Chương 14: Chapter 13

Ling Tian remained perfectly still at the threshold of the vast chamber. He did not immediately step forward. The room had survived whatever span of time had reduced the formations in its walls to faint spiritual residue. Someone had gone to considerable effort to carve an artificial chamber into the heart of Crimson Peak, hide the entrance behind a waterfall, smooth the stone into geometrically precise curves, and cover the walls in runes Ling Tian could not read.

None of that suggested a location where an intelligent person should wander casually into the center because the floor looked clean. Unfortunately, that was exactly what most protagonists would do. Ling Tian had read enough cultivation novels to know the procedure. Discover ancient ruin. Become overwhelmed by destiny. Ignore the complete absence of animal life, dust, corpses, airflow, or obvious explanation. Walk directly toward the suspicious object in the middle of the room. Touch it. Receive inheritance.

Or curse. Or ancient soul parasite. Sometimes all three. Ling Tian considered himself fortunate to possess neither courage nor narrative confidence. He remained beside the archway and expanded his spiritual perception as far as he could safely maintain it. The chamber unfolded around him again, translated into density, absence, and faint variations in elemental energy. He swept the floor first. Slowly. No unusual concentrations of Earth Qi. No obvious gaps beneath the polished stone.

No sections that felt structurally different enough to suggest concealed pits. The method was imperfect. Ling Tian had no idea what a genuine cultivation formation looked like through spiritual perception, much less whether a sufficiently advanced trap could simply hide from him. Still, imperfect inspection remained preferable to voluntary ignorance. He shifted his attention toward the walls. The exhausted runes produced faint residual signatures, but nothing changed when his perception passed over them.

No sudden gathering of Fire Qi. No movement in the surrounding Earth. No Wind Qi forming suspiciously narrow lines through the chamber. The ceiling was harder. Much of it extended beyond the comfortable edge of his current range, forcing Ling Tian to move his attention carefully across the reachable sections. Nothing. No hanging objects. No sleeping creatures. No suspicious accumulations of Water Qi waiting to convert the room into a tomb. He checked again. Then a third time.

The chamber remained aggressively empty. That made him more suspicious. Ling Tian opened his eyes. Dim illumination from the entrance tunnel reached only partway into the enormous room, while faint remnants of light clung to several wall carvings like embers refusing to admit the fire had died centuries ago. The resulting gloom revealed broad shapes but very little detail. He stood there with water dripping from his hair onto the polished floor.

"No bodies." His voice echoed.

"No bones." Another echo returned from the curved walls.

"No giant chained monster." Silence.

"No pile of unattended treasure placed directly under a spotlight." Still nothing. Ling Tian narrowed his eyes. The lack of bait felt almost disrespectful. He closed them again and concentrated his perception toward the exact center of the chamber. There. A signal. Very faint. So faint, in fact, that he had mistaken it for part of the background during his wider scans. Ling Tian focused. One object sat slightly above floor level in the geometric center of the room. It carried almost no obvious spiritual presence.

No violent Fire Qi. No oppressive Earth signature. No concentrated life force. Nothing resembling the predatory wrongness he had sensed from Huo Jin's necklace in Hua City. Mostly stone. And metal. Ling Tian opened his eyes. At least there was something here. He stepped across the threshold. One bare foot touched the polished floor. Nothing happened. Ling Tian waited. The floor declined to collapse. No arrows emerged from the walls. No immortal voice demanded that he kneel. He took another step. Then another.

His spiritual perception stayed open in a narrow defensive sweep around him as he advanced toward the center. He did not walk in a straight line at first, changing his angle twice to inspect the floor from different directions. If the builders had designed a trap specifically for paranoid office workers reincarnated into starving children, he accepted that he was probably finished anyway. The object slowly emerged from the darkness. A rectangular stone slab stood perhaps knee-high above the floor.

It was heavy, plain, and cracked through one corner. No inscriptions decorated its surface. No ceremonial carvings marked its edges. Calling it an altar would have implied considerably more craftsmanship than it deserved. Something had been driven directly into the center. Ling Tian stopped. A sword. Of course. He stood approximately five feet from the slab and stared. The weapon remained completely motionless. Its hilt was bronze. Plain bronze.

The scabbard was also bronze, equally plain, with no visible engraving, gemstones, tassels, inscriptions, beast motifs, glowing symbols, or other decorative attempts to inform the world that its owner possessed disposable income. The sword had simply been planted into the stone. Ling Tian crossed his arms.

"No." The room remained silent. His eyes moved from the weapon to the surrounding chamber and back again.

