"So weak," Qi Lin commented contemptuously. I glared at him.

"Go on, why don"t you try lifting over a hundred of these things instead of floating in the air?"

Qi Lin grinned. "I"m not the one who wants them."

"And I"m not the one asking you to float around me." I took the golden amulet in my pocket and prepared to throw it. Qi Lin panicked when he saw what I was about to do.

"Wait! Don"t do that! Don"t just throw me away!"

"Why?" I sneered. "You"re not my master. There"s no benefits for me to hang on, and I"m sick of hearing you insult me. Just like those haters in Royal Road, the moment they began spamming 0.5 ratings and calling me trash, I"m going to leave. There"s no sense in me sticking around to endure their abuse where there"s no reason or benefit in doing so."

"You"re really bitter about that, aren"t you?" Qi Lin remarked. Then his eyes widened when I began to c.o.c.k my arm back. "Okay! I"m sorry! I"m sorry, all right?! I"ll shut up from now on!"

He probably thought I was petty, but being magnanimous only invited pain and suffering, especially when people did nothing but insult me over every little thing.

"Well, the question is how much they will buy the battle-automata for." I pondered to myself. "A battle puppet costs about five gold coins, but these are ancient treasures, so they should cost a lot more. I hope."

They sounded pretty cheap, but that was because I hadn"t included the Spirit Engravings and the cost of the artificial qi yet. If I succeeded in engraving Spirit Symbols into the battle automata, then their price would no doubt double, or even triple.

The reason why the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect was so wealthy was because of their Spirit Engraving skills. To get even an average smith like me to carve a Spirit Engraving into an artifact would net me several silver coins, at the very least.

"Well, I"ll only find out once I get home."

Taking a deep breath, I scratched my head and stretched my exhausted muscles for a bit while trying to recover from the earlier exertion. Once I felt that I had restored enough strength, I rose to my feet to continue my exploration of the tomb.

The next direction was pretty obvious, given how there was a broken door nearby. Clearly whoever had come through here had smashed through the poor door, which wasn"t as st.u.r.dily built as the vault I had just plundered. Stepping out of the vault, I cautiously proceeded toward the broken door, looking for any signs of traps.

Instead, after stepping through the remains of the broken door, a scene of devastation greeted me. The broken husks of the low-level servitors that had patrolled the area earlier were strewn across the ground. Scorch marks and other signs of damage on the floor indicated that a ferocious battle had taken place earlier.

"…lightning qi?"

I reached out with my right hand and felt a slight tingle as static electricity sparked against my fingers. Recognizing the personal qi signature, I frowned.

"Seems like Lei Yong Chun was here…along with the rest."

Lei Yong Chun"s qi wasn"t the only one here. I could pick up at least three other people"s qi signatures with my Heaven and Earth senses. They must have grouped together to smash apart the army of servitors here.

"Oh, well…"

Treading carefully over the broken remains of the servitors, I glanced around through my hastily repaired gla.s.ses. A close scrutiny told me that the messy pa.s.sageway had been thoroughly cleaned out. Whatever treasures that used to be here had already been taken by Lei Yong Chun and the rest. Those that weren"t treasures, but were traps or security bots like the servitors, had been destroyed by overwhelming force.

"...whoa."

While traversing the quiet corridor, I came across more traces of battle. The damaged husks of servitors and battle puppets continued to litter the place, but what surprised me was that the deeper I went into, the more…detailed and advanced the servitors were. h.e.l.l, there were Thallax-cla.s.s battle puppets destroyed along with the servitors, remnants of the depleted security detachment that used to patrol these halls.

I wondered if I would eventually stumble over the corpses of robed cyborg warriors who had sworn their service to the Omnissiah. That was unlikely. Given the age of the tomb, despite their augmented cybernetics, their organic components would have rotted and decayed long ago, leaving their metallic frames little more than empty sh.e.l.ls.

