The halls and pavilions within the protective grand formation had endured countless years; mugwort choked the paths, and a bleak desolation met the eye.
Qin Xuan trod across rubble and broken bricks, weaving between severed beams and ruined pillars.
Before long, he found another stalk of vermilion blood lingzhi. This one was slightly younger, but it was still a full sixty years old—a complete sexagenary cycle—and easily worth around twenty spirit stones. For a Qi Refining cultivator, having a hundred or so spirit stones in one's purse was already considered quite a fortune.
As Qin Xuan dug up the herb, he mentally mapped the area stretching from the entrance of the main hall to where he stood.
Connecting the two spirit herbs in a line, he searched outward in a fan shape to both sides.
When he found a third blood lingzhi seedling, his suspicion was practically confirmed.
This place was Patriarch Geng's cave abode, not the wilderness, nor was it an herb garden.
That identical spirit herbs grew here meant eight or nine times out of ten, seeds had scattered in all directions when the halls collapsed back then. By that logic, a medicine storehouse or alchemy chamber had to be nearby.
Qin Xuan searched with greater purpose.
Finally, not far from any of the three spirit herbs, in a half-collapsed stone chamber, he spotted an alchemy furnace. Standing roughly twelve feet high, with three legs and four ears, it was cast entirely from bronze.
The furnace was even larger than the capacity of his hundred-treasure pouch. He gave it a tug, but it wouldn't budge. Taking it with him was out of the question.
"Shrink, shrink, get smaller!"
Qin Xuan chanted at the furnace a few times, then laughed at himself.
Leaping up onto the furnace rim, he leaned forward to peer inside.
Inside the chamber, besides dust and rubble, accumulated medicinal ash remained. A few emerald sprigs sprouted from the ash, bearing faint traces of spiritual energy—likely gestated from cinnabar left behind in the past.
Qin Xuan did not bother to dig them up. He hopped down from the furnace and looked around to see if anything usable remained in the alchemy room.
On the half-standing stone wall that remained, several dust-covered hanging scrolls were still intact. There was a Diagram of Suppressed Positions and a Celestial Image Diagram of Returned Elixirs, all auspicious paintings Qi Refining cultivators used when praying for successful pill concoctions.
For example, beside a Painting of Grotto Immortals Protecting the Cauldron, a couplet was inscribed: "True immortals from myriad grottos unite to guard the cauldron; a single golden elixir naturally attains spiritual brilliance."
"Looks like Patriarch Geng relied on metaphysics when concocting pills too."
A dozen paces behind the furnace stood an alchemy platform. Its white jade surface was cracked into three pieces and piled with a thick layer of dust.
Several bamboo scrolls were scattered across the platform. Qin Xuan's eyes lit up, and he hurried forward to brush away the dust.
The first few scrolls were inscribed with slender, angular characters. Rather than insights into alchemy, they contained self-consolations after failed concoctions and miscellaneous daily notes.
It read like an alchemy diary.
For instance:
[Fourth month of the Qianyuan calendar of Great Yan: Today, this poor Daoist failed to refine the pill. It was not due to a dull aptitude, but rather that dishonest merchant selling beast-gold charcoal who cheated his conscience, passing off inferior goods as superior, causing the furnace flames to lack heat; combined with the overcast weather, failure was the inevitable result.]
"This Patriarch Geng certainly wasn't an upright character at a glance."
Qin Xuan complained under his breath about all these useless scribbles. Flipping through several more scrolls, one finally caught his eye.
It was titled: Three Flowers Qi-Subduing Pill.
'Vermilion blood congeals cinnabar to nurture spirit and qi; tiger lilies and duckweed vine blossom embracing the dew...'
'Take three liang of vermilion blood lingzhi as the chief sovereign medicine, soak thoroughly in morning dew gathered at the hour of Yin, slice with a bamboo knife... at the hours of Mao and You add and draw back, advance the fire and retract the talismans...'
This was an alchemy recipe, and recorded in meticulous detail.
Qin Xuan remembered that inside the alchemy rooms of Yuansong Temple, vermilion blood lingzhi was often used to refine "subduing bait," another type of qi-subduing pill possessing the effect of concentrating the spirit and subduing qi.
