Entering the Ancient Cultivator's Cave Abode

Meanwhile, Feng Zhuo and Nangong Tang were elsewhere.

Nangong Tang suddenly darted forward and slapped a crooked old tree, her eyes shining. "This is it! It's definitely here!"

Feng Zhuo folded his arms and studied the ugly dead tree before him, his face expressionless.

Its bark was cracked and its branches twisted. There was nothing remotely unusual about it.

Well, aside from how ugly it was.

"Are you sure?"

He couldn't help raising a brow. "Apart from being a bit ugly, this tree doesn't seem particularly special."

"Oh, you don't understand!"

Nangong Tang waved her arms and danced with excitement. She pulled Feng Zhuo over to stand beside the tree, then narrowed her eyes and used her fingers to measure the angle between its trunk and the ground.

"Look! That angle!"

"It's smaller than the angle a person makes with the ground when standing, but bigger than the angle they make when lying down!" she said excitedly.

She nodded with great solemnity. "Everything matches perfectly! This is definitely the one!"

Feng Zhuo: "...You and my second senior sister would probably get along very well."

Wasn't that true of just about any crooked tree?

He silently glanced at Yanba, who looked just as speechless. Yanba was covering his face with a deer hoof, his nine tails curling into an embarrassed bundle.

"Forget it."

Feng Zhuo sighed. The secret realm wouldn't close for another fifteen days anyway, so there was no harm in trusting her for now.

Afterward, Feng Zhuo watched Nangong Tang pull the crooked dead tree up by the roots with her bare hands. She then had the Green-Eyed Golden Toad burrow underground and rummage around for a while, and they finally found the cave abode's entrance.

But...

After struggling to squeeze out of the hole, Feng Zhuo felt a vein throbbing at his temple. "Couldn't you have had the Green-Eyed Golden Toad dig a bigger hole?"

He cast a Dust-Cleansing Instruction, but still felt uncomfortable all over.

"Achoo!"

Yanba came out of the hole right behind him, sneezing repeatedly as the flying dust caught in his throat.

His fluffy lion head shook like a rattle-drum.

Nangong Tang rubbed her hands with an awkward smile. "Well... time was short..."

In truth, with the Green-Eyed Golden Toad's digging ability, making the tunnel several times wider over that distance would have taken no more than a single breath.

Feng Zhuo couldn't be bothered with her. He cast a Dust-Warding Incantation on Yanba, then turned to the towering blue stone doors before him.

The ancient patterns on the stone doors glimmered faintly with an eerie light, and the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine stirred restlessly in the flesh of his left arm.

"How do we get in?"

Feng Zhuo circulated his cultivation art to suppress the Soul-Devouring Vine's agitation. "Do you need my blood, or...?"

Looking closely at the patterns on the stone doors, Feng Zhuo saw that they were grooves of varying depths.

They looked like channels meant to carry blood, yet were also just wide enough to hold vines.

But if he used blood to fill them...

He probably wouldn't be able to fill them in less than three to five days.

Feng Zhuo was about to cut his wrist when Nangong Tang hurriedly grabbed his sleeve. "No, no, no! Just use the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine!"

What a madman, she thought. Even if he has pills to replenish his blood, wouldn't it still hurt?

Because it had been left incomplete by the contract's backlash, the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine had not taken up residence in his Dantian like an ordinary Life-Bound Spirit Plant. Instead, it had settled in the flesh of Feng Zhuo's left arm, which contained thirty percent of his Yi Wood Sacred Physique.

Even now, commanding it was no easy task.

"Hiss-"

Spiritual power sliced across his skin, and blood immediately snaked down its pale surface.

Pitch-black vines gushed from the wound like living creatures, writhing with a sound that made the skin crawl.

Feng Zhuo didn't even frown. He casually tossed a few supreme-grade blood-replenishing pills into his mouth, making blood even as he lost it.

Nangong Tang's scalp went numb at the sight.

Spiritual power flowed around Feng Zhuo as the Everlasting Spring Scripture brought forth Yi Wood Qi, and his Life-Bound Spirit Fire and Heart-Scorching Flame entered his body at the same time.

He suppressed the rioting Soul-Devouring Vine while devouring the blood-grudge Qi it released unconsciously.

"Good thing I didn't fight him back then..."

Nangong Tang swallowed secretly and edged half a step backward without drawing attention.

Half an hour later, Feng Zhuo's left arm was as good as new. Only the pool of blood on the ground, not yet dry, bore witness to the grisly scene.

As the heavy stone doors slowly opened, the scene before him abruptly changed-

Nangong Tang, who had been standing beside him moments ago, was nowhere to be seen. A magnificent palace stood before him instead.

Feng Zhuo thoughtfully rubbed the red jade bracelet on his left wrist. "Another teleportation array?"

Did this teleportation array target everyone who entered the cave abode, or only those who had contracted the Soul-Devouring Vine?

"Come out."

He patted his pet beast pouch, and Yanba's nimble form leaped out.

The naked eye could only see so far, so Feng Zhuo tried extending his Divine Sense to investigate, only to discover something strange.