Not only were the servitors and battle puppets growing more powerful (from their appearance anyway), they were also increasing in number. I stopped to inspect one particularly fearsome carnage, which had blood mixed with slick oil. With their strength and numbers, even Lei Yong Chun was finding them a challenge the deeper he ventured in.

In fact, it appeared that a few of his comrades had been injured… maybe Lei Yong Chun himself had received an injury. But I couldn"t sense his qi from the blood, so I guessed that it was his comrades instead.

"Doesn"t look like they fought here long ago," I observed. Qi Lin nodded.

"You"re right. Whoever fought here, they were here an hour ago, at the earliest. They might still be somewhere nearby."

"Still, they"re pretty impressive…to be able to destroy entire maniples of battle-automata and battle puppets like this…"

"Well, what do you expect from pract.i.tioners from the Pure Spirit Stage?" Qi Lin replied dismissively, as if this wasn"t something extraordinary. Now that I thought about it, Lei Yong Chun easily wrecked an entire army of battle puppets in Wu Ling Academy last year, so it wasn"t a stretch to imagine him being able to defeat them.

"Hmm? What"s that?"

When I resumed my journey and pa.s.sed through another empty hall (save for the remains of the battle puppets), I suddenly caught sight of a curtain of light at the end, just a few dozen meters ahead of me.

"That"s coming from the end of the pa.s.sageway…is it a door?"

Pushing my broken gla.s.ses up, I began to hasten my pace and headed toward the faint glow. At the same time, I maintained my state of alertness, watching out for ambushes and traps. It wouldn"t do for me to walk straight into danger.

"!!!"

I almost recoiled when something came within view, framed by the soft glow of the light. Swallowing, I focused my attention on the broken Castellax battle automata lying in front of me. Despite its st.u.r.dy frame, it had been blasted apart by many attacks – no doubt a concerted a.s.sault from several Pure Spirit Stage pract.i.tioners.

Even so, it had defiantly put up a fierce fight, judging from the extensive damage in the s.p.a.ce around it. Ammunition casings littered the floor, holes and craters evident in the walls, ground and even ceiling, and even pools of blood where its attacks had struck home against its a.s.sailants. Its power fists were still smoking, crackling with a failing power field, and the light had gone out of its hands. There were blood on its hands, though, which meant it scored more than a few hits of its own, and punished the intruders dearly for attempting to challenge it.

In the end, however, it was still unable to stop their inexorable advance and had been brutally destroyed.

"Even a mid level battle automata with such firepower and strength was unable to stop them."

I lowered my head and laid my fingers on the broken battle automata. These guys were no doubt the most elite martial artists of the younger generation in the Great Zhou Empire. I had to admire them grudgingly.

"Well, you did well…let"s see if I can repair you."

Struck with an idea, I placed the damaged Castellax battle automata in my spatial device. Even though it was broken into pieces, I was sure I would be able to repair it – especially since I had so many of its comrades for reference. The poor guy fought so well, it would be a waste to leave him lying here like this, dying an ignominious death. I would give him a new purpose in life, and rewrite the Spirit Engraving inside his cerebral cortex.

"Do you seriously want that broken battle automata?" Qi Lin asked skeptically as he watched me place him inside my spatial device.

"What"s the worst that can happen? I can use him for spare parts…but I think he"ll be up and whole if I use super glue and duct tape."

"Do you think you"re a.s.sembling a wargaming miniature or anything?! It"s not as if he"s made up of plastic or resin!"

I grinned. "You"ll be surprised to see what these guys are made of."

"In any case, the Spirit Engravings on that battle-automata you just took are still present. That"s probably why he was able to fight. And it"s also because of that that those young elite martial artists were unable to claim him as their own." Qi Lin mused thoughtfully as he stared at my spatial device. The Castellax battle automata was no longer visible, after all. "Among the younger generations of the Great Zhou Empire, they are considered not bad. But they still have a long way to go, especially when compared to the Nascent Soul Stage pract.i.tioner."

