The feeling of being watched was fleeting. Meng Qingtong was too excited at heart to dwell on it, and besides, she knew that if the other party truly was an extraordinary expert of over eighteen hundred years, then even if they stared at her point-blank, she could do nothing about it. So why care? She simply steadied her backpack, picked up her pace, and went straight into the small cave.
She pinched a small lower-tier Grade-Ding talisman, *Radiance*, between two fingers to serve as illumination—this talisman was the most basic of basics, costing no more than the electricity used by a phone’s flashlight mode, so she could afford to use it.
Unexpectedly, as soon as the light reached the interior, it gave her a start.
The inside was clearly winding and twisting, with a long way yet to the end, but by the light of *Radiance*, she could see that all the stone walls within her field of vision were shrouded in a faint layer of materialized spiritual energy, flowing slowly like smoke or mist along complex, dense, and incomprehensible runes.
Meng Qingtong unconsciously licked her dry lips, her heart finally tinged with nervousness.
The position of the strongest detected reaction was at least a hundred meters away in a straight line. For the cave entrance walls to be infused into high-grade spirit stones across that distance was enough to give anyone a glimpse of the secluding senior’s terrifying power.
Just the spirit runes carried by this vast stretch of spirit-stone cave walls would be enough for her to earn a hefty share of the research bonus after applying for funding from the Protection Association.
Her mood brightened considerably, and the tune she hummed grew a few decibels louder.
After stepping two paces inward, Sun Shenglai caught up from behind. After taking a moment to appreciate her martial brother’s dumbstruck expression as he diligently played the part of a shocked bystander, she walked deeper while holding the *Radiance* talisman aloft, putting away the few emergency talismans into the backpack on her shoulder.
Given the strength of the one secluding here, those few talismans probably couldn’t even disturb their nap.
“Martial sister, martial sister, slow down. Don’t… don’t wake the old senior inside.” Sun Shenglai didn’t know what misconception he was under, but after hurrying to her side, he didn’t even dare breathe loudly.
“What foolishness are you spouting? Outside, it was crashing and booming like a mudslide for several minutes. If that didn’t wake him, then even if I blasted heavy metal at maximum volume right by his ear, he wouldn’t stir.” Meng Qingtong tossed out the line with a grin, channeling spiritual power to brighten the *Radiance* and illuminate the more open surroundings beyond the turn.
Sure enough, the distribution of spirit runes was even denser. Under long-term immersion by spiritual energy, the cave wall surfaces already showed a gradient of transparency. At this stage, these originally unremarkable stones could already be called spirit crystals.
“If the entire cave abode gets moved to the Spiritual Science Academy, the bonus should be enough for me to buy a nice motorcycle, right?” She used the joke to relax her tense nerves, raising her hand to mime twisting a throttle. “One of those big, flashy road racers. Just thinking about it is so cool.”
“You’re so frugal, yet you have such an expensive hobby?”
She shrugged. “The things I like are all expensive—that’s the true motivation behind being stingy... Ah, as expected, he’s already gone.”
She bent down, touched, and activated another *Radiance* talisman to add more light, illuminating the small natural stone chamber at the end of the cave until it was bright and clear.
Anyone could tell that a spirit cultivator had once secluded here.
Because the spirit-crystallized cave walls here had undergone another change—the dense spirit runes had completely permeated into the interior of the stones, causing the semi-transparent crystals to emit a gentle golden light from within.
At this priceless level, it was generally called spirit gold. Ordinary people were forbidden from possessing or trading it; even transactions between spirit cultivators required prior reporting. Otherwise, it would invite prolonged “warm concern” from the Spiritual Security Department.
The spirit gold formed a distinct outline around a spot in the center of the chamber near the wall. Even a three-year-old could see from that glowing golden edge that it looked like the shadow of someone sitting cross-legged, cast upon the ground and wall.
However, the pitch-black color wrapped within the golden border was not a true shadow.
Only after Meng Qingtong carefully observed for a long time did she dare to confirm that this was a step beyond spirit gold—spirit marrow, where spirit runes had already become the dominant structure of the medium. If an ordinary person obtained this amount in front of them and handed it over to the Spiritual Science Academy, they would basically have no worries for the rest of their life.
Fortunately, for non-research institutions, this thing only had a simple spiritual power replenishment effect. Even if it was spirit marrow, at most it replenished quickly and abundantly, able to provide an instantaneous refill. Meng Qingtong didn’t need to worry too much about some villainous evil cultivator suddenly popping out to rob her. She could take her time slowly taking photos, sending, archiving, and incidentally filling out a template to send a report to the Association, notifying them to send people as soon as possible to move the entire ruin.
Shocked to numbness by the continuous revelations, Sun Shenglai took a long while before he managed to squeeze out a sentence: “Martial sister, what kind of extraordinary expert could produce so many treasures just from sitting in secluded cultivation?”
“He left without taking anything. With this bearing of treating spirit marrow like dirt, he must be unimaginably high-level.” Meng Qingtong replied casually, then suddenly frowned, squatting down to carefully observe the center of that cross-legged human-shaped shadow.
