Inches to the Ends of the Earth was a widely known spatial art that virtually no one could master. Reaching straight to the essence of spatial arts, it could only be learned by those blessed with immense comprehension and profound fortune.
Once mastered, a cultivator could roam free and untethered, venturing wherever they pleased across the vast world.
"So the place you were imagining just now was the edge of a cliff? What a unique choice," the Immortal Fairy remarked in marvel. She felt the junior she possessed truly was extraordinary, grasping a spatial art as difficult as Inches to the Ends of the Earth in the blink of an eye.
"Unique, my foot! I was thinking of Tianmen Peak! What the hell is this place?!" Lu Yang yelled. No one could stay calm when suddenly finding themselves suspended in midair over a cliff.
Most critically, he was falling!
If he slammed squarely into the ground, turning into a puddle of meat paste would be the best-case scenario.
Hearing this, the Immortal Fairy's expression changed drastically. If anything happened to Lu Yang, that little girl would surely beat her until her soul scattered into nothingness!
"Quick, quick, quick! Hurry up and let me take control of your body! I'll fly you up!"
At a critical juncture like this, there was no way Lu Yang could pin his hopes on the ever-unreliable Immortal Fairy. Falling faster and faster by the second, he had to figure out a way to land safely.
Lu Yang took two deep breaths and forced himself to stay calm. Below his feet was pitch-black darkness where nothing could be seen, so a fear of heights was not even an issue.
"Inches to the Ends of the Earth!"
Lu Yang prayed his newly learned art would teleport him back, which would be the ideal outcome.
Mid-plummet, Lu Yang vanished in an instant—only to reappear in the sky right above the cliff.
Lu Yang: "..."
It seemed going back was out of the question for now. No matter; he still had a second plan.
"To Inches!"
Lu Yang shrank only his body, leaving his clothes at their original size. He scrambled to clutch the four corners of his garment, fashioning a crude parachute that finally slowed his descent.
"Phew—" Lu Yang let out a breath of relief.
Sheer cliff faces loomed on both sides as Lu Yang drifted precariously down the middle, his heart uneasy, wondering what awaited him down below.
"Look over there! There's an outcrop on the cliff wall that looks like a ledge. Land on that!" the Immortal Fairy shouted.
"Where? Why don't I see it?" Lu Yang frowned.
"To the left! Right on the left! Your divine sense can't extend as far as mine, so I spotted it before you!"
Following the direction of the Immortal Fairy's guidance, Lu Yang steered his drift and indeed touched down on a stone platform.
Only when his feet rested on solid ground did Lu Yang truly relax. That had scared him half to death.
"Was what you just cast really Inches to the Ends of the Earth?" The Immortal Fairy looked at Lu Yang suspiciously. She had used it countless times, yet she had never once encountered anything remotely like this.
"It... probably was?" Lu Yang was not entirely certain either. By now he had a rough sense of his own knack for magical arts, knowing that he couldn't blame Eldest Senior Sister for every single technique of his that went astray.
He bore part of the responsibility himself.
"At least it's a genuine spatial art, and one that actually teleports me somewhere," Lu Yang consoled himself.
Besides, the variant of Inches to the Ends of the Earth that he cultivated had an upside.
Cultivators who practiced spatial arts feared nothing more than facing other spatial art users, as an enemy could calculate where they were teleporting and pursue relentlessly, proving extremely troublesome to shake off.
Lu Yang had zero need to worry about such a situation. After all, he didn't even know where he was teleporting himself.
"Speaking of which, where is this?" Lu Yang looked up toward the sky. With steep cliff walls hemming him in, he could only see a thin sliver of blue, making it impossible to determine his location.
He had no idea how far he was from the Dao Seeking Sect, or if he was even still on the Central Continent.
"Doesn't matter where it is!" The Immortal Fairy rallied his spirits. "With this immortal escorting you, nothing can go wrong!"
Lu Yang felt that relying on immortals was far inferior to relying on oneself. At the very least, he knew his own limits, whereas this immortal did not.
"Go take a look inside. It looks like an immortal's cave-dwelling," the Immortal Fairy urged.
"Fair enough."
Just as Lu Yang stepped inside the cave, a loud thud sounded behind him as two stone doors slammed shut.
The doors were made of an unknown material. Lu Yang gritted his teeth and exerted the strength of nine oxen and two tigers, but failed to budge them in the slightest.
The Immortal Fairy's expression turned grave. "Don't waste your energy. This door was forged by a mighty expert; it isn't something a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator like you can shake."
With the stone doors sealed, the already dim cave-dwelling plunged into absolute blackness, hiding everything from sight.
Just as Lu Yang thought of using Three-Flavor True Fire to illuminate the surroundings, faint glows suddenly lit up along both walls.
"Luminous pearls?" The long passageway of the cave-dwelling was lined on either side with night-glowing stones.
Lu Yang felt an inkling that someone had mentioned this manner of arranging luminous pearls before.
Where had he heard it?
"All we can do is head deeper."
In the empty passage, only the sound of Lu Yang's footsteps echoed, feeling eerie and sinister.
When Lu Yang reached the end of the passage, two rows of imposing soldier figurines stood upright, clutching various magical artifacts as if guarding something. Flanked by these figurines was a stone stele carved with the words: *The Departed Live Forever*.
Lu Yang finally realized where that familiar feeling came from. Wasn't this a tomb?!
*The Departed Live Forever* was a rather common epitaph found in human graves.
A chill ran down Lu Yang's spine. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to wander into a tomb.
"T-this is a tomb?!" The Immortal Fairy tried to put on a brave front, but Lu Yang could still hear a trace of trembling and unease in her voice.
"It should be." Lu Yang nodded grimly, feeling more and more like he had stumbled into something huge.
*Gulp.* The Immortal Fairy nervously swallowed.
Seeing this, a somewhat comical guess popped into Lu Yang's mind. "Fairy, you couldn't possibly be afraid of ghosts, could you?"
"W-who would be afraid of such things? I am a dignified immortal!" The Immortal Fairy's voice was practically shaking.
"But you're shivering."
"I'm cold."
"Do you still remember your title?"
"The Immortal Fairy, of course."
"A title like yours, placed in the tomb-raiding world, would make you an ancestor of zombies or something of that caliber. What are you scared of?"
Recalling how confidently the fairy had just vowed to escort and protect him, Lu Yang felt that refusing to believe her nonsense was truly the wisest decision he had made.
"There's no need to be frightened. I happen to have a book regarding tombs right here."
Lu Yang retrieved a copy of *Tomb Raiding Insights* from his identity jade pendant. It was precisely the gift Master Shang, Shang Zhongtian, had given him in gratitude after they slew the painted-skin ghost.
"I never thought it would come in handy here."
"Oh, you have something that good?" The Immortal Fairy's eyes brightened. The reason tombs and ghosts inspired fear, naturally, stemmed from the word 'unknown.'
With this book, their sense of dread would diminish considerably.
"Flip it open and see what it says! Does it explain what type of tomb this is?" the Immortal Fairy urged.
Lu Yang had never read it after receiving it, but reading it now wasn't too late.
He opened the first page and read the text aloud in a low voice:
"Article 532 of the *Great Xia Penal Code* stipulates: Mortals and Qi Refinement cultivators who excavate ancient tombs of historical, artistic, or cultivation value shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years and not more than ten years, and shall also be fined; if the circumstances are minor, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, and shall also be fined.
"For Foundation Establishment cultivators committing this crime, sentencing shall be doubled relative to that of Qi Refinement cultivators."
Lu Yang had a feeling this book was not very reliable.
Chapter 121