Legendary scroll fragments

Shen Fei descended the stone steps. The cellar was thick with damp air, mingled with the smell of dust and rotting wood. The farther down he went, the darker it grew. He reached the bottom after a dozen or so steps.

He took a Fire Striker from inside his robe and blew it alight. The faint flame flickered, illuminating the small space.

Several rotten wooden chests lay piled in the cellar. Their boards had decayed until the slightest touch would crumble them, and their contents had long since turned to dust, leaving no sign of what they had once been.

A few clay jars stood in a corner. Most were cracked and empty, with nothing inside but dry earth.

Shen Fei searched them one by one but found nothing intact, let alone inscriptions or cultivation manuals. More than three hundred years had passed, and others had apparently come searching over the years. Anything valuable had long since been taken.

He climbed the stone steps back to the surface and brushed the dust off himself. "It's empty down there. Just rotten wood and broken jars. Nothing useful."

Xiao Ning'er was waiting by the opening. She nodded at his words. "All I found in the west wing were a few rotted sheets of Talisman Paper. The patterns are blurred beyond use."

They stood in the courtyard, their gazes turning toward the inner hall behind the main hall. They had searched the front courtyard and side rooms. Everything valuable had long since been stripped clean, leaving only stone fixtures that could not be moved.

If anything remained hidden, it would be in a secret chamber or compartment in the inner hall.

The inner hall of the City Lord's Mansion had collapsed even more severely than the front courtyard. Its entire vaulted ceiling had fallen in, leaving massive stone beams strewn across the floor and rubble piled waist-high.

Sunlight streamed through the collapsed roof onto the debris, catching fine drifting dust. The air smelled of dust and weathered stone, and the rubble crunched beneath their feet.

Shen Fei led the way, stepping over the rubble. He had seen plenty of collapsed buildings during his previous life in the City Guard and was familiar with the structure of ruins like these. As he walked, he watched the stone walls on either side and the slabs beneath his feet.

Hidden compartments were usually built into walls or buried underground, and their stonework would differ subtly from the surrounding material.

Xiao Ning'er followed him, scanning the broken stones scattered across the floor.

Many bore indistinct patterns. The inner hall's walls had likely been covered in inscriptions, but when the walls collapsed, those inscriptions had shattered into fragments that could never be pieced together again.

Occasionally, she bent down to examine a fragment, then shook her head and put it back. They were too small to contain even a single complete line, making them worthless for restoration.

After another dozen or so steps, they reached the deepest part of the inner hall. This should have been where the City Lord conducted his affairs. Now, only a broken stone platform remained; the desk and chairs upon it had long since rotted away.

Behind the platform stood a stone wall that had not completely collapsed. Its surface was covered in cracks and several scars left by blades. Fierce fighting had apparently taken place here when the city fell.

Shen Fei stopped before the wall.

He leaned closer, slowly tracing the wall's patterns with his fingertips. Its stone differed from the surrounding material: it was finer, and the dust along its seams was thinner, as though people had touched it often.

He carefully examined the wall's edges and finally found an exceedingly fine gap near the floor. It was almost impossible to notice without close inspection, resembling the join between two stone panels.

"Something's wrong here." He turned and called to Xiao Ning'er.

Xiao Ning'er came over and looked where he pointed, noticing the gap as well. "It looks like the door to a hidden compartment. This low down, it was probably meant for storing something important."

Shen Fei nodded, inserted his sword into the gap, and slowly pried along the edge. The stone panel was thick and difficult to shift. Only after several forceful attempts did he hear a faint click, and a gap opened between the panel and the wall.

He set down his sword, gripped the panel's edges with both hands, and gritted his teeth as he pulled. The heavy stone scraped across the floor with a dull rumble, leaving an opening half a foot wide.

An even stronger smell of dust drifted out. Shen Fei waited for the stale air to disperse before raising his Fire Striker to illuminate the interior.

The compartment was small, two feet square, and mostly empty. A piece of rotted velvet lined its bottom, with two scrolls resting on it.

He reached in and took out both scrolls. They were small, only as long as his forearm. Their cloth covers had almost completely rotted away, shedding crumbs at his touch and coating his hands in dust. They had some weight to them and felt like beast hide; even through the cloth, he could feel how stiff the scrolls were.

Xiao Ning'er leaned closer to examine the scrolls in his hands. "Be careful. They're so old that the hide might have become brittle."