The distribution of the spirit runes seemed to have a density gradient, almost… like tree rings. She increasingly found it inconceivable, and couldn’t help muttering to herself: “Huh—this really is a bit strange. How come this old senior seems to have kept growing taller while in this place? Could it be some super prodigy who started secluded cultivation before hitting puberty?”
Just as she finished speaking, she suddenly felt a heart palpitation. The previously fleeting feeling of being spied upon surfaced once more.
But this wasn’t like before. Just now she had been outside the cave, but now, not to mention the several-meter-thick cave walls around her, the interior was covered with spirit stones ranging from low to high grades. For someone to perceive inward using spiritual power would be extraordinarily difficult.
The strange thing was that a strong expert capable of doing this shouldn’t have been detected by her at all.
She pondered briefly, then simply closed her eyes to focus her mind, following which she suddenly opened her eyes and turned her head to look in the direction her intuition indicated.
That was a cave wall covered with spirit crystals, but she just knew that beyond that wall, somewhere distant and unknown, someone was definitely looking at her.
She had guessed correctly.
In a remote, desolate mountain hollow five li away, a handsome youth in coarse white robes frowned slightly. After a moment of hesitation, he still decisively retracted his extended divine sense.
When that spirit cultivator named Sun Shenglai came nearby to conduct preliminary surveys, he had made his decision and interrupted his long, unfinished body refinement process.
He couldn’t even clearly remember how much time had passed. He could only infer from his current appearance of roughly seventeen or eighteen years old, and from what that young woman had said, that at least eighteen hundred years had gone by.
He had never experienced the rumored feeling of “one day in the mountains, a thousand years in the world.” That period of self-restoration had required him to concentrate his spirit and mobilize all minute spiritual power to restore his former body from nothingness. It was truly an almost endless, long trance, which gave him a rare sense of liberated relief after he resolved to interrupt it.
If that immortal fairy back then had wanted him to wear down his ferocious nature and cultivate his heart and temperament, she had undoubtedly succeeded very well. Standing here now, the flames of hatred that had constantly scorched his chest had unknowingly gone dormant.
The most prominent emotion in his consciousness right now was bewilderment.
It was not bewilderment toward the future. He had long since discovered that this world still contained massive numbers of evil demons. Though his hatred had gradually faded, eradicating demons and defending the righteous path, protecting the common people’s peace, had always been his heart’s desire.
Even though interrupting his body restoration midway had considerable impact, even though spiritual energy in this world was thin and had nine abnormal locations, even though his Heart Sword resonance would have its power reduced due to his mental state… he still would not lose to any evil demon, even if it were the Demon Emperor reborn once more.
He believed that evil could not triumph over righteousness.
All his bewilderment came from the unknown.
Within the range his divine sense perceived after he fully recovered clarity, the changes in this world were truly too great. Strange clothes, silver chariots and iron horses, and other external things aside for now—what in the world was going on with those spiritual power usage methods so different from what he knew? Why did that thing called a “phone” have spirit runes on it? How were spirit runes activated to allow mundane, lifeless objects to survey spiritual veins? In a world with such thin spiritual energy, how did that young woman accomplish mountain-splitting relying solely on a few mediocre defensive spirit arrays?
She… was called Meng Qingtong, right?
Originally, based solely on these things, he wouldn’t have paid particular attention to a spirit arts genius. Given his aptitude and experience, Meng Qingtong was merely a general selected from a pile of dwarfs—he naturally looked down on that. Moreover, her overly revealing attire made him too ashamed to spy on her.
The moment the girl approached the cave entrance, he finally sensed a trace of something unusual.
It was a profound and hidden attraction, as if some strong entity connected to him through fate had tampered with the depths of this girl’s soul, deliberately so that he could sense it.
Among old acquaintances, not many had the ability to do this; the only one willing to do so was probably the Demon Emperor alone.
It seemed that in this world, he would have to exterminate that ancestor of evil demons once more.
“Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles”—this famous saying from mortal military strategists of some past life, he kept firmly in his heart. The evil demons’ fickleness, treachery, and insidiousness were secondary. The key was that for some reason, evil demons could endlessly appear without cease, while his lives were not so numerous.
Temporarily putting aside that girl surnamed Meng, he calmed his heart, smoothed out the spiritual power in his body, resonated with the spiritual energy between heaven and earth, rapidly spread out his divine will, and began to sweep large amounts of information into his sea of consciousness in a swallowing-whole manner.
His experience roaming through numerous worlds hunting evil demons was extremely rich. He knew that upon arriving at any place, first understanding local customs and folk practices was actually very important. For example, Meng Qingtong’s attire just now had seemed overly revealing to him, but now as his divine will diffused, he discovered that in the eyes of contemporary people, such clothing was truly common in hot weather, not worth mentioning at all.
Very quickly, he noticed another abnormality in this world.
