Chapter 227
As Baek Cheong was about to head for another dwelling, the Nine Palaces of the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc moved again.
Without any spiritual energy being infused, the lines hidden beneath the black jade rose one by one.
The golden light dividing the nine cells formed a shape resembling the Tortoise Dragon’s dwelling.
The formations placed in the eight palaces and the severed spiritual-energy channels faintly appeared above her palm.
‘Isn’t this the place I just explored?’
Baek Cheong stopped and supported the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc with both hands.
When she brought her divine sense closer, thin currents extended from the shape representing the Tortoise Dragon’s dwelling.
The currents then continued to four places along the edge of the black jade plate.
The glyphs she had seen in the teleportation formations of the Fish Dragon, Crouching Dragon, Earth Dragon, and Flood Dragon appeared one by one.
Though the five dragons were far apart, the connected currents moved as one.
‘Wasn’t the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc meant only for the Tortoise Dragon’s dwelling?’
She pushed in her divine sense, intending to find out whether it had another use.
Unlike when it had first conveyed its usage, the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc conveyed no meaning at all.
Instead, the shapes moving beneath the black jade became distinct in sequence.
The Tortoise Dragon’s dwelling showed the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams she had just passed through, along with the broken formations.
It did not reveal the stone chambers themselves, but she could vaguely tell which formations had severed flows and which formation eyes had gone dark.
‘What about the others...’
Baek Cheong moved the Eight Trigrams symbols and shifted her divine sense to the remaining shapes.
She first examined the fish-and-scale glyphs representing the Fish Dragon.
The formations that should have continued along the water currents were broken into several pieces.
Apparently, not a single formation eye still held spiritual energy; the entire shape trembled after losing its light.
‘This place must have collapsed.’
The situation in the Crouching Dragon’s dwelling was similar.
Large gaps had opened throughout the glyphs of its long, coiled body.
The flows that had formed the formations could not connect to one another and instead scattered around them.
The Tortoise Dragon’s dwelling had broken facilities, but its halls and passages had held together.
But in the Fish Dragon’s and Crouching Dragon’s dwellings, even the formations supporting the structures had collapsed.
It would likely be difficult to find anything intact farther inside, either.
‘I might just waste high-grade spirit stones for nothing.’
Unwilling to waste spirit stones, Baek Cheong set the Fish Dragon’s and Crouching Dragon’s dwellings aside for the time being.
Only the Earth Dragon and Flood Dragon remained.
A slow but unbroken flow of spiritual energy ran through the Earth Dragon’s glyphs, which burrowed into an earthen vessel.
Most of the formations had slept for countless years, but few sections appeared to have been forcibly severed or destroyed.
Finally, she shifted her divine sense to the Flood Dragon’s shape.
It depicted the flows of water and wind winding around horns and claws.
The glyphs that had seemed the most complex even in the guest quarters moved in a manner entirely different from before.
One dormant formation awakened, then immediately went out again.
The flow beside it twisted, and a blocked spiritual-energy channel opened in another direction.
It did not look like the movement of something collapsing from old age.
Someone was touching the formations from within and searching for a path.
‘Profound Void Perfected Person?’
The only person who had entered the ruins with her was Profound Void Perfected Person.
If a quasi-fifth-tier formation master was rummaging through the formations, the movement before her made perfect sense.
If she headed to the Flood Dragon’s dwelling, there was a high chance she would reunite with Profound Void Perfected Person, who had been separated from her.
“Hmm.”
Baek Cheong placed a finger on the Flood Dragon’s shape, then quickly withdrew it.
The Flood Dragon’s teleportation formation had been located deepest within the guest quarters as well.
Among the five dragons, its appearance and powers were also closest to those of a true dragon.
It would not be strange to think of it as a path leading to the deepest part of the ruins.
‘The Flood Dragon is obviously the final boss.’
If she entered now, she might lose the chance to explore the remaining dwellings.
And if Profound Void Perfected Person was in the Flood Dragon’s dwelling, there was no need for her to hurry.
It was unlikely that a Nascent Soul grand cultivator would fall into danger before she did.
Above all, the fact that Profound Void Perfected Person was continuing to manipulate the formations was proof that the cultivator was safe.
With her mind at ease, her gaze returned to the shape representing the Earth Dragon.
The formations were intact, and there were no signs that anyone had entered before her.
‘Let’s start with the Earth Dragon.’
Having decided on her destination, Baek Cheong held the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc to her chest and walked around the Tortoise Dragon’s dwelling.
