Peaceful Yin Talisman Scripture

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

Xia Dong shouldered his medicine chest and, familiar with the route, exited Pingyang County, galloping toward the deep mountains eighty miles away.

Although the famine and plague had eased slightly, corpses of the starved could still be seen scattered across the wilderness. Relying on his divine sense, Xia Dong steered clear of refugee groups suspected of harboring cultists or villages that appeared ominous.

One day later, he arrived at Tiger Hill.

This was a treacherous expanse of deep, ancient forest where the trees blotted out the sun and a perennial miasma hung heavy in the air.

Xia Dong circulated the Evergreen Qi-Circulation Art; the miasma, capable of poisoning even martial artists, naturally transformed into pure vital energy upon contact with his "Qi."

He did not wander blindly through the mountains like a headless fly.

Relying on the topographical descriptions he had seen in the Eagle-Wolf Guard archives and his own divine sense, Xia Dong soon discovered a large patch of trampled, foul-smelling shrubbery beneath a highly concealed cliff.

From the depths of the thicket came the faint, heart-palpitating sound of heavy breathing.

"Found you."

Xia Dong suppressed his blood and Qi, lurking in the canopy of a towering tree like a ghost. Through the dense foliage, he carefully probed the area with his divine sense.

Beneath the cliff coiled a terrifying giant python, as thick as a water barrel and covered in black-green iron scales. It was currently lazing about, basking in a sliver of sunlight that filtered through the gaps in the leaves.

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

Xia Dong did not act rashly.

This demon snake had thick skin and flesh, possessed immense strength, could exhale toxic miasma, and had an incredibly tenacious life force.

Although his martial path had reached the perfection of the Bone Forging Realm and he possessed both magical power and the Wind-Riding Technique, he ultimately lacked long-range offensive means.

This was the great disadvantage of martial artists compared to immortal cultivators. Even if one reached the Mortal Transformation Realm or even the True Intent Realm, if a cultivator wielding powerful artifacts kept their distance, it was easy to be worn down and killed.

Therefore, Xia Dong placed great importance on the methods of immortal cultivators.

This was why he was willing to risk his life to seek out the inheritance of talisman arts.

The predecessors of this world had already carved out a path to immortality over long ages; all he had to do was leverage the capabilities of the Bronze Ancient Bell to make these immortal methods his own and forge a path best suited to himself.

Facing this giant snake, Xia Dong decided to win through wit.

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

Inside were the "Muscle-Softening Powder" he had painstakingly concocted using rare herbs, following the toxicology section of the Evergreen Medical Classic.

The primary purpose of this medicine was not to kill the snake demon, but to cause its blood and Qi to stagnate and induce extreme lethargy, making it unwilling to move.

The life force of a demon beast was too strong; even if it were affected by the Muscle-Softening Powder, Xia Dong did not intend to strike it down directly.

Doing so would likely provoke a desperate, frenzied counterattack before its death.

Thus, Xia Dong's goal was to paralyze the demon snake first, buying himself the time and space to find what he was looking for.

Xia Dong crushed a piece of pig heart he had prepared in advance, coated it evenly with the powder, and used the deft strength of the Dragon-Capturing Hand to silently toss it to a downwind spot dozens of feet away from the demon snake.

Before long, the scent, a mixture of blood and an exotic fragrance, drifted over.

The demon snake, which had been dozing, suddenly raised its head, its tongue flicking in and out. Soon, it was drawn by the aroma, sliding its massive body over to swallow the medicated meat in one gulp.

Xia Dong waited quietly in the tree canopy.

About half an hour later, the demon snake crawled back beneath the cliff, but its movements were clearly much more sluggish. It coiled its body into a circle, its massive head hanging limply on the ground, its breathing becoming increasingly heavy.

"The medicine has taken effect."

Xia Dong felt a surge of joy. He leaped down from the canopy, executed the Crane Shadow Step, and silently bypassed the sleeping demon snake, slipping toward the depths of the cliff.

At the base of the cliff lay a hidden, massive cave.

The interior was dark, damp, and filled with a pungent, fishy snake odor. Xia Dong spread his divine sense out like a spiderweb, carefully searching every corner of the cavern.