Unless endowed with peculiar properties, medicinal pills were commonly categorized as dew pills, edible pills, and herb pills.
These corresponded respectively to the three treasures: essence, qi, and spirit.
Yuansong Temple's subduing bait was one variety of herb pill. Examining the effects described in the recipe closely, it seemed slightly inferior to Patriarch Geng's Three Flowers Qi-Subduing Pill.
Casting aside Patriarch Geng's Blame-Shifting Alchemy Diary, he stowed the bamboo scroll into his hundred-treasure pouch.
Having acquired this, Qin Xuan already felt the trip worthwhile.
Just as he was rejoicing, his gaze swept across the alchemy platform, and he suddenly noticed a slight bulge beneath the layer of dust. When touched by the bamboo scrolls just now, it had caved in, making it all the more conspicuous. He gave his sleeve a sweep, shaking the loose dust away.
Beneath the dust lay a small, toppled bronze furnace.
It was barely the size of three fists, with three legs and two ears, its surface a uniform verdigris green. Bending down to pick it up, it felt surprisingly heavy, and on the lid were engraved two small characters: "Jinhua."
Qin Xuan slipped this small furnace into his pouch as well.
After another search, the alchemy room held nothing else of use.
He made his way toward the direction where Geng Zhi and the others were. Except for a few spirit herbs, ruins and broken tiles covered the ground; even if treasures lay buried underneath, finding them would be a tall order.
No wonder Geng Zhi had been so generous.
As he drew near the center of this pocket world, beams of treasure light appeared in the distance, staked out in four quarters like stone pillars propping up a great hall.
Elder Wu and the others were gathered before one of those pillar-like columns of treasure light.
One could see objects bobbing up and down inside.
"Brother Qin, come help me!"
The moment Elder Wu saw Qin Xuan, he shouted out ahead of Jinyanshu. Qin Xuan walked over to look. Suspended in the pillar of treasure light before Elder Wu was an animal hide; Qin Xuan could not recognize a single word inscribed upon it.
Elder Wu, however, kept swallowing his saliva, his entire body trembling uncontrollably as if seized by an ague.
"What is this?"
Elder Wu's voice quavered: "The mystery of mysteries—writing without characters; Dharma without form, the Dao leaving only traces."
Qin Xuan realized in an instant that the sixteen characters Elder Wu uttered applied not only to demons, but equally to humans, ghosts, immortals, and devils.
The supreme scriptures of the great sects, races, and paths across the Nine Provinces were all conveyed in radically disparate scripts.
Or rather, they were not words at all, but unique vessels of the Dao and its arts.
Because the Great Dao leaves no trace, the most profound mysteries cannot be captured in ink.
The current era recorded in history was known to the world as "Recent Antiquity." Qin Xuan remembered a passage in the Annotated Remains of Ancient Script stating that 129,600 years ago, the era was designated as "Chaotic Antiquity."
Across these two great spans of time, many mighty figures had deduced the Great Dao, leaving behind numerous "secret studies."
The records in these secret studies resembled pictographs—sun, moon, mountains, and rivers each harboring esoteric meaning—and every single glyph required one's own comprehension.
The secret studies of mortals, ghosts, immortals, and demons across the Nine Provinces differed wildly from one another. Attempting to study the true dharmas of another realm was as difficult as ascending to heaven.
Thus, it was impossible for Qin Xuan to decipher demonkind's secret lore.
Elder Wu naturally understood this common knowledge. Sprawled against the treasure pillar, his fish eyes stared unblinkingly at the hide within. Though separated by barely a foot, it felt like an insurmountable chasm:
"This is our demon race's Holy Spirit Demon Scripture—it points straight to the Great Dao!"
"Brother Qin, help me obtain this scripture, and in the future I will repay you with a momentous destiny!"
Looking at the intricate ward, Qin Xuan shook his head helplessly. "Brother Wu, I am powerless here as well."
Over on the other side, Jinyanshu's eyes were bloodshot as he rasped, "Why wait for some future destiny when there's an immense one right before our eyes?!"
Qin Xuan walked over. Suspended within the treasure pillar before Jinyanshu was a purple casket radiating brilliance. Words constantly bloomed in the light, flashing and vanishing in an instant.
