“It’s here,” she announced.
Fei Yan gazed at the faint, shimmering lines of energy. “So, it’s an array formation.” Then she turned towards Zhu Zhihao. “Can you do something about it?” She said.
Zhu Zhihao didn’t answer immediately. She stepped closer, her violet eyes tracing the complex, ancient runes that pulsed with a faint, dormant light. She remained silent for a long moment, contemplating something.
”Its structure is… different,” she said finally, her voice holding a trace of curiosity. “It’s different from the arrays I have seen so far. There is something fundamentally different about the principles it uses.”
Fei Yan frowned with genuine concern. “Then, Lady Zhu… you can’t do anything about it?” If Zhu Zhihao was stumped, their expedition was over before it had even truly begun.
”No,” Zhu Zhihao shook her head, dismissing the thought. “The formation has been in place for who knows how long. It is not at its peak. I can find a way to enter, but… it will take time.”
She retrieved the small, eight-sided mirror of polished black jade from her storage ring. As she infused her Qi into it, the reflective surface turned pitch black and seemed to devour the light around it.
As Su Kang looked at the mirror’s dark surface, an instinctive fear jolted his soul. It was a cold, sharp warning from deep within his sea of consciousness. He averted his gaze immediately, his heart hammering. He instinctively feared it might aggravate his still-healing soul foundation.
’That black jade mirror,’ he thought, his jaw tightening, ‘it must be a powerful soul-related artifact for sure.’
Zhu Zhihao, oblivious to Su Kang’s internal struggle, held the mirror aloft. You both stand back,” she commanded without turning.
Su Kang and Fei Yan immediately retreated to a safe distance.
The mirror pulsed once, emitting no light, but the very world in front of Su Kang seemed to warp and twist. Zhu Zhihao closed her eyes, her full concentration sinking into the black mirror.
Inside her mind, a new vision was forming. The black mirror was projecting a complex diagram of the array’s energy flow directly into her consciousness. She began to analyze its weak points, searching for a weak point in its defenses. Her idea was to make slight, precise adjustments to the array’s flow—to coax it into opening a small tear. It was a delicate, complex process.
The hours began to drag. The purple sky remained unchanged. The barren plateau offered nothing else. Finally, Fei Yan gazed around her with a thoughtful expression on her face. She approached Zhu Zhihao. “Lady Zhu, since this will take time, can Su Kang and I go and explore some of the other parts of this mountain range?”
Zhu Zhihao’s eyes opened. “No,” she said flatly. “We can’t act carelessly. This is an unknown realm.”
She looked at the empty plateau and gestured. “Remember, there is no one here to activate hidden traps for us. You don’t want to be the first to die here, do you? Just wait until I create an opening.”
Fei Yan’s smile tightened, but she bowed her head in submission. “Alright then.”
The trio decided to wait.
Su Kang and Fei Yan retreated to a nearby peak, a short distance from the plateau, to give Zhu Zhihao space. They sat on the cold, gray mountain rock, surrounded by silence.
From their vantage point, the distant, dark forest stretched out like a carpet below, all under the strange, purple-dark expanse of the secret realm’s sky.
With nothing else to do, Su Kang turned his consciousness inward. “Fate, can you sense any other places with treasure?”
Fate replied after a few moments of silence. “I can sense some… in the far distance. But the fortune there is weaker than the one in our current location.”
Su Kang sighed internally. That means this place is likely more dangerous as well. Senior Zhu had probably guessed as much. He looked around at the unknown landscape. He had no information about this place. If any serious mischief happened, neither he nor Fei Yan had the experience to deal with it.
Time passed like that. In this realm of eternal purple twilight, there was no day or night to mark its passage. But in their quiet waiting, a week slipped by.
Su Kang observed Zhu Zhihao from their peak. Her face had changed. It was visibly paler, clearly the result of continuous, high-level soul energy consumption. Her expression was one of absolute, unwavering focus, her entire being poured into the black mirror as she analyzed the ancient formation.
One day, her eyes suddenly snapped open.
