward and placed both hands against the wall. His blood and qi erupted, and he poured out the full strength of his peak Bone Forging Realm without holding back.

Creak.

Amid a dull scraping sound, the seemingly seamless stone wall was forced inward, opening a gap.

It really was an extremely well-hidden secret door.

Xia Dong squeezed sideways through it, and the sight before him made his pupils contract.

It was a modest underground chamber. Both its layout and the array markings on the walls, which were meant to conceal its presence, were just like those in the chamber beneath the Withered Well in his own courtyard!

At the center of the chamber sat a pale skeleton, cross-legged.

On the stone platform before it lay a yellowed jade slip and a gray, palm-sized cloth pouch.

Xia Dong stepped forward. He didn't reach for the pouch, but picked up the jade slip first.

A moment later, he set it down, his eyes filled with understanding and emotion.

The skeleton's owner was none other than Zhang Ping, the talisman master who was said to have been devoured by the Great Serpent.

According to the last words recorded in the jade slip, the authorities had driven Zhang Ping out, after which he had established a hidden cave abode at Tiger Hill.

Around that time, an enemy had tracked him there. To escape the pursuit, Zhang Ping had simply gone along with it and staged the scene, using the demon serpent to fake his death and slip away.

This chamber had not only a concealment array, but also another hidden passage leading outside. As a result, the Great Serpent and its descendants had unwittingly become natural "gatekeepers," guarding the outer cave abode for Zhang Ping.

What truly surprised Xia Dong was Zhang Ping's admission in his final message: he was a distant descendant of the Devil Dao Sect, the Profound Yin Sect!

That was why Zhang Ping's cave abode had been laid out so much like the chamber beneath the Withered Well.

However, Zhang Ping hadn't practiced the Mysterious Yin Spirit Refining Art, a technique in the Profound Yin Scripture that could easily drive one mad. Instead, he'd diligently cultivated over time to break through realms and strengthen his spiritual sense.

Xia Dong turned his gaze to the gray cloth pouch on the stone platform, and an idea stirred in his mind.

According to the jade slip, the pouch was called a Storage Pouch, a spatial artifact used by cultivators to store their belongings.

Before his death, Zhang Ping had placed a restriction on the Storage Pouch. Only someone from the same sect with pure Mysterious Yin Mana could sense the hidden chamber's existence.

And before opening the Storage Pouch, one had to refine it with both spiritual sense and mana. Otherwise, forcing it open would instantly shred everything inside with the power of space.

Without hesitation, Xia Dong sent a wisp of spiritual sense into the Storage Pouch, guiding it with the Mysterious Yin Mana in his dantian.

About half an hour later, Xia Dong felt a wondrous, intimate connection form between himself and the Storage Pouch.

At a thought, its opening silently parted.

Inside was a separate space about three chi square.

There were no earth-shattering magical treasures, only about a hundred neatly arranged Low-Grade Spirit Stones and another jade slip, dark green and glowing faintly with an inky light.

There was nothing else.

"One hundred Spirit Stones!"

Xia Dong felt a flicker of excitement.

Then, with a thought, he took out the dark green jade slip.

Boom!

A torrent of information, far greater than before, surged into his sea of consciousness.

"Peaceful Yin Talisman Scripture..."