Shen Fei murmured in acknowledgment, found a relatively flat stone, and gently set the two scrolls on it. He slowly brushed away the dust with his fingertips, his movements delicate for fear of breaking the hide.

Layer after layer of dust fell away, revealing the scrolls' original appearance.

The dark brown beast hide was rolled up, its edges worn and frayed from long storage. Fine patterns covered its surface, but many sections were broken, while others were obscured by stains that made their full course impossible to discern.

Xiao Ning'er crouched down, her gaze settling on the patterns. At first, she remained calm, but as she studied them, her brow furrowed and she unconsciously leaned closer.

She extended a finger, holding it above the patterns without daring to touch them, slowly following their course.

"These are..." Her voice tightened. "These are high-level inscription patterns. No, with this degree of complexity, they aren't Gold Rank. They're Legend Rank."

Shen Fei knew little about inscriptions, only that the higher their rank, the more complex their patterns became.

At Xiao Ning'er's words, he lowered his head for another look. The patterns were indeed densely packed, winding and crossing like a woven net. Yet many of its threads had snapped, and several large sections were missing, as though slashed apart by a sharp weapon.

"Can you tell what kind of inscriptions they are?" he asked.

Xiao Ning'er shook her head, her fingertip stopping above a broken line. "I can't make out the whole pattern. Most of it is ruined. At least sixty percent is missing.

"This one seems defensive, probably a city defense inscription. Carved onto a city wall, it could greatly strengthen its defenses. The other is even less distinct. It seems offensive, but I can't guess its exact effect."

She paused, regret coloring her voice. "What a shame. You couldn't find a single intact Legend Rank inscription scroll in all of Glory City. If these two were whole, they could change the course of a siege.

"But damaged like this, they can't be activated at all. Restoring them would be as hard as climbing to heaven."

Restoring Legend Rank inscriptions was out of the question when even understanding them was difficult. Glory City had plenty of inscription masters, but even the best were only Gold Rank. They could not so much as touch the threshold of Legend Rank.

An ancient scroll of this caliber in an ordinary inscription master's hands would be impossible even to decipher fully, let alone restore.

After hearing her out, Shen Fei picked up the two scrolls and held them out to Xiao Ning'er. "Take them. Bring them back to Nie Li and let him see whether he can repair them."

Xiao Ning'er froze and looked up at him as though she had misheard. "What did you say?"

"I said, take these two scrolls and go find Nie Li."

Shen Fei repeated himself, his tone casual, as though he were handing over something ordinary. "He's probably the only person in Glory City who could repair them. You know him, so it'll be easy for you to pass them along."

Xiao Ning'er instinctively stepped back half a pace, shaking her head repeatedly. "No. They're too valuable. You couldn't buy Legend Rank inscription fragments for any amount of money. How can you just give them to me? You found them. You should keep them."

She understood their worth all too well. Forget two legendary scroll fragments-even half a scroll brought to the Black Market would have every major family fighting tooth and nail for it.

Yet Shen Fei had simply held them out to her without the slightest hesitation. It was outrageous.

"They're no use to me." Shen Fei kept his hand extended.

"I don't understand inscriptions. In my hands, these are just two pieces of rotten hide. Leave them long enough and they'll crumble into dust without doing anyone any good. Give them to Nie Li, and he might repair them. If he does, that's better than letting them rot with me."

"Then you could hand them over to the Sacred Family, or present them to the City Lord's Mansion." Xiao Ning'er still refused to take them. "Something this important should go to your family or the authorities. They could find someone to study it. What right do I have to accept it on my own?"

"No one in the Sacred Family understands this. Giving it to them would only leave it gathering dust in a storeroom. You know the caliber of the inscription masters at the City Lord's Mansion. Barely any of them are Gold Rank. If they meddle with Legend Rank patterns, they'll only make the damage worse."

Shen Fei spoke calmly, stating nothing but facts. "You've seen what Nie Li can do. He concealed his abilities so thoroughly during the Soul Force test, and even the instructor couldn't stump him in theory class. He definitely knows more about ancient inscriptions than those old inscription masters in the city. No one but him has any hope of repairing these scrolls."

Xiao Ning'er bit her lip and shook her head again. "Even so, you should give them to him yourself. You discovered them. Why should I be the one to pass them along? Besides, you and him..."

