Chương 1279: Chapter 70: Unexpected Harvest and the Lost Mu Jade Sword

Reyn pondered in silence for a fleeting moment, his fingers blurring as he executed a series of complex hand seals. The incantations struck the stone wall and dissolved into the rock face, yet the surface remained stubbornly inert, showing no sign of change.

"Could Li Zhupu have played me for a fool?" Reyn's brow furrowed, a shadow of doubt crossing his features before he slowly shook his head.

"No. A woman staring into the abyss of death would have no reason to weave such a lie. Perhaps the methodology I am employing is simply flawed?" Half an hour drifted by in painstaking trial and error. It was only when Reyn cast a specific restriction-breaking seal—one he had picked up by mere chance—that the smooth stone wall finally reacted. Ripples began to radiate across the surface, looking like a pebble had been tossed into the mirror-like stillness of a mountain lake.

"Hm?" Reyn froze, his eyes widening as a surge of delighted surprise replaced his frustration. This particular set of seals was an obscure technique he had learned on a whim; he had used it now as a last resort, never expecting it to be the perfect key to this lock. Moments later, as the final syllable of the incantation sank into the stone, a heavy, seamless door manifested and groaned open. Reyn stood before the threshold, hesitating.

He flicked his wrist, sending several investigative spells into the darkness to probe for hidden traps or lethal arrays. Detecting no immediate peril, he finally reached out and pushed the heavy stone slab fully aside. Beyond the door lay a secret chamber spanning several zhang. Luminous pearls were embedded into the masonry of the walls, casting a soft, ethereal glow that rendered every detail visible to the naked eye. At the center of the room sat a stone dais bearing five storage bags.

Behind the platform stood a weapon rack carved from solid bluestone, displaying several artifacts that pulsed with rhythmic, shimmering spiritual light. It appeared this place was indeed the hidden vault of the two fiendish corpses, exactly as Li Zhupu had described. Reyn approached the dais, his Divine Sense sweeping over the loot. He noted with relief that the spiritual imprints and restrictions on the storage bags had already been forcibly dismantled, sparing him the arduous task of breaking them himself.

Among the five bags, two were of a contemporary design common in the current cultivation world—undoubtedly the property of Li Zhupu and her companion from Zi Luanxing. The remaining three were archaic and weathered, their primitive craftsmanship marking them as relics from a bygone era. A flicker of anticipation ignited in Reyn's eyes. He snatched up the two modern bags and delved into the first with his consciousness.

A moment later, his eyes snapped open, and he retrieved a jagged fragment of an ancient cyan jade plate. A look of genuine joy spread across his face. Setting that bag down, he probed the second and quickly located the final missing shard. With a practiced tap on the storage bag at his waist, he produced the third fragment—the one he had previously looted from Yang Dawei—and placed it on the stone table. As the three broken pieces were brought into proximity, they began to vibrate with increasing intensity.

A strange, primal magnetic force seemed to awaken within them, drawing the shards toward one another with irresistible strength. Clack! Like lodestones finding their mark, the three fragments snapped together. They fused so perfectly that not a single seam remained, forming a complete, circular cyan jade plate. Its surface was now alive with intricate, profound patterns that seemed to shift and writhe under his gaze. Reyn's heart hammered against his ribs.

He took the jade plate in hand and slowly immersed his Divine Sense into its depths. After a long silence, he finally withdrew his consciousness, his eyes filled with a newfound clarity. After a moment of solemn contemplation, he tucked the jade plate deep into his storage bag, treating it with the reverence reserved for a supreme treasure.

"I wonder if these remaining three storage bags hold any hidden treasures?" Reyn mused, a faint, knowing smile playing on his lips. He didn't harbor particularly high expectations for their contents; after all, securing the azure jade plate was already the crowning achievement of this venture. To him, anything else was merely a secondary bonus. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

He reached out and snagged one of the bags, his Divine Sense plunging into its pocket dimension. As he had suspected, the interior was sparsely populated. Beyond a handful of mid-grade spirit tools and roughly a thousand low-grade spirit stones, the space was largely a void of mundane utility.

"Wait, what's this?" Just as he prepared to cast the bag aside, his mental sweep brushed against something tucked away in the deepest corner of the storage space. It was a small, unassuming jade box, notably devoid of any restrictive seals or traps. Reyn retrieved the box and pried it open. Inside lay twenty smooth jade tablets, each roughly half an inch thick and etched with a labyrinth of bizarre, intricate patterns that seemed to pulse with a faint, rhythmic energy.