"Well, duh…even though I don"t care about all these stages, you"re pretty much stating the obvious when comparing people from two different stages." I couldn"t help but roll my eyes. "But I"ll be able to reprogram and reinscribe the Spirit Engraving. If I can"t, then I"ll ask Elder Tie for help. I"m sure we"ll figure something out."

I was so glad I joined the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect. otherwise I would never have been able to make use of these battle automata that I had just acquired, or repair them.

"Maybe I should have Xiao Jiao join the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect too," Qi Lin muttered under his breath. You"ve got to be kidding me! So he"s going to be the streongest martial artist while being a G.o.dly alchemist/receptarier and a top Spirit Engraver/blacksmith at the same time!? Just how much more Mary Sue-ish do you want him to be?!

Trying to conceal my disgust, I rose to my feet and proceeded onward.

"Wait."

I stopped when Qi Lin suddenly halted me, and shot him a quizzical look.

"If you go any deeper…if you enter that chamber, you"ll be reaching the core of the ancient tomb. Do you still plan on entering?"

"Duh." I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. "Why the h.e.l.l wouldn"t I plan on entering the core of the ancient tomb?"

"That"s because it"ll be several times more dangerous inside the core than before," Qi Lin replied. My vein twitched.

"The whole f.u.c.king expedition is dangerous to begin with! If I was afraid of danger, why would I bother crossing the forest and going inside the Heavenly Fire Mountain Range, braving demonic creatures and magical beasts? Why would I enter the ancient tomb and risk falling into traps while fighting off both monsters and murderous martial artists competing against me for its treasures? What kind of stupid question is that?!"

"…uh…yeah. You"ve got a point there."

Qi Lin at least had the temerity to look embarra.s.sed for asking such a dumb question. He coughed.

"I…was trying to be dramatic."

"This is reality, not some xianxia novel. And I"m not the protagonist in any case. Let"s not bother with dramatic foreshadowing and all that nonsense."

Rolling my eyes, I stepped through the curtain of light. As I did so, the light rippled and shimmered violently, but I ignored it as I disappeared through it, appearing on the other side of the glowing screen.

"Wow…"

At first, I couldn"t make sense of what I was seeing. Even with my enchanted gla.s.ses, I found myself staring at absolute darkness. The next moment, a scarlet light flooded my vision, and my gla.s.ses didn"t even darken to protect my eyes. Blinking and squinting through the fiery glow, I saw a crimson wave of extremely hot flames washed over me, a.s.saulting my body and almost incinerating me if I didn"t project an icy aura of yin qi to protect myself.

"What the h.e.l.l?!"

Maintaining my icy cold qi, I glanced frantically at my surroundings, fighting to calm down my furiously beating heart. When I finally made sense of what I was seeing, I immediately recoiled from both terror and shock.

Right now, I was standing in a scarlet sea of fire, the torrent of flames burning ferociously as they sought to incinerate anyone foolish enough to walk into them with intense heat.

Yet, the fact that my gla.s.ses didn"t react to them…

"…these flames are just an illusion."

"Who knows?" Qi Lin shrugged callously. "Even if they"re an illusion, their effects on the physical body are very real. This is an excellent, top-cla.s.s spirit formation. As expected of a Nascent Soul Stage pract.i.tioner."

"Meaning that even if I know it"s not real, I"ll still end up being harmed by it? In other words, it might as well be real."

I sighed and shook my head. What a troublesome formation. To get through it, I would have to expend quite a bit of qi.

"On the bright side, look over there. It seems that those few guys are also stuck in the spirit formation."

Qi Lin sounded pretty gleeful as he pointed toward the center of the flaming sea. I turned to look in that direction.

Sure enough, there was a group of figures resisting the flames in the center of the blazing sea. Magnifying my lenses, I saw that it was Lei Yong Chun and the rest. Sui Sha Yu, Jiang Jun Hao, Nan Ke, and even Li Chun Long.