She did not finish. She could sense a strange tension between Shen Fei and Nie Li. They were neither friends nor simple rivals. Both remained wary of the other, probing to uncover what lay beneath the surface.

Was Shen Fei not afraid that Nie Li would take something so important and refuse to acknowledge the favor, or become suspicious of his motives instead?

"I don't know him well. If I give them to him directly, he might not trust me. He might even think I'm plotting something."

Shen Fei was blunt. "You're different. You have a friendship with him. If you bring him something, he'll at least take a proper look. Besides, you understand inscriptions. When he repairs them, you can help. That'll be far more useful than having me there."

He paused, then added, "I'm not giving them to you, or to Nie Li personally. I'm giving them to Glory City. Once repaired, they can defend the city, hold off Demon Beasts, and save a few more lives. It doesn't matter whose hands they're in, as long as they're put to use."

Xiao Ning'er looked at him, her eyes filled with conflicting emotions.

Every member of the Sacred Family she knew put their interests and family first. This was the first time she had met someone like Shen Fei, who casually gave away Legend Rank treasures with nothing on his mind but defending the city and saving lives.

She had always thought Shen Fei was the same sort of person as Shen Hong and Shen Yue, only better at hiding it. Now, that no longer seemed quite true.

"But..." She still wanted to say something.

"There are no buts." Shen Fei held them farther out, until the scrolls almost touched her arm. "Objects are lifeless; people aren't. Something useful is a treasure. Something useless is rubbish.

"If you won't take them, these two inscription scrolls can only rot in these ruins. In another few decades, even the hide will turn to dust, and nothing will remain. Can you bear to watch Legend Rank city defense inscriptions disappear like that?"

Xiao Ning'er fell silent. Looking at the two scrolls in Shen Fei's hands, she knew he was right. Inscriptions of this caliber were far too important to Glory City.

When the next Demon Beast Tide came, intact legendary city defense inscriptions could greatly strengthen the walls and spare many lives.

She hesitated for a long time, her fingertips stirring slightly. Finally, she slowly reached out and accepted the two scrolls.

The scrolls felt cool in her hands. The beast hide was rough, but their weight sat heavily in her palms, as though a stone had been placed there.

"I'll take them," she said softly, her tone solemn. "Once we're back, I'll find Nie Li and study them with him. I can't promise how much we'll be able to restore, but we'll do everything we can.

"If we repair them, we'll put them to use defending the city immediately."

"Mm." Shen Fei nodded and withdrew his hand, as though he had just settled some trivial matter. "No need to rush. Take your time. Hurrying won't help with something like this."

Xiao Ning'er carefully tucked the scrolls inside her robe, securing them close to her body and covering them with the fold of her clothing, afraid of damaging them.

Only then did she raise her head to look at Shen Fei. Some of the distance in her eyes had faded, replaced by earnestness. "Whatever else, thank you for this."

"Don't thank me." Shen Fei turned toward the inner hall's exit. "If you really want to thank me, repair the inscriptions, hold off a few more Demon Beasts, and save a few more people. That will be thanks enough."

With that, he started outside, the rubble crunching beneath his feet. "Let's search once more for other hidden compartments. If there aren't any, we'll head deeper into the ruins and see if we can find the main group."

Xiao Ning'er remained where she stood, glancing down at her chest. Through her clothing, she could feel the outlines of the scrolls. She drew a soft breath, then turned and followed him.

The inner hall remained dim, sunlight filtering through the collapsed roof to cast mottled patches of light and shadow across the floor.

The rubble littering the floor, the broken stone pillars, and the lingering scars of battle on the walls all spoke of the devastation this city had once suffered.

They searched the inner hall thoroughly once more, tapping every stone wall and turning over every stone they could move, but found no second hidden compartment.

Most of the City Lord's Mansion's valuables had likely been stored in that compartment. The rest had either been taken or destroyed in the flames of war.

By the time they emerged from the inner hall, the sun was directly overhead, its rays shining straight down with a dazzling glare. Wind stirred the weeds in the courtyard, producing a faint rustling.

Shen Fei stood on the steps and checked their bearings. The ruins' central area lay directly behind the City Lord's Mansion. Below it were the second and third levels, and the legendary Elder Restriction was on the second.

They were now at the deepest part of the first level. To descend farther, they would have to find an entrance to the second.