Tracing the currents shown on the formation disc backward, she found that the blocked passage outside the Kun Palace appeared to be the destination.
When she had first explored the place, it had seemed to be a wall of dark bluish-black stone stretching from floor to ceiling.
When she brought the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc closer, one hexagonal pattern resembling a tortoise shell gave off a faint golden light.
She placed her hand on the pattern and infused it with spiritual power.
One after another, she heard the sounds of stones interlocking from inside the wall.
A moment later, the dark bluish-black stone wall split open to both sides, revealing a small stone chamber.
A teleportation formation smaller than the one in the guest quarters was set into the floor of the chamber.
The glyphs filling its outer ring were similar to those in the teleportation formations of the five dwellings.
The section indicating the destination was engraved with a flow burrowing into an earthen vessel and the qi of earth.
Anyone could tell that it was a teleportation formation leading to the Earth Dragon’s dwelling.
‘Found it.’
She crouched down happily, but the law glyphs had been mixed together in a hopeless jumble.
Palm-sized jade plates overlapped one another on the inside and outside, while several strokes were hidden beneath other plates.
If she had been seeing the guest quarters’ teleportation formation for the first time, she would have been lost for quite a while.
But she had already repaired five formations using the same method.
There was nothing difficult about moving the empty space and following the directions of the broken strokes.
She pushed the jade plate at the edge inward and turned the center plate sideways.
She separated the overlapping strokes and inserted the proper pieces into the empty space one after another.
Click.
Click.
Each time her hands moved, the hazy glyphs quickly connected.
When she slid the final jade plate into place, silver light flowed through the entire arrangement of law glyphs.
‘I’m getting used to teleportation formations too.’
Baek Cheong took a high-grade spirit stone from her spatial magical treasure and inserted it into the socket in the center of the teleportation formation.
Dense spiritual energy circled the round platform, dyeing the heaven-and-earth glyphs blue.
Golden light spread from the Heavenly Dao glyphs, and the law glyphs finally emitted a silver glow.
To prepare for any possible danger, she deployed the Five Elements Shield.
She also kept the One-Star Sword close at hand so she could draw it from its scabbard at any moment.
Soon, the three lights overlapped, and the sensation beneath her feet disappeared.
Silver light surged up from below and swallowed her body.
***
As soon as Baek Cheong opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was endless green.
Leaves and vines reaching up to her waist covered every direction.
Stems were densely packed throughout the area, forming a small forest.
Red and blue flowers poked their heads out between the broad leaves, while fist-sized fruits hung here and there.
Even after spreading her divine sense sixty zhang, she could not detect the end of the vegetation.
‘A forest?’
But when she examined it closely, she saw traces that differed from those of a naturally grown forest.
On the ground, old, collapsed field ridges continued at regular intervals.
Beneath the undergrowth remained grooves that had once divided waterways and low stone walls that had separated plots for different medicinal herbs.
Mixed among the stems that had grown like great trees were medicinal herbs infused with spiritual energy.
All the green spread before her was an unmanaged spirit-herb field.
‘All of this is spirit herbs?’
Baek Cheong stared blankly at the vast spirit-herb field for a while.
There was no way to know when the unidentified ruins had been abandoned.
In the outside cultivation world, even a single spirit herb that had lived for several hundred years was treated as a rare treasure.
The spirit herbs here had likely grown for so long that it was impossible even to estimate their ages.
There might even be varieties that had existed only in the ancient era, mixed in with spirit herbs precious in the current cultivation world.
When her thoughts reached this point, her eyes began to sparkle.
‘I have to take all of this!’
The questions about the ruins that had filled her mind moments ago were pushed far into the back of it.
Baek Cheong placed the Heavenly Armor Formation Disc inside her spatial magical treasure and ran toward the nearest red flower.
A faint fire qi surrounded its petals, and its roots were as thick as an adult’s forearm.
Thinking it was a thousand-year-old fire-aspected spirit herb, she examined the base of its stem.
“Huh?”
When she extended her divine sense down to the roots, she sensed a condition entirely different from what she had expected.
The medicinal properties had failed to gather inside the thick roots and were instead scattered throughout the stem and petals.
It seemed to have exhausted nearly all its useful energy after blooming and bearing seeds over countless years.
Although it was enormous on the outside, even if refined into a pill, it would be inferior to a single low-grade spirit herb.
‘So old doesn’t always mean good.’
She plucked a blue leaf growing beside it and examined that as well.
The water qi that should have followed the leaf veins was severed in several places, and the inside was filled with murky residue.