However, to his disappointment, aside from mountains of beast bones and some shed snake scales, there were no traces of an immortal cultivator's dwelling, let alone any inheritance.

"Did I guess wrong? Or was Zhang Ping's legacy already snatched away by this snake demon or some other cultivator?"

Xia Dong refused to give up. He retracted his divine sense and decided to personally investigate the very bottom of the cave.

The further he went, the narrower the cave became, until eventually, it was barely wide enough for a person to pass through sideways.

Just as Xia Dong was about to reach the end, the Profound Yin Scripture magical power that had been lying dormant in his dantian suddenly became restless without warning.

This power seemed to be responding to a call from a similar source, surging and clashing within his meridians.

"There's something fishy here!"

Following the guidance of this magical power, Xia Dong locked his gaze onto a seemingly ordinary, hard stone wall at the end of the cave.

When his divine sense had swept over this area earlier, the wall had been too thick for his perception to penetrate, hiding the anomaly.

Xia Dong stepped forward and pressed his hands against the stone wall. His blood and Qi erupted, and the divine strength of his perfected Bone Forging Realm poured out without reservation.

Creak.

With a dull, grinding sound, the stone wall that appeared seamless was forced inward by him, revealing a narrow gap.

It was indeed an incredibly well-hidden mechanical secret door.

Xia Dong squeezed through the gap, his pupils constricting at the sight before him.

It was a cramped underground secret chamber, and both its layout and the formation patterns on the walls designed to isolate aura were identical to the secret chamber at the bottom of the Withered Well in his own courtyard!

In the center of the chamber sat a bleached white skeleton, also cross-legged.

On the stone platform in front of the skeleton lay a yellowed jade slip and a palm-sized, dusty cloth bag.

Xia Dong stepped forward; he did not rush to touch the cloth bag, but instead picked up the jade slip first.

A moment later, Xia Dong set the jade slip down, his eyes filled with emotion and realization.

The owner of this skeleton was none other than the legendary talisman master Zhang Ping, who was said to have been devoured by a snake demon.

According to the final testament recorded in the jade slip, Zhang Ping had been exiled by the authorities and subsequently established his own secret cave dwelling at Tiger Hill.

At the time, enemies had tracked him there, so to evade them, Zhang Ping played along, staging the scene to fake his death by the snake demon.

This secret chamber not only possessed aura-concealing formations but also another hidden passage leading to the outside world. Thus, on the surface, the snake demon and its descendants had become natural "guard beasts" watching over the outer layer of the cave dwelling for Zhang Ping.

What truly surprised Xia Dong was that Zhang Ping admitted in his testament that he was actually a descendant of a branch of the Devil Dao Sect known as the Profound Yin Sect!

This was the reason why the layout of Zhang Ping's cave dwelling was so similar to the secret chamber of the Withered Well.

However, Zhang Ping had not practiced the Mysterious Yin Spirit Refining technique from the Profound Yin Scripture, which was prone to causing one to fall into a cultivation deviation; instead, he had honestly relied on years of painstaking cultivation to break through realms and increase his divine sense.

Xia Dong then looked at the dusty cloth bag on the stone platform, his heart stirring.

According to the jade slip, this bag was called a Storage Pouch, a Sumeru magical artifact used by the cultivation world to store items.

But before passing away, Zhang Ping had placed a restriction on the Storage Pouch. Only a fellow sect member possessing pure "Profound Yin mana" could sense the existence of the secret chamber.

Furthermore, before opening the Storage Pouch, one had to refine it using both divine sense and mana; otherwise, if forced open, the contents would be instantly shredded by spatial forces.

Xia Dong did not hesitate. He immediately channeled a wisp of his divine sense, combined with the Profound Yin mana in his dantian, and slowly injected it into the Storage Pouch.

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

With a thought, the mouth of the Storage Pouch quietly opened.

Inside was an independent space about three feet square.

There were no earth-shattering magical treasures within, only about one hundred neatly arranged low-grade spirit stones and another dark green jade slip emitting a faint black light.

Beyond that, there was nothing else.

"One hundred spirit stones!"

Xia Dong was slightly excited.

He then moved his mind to retrieve the dark green jade slip.

BOOM!

A stream of information, far more massive than the previous one, instantly flooded into his sea of consciousness.

"Peaceful Yin Talisman Scripture..."