Dual Cultivation Technique

After leaving Sacred Pill City, Lin Yu and Han Shanshan traveled northwest. Both were Dou Zong or above, so they moved swiftly. They passed through more than a dozen cities of varying sizes along the way, but they were in no rush, stopping and going as they pleased. It was rather pleasant.

The two passed through a city called Falling Cloud City and decided to rest and recuperate there for a day before continuing onward.

The streets teemed with pedestrians, and all manner of shops dazzled the eye. The aromas drifting from teahouses and taverns were enough to whet anyone's appetite.

They found a teahouse by the street and took seats beside a second-floor window, ordering a pot of tea and several plates of delicate pastries.

After days of travel, they finally had a chance to relax. Han Shanshan cradled her teacup and took small sips, her phoenix eyes slightly narrowed as she revealed a rare trace of lazy contentment.

Amid the curling fragrance of tea, the hushed conversation of several cultivators at the neighboring table drifted into Lin Yu's ears.

"Have you heard? Yesterday, someone discovered a cave dwelling deep within the Falling Cloud Mountain Range. The spatial energy around its entrance was fluctuating fiercely, and it even alerted the elders of several major clans."

"Spatial energy? That must have been left behind by at least a Battle Venerable, right? No wonder so many unfamiliar faces have come to the city today. They're all here for that cave dwelling?"

"Who knows? But I heard there's a spatial restriction outside the cave dwelling. Even Dou Zong experts can't break through it."

The words "Battle Venerable's cave dwelling" reached their ears, and Lin Yu and Han Shanshan simultaneously set down their teacups. Their eyes met, and each saw a flicker of temptation in the other's gaze.

"Senior Sister, let's go take a look." Lin Yu smiled and spoke first.

With the Spatial Ancestral Talisman within him, dealing with spatial restrictions was effortless for him.

"Sure. Although it's a Battle Venerable's cave dwelling, since we're out gaining experience, we should investigate it." Han Shanshan smiled brightly, her skirt fluttering slightly as she rose.

"Senior Sister, we were thinking the same thing." Lin Yu grinned and winked at her. He casually tossed a gold coin onto the table to pay for the tea, then got up, took Han Shanshan's hand, and headed out of the city.

The Falling Cloud Mountain Range lay thirty li west of Falling Cloud City, stretching for hundreds of li. Its mountains were towering and treacherous, its peaks rising one after another.

Rare treasures and exotic herbs grew throughout the mountains, and many powerful high-tier magical beasts made their lairs there. It was ordinarily a place where cultivators from Falling Cloud City trained and searched for treasure.

At that moment, faint spatial ripples spread outward in rings through a dense forest deep in the mountain range. Wherever the ripples passed, leaves stirred without wind and the air twisted faintly. They were precisely the fluctuations leaking from the cave dwelling's spatial barrier.

After leaving the city, Lin Yu followed the guidance of the Spatial Ancestral Talisman and flew straight toward the source of the spatial fluctuations.

Before long, the two landed before a steep cliff face.

The cliff was roughly a hundred zhang high, covered in ancient vines as thick as a child's arm and blanketed in moss. At first glance, it seemed no different from an ordinary mountainside.

Yet through the perception of Lin Yu's Spatial Ancestral Talisman, faint spatial ripples continuously emanated from behind the seemingly ordinary layer of stone on the cliff face, like a mirror on the verge of shattering while barely maintaining its final integrity.

"It's here." Lin Yu extended his right hand and pressed his five fingers lightly against the cliff as the power of the Spatial Ancestral Talisman slowly seeped into it.

He could clearly sense that after countless years of erosion, the spatial barrier had long since become extremely fragile. Its structure was as loose as a weathered spiderweb.

Though it would dissipate on its own in a few days, a Dou Zong would be unable to break it by force before then.

With a thought, Lin Yu controlled the ancestral talisman to condense a Spatial Blade and lightly slashed at the barrier's weakest point.

It was like cutting through a piece of silk that had long since rotted away. The spatial barrier covering the cliff face let out a crisp crack, instantly turning into countless transparent fragments that scattered in every direction. They flickered in the air a few times before vanishing completely.

The instant the spatial barrier shattered, a powerful surge of aura burst from within the cliff, carrying a visible wave of air that spread in all directions.

The commotion was far too obvious, like fireworks exploding in the silent night sky. The experts waiting nearby for the cave dwelling to open all turned toward it, greed and urgency mingling in their eyes. Without hesitation, they changed direction and sped toward the source of the airwave.

Lin Yu spread out his Spirit-Realm Soul and clearly sensed seven or eight powerful auras rapidly approaching from different directions.

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. Now this was more interesting. If everything went smoothly from beginning to end and no one fought for it, there would be far less fun in gaining experience.

"Someone's coming. Let's go in first." Lin Yu did not linger. He grabbed Han Shanshan's hand and stepped through the stone door, entering the deep passage behind the cliff.

The passage was not particularly long. Its walls were built from rough bluestone, and glowing moss filled the cracks, emitting a dim blue radiance that barely lit the way ahead.

Before long, they passed through the corridor and entered a rather spacious secret chamber.

Yet the sight within the chamber made both Lin Yu and Han Shanshan frown.

At the very center of the chamber sat a skeleton in a cross-legged position, its spine perfectly straight.

But what was truly horrifying was that surrounding the skeleton, densely packed and layered over one another across the entire floor of the chamber, were countless bones.

Those bones were slender and fragile, each carrying an unnatural grayish-white hue. Fine cracks covered their surfaces, as though something had drained every last trace of life force from within them.

There were so many bones that they made one's scalp tingle. A rough glance showed at least a hundred sets. They lay piled haphazardly together, completely covering the floor of the chamber.

Han Shanshan crouched down and carefully examined several of the skeletons.

Her gaze swept one by one over the shapes of the pelvises, the contours of the skulls, and the proportions of the limbs. Her expression grew increasingly grave. After a moment, she looked up, unable to suppress the anger in her voice. "These bones covering the ground... they all belonged to women."

At her words, Lin Yu's brows drew together sharply, and a cold glint flashed through his eyes.

More than a hundred female skeletons had been drained of their life force and died here, while the corpse of a male Battle Venerable sat at the center. The meaning of this scene was self-evident.

His face darkened as he stepped over layer after layer of bones and approached the seated skeleton.

After examining it carefully, Lin Yu thought to himself, This Battle Venerable skeleton is no ordinary one. Its owner had been at least a Five-Revolution Battle Venerable in life.

Lin Yu reached out and lifted the entire skeleton from the stone platform where it sat cross-legged.

At that moment, the skeleton's left hand suddenly detached at the wrist and fell to the ground with a thud, kicking up a small cloud of bone dust.

Along with the left hand bone fell a tiny jade slip, no thicker than a little finger and warm in color.

Lin Yu stored the skeleton in his Storage Ring, bent down to pick up the tiny jade slip, and sent his soul force into it.

The contents recorded within the jade slip surged into his sea of consciousness like a tide. As he read, his brows furrowed tighter and tighter. This was actually a dual cultivation technique.