Mysterious Treasure

Xiao Bai shrugged and said, "That's clearly impossible. Leylines keep moving, searching for places that suit them better. Unless someone stops them, they eventually form a natural wonder or a treasure ground, taking anywhere from ten thousand years to hundreds of thousands or even millions of years."

"These treasure grounds have fixed functions. In ancient times, they still held some strategic significance. The major races ranked them and fought over them constantly, even blowing up entire planets to keep their enemies from getting them. But after we unified the entire galaxy and explored more of the unknown, their value gradually fell below that of leylines."

"After all, what we valued was a leyline's ability to convert resources while it was becoming a treasure ground."

"Once our entire race had advanced to a higher level, most treasure grounds could hardly help even ordinary people improve. Only a handful offered slightly better yields than leylines or had research value. Most became little more than amusement parks."

"But leylines aren't inexhaustible. I remember that very few remained in the era I lived in. There was probably some new technological breakthrough after that. As for what it was exactly... I don't remember."

After hearing this explanation, Leng Xiyue roughly understood. The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, for example-or perhaps Dugu Bo's entire valley-might have evolved from a leyline.

The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well was already among the finest treasure grounds in Douluo. It could greatly benefit ice- or fire-type Soul Masters, even Titled Douluo; Dugu Bo had simply squandered it. But to the Protoss, whose members were all at least god-level, wouldn't it be useful only as a hot spring?

"The leyline here disappeared tens of thousands of years ago. Otherwise, the cold marrow here could have been even purer and of a higher grade. My guess is that the leyline stayed here for only a few months or years, and the aura it released wandered through this cave, creating this mine full of ten-thousand-year cold marrow."

Xiao Bai gazed thoughtfully deeper into the cave. "But something made the leyline linger. There must be something about this place we don't know. Perhaps we should explore farther in."

"Sure. Tian Meng hasn't woken up anyway. Shall we go?" Leng Xiyue was eager to try as well.

They set off as soon as they said it, heading deeper into the cave without the slightest delay.

The cavern was enormous, and they searched for quite some time before finding another narrow path leading underground.

They followed it for over ten minutes before the view suddenly opened up. An underground river flowed quietly before them, its source unknown.

Though they were beneath the Far North, Leng Xiyue felt none of the chill she would have expected. Instead, she sensed a warm, familiar aura.

The underground river shimmered faintly and looked quite extraordinary, but it was not actually a treasure. It was more like water mixed with a little Soul Power and was of little use to Leng Xiyue.

It seemed to be a tributary of that Yangtze River, flowing out of a fairly large opening. At the far end of the underground river was a narrow passage that could barely accommodate her small, young frame. Beyond it hung a curtain of water; apparently, this cave lay behind a waterfall.

Leng Xiyue peered down through the waterfall and saw many Soul Beasts drinking from the lake below, some arriving in whole groups. The place was bustling, yet no Soul Beasts were fighting there.

Perhaps the water flowing from here mingled with the waterfall and gradually changed the water's quality, creating such a lively place in the cold, desolate Far North.

"Something's wrong. Why is the path here so level?"

After wandering around for a while, Xiao Bai soon noticed something strange.

"You're right. The ground seems far too level, as if someone built it."

Leng Xiyue stamped her foot, finding it odd as well. The ground was so smooth and level that it seemed intended to carry some kind of traffic. Forget an ordinary road-even an airport runway might not meet this standard.

It was difficult to attribute something like this to nature. No amount of scouring by this river over thousands or tens of thousands of years could have produced such a perfectly level path. Someone must have done something here long ago.

They followed the underground river upstream and soon reached its end. A massive stone door appeared before them, while the river's water poured down from two openings beside it.

Only then did Leng Xiyue realize that the underground river itself had been dug in advance. The falling water landed directly in the excavated channel and flowed toward the waterfall.

Before it fell into the channel, the water was perfectly ordinary. Aside from being a little cold, there was nothing special about it.

Leng Xiyue and Xiao Bai examined the stone door closely. It was covered in intricate patterns, resembling some sort of formation.

There were nine empty slots in total. Eight smaller ones occupied the eight directions, and their shapes suggested eight different objects: a branch, a sword, a hammer, the horn of some unknown creature, a ring, a stone of an unknown kind, a spear, and a tiny recess that seemed capable of holding only some sort of liquid.

At the center was a strange imprint, apparently meant to hold the key itself.

Leng Xiyue had no clues about any of these eight objects. Only the hammer readily brought the Clear Sky Hammer to mind, but she had seen pictures of it in books, and its shape was very different from this one.

The sword and spear also looked completely ordinary, with nothing distinctive about them, let alone the other objects. Finding any one of them would probably be no different from fishing a needle out of the ocean.

Leng Xiyue suspected this was something like a Douluo Emperor's cave abode, requiring numerous fragments to activate. As an ancient ruin, it certainly would not open to casual brute force. Even gathering several Titled Douluo would be useless.

She tried attacking it a couple of times, and the stone door did not budge. Then she summoned Kaldalis to give it a try. Just as she had expected, even his full-power strike failed to leave the slightest mark.

"Xiao Bai, do you have any ideas?" With even Kaldalis unable to open it, Leng Xiyue was out of options and could only turn to Xiao Bai.

"Yes." Xiao Bai shrugged. "Once we gather everything it needs, the door will naturally open~"

That was as good as saying nothing. Leng Xiyue simply gave up and used an image-recording Soul Tool to photograph the shape of every slot. She could only hope to find some clues during her future travels or after returning to Spirit Hall.

"What are you doing here?" Just as the two were about to leave, a voice came from behind them.

"Tian Meng? You're awake? Come over here! You've lived here for so long-you must know something about this place, right?" Leng Xiyue asked expectantly.

"Uh..." Tian Meng glanced back at the narrow passage that could accommodate only one person at a time, then thought of his formerly plump body. He immediately felt that Leng Xiyue's question was rather like picking a fight.

Facing Leng Xiyue's expectant gaze, Tian Meng gave two dry coughs and said somewhat sheepishly, "I scanned this place with my spiritual power before, but this stone blocks spiritual power too. I couldn't penetrate it at all. Still, this is probably a seal left by a god-level powerhouse in that ancient era when gods emerged in droves. There might be some incredible monster sealed inside..."

"Or it could be some earth-shattering treasure, couldn't it?" Leng Xiyue smiled faintly, her gaze growing even more eager as she looked at the seal.