Though their true purpose eluded him for the moment, he stowed them away with meticulous care. In the world of cultivation, items preserved with such deliberate intent in a jade box were rarely, if ever, common trifles. The fourth storage bag proved equally barren, yet it contained a single jade slip that immediately commanded his full attention. It detailed a Primordial Soul secret art known as the Tongyan Great Dao Scripture.

This profound technique allowed a cultivator to imperceptibly assimilate foreign souls or stray consciousnesses that had forcibly invaded their sea of knowledge. Instead of being consumed, the intruder would be merged into the host's own essence, effectively turning the hostile force into a subordinate part of the cultivator's own soul. The moment he scanned the mnemonic verses, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

He realized that the two Golden Core-stage corpses he had encountered must have relied on this very scripture to subvert the Corpse-Controlling Gu. It was how they had managed to retain their sapience despite the parasitic infestation. This art clearly originated from the primordial era; while undeniably sinister and unorthodox, its potential to turn a lethal soul-invasion into a windfall of power was staggering. Reyn committed every syllable to memory.

Once the technique was etched into his mind, he let a pulse of spiritual energy erupt from his palm, shattering the jade slip into a cloud of fine dust. Such a treacherous and powerful secret was best kept solely within his own mind. There was no need to leave a physical record behind that might eventually fall into the hands of a rival or be spread across the cultivation world.

"To be able to conceive such a bizarre and ingenious art... the ancient cultivation world truly was a magnificent era teeming with peerless masters," Reyn whispered, savoring the profound nuances of the scripture. He felt a growing respect for the unfathomable depths of the ancient cultivators. Shaking his head to clear the lingering awe, he reached for the final storage bag. However, the instant his fingers closed around it, Reyn's entire frame stiffened. His eyes widened, reflecting a sudden, sharp disbelief.

His Divine Sense surged into the bag with frantic intensity, and with a sharp motion, he produced a square box—roughly a foot in length and width, crafted from a deep, obsidian-green material—and slammed it onto the stone table. The dark green box was unnervingly light, possessing a texture that was neither metal nor wood, yet it felt harder than the finest tempered steel.

When Reyn attempted to scan it, his Divine Sense was repelled by a gentle, yet immovable force approximately half an inch from the box's surface. No matter how much spiritual pressure he applied, he found himself unable to penetrate its mysterious shroud. Snap! With a calculated application of force, the latch gave way. He threw back the lid, and a foot-long small sword, vibrant and translucent like a shard of pure, dripping emerald, was revealed to the world.

"The Mu Jade Sword!" A brilliant, predatory light erupted in Reyn's gaze. This sword, resting silently within its specialized container, was the very Mu Jade Sword that served as the ultimate token of victory in the current Trial Realm!

"How can this be? This ancient tomb is a fortress; without a specific, secret method, entry is an absolute impossibility. I only gained access to this second floor by a stroke of sheer, chaotic luck after slaying that lake-bottom vine beast and obtaining the azure jade plate. Is it possible that another cultivator stumbled upon a similar path in the past?"

"No... that can't be right. The design and craftsmanship of this storage bag are fundamentally different from anything used in the modern cultivation world. This is an artifact of a bygone age. It couldn't possibly belong to any of the disciples currently participating in the trial!"

"If that is the case, then this particular Mu Jade Sword..." Reyn's heart thundered against his ribs, a mixture of adrenaline and shock coursing through his veins. He plunged his Divine Sense back into the storage bag for a final, exhaustive search, eventually surfacing with a pristine white jade slip. He pressed it to his forehead, and a cascade of ancient text flooded his consciousness.

'My name is Ji Yue, the third disciple serving under the Sect Leader of the Yuyi Palace...'

"Ji Yue... Yuyi Palace!" Reyn's hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist. He recalled the history vividly. A thousand years ago, after a high-ranking disciple of the Yuyi Palace lost a Mu Jade Sword, the Mu Family had been consumed by a genocidal rage. The Yuyi Palace had been wiped from the face of the earth overnight, with not a single disciple, elder, or servant allowed to escape the slaughter.

If the author of this slip claimed to be from that sect, they were undoubtedly the very individual responsible for the sword's disappearance! This sword had been lost for a millennium—the legendary missing piece that the Mu Family had exhausted their entire clan's might and resources to recover, yet had never seen again until this very moment!"