"No, this is worse." He had joked outside about discovering a skeleton wearing a storage ring. Apparently the universe had decided to choose a different cliché. A solitary sword embedded in stone at the exact center of a sealed ancient chamber hidden behind a waterfall was not treasure. It was a contract. Possibly a hostage situation. Ling Tian had consumed far too many webnovels in his previous life to view the scene without prejudice. There was clearly an ancient spirit inside the blade.

Some slaughtered Sword Emperor, forgotten demon, disgraced sect founder, or other aggressively unemployed old man had spent the last three thousand years waiting for a compatible junior to arrive. The moment Ling Tian touched the hilt, the spirit would awaken. Young one. At last, fate has delivered my successor. Then came the inheritance. Then came the enemies. Then came a list of obligations extending back several geological periods. Ling Tian wanted none of them. He did not want vengeance.

He did not want destiny. He did not want to restore somebody's fallen sect. He especially did not want an ancient man living inside an object he carried near his body. Huo Jin already appeared to have that market segment covered. Ling Tian sighed. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. On the other hand— It was a sword. An actual weapon. He looked down at his narrow arms.

Cultivation had improved his physical capability dramatically, but improved bones did very little against teeth, claws, steel, or the general problem of other people wanting to kill him. He lived alone on a mountain inhabited by creatures large enough to manipulate weather. A weapon would be useful. Extremely useful. Provided it was merely a weapon. That condition required testing. Ling Tian crouched and searched the polished floor.

Near the base of the stone slab, he found a small fragment of slate that appeared to have broken from the cracked corner at some point in the distant past. He picked it up. The pebble rested against his palm. Ling Tian looked at the sword. Then at the pebble. This was stupid. It was also safer than touching the sword first. He stood, stepped backward another pace, and adjusted his stance. The Earth Qi in his Dantian continued its slow rotation, sending a grounding pulse through his body.

Ling Tian deliberately directed that reinforcement into his shoulder, elbow, and wrist. He drew his arm back. Then threw. The pebble crossed the chamber considerably faster than he expected. Ding. It struck the bronze scabbard. The metallic note rang through the chamber, bounced from the curved walls, and gradually faded. Ling Tian waited. Nothing happened. No runes activated. No spiritual pressure descended.

No spectral figure rose from the weapon demanding an explanation for the disrespect shown by its future disciple. The sword did not even wobble. Ling Tian remained frozen in throwing posture for several seconds. Then slowly lowered his arm. He was twenty-five years old. Technically. He had worked in an office. Paid taxes. Attended university. Maintained spreadsheets containing actual corporate financial information.

And he was currently standing half-dressed in a freezing mountain cave, throwing rocks at a sword because fiction had damaged his ability to interact normally with suspicious antiques.

"Right." His voice echoed back at him.

"Feeling appropriately stupid now." Still, stupid and alive remained an acceptable combination. Ling Tian approached. This time he stopped directly beside the stone slab. Up close, the sword became stranger by virtue of how ordinary it looked. There was no rust. That was the first problem. The cavern was damp. Moisture constantly entered through the waterfall, and the air smelled permanently wet. Even if the weapon was bronze rather than iron, centuries of exposure should have left something. Corrosion.

Mineral deposits. Discoloration. Anything. Instead, the scabbard looked old but intact, its surface covered in a muted brown-green patina that seemed almost uniform. The hilt showed remarkably little wear. Ling Tian leaned closer. Still no obvious spiritual signature. Interesting. He compared it mentally to Huo Jin's necklace. That object had been active. Wrong. It consumed Fire Qi constantly, hiding predatory behavior beneath what appeared physically to be an ordinary piece of jewelry. The sword did none of that.

At least not where he could detect it. No absorption. No emission. No environmental distortion. Nothing. It might simply be incredibly durable bronze. Ling Tian knew how ridiculous that conclusion sounded. He preferred it anyway. He extended his right hand. Then stopped an inch from the hilt. Final risk assessment. Potential curse: unknown. Potential soul possession: unknown. Potential ancient blood feud: unacceptable. Potential weapon acquisition: extremely useful.

Potential alternative method of testing whether touching the sword caused possession— Ling Tian looked around the empty room. None. Unfortunately, there came a point where risk assessment became procrastination wearing glasses. He flexed his fingers. The Earth Qi pulsed. Ling Tian mentally prepared to shut every spiritual access point he possessed the instant anything attempted to enter him. Then he wrapped his hand around the hilt. Cold. That was all. The bronze was freezing from centuries inside the mountain.