"Ho…" I tried to whistle, but failed pathetically. I could never whistle for some reason. "What an impressive spirit formation! I can"t believe that even that Lei Yong Chun and the rest got trapped within the flames." Then I sobered up. "I"ll have to find an alternative path or I"ll end up like them."

"It looks like they decided to take the paths provided by the formation and they ended up being trapped instead." Qi Lin thought as he observed the flaming sea. As he pointed out, there were many paths snaking across the flaming seas of fire, narrow walkways that were free from the flames and seeming to lead deeper inside.

However…

"There"s something amiss about those paths."

I closed my eyes and focused. Using my Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps, I began to pick out and unravel the currents of fiery qi that blazed across the formation. It seemed that those countless paths actually linked into an unending circle, confusing whoever followed them and throwing them off their sense of direction.

That was why Lei Yong Chun and the rest were unable to cross them – the formation had then walking in endless circles!

"That"s right. None of those paths are the right ones. They are all fake. Lei Yong Chun and the rest have not realized that, which is why they are trapped inside the formation."

"In other words, the real path is the one that"s not visible." Keeping my eyes closed, I continued to probe the formation with my Heaven and Earth senses. There was fiery qi billowing about everywhere, threatening to overpower them, and the paths continued to shift and change, putting the unfortunate group ahead of me in the wrong track.

"The only path is through the sea of flames," I muttered. Qi Lin stared at me in shock.

"Not bad, kid! You actually figured that out before I can tell you! However, it"s not that simple. Those flames are not mere illusions. If you carelessly walk into them, you"ll still end up burned. The fiery currents continue to shift and change endlessly. So you can"t just simply walk into it and go in a straight line. You"ll have to…"

"Sense the flows of qi. Don"t worry, that"s my speciality. I may suck at fighting, but I"m good at running away."

Taking a deep breath, I took a step forward and walked right into the flames.

A scorching blast of heat struck me, but it was within tolerable levels. A blast of fiery qi arced toward me, but I stepped to the side, just narrowly avoiding getting incinerated by the flames. Even though I was aware it was an illusion, the qi wasn"t something as simple as brute force – it wasn"t just fiery qi that burned its opponents. Otherwise Lei Yong Chun and the rest could just muster their strength and walk through the flames with their sheer power and large amounts of qi. They were illusionary qi that worked in mystical ways to confound the mind and convinced you to believe that your body was really being incinerated.

Ducking under a wave of fire that soared toward my head, I then nimbly weaved my way through the gaps I found in the flowing currents of blazing qi. Almost like an elegant dancer (or like a.s.sa.s.sin in Fate/Zero), I advanced step by step, cartwheeling across a thread of fiery qi that sought to burn me off at my heels, ducking under another blade of flames, or sidestepping a ma.s.sive wave of fire. Navigating my way through the inferno using my Heaven and Earth senses, I slowly but surely advanced through the blazing h.e.l.l without taking much damage.

"Huff…"

Perspiration dripped down my face as I continued onward. Even though I was able to avoid the worst of the fiery qi that sent illusionary attacks directly at my mind, I knew how fine a line I was cutting. One small mistake, a tiny misstep and I would be incinerated. Even if I survived the flames, I would be left with severe injuries, third-degree burns at the minimum.

And I couldn"t afford to get hurt inside the sea of fire. I needed to be at my peak condition to move through the flames without getting hit by any stray superheated torrents. Whether they were real or not didn"t matter.

The effects they wrought were real enough.

"Hu…"

The flames intensified the deeper I ventured. At first they came in one wave at a time, but as I neared the middle, they increased in number. Two waves came at me from opposite direction, forcing me to dodge them simultaneously by jumping over the first and spinning away from the second. Then a third came from the top and a fourth from the front at the same time. Suppressing a curse, I threw out my hand and flipped myself over the fourth while cartwheeling to safety before the third could slam down on me. Getting back on my feet, I had barely recovered my breath when another two burst of flames surged at me from opposite directions.

"…!"