Clearly spiritual energy was gathered extremely unbalanced at nine locations in the world, yet flowing information was spread out extremely evenly and finely. He didn’t know what powerful methods were used, but from the nine heavens above to the earth and rocks below, everywhere was transmitting complex and incomprehensible information at extreme speed.
Moreover, following any single thread to trace it, one could easily touch upon a terrifyingly vast scope.
His brows furrowed. Unwilling to waste more time, he simply opened his sea of consciousness completely, intending to move all of it from those information veins at once and slowly digest it later.
Unexpectedly, in merely a moment, he discovered that the information contained within that thing called the “internet” was actually so abundant that his sea of consciousness fundamentally could not contain it!
Furthermore, the gap between the two sides was too massive. With a slight guiding effort on his part, it became an unstoppable torrential influx!
He inwardly cried out that this was bad. Just as he was about to forcibly stop, he felt a tearing, heart-piercing agony from his sea of consciousness, his vision went black, and he uncontrollably collapsed backward.
Before fainting, he only had time to instinctively release his Heart Sword, Wumang, to barely protect himself.
But in this place with thin spiritual energy, without his active supply, the Heart Sword Manifestation fundamentally couldn’t last long.
When he opened his eyes again, it was already morning of some unknown day. Wumang had long since returned to his soul. Judging from the fact that the robe condensed from spiritual energy on his body was about to naturally dissipate, at least two days had passed.
He inwardly cursed himself for being careless, slowly sat up, and looked around.
Still desolate mountains and wild ridges; nothing worth mentioning.
The truly terrible condition was happening internally.
His sea of consciousness was swollen to the verge of collapse. During unconsciousness, his soul had instinctively saved itself, forcibly absorbing quite a bit of relatively easy-to-understand common knowledge information into his memory, causing his mind to be in complete chaos at this moment. Strings of unfamiliar vocabulary floated around; the slightest attempt to think carefully caused splitting headaches.
He currently had a youth’s physique, so naturally he also had some of a youth’s temperament, and unconsciously grew irritated. He knew this couldn’t continue, so he beckoned to pull a vine leaf from a cliff wall from afar, condensed spiritual energy at his fingertips, casually wrote a Clear Heart spirit talisman, activated it, and placed it against his chest.
Spiritual energy was thin; even mobilizing spiritual power was a few degrees more sluggish than in the past. His thoughts moved, recalling Meng Qingtong’s spirit arts. He tentatively searched from his sea of consciousness, planning to first study these novel methods.
Gradually, the Clear Heart talisman took effect, and his thoughts also settled down due to concentration.
By the time the sun was high in the sky, he let out a long breath, his tense expression turning relaxed. With his previous foundation, learning this world’s spirit arts was as easy as turning over his palm. The details of the variations had mostly been grasped by him; only a few subtle points still needed slow deliberation.
The discomfort in his sea of consciousness still couldn’t be settled. He could only wait until the portion assimilated into his own use grew larger, the burden gradually decreased, and his spirit could recover accordingly.
Since this was the case, there was no need to remain here hungry, wasting time in vain. He stood up, deciding to take the first step of starting over from scratch.
This was the edge of the western suburbs of Dongding City, a development zone awaiting construction. Then, heading east was correct.
Before setting out, he joined his fingers into a blade, first cutting his nearly floor-dragging pitch-black long hair to just waist-length, then expending a bit of spiritual power to select a decent-looking set of youthful clothing extracted from his sea of consciousness and manifest it on his body.
If he wanted to integrate into this world, his appearance couldn’t be too unconventional.
He didn’t walk fast. Hurrying wasn’t his goal. He was merely using this to familiarize himself—familiarize himself with this unfamiliar world, and familiarize himself with this body he wasn’t yet familiar enough with.
Footsteps rose and fell with the mountain terrain. His heart gradually settled with the footsteps.
At this time, another side effect of the thin spiritual energy reared its head as this body was put to formal use—relying solely on spiritual power could no longer solve the problem of hunger. He remembered that the last time he was so hungry his eyes went blurry seemed to be when he was studying the arts on Three Stars Hanging Moon Mountain in his teens.
He had no gold, silver, or copper coins; nor did he have this world’s things called banknotes, bank cards, or payment apps. His only magical treasure, the Heart Sword Manifestation, couldn’t be sold even if he wanted to… He had no choice but to turn around, walking toward higher ground in the mountains, thinking to see if he could first find a place to pick some wild fruits.
Rounding a mountain wall, he frowned slightly and stopped his steps.
He saw two fruit trees, and simultaneously saw a familiar yet unfamiliar figure from behind.
Familiar, because he had already used his divine sense to observe it many times before. Unfamiliar, because this was the first time he was seeing it directly with his naked eyes.
There was no need to use his divine sense anymore. Once the distance closed, that faint feeling of pulling emerged on its own. The marvelous thing was, from it he could sense the karma of evil demons, yet he couldn’t directly discover any evil demon’s aura.
Might as well go up and get acquainted.
He had just made up his mind and was preparing to go over and speak when he saw the girl, her back to him, let out a faint sigh, then suddenly leap toward the cliff face in front of her, jumping down as if committing suicide!