”Prepare yourself,” she said, her voice slightly strained.
She then took a pill from her storage ring, swallowed it, and immediately sat in a meditative position to recover.
Su Kang and Fei Yan glanced at each other, their bodies tensing. After days of waiting, they were finally ready. They watched as Zhu Zhihao’s pale face slowly regained its healthy color. It must have been a soul energy recovery pill, Su Kang thought. He guessed she must still have more soul-related pills, likely for her own personal use.
After a long time, she finally stood up, her aura stable once more.
”Get ready now.”
With a wave of her hand, Zhu Zhihao took back the black jade mirror. The devouring quality vanished from the air, and the space returned to its normal appearance. She then stepped up to the rock face where the array shimmered. Her pale fingers, crackling with condensed Qi, pressed against the stone. She pushed with a precise application of her will, and the stone wall seemed to break apart, slowly opening a small, dark tear within the formation.
”Stay close,” she commanded.
A soft, golden light enveloped Su Kang and Fei Yan as Zhu Zhihao wrapped them in her own protective Qi. She led them forward, stepping through the newly formed opening. The world warped for a dizzying instant, and then they were inside.
They landed on a floor of smooth, cold stone. The air was still, like a dead lake without any ripple in it. Zhu Zhihao released her hold on them, her gaze sweeping the massive cavern they had entered. It was lit by spiritual stones that showed a single path ahead. There was a small hole in the cavern from which they had entered; the purple expanse of the outside could be seen from there.
I hope it won’t close on its own, Su Kang thought. He wasn’t sure if, should they have to escape, they would have to wait for hours again.
“Be careful from here onwards,” Zhu Zhihao warned sternly. Then she led the way, followed by Fei Yan and Su Kang.
Soon, a massive gate appeared in their vision. It was carved from a single, unbroken piece of dark rock. Its surface was covered in breathtakingly detailed carvings of mythical beasts: a Qilin pawing at the heavens, a Phoenix soaring with fiery wings, a stern Three-Legged Crow perched on a sun, and coiling Dragons locked in eternal battle. Surrounding these figures were runes of a style Su Kang had never seen, completely unknown to him.
The gate was immense, easily thirty-three yards long, and standing before it, they looked tiny and insignificant.
”Is this… the place of some ancient powerhouse?” Fei Yan murmured, her voice a hush of pure awe. “This gate alone… it gives off more pressure than the Emperor’s courtroom gate back in the Xuantian Empire.”
Zhu Zhihao did not respond. Her attention was fixed on the beast carvings. A deep frown appeared on her face as she looked at them more closely, as if she sensed they were not mere decoration but were telling a tale of their own.
As they stepped near the gate, a low, grinding sound rumbled through the stone floor. With a heavy, ancient groan, the massive rock doors began to move, opening on their own. They slid apart to slowly give them a glimpse of what lay ahead.
The same deep purple expanse of the sky greeted them. As the gate opened fully, a vast, silent valley spread out before them. A wide path of smooth, white pebbles wound its way from their feet into the distance.
In the distance, nestled against the slopes of another mountain range, were the silhouettes of ancient structures: sweeping pagodas, sprawling courtyards, and grand halls, all built with an unknown, dark-colored wood. The entire place was dead; an ancient stillness hung in the air, with no sign of life. Signboards hung crookedly from archways, their characters written in an ancient, unknown script.
As they stepped past the gate, they realized they had come out of a sheer stone wall. The cave had been nothing more than a hidden passage. This was truly the demesne of some ancient family or sect.
The white pebbled path led them toward the different peaks.
”We need to gather information about this place,” Zhu Zhihao said, her voice low. “We need to look for something similar to a library, where we might find some jade scrolls.”
Everyone nodded. They chose the closest peak from their location and went towards it.
As they got close to the peak, a building came into their vision. It was a hall. They went closer. Zhu Zhihao first observed the place with the black jade mirror again, putting it against her forehead and scanning the area. After seeing things were fine, she signaled for them to enter.