Using my senses, I dodged the incoming waves and staggered to the front, where I was greeted by another two waves trying to catch me off guard. One erupted from where my foot was a millisecond ago, which would have completely burned my leg off if I hadn"t moved, and the other sliced toward my shoulder at a steep angle.

"Kuh!"

I succeeded in spinning away from both and then found myself stumbling into the deeper regions of the flames.

Whoosh!

d.a.m.n it, they were giving me any time to catch my breath. This time, three waves of flames blasted toward me from different directions. I had to execute three movements consecutively to evade them before I got caught in the literal crossfire.

"Not bad! That was a close one!"

Floating above, completely unaffected by the illusionary flames, Qi Lin laughed and clapped his hands.

Oh shut up, you ghost! You had it easy, being unaffected by all these tricks and traps! I wished the guy had a physical body, then he could see how annoying it was to have someone comment and laugh while he was doing his best to survive.

Another three struck me simultaneously from all angles, and I was forced to use my footwork techniques. Using Liu, I slipped through the tiny gaps that the illusionsary flames left, dodging them by the slimmest hair"s breadth.

"Phew…"

Just when I exhaled, another three blades of fire hurtled toward me. Executing a combination of footwork and Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps, I literally danced through the flames, now clumsy instead of graceful.

I didn"t care if anyone watching me was laughing at my awkward movements. My priority right now was to survive, not preserve my ego or self-esteem. Not that I ever had an ego to begin with, given how people love to insult and make fun of me, callng me trash and always telling me how terrible my stories were, that they were only worth 0.5 stars…

"Kuh!"

Jumping over another three arcs of fire and flipping myself over a simultaneous fourth one, I landed on the ground, only to hurl myself away just as a fifth blast of flames incinerated the spot where I crashed into.

And just like that, I tumbled out of the sea of fire, landing on clear, cool open ground. Rolling to my feet, I exhaled.

"You did it!" Qi Lin praised me. I scowled.

"No thanks to you."

"Well, it"s not as if I"m your master."

"Good point." I raised the golden amulet, preparing to chuck it into the sea of fire. "There"s no point keeping you around."

"Wait! Wait!!!!"

It was funny watching Qi Lin drop to the ground and beg me tearfully, so I kept him tense for a few moments before I lowered my hand.

"I"m sorry!"

"Yeah, yeah…"

By now, I was less interested in Qi Lin"s amusing reaction than I was in the progress of Lei Yong Chun and the rest. They were still desperately trying to resist the sudden flares of flames that burst out from the sea of fire and washed over their path, forcing them to retreat, or walking themselves into a deadend.

A few seconds later, they panicked when they found themselves within the spirit formation"s attack range, being forced back into a defensive posture. They had to raise great walls of qi, expending huge amounts of energy just to stay alive.

"Hmm…"

Even though I was able to watch them from afar, it was clear that they hadn"t spotted me. I couldn"t blame them – they were occupied with more important things at the moment. And the sea of flames were actually shielding me from view, so there was that.

"Hmm?"

I blinked when I realized I had forgotten something. Staring at Lei Yong Chun"s motley group, I did a headcount. There were Lei Yong Chun himself, Sui Sha Yu, Jiang Jun Hao, Nan Ke, and Li Chun Long. But there was no sign of the beautiful girl with the lotus technique…what was her name again? The one from the Incendiary Ifrit Sect if I remembered correctly.

"Oh…not bad, I guess?"

Pursing my lips, I explored the possibilities. After all, Li Xue Wu and Yan Qing Wu had chosen not to follow the other elite martial artists of the younger generation, and went on their own way to acquire their own treasures. It was entirely possible that the girl from the Incendiary Ifrit Sect had also chosen to go her separate path.

But if she hadn"t, and had in fact followed Lei Yong Chun and the others up to this point, the fact that she was not with them meant that she had successfully crossed through this powerful spirit formation and its illusionary glames.

"If she did, then she"s not bad at all."