Ling Tian waited. No voice. No vision. No mysterious information flooded directly into his mind. No dead emperor attempted hostile acquisition of his nervous system. He remained himself. Ling Tian exhaled.

"Promising." He tightened his grip. The weapon extended deep into the cracked stone slab. Based on every sword-in-stone story he had ever encountered, extraction would now require some combination of destiny, bloodline compatibility, heroic determination, or unreasonable upper-body strength. Ling Tian possessed none of the first three. He did have Earth Qi. That would have to do. He positioned both feet firmly against the polished floor and wrapped one hand around the hilt.

His shoulders tightened as he prepared to pull. The Qi inside his Dantian rotated. Ling Tian reinforced his stance. He tugged upward. A pulse touched his palm. Faint. So faint he almost missed it. One brief sensation passed through the bronze hilt and into his hand, strangely rhythmic and soft. Like a heartbeat heard through several walls. Then it was gone. Ling Tian's eyebrows twitched. Before he could focus on it, the sword moved. Easily. Far too easily.

The bronze scabbard slid from the cracked stone with almost no resistance. Ling Tian stumbled backward half a step because his entire body had been prepared for a struggle that never arrived. He caught himself. The weapon rested in his hand. Silence returned. Ling Tian looked at the slab. Then at the sword.

"That was anticlimactic." He inspected his palm. Nothing. The faint pulse had disappeared completely. He replayed the moment. Had it actually happened? Possibly. Or it could have been the impact of metal shifting against stone transmitted through the hilt. His attention had been focused intensely enough that ordinary mechanical vibration might have registered strangely through his enhanced senses. Ling Tian extended his spiritual perception toward the weapon. Still nothing unusual. No active Qi.

No foreign presence. No response. He filed the pulse under unconfirmed anomaly. Tomorrow's problem. For now, he had a sword. A very large sword. Ling Tian held it upright. The weapon was almost absurdly long compared with his current body, roughly one hundred and twenty centimeters from pommel to the end of the sheath. In the hands of a malnourished ten-year-old, it should have looked less like a weapon and more like stolen furniture. It was heavy. But not unmanageable. That surprised him.

Ling Tian adjusted his grip. The balance was exceptional. The weight distributed itself naturally through his arm rather than dragging awkwardly toward the floor. His Earth Qi supported his wrist and shoulder easily enough to compensate for what his underdeveloped muscles lacked. He made a cautious movement through the air. The sword followed smoothly. Interesting. He placed his left hand around the bronze scabbard. Then hesitated. The weapon had come free from the stone.

That did not mean the blade would come free from the sheath. This was another obvious moment for a curse. Ling Tian sighed at himself. He had already touched it. Incremental paranoia had diminishing returns. He pulled. The blade slid free with a quiet metallic hiss. Ling Tian froze. The exposed sword caught what little light existed in the chamber. Bronze. Plain bronze. A straight, double-edged blade extended from the simple hilt, long and narrow without excessive ornamentation. There was no elaborate crossguard.

No jewels. No inscriptions. No glowing runes. The metal did not burst into flames. It did not hum with killing intent. It did not announce a weapon grade. It looked like— A sword. Ling Tian raised it carefully. The edge was sharp. Very sharp. Even in the dim chamber, the line of the blade reflected a thin strand of light. There were no obvious chips, no corrosion along the edge, and no deformation despite however long the weapon had remained buried inside the mountain. That was unusual. Potentially magical.

Ling Tian examined it through spiritual perception again. Nothing. He waited for disappointment. None arrived. Instead, relief spread through him so suddenly that he almost laughed. This was perfect. A divine sword would have been terrible. Ling Tian had no storage ring. No secure house. No clan. No sect. No guards. No legal ownership documents.

If he walked into Hua City carrying a weapon that shone with heavenly light, summoned dragons, whispered ancient secrets, or radiated enough Sword Qi to alert every cultivator within ten kilometers, his expected ownership period could be measured in minutes. His expected lifespan afterward might be shorter. A starving ten-year-old orphan had no business visibly possessing treasure. Treasure attracted people stronger than him.

People stronger than him possessed a disturbing tendency to interpret property rights as optional. But this? Ling Tian rotated the blade. Plain bronze. Old. Heavy. Entirely unremarkable at a glance. A cultivator might look at him carrying it and assume he had found scrap. A merchant might value the metal. A thief might decide the effort of stealing such an ugly weapon was not worth the trouble.

And anything sufficiently mortal to attack him might discover that plain bronze remained perfectly capable of entering flesh. Ling Tian smiled. For once, the universe had provided exactly the kind of asset he wanted. Low-profile. Useful. No visible prestige. No obvious narrative significance. He tested the balance with one careful horizontal movement. The blade moved beautifully. He stopped it before momentum could carry the edge anywhere near his own body. Swordsmanship remained a future expense.