His Divine Sense moved freely outside the palace, but the moment it entered the hall, it vanished like a stone sinking into the sea. He couldn't perceive anything at all.

Feng Zhuo withdrew his Divine Sense, a flicker of interest in his eyes. "Interesting..."

He knew of many places that sealed spiritual power, but as for places that could block Divine Sense, even the Feng Household's records made no mention of them.

Feng Zhuo's anticipation grew even stronger.

The fortuitous opportunity left behind by a cultivator with such immense power was bound to be extraordinary!

After adjusting his condition to its peak outside the hall, Feng Zhuo entered with Yanba.

In stark contrast to its magnificent exterior, the hall's furnishings were disappointingly simple.

There was only a meditation cushion, twelve stone pillars, and a skeleton.

Yanba said, "...Master, could it be that this cave abode has a spirit and left all the good things for Nangong Tang?"

Feng Zhuo searched every corner of the hall carefully before finally having to admit, "Perhaps."

But though the hall was empty, the palace itself, with its ability to block Divine Sense, was a rare treasure.

He lightly stroked the unusual stone slabs on the wall.

If he truly found nothing, it wouldn't be bad to chisel out some of the slabs that made up the palace and take them back to study.

Feng Zhuo took several medicinal herbs from his storage ring. Spiritual fire flashed at his fingertips, and he casually rolled them into three long incense sticks, wisps of smoke curling from them.

With a solemn expression, he bowed three times to the skeleton.

After all, he had entered another's place of final meditation without permission. The least he could do was observe this courtesy.

Who would have thought that just as he finished his third bow, the skeleton would suddenly clatter apart onto the ground, revealing a lustrous white porcelain bottle and a smooth jade talisman hidden beneath it?

An unexpected bonus?

Feng Zhuo raised a brow and stepped forward to pick up both objects.

The jade talisman grew warm in his hand. It was unmistakably an inheritance Jade Slip.

When he sent his Divine Sense into it, the blocking power outside miraculously vanished.

What was more, the Jade Slip contained the very thing he had come seeking: the Spirit-Taming Instruction, a Cultivation Method that could completely resolve the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine's backlash!

As for the seemingly ordinary porcelain bottle,

Feng Zhuo held it in his hand and examined it repeatedly.

Though it gave off no fluctuations of spiritual power, his cultivator's intuition told him that it definitely did not contain pills.

He cautiously refrained from opening it and put it away first.

Then Feng Zhuo turned to look at the skeleton, now scattered into a few lonely bones, but chose not to bury it.

Since this senior had chosen to pass away in meditation here, he presumably wished to rest forever with the palace.

So Feng Zhuo carefully gathered the remains back together and placed them in the center of the hall.

As for the meditation cushion beneath the skeleton...

Feng Zhuo was not an artifact cultivator and couldn't identify its grade, but an object a mighty expert had used until passing away in meditation was presumably no ordinary thing, so he put it in his storage ring as well.

"Not a bad haul."

Feng Zhuo clapped his hands and returned the curious-looking Yanba to the pet beast pouch.

Before leaving, he took another look at the palace, which had returned to its former stillness. In the end, he left the stone slabs untouched.

Having received the senior's gift, it would not be right to dig up his tomb.

The instant Feng Zhuo stepped out of the hall, a spatial fluctuation transported him out of the cave abode.

He did not know that after he left, the array maintaining the palace's appearance collapsed with a crash, revealing a horrifying truth.

Demon Beast remains littered the ground, and a fearsome python demon lay coiled within the array, suppressing the remnant souls of the Demon Beasts that had died tragic deaths.

If Feng Zhuo had really tried to chisel into the tomb, the python demon would certainly not have stood by and watched its master's resting place be destroyed.

The python demon, with small bumps on its head, had already reached the stage of transforming into a flood dragon. Its rank was at least above the eighth tier, equivalent to a human cultivator in the Golden Core Realm.

In Feng Zhuo's current condition, he was no match for it.

Outside the cave abode, Feng Zhuo said, "Jinx."

Inside the pet beast pouch, Yanba shrank back and gave Feng Zhuo no answer.

The palace had a spirit and had apparently made Yanba's words come true, giving the greater share of the fortuitous opportunities to Nangong Tang.

Feng Zhuo didn't particularly care, though. He was merely teasing his own spirit pet.

He counted what he had gained in the secret realm this time.

Ten-thousand-year-old Spirit-Cleansing Grass, Yanba's breakthrough to the seventh tier, cultivation at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage, the Yi Wood Sacred Physique restored to thirty percent, the Nine Nether Soul-Devouring Vine, a vicious plant from High Antiquity, and now the Spirit Taming Sect's foundational Cultivation Method, the Spirit-Taming Instruction.

"My gains have already far exceeded my expectations."

The most pressing task was to comprehend the Spirit-Taming Instruction as soon as possible and resolve the backlash from his contract with the Soul-Devouring Vine.

After all...

He raised his eyes toward the secret realm's exit, a cold smile curling his lips.

A meticulously prepared grand drama was still waiting for him to take the stage.