This time, Qin Xuan felt a powerful resonance.
Like Jinyanshu, his eyes turned bloodshot.
Jinyanshu pounded on the pillar of light, roaring, "This is the Red Sandalwood Box Scripture—the Red Sandalwood Box Scripture! It's one of the recording methods among the Dao Sect's greatest secrets! It once shook the era of Chaotic Antiquity! Three assembly-cycles ago, someone achieved the Dao through it!"
Qin Xuan drew a dharma sword. A silvery gleam flared as he slashed directly at the treasure pillar:
"If the Red Sandalwood Box Scripture stays here, it will only go to waste with time. It must be taken!"
Hearing this, Jinyanshu also whipped out a massive spiked mace from his hundred-treasure pouch and swung it with all his might.
Yet no matter how the two hacked and smashed, they could not shake the pillar in the slightest. Inside, the Red Sandalwood Box Scripture continued to gleam serenely.
"Geng Zhi! How can this pillar be breached? Tell us quickly!"
Elder Wu's voice was tinged with a sob.
Geng Zhi was holding a stone slate, busy sketching something from the platform at the center of the four pillars with the help of Old Huang and Old Wu. Hearing Elder Wu's shout, he let out a sigh:
"I truly do not know."
"This is your master's cave abode, how could you not know?!"
"My late master merely guarded these precious scriptures; he was never their master. If I possessed such an inheritance, how could Brother Huo ever have stabbed me in the back?"
Geng Zhi added, "My master left instructions: the treasures in the cave abode belong to those destined for them. If you cannot obtain them, then destiny simply was not on your side."
Reality was just that cruel. Jinyanshu looked up to the sky and sighed deeply:
"The precious scripture is within reach, yet cannot be touched. In all the world, what sorrow or torment could surpass this? Ah, I shall write the word 'misery' right here!"
With that, he bit his fingertip and smeared the word "Misery" in bloody strokes across the treasure pillar.
Qin Xuan had weathered many hardships, and his temperament was far steadier than ordinary men, yet right now he too felt rather dispirited. While Jinyanshu broke down, he walked over to Geng Zhi's side and noticed a strange diagram drawn in a circle upon the platform, its purpose unknown.
In the middle of the diagram lay a giant tortoise.
Moss covered its shell, its head drooped low, and its eyes were tightly shut; it appeared to have been dead for who knew how many years. On its back rested a stone stele, its inscription weathered and illegible, a relic of an era lost to time that radiated an air of ancient desolation.
"Is Family Head Geng not tempted by those precious scriptures at all?"
Qin Xuan asked casually, though he was carefully observing Geng Zhi's reaction.
Without pausing his hands, Geng Zhi tilted his chin toward the diagram on the ground. "Tempted, yes, but what can I do? Since the scriptures can't be had, I can't leave empty-handed, so I might as well copy these back to study."
He spoke with utter candor, yet Qin Xuan did not believe a single word.
This formation diagram undoubtedly had a profound origin.
He inspected it closely, following the lines from the perimeter all the way to the center of the diagram and up to the stele upon the old tortoise's back; linked together, it resembled an entire chart.
Geng Zhi saw through his thoughts and smiled:
"Young Master Qin, to be frank, I am only copying the edges and corners of this diagram. Its core engravings are probably even older than those scriptures. If you could actually decipher it, that would truly be an astounding stroke of fortune."
Hearing him say this, Qin Xuan knew he likely stood little chance.
However...
As he drew closer to the stele on the great tortoise's back, caught completely off guard, the ancient mirror in his mind flashed with radiance. An invisible white ray seemed to shoot from the stele like thunder and lightning, darting straight into his mind, only to be swallowed instantly by the ancient mirror.
The stone stele seemed almost conscious, immediately retracting its aura.
No one noticed the anomaly. Qin Xuan drew a sharp breath as a cool sensation washed over his eyes.
When he looked up at the stele again, something bizarre occurred.
The inscriptions he previously could not decipher in the least now transformed into bird-shaped script, fluttering as if about to take flight, their forms instantly conveying their meaning.
Upon it was etched:
"Fengdu collapsed, the Fifth Nether City, the ancient homeland of Youzhou..."
...
Chapter 11