He had absolutely no intention of learning through self-amputation. Ling Tian looked at the blade again. He had possessed almost nothing since arriving in this world. A shack that barely qualified as shelter. A bloodstained cultivation manual responsible for the previous owner's death. Several copper coins. Some food. A bundle of Cloudmint. One microscopic deposit of Earth Qi. Now he owned a weapon. Or had stolen one from an abandoned subterranean installation. Ownership law seemed flexible under the circumstances.

He slowly slid the blade back into its bronze sheath. It entered without resistance. Near the end came a soft metallic click. Seated. Secure. Ling Tian tested the fit. Good.

"Herbs, functioning organs, and a weapon." His voice carried farther than intended through the empty chamber. He considered the morning's results.

"Not bad." Calling it an investment return felt excessive. Then again, he had nearly drowned entering the cave. Some compensation seemed reasonable. Ling Tian adjusted the sword across one shoulder. The length made carrying it awkward, but the balance helped. Later, he could improvise a cloth strap or belt loop. Something that kept both hands free while climbing would be necessary. He turned toward the entrance. Then stopped. Paranoia returned. Ling Tian looked back across the chamber. Nothing had changed.

The cracked slab remained empty. The exhausted runes remained exhausted. No angry spirit had appeared after a delayed activation period. No enormous stone doors were closing. He gave the cavern one final spiritual scan. Still nothing. Good. He had acquired the asset. Continuing to linger in an ancient ruin after receiving treasure was how people encountered optional second-stage traps. Ling Tian believed strongly in leaving while ahead. He retraced his path through the carved chamber.

His bare feet produced soft echoes against the polished floor. The dead runes slipped past one after another, still carrying faint traces of whatever energy had once powered them. Ling Tian resisted the temptation to inspect them further. One mystery was enough for today. The smooth architecture eventually gave way to rougher stone. Dampness increased. The air began moving again. Then the waterfall became audible. A low rumble first. Then thunder. Ling Tian stopped near the mouth of the cave.

The curtain of white water filled the entrance ahead. Crossing it while empty-handed had been unpleasant. Crossing while carrying a sword almost as tall as he was required reconsideration. He secured the weapon tightly against his body and studied the flow. The scabbard added weight. Earth Qi appreciated weight. Ling Tian hoped that relationship remained positive. He lowered his stance. The tiny drop inside his Dantian rotated. A grounding pulse traveled through his legs and spine.

Ling Tian stepped into the waterfall. Freezing pressure smashed down across his shoulders. His vision disappeared beneath white water. The sword pulled against him immediately. Ling Tian shifted its angle, keeping the sheath close so the current could not catch it broadside. His feet held against the slick stone. One step. Another. The waterfall battered his head and back. Earth Qi pulsed. His stance stabilized. Ling Tian pushed forward. Then the pressure vanished. Sunlight exploded across his vision.

He stumbled into the basin, caught himself, and continued moving until the water dropped below his knees. Only then did he straighten.

"Still terrible." He wiped water from his face. The waterfall offered no apology. Ling Tian checked the sword. Still present. Good. He waded toward the rocky bank. The sun had climbed noticeably higher while he explored the chamber, turning the wet stones bright beneath the morning light. His tunic remained spread where he had left it, damp but warmer now. Beside it sat the sack of Cloudmint gathered earlier. Both untouched. Another victory. Ling Tian pulled the tunic over his head.

Cold fabric clung to his skin unpleasantly. He endured it. Then he lifted the herb sack. The day's inventory had become unexpectedly diverse. Cloudmint. Ancient bronze weapon. One increasingly suspicious personal cultivation experiment. He adjusted the sword across his back as best he could, securing it with a rough strip of cloth from the sack strap. The result looked improvised because it was. Still, both hands were free. Ling Tian stood beside the waterfall for a moment.

For the first time since awakening on Crimson Peak, the weight at his back changed something psychological. He was still weak. That needed to remain absolutely clear. One drop of Earth Qi did not make him a real cultivator by any reasonable standard. The Yan Clan could still erase him by accident. The storm-hidden creature above the mountain probably possessed internal organs more dangerous than his entire body. But he was no longer completely helpless. If a wild dog attacked him, he had a blade.

If an ordinary thief tried to rob him, he had leverage. If something larger came after him— He could at least die while holding a weapon. Progress. Ling Tian turned away from the waterfall. The bronze sword shifted across his back. He smiled faintly.