The ring hovered in midair, held aloft by Spirit Power.
Using a method he had already tested, Chen Shu began his first attempt to crack it. He quickly breached the Restraining Seal's Spirit Power transmission channel and blocked it, then followed the flow of energy to disable the primary Rune array supplying the seal. With most of its functions gone, he cracked the remaining components and mechanisms one by one.
"..."
No Spirit Power rippled outward. No shockwave, no explosion. He had cracked it without a sound.
The Space Stone hidden in the ring also lost its disguise. He could now sense it with Spirit Power.
Chen Shu held up the ring and examined it closely.
Judging by the Space Stone's size—smaller than a grain of fine sand—and its mass, the space inside was certainly less than 0.1 cubic meters. Happily, though, its shape was fairly regular. At least it was not some bizarre geometric space.
But where was the trouble?
Chen Shu thought it over, then cautiously opened the space.
That was when something unexpected happened—
Poof!
A streak of gray smoke shot straight at him.
Chen Shu tilted his head aside.
But the smoke turned to follow him.
Unable to dodge it, Chen Shu circulated his Spirit Power and threw everything into defense.
The gray smoke was clearly the work of someone at a higher level. His defenses held it back only briefly before it pierced through and struck his torso.
Chen Shu felt an alien force of Spirit Power invade his body. Frowning, he marshaled a vast amount of his own Spirit Power into layer upon layer of defenses to intercept it, doing everything he could to minimize the trouble and harm it might cause.
Qingqing had said it would bring trouble.
So Chen Shu had prepared