The roots of the other spirit herbs had become entwined with the surrounding weeds, preventing them from properly absorbing nutrients.
Most of the thick, hardy stems were closer to weeds that had grown by feeding on spiritual energy than medicinal herbs.
The weeds were tangled together and stole all the spiritual energy nearby, along with the nutrients beneath the soil.
The spirit herbs that were actually worth harvesting were barely surviving deep within the undergrowth.
‘I suppose that’s natural since no one maintained it.’
The spirit-herb field had not become a treasure vault merely because it was old.
Most of the spirit herbs had scattered their medicinal properties into flowers and seeds when they should have been gathering them.
There had been no one to pull the weeds or distribute the soil’s nutrients evenly.
With countless formations and halls broken, the facilities that had managed the spirit-herb field must have stopped functioning long ago.
Even so, the field was far too vast to abandon entirely.
Even if only one worthwhile spirit herb grew among every hundred, the total amount would still be difficult to count.
‘Besides, I have workers.’
Baek Cheong opened her spatial magical treasure and released the five puppets of the Five Elements.
Cheong-roe, Jeok-roe, Geum-roe, Baek-roe, and Heuk-roe stood in a line before the spirit-herb field.
She inserted a high-grade spirit stone into each puppet as its power source and divided her divine sense into five strands, connecting them to the divine sense stones.
The puppets, their blue lights shining, immediately entered the undergrowth.
Baek-roe and Heuk-roe pulled the thick weeds out by the roots and tossed them aside.
Cheong-roe untangled the vines, while Geum-roe cut the fine roots with the edge of its hand.
Jeok-roe sorted the spirit herbs that had lost their medicinal properties from the intact ones according to her directions.
After the five puppets passed through, the luxuriant undergrowth was quickly cleared away.
“Hehe.”
Following behind them, Baek Cheong checked the exposed spirit herbs one by one.
She carefully brushed the soil from roots whose medicinal properties remained intact and placed them in jade boxes.
For spirit herbs with living stems and leaves, she dug up a generous amount of soil around their roots and stored them separately.
Whenever a jade box was filled, she closed the lid and moved it into her spatial magical treasure.
Occasionally, she came across spirit herbs she had never seen before.
There was a silver medicinal herb with saw-toothed leaves and a purple fruit translucent enough to see through.
Its medicinal properties were weak, but she could not throw it away simply because she did not know its name.
‘If I don’t know it, it might be valuable.’
Identifying it could wait until after she left the ruins.
Whenever she found a spirit herb with an unfamiliar shape, she checked its condition first and placed it in a jade box.
Even if something looked like a weed, she set it aside in a small jade box if it contained spiritual energy.
Thus, while directing the five puppets, she cleared the outskirts of the spirit-herb field for quite some time.
Jade boxes of all sizes quickly piled up inside her spatial magical treasure.
It was different from the forest of thousand-year-old spirit herbs she had expected, but it was not without a harvest.
‘At least I’ve earned the equivalent of fifty high-grade spirit stones.’
Somewhat relieved, Baek Cheong examined the roots of the next spirit herb.
Right in front of her, Baek-roe was gripping a weed as tall as a person.
Just as its roots were about to come free, the soil beneath her feet trembled ever so slightly.
At first, she thought the vibration had been caused by the thick roots moving.
But even after Baek-roe pulled out the weed, the trembling gradually drew closer.
‘What is it?’
Baek Cheong stopped the puppets and sent her divine sense into the ground.
The area beneath the layers of soil and stone was more difficult to examine than the surface.
She condensed her divine sense into a thin strand and swept along the direction in which the trembling spread.
More than ten zhang away, a long creature approached, burrowing through the soil.
Its segmented body resembled an earthworm, but it was densely covered in tiny scales.
At its front, several layers of round teeth opened and closed as they bored into the earth.
The scaled earthworm pushed aside the soil and rapidly burrowed beneath Baek-roe’s feet.
Similar tremors continued from several places a short distance away.
‘Whatever it is...’
Rather than pull the puppets back, Baek Cheong drew the One-Star Sword.
She infused spiritual power into the sword and calmly waited for the approaching movements.
The scaled earthworm entered within five zhang.
There was still no sign of anything on the ground’s surface.
But Baek Cheong sent the One-Star Sword flying along the path she had marked with her divine sense.
The silver blade plunged diagonally into the earth.
The thick soil split open in a long line, and the creature writhing below was cut apart with it.
The One-Star Sword changed direction underground and