146: Chapter 145: First Exploration of the Underground Palace [Additional update for Alliance Hierarch Yuxiaoyao] 146: Chapter 145: First Exploration of the Underground Palace [Additional update for Alliance Hierarch Yuxiaoyao] The decision was made, and Hou Niao looked at his two junior brothers, “Yazi stays behind, Wang Mian follows me in!”
Wang Mian was very excited, not because of any so-called treasures—being from a cultivation family, what treasures could they expect from a rat?
Probably just leftovers that human cultivators didn’t want, but treated as treasures.
However, he loved adventure; the more dangerous it was, the more excited he became.
Fang Yazi was emotionless.
He was very clear about the responsibility of staying on the surface, which was his senior brother entrusting the way out to him.
This kind of trust could only come from friends who had experienced life and death together, and he had already proven himself with his senior brother in the Poplar Forest.
“Continue to monitor and search this area.
Although it’s unlikely that many will slip through the net, a few might still escape, so don’t be careless on the outside.”
After arranging the situation on the surface, the four gathered together, and Hou Niao was somewhat dejected because, apart from him, the other three all had specialized water avoidance equipment.
Huang Xiaoxian had reached a realm where he no longer needed to worry about breathing; Yellow Old Three was chosen not for any other reason but because he possessed a divine skill for locking Qi.
Both of them would enter the cave in their true forms, their slick fur being the best reliance against the water.
Coming from a cultivator family, Wang Mian’s travel bag contained some fine items—a one-piece water suit, and even a set of Emei Piercing specially made for underwater use.
Seeing his embarrassment, Huang Xiaoxian laughed and said, “Younger Brother Hou, stop worrying about your psychological shadows.
Isn’t the rat skin I gave you perfect for now?
Not only does it repel water, but if we encounter the giant rat clan, they won’t even be able to tell us apart—a two-for-one deal.”
Hou Niao had no choice but to put on the rat skin, instantly turning into an incredibly lifelike giant rat, provoking peals of laughter from Wang Mian beside him.
One by one, the four entered the cave with Huang Xiaoxian leading, Hou Niao right behind him, Wang Mian third, and Yellow Old Three bringing up the rear.
Yellow Old Three was a clan member specially picked out by Huang Xiaoxian; his combat power was rather ordinary, but he had a mix of messy skills, such as breathing underwater, and a very special track-finding skill.
According to Huang Xiaoxian, no matter how they wandered, Yellow Old Three had the ability to lead them all back out in the end.
In such an environment, this skill was much more important than combat power.
Narrow, murky, icy cold, dark, and oppressively atmospheric—this was the environment they found themselves in.
Yet comparatively, the water’s flow wasn’t too problematic; that was why Hou Niao had chosen to come in immediately.
In a few more days, once the rain stopped, the cave’s water would no longer gush outward, and where would they find bee corpses then?
Once inside, Huang Xiaoxian’s advantages in both realm and skills were fully displayed.
What was utterly confounding for the two sword cultivators turned out to be quite easy for him, as he had a clear target in mind.
Huang Xiaoxian also wanted to use this opportunity to prove his value.
He had a very clear train of thought—knowing that so-called respect, friendship, and cooperation all had to be built on one’s value.
The sword cultivators had shown their value, and now it was his turn.
If there were such patrol friends in the Yinling Wilderness in the future, the days for his yellow weasel clan would be completely different.
Silently, the four shadows swam through the narrow tunnel, occasionally encountering forks.
Huang Xiaoxian would then stop to observe the direction of the water flow, make markings, and judge which direction the bee corpses had come from.
Sometimes they took the wrong path, but after moving forward for a while, Huang Xiaoxian could always correct his mistake, go back, and choose another direction.
So, through continuous attempts and twists and turns in their progress, Hou Niao felt that they were diving deeper and deeper.
It also indirectly proved how wise his decision had been.
If they had tried to come in directly without flooding the place with water, they indeed would have faced certain death.
The further down they went, the wider the tunnel became, starting to show the faint outline of a palace.
Of course, this also meant there were fewer branching corridors; this led Hou Niao to roughly guess the true structure of the Ksitigarbha Palace was such that the higher up and closer to the ground, the tunnels were real rat holes, but deeper down they transformed into an underground palace with considerable space for humans.
There was no light here, but Huang Xiaoxian was determined.
It used its own Demon Core to provide illumination, which had strong penetration power, allowing one to vaguely see within thirty feet.
Of course, this was also its most powerful weapon; since the giant male and female rats had already been beheaded, such a move was not too dangerous.
The remaining ordinary Rat Demons could do nothing against its Demon Core.
Nearly every tunnel and chamber was filled with the river water, the result of those several dozen Earthquake Pearls; of course, the Rat Demons’ crude application of the isolation formation was also to blame.
They were simply not adept at such overly sophisticated techniques.
Now and then, they would come across the corpses of Rat Demons, the unlucky ones that stayed too deep and failed to escape before drowning.
As they descended, everyone understood that in the current Ksitigarbha Palace, there likely would be no more Rat Demons floating up, and the surface should be quite safe.
After swimming for several hours, they had reached a great depth underground.
The palace chambers became larger and larger, indicating that this might be the core area of the Ksitigarbha Palace.
By this point, they could no longer track the clues by the corpse of the bees, but fortunately, this place was no longer a maze.
Treasures began to appear!
The most abundant were various ores, which were native to Yinling.
Considering the current status of Shan Country in Yinling, one could imagine the quality of these ores: they were all low-end goods.
The only thing they had in common was their shiny appearance.
Illuminated by the glow of the Demon Core, it somewhat resembled the feeling of a treasure trove in the Dragon Palace.
But only by picking them up would one know they were nothing but shiny objects.
“Are we just allowed to take the ores as we please?
As long as you can carry them.”
No one bothered to take them.
Huang Xiaoxian laughed, “These fools!
The Demon Beasts have lost all their face!
From what I see, the items to come will probably be the same.
We shouldn’t divvy them up either; whoever likes something should take it, though I doubt anything remarkable will emerge.”
So far, no one had bothered to fill their Treasure Gourd with anything, which showed just how poor the rats’ taste was, though admittedly, the region of Yinling was desolate.
Next were various parts of beasts: skulls, teeth, vertebrae, pelts, and so on.
Among these items, some were quite valuable, like Demon Deer Horns, leopard fetuses, and others.
However, due to the long storage period, their value had significantly decreased.
They each took some, keeping in mind that as long as interests hadn’t reached a certain threshold, friendship was always easy to maintain.
Then there were the collections of human cultivators.
Over the centuries, although no organized harm to human cultivators in Yinling had ever been reported, considering the large number of cultivators from all directions, the occasional disappearance of a few wasn’t strange.
Based on these items, the number lost over time was probably considerable.
They were clearly interested in these items.
The weasels might disdain everything, but they never underestimated the craftsmanship of humans.
Wang Mian also searched diligently and found dozens of longswords, nine of which were even in the Quanzhen standard!
One of these was the He Lu Sword, a sword with some reputation in the Quanzhen Sect that had disappeared without a trace two hundred years ago, yet it had unexpectedly ended up here.
They say of the He Lu Sword, it’s hidden three thousand feet under the springs.
It’s refined essence turns into tiger’s breath, while going against nature is like fish intestines.
Dew drips coldly on Wugong Palace, and smoke drifts long through Crane Valley.
It lies west of the tomb, adjacent to amethyst, among the mountain spirits and fragrant brocades.