I nodded, impressed, before wiping the perspiration from my forehead. Even though the flames were illusionary, their effects were extremely real and my body had reacted to the perceived high heat they generated. As a result, I was perspiring profusely. Drinking some water, I glanced around, wondering if I would spot her.

It took me a lot of effort and energy to pa.s.s through the illusionary sea of flames, and that was only possible because I had learned Heavenly Flow and Earthly Steps. If I hadn"t mastered that, I would have been stuck wandering along the paths like Lei Yong Chun and his unfortunate party. Even someone as strong as him found themselves trapped, so it wasn"t hard to imagine what would happen to average martial artists like me.

On the other hand, that girl had clearly overcome the spirit formation and all those lethal illusionary flames with her own strength. That meant she was clearly a cut above the rest. I couldn"t help but feel a slight chill when I thought about it.

Surely her power and potential had to be boundless…

Well, it"s none of my business. It just means she"ll be another harem member for Zhu Jiao.

Remembering how Zhu Jiao ended up triggering a flag with the Six Star Const.i.tution Yan Qing Wu, and even taking her virginity and giving his to her, I knew for sure that he would end up with all the super-beautiful and talented girls in the Great Zhou Empire. It was inevitable. Given how he was the protagonist, there was no doubt that he would have made it here through sheer luck, and was most likely having a fated encounter with the girl.

"Ugh…"

My expression turned sour at that, and I turned around to stare at the huge door in the clearing.

Having reached the cool, open ground, I found myself staring at a huge door that seemed to be made entirely out of bronze. In fact, it was already open, which was a clear indication that someone had already pa.s.sed through here.

Most likely it was that girl from the Incendiary Ifrit Sect…or perhaps it was Zhu Jiao with his protagonist luck and plot armor. Or both. Would I be able to catch them in the act like I did when he and Yan Qing Wu had that "lucky" accident?

"Only one way to find out…"

I could only cross my fingers and pray that whoever had gone inside hadn"t emptied the vault of all its treasures already. At least leave something for me! After going through all that trouble of braving the illusionary flames and overcoming the formation, I wanted something for my efforts. Otherwise it would feel like a frustrating waste of my time.

The moment I stepped through the doors, the illusion of the scarlet sea of fire vanished, along with the faint, lingering heat. I found myself staring at a serene scene of an interior of a hall made out of marble.

To my surprise, there were many extravagant decorations or adornments in the interior of this grand hall, but instead it looked pretty simple and empty. There was a coffin in the center – which was obvious, given how the whole thing was an ancient tomb. But other than the coffin in the middle, there wasn"t much in the hall.

Wait…

I gaped when I caught sight of a floating ball of light that emanated a powerful qi. It was hovering above the coffin, almost like an unidentified floating object in one of those alien abduction tabloid stories. Swallowing my excitement, I squinted at the ball of light and registered a deep crimson heart gently pulsing within the core. From my Heaven and Earth senses, I could tell that the crimson heart comprised totally of qi – qi so potent that it was making the surrounding natural qi that saturated the ancient hall reverberate.

"I see…so that"s the Nascent Soul Heart," Qi Lin whispered in awe. I glanced at him, bewildered.

"The…what now?"

"The legendary Nascent Soul Heart," Qi Lin repeated. "Come on, kid! Don"t tell me you"ve never heard of it!"

I rubbed at my cheek absent-mindedly, vaguely feeling as if I had read about it somewhere before, but didn"t bother to commit too much of my memory s.p.a.ce to it because I wasn"t interested in all the various stages and realms.

Shrugging, I glanced at the beating Nascent Soul Heart again.

"Well, it looks pretty cool…I guess?"

However, just as I took a single step forward, a cold voice that was infused with rich spiritual energy suddenly echoed across the quiet marble hall.

"Please leave. This is not a place you can enter."

Freezing, I gulped and raised my head slowly and glanced at the source of the voice. As I expected, the extremely beautiful girl from the Incendiary Ifrit Sect was standing a few dozen meters away, staring at me with glacial eyes that seemed to be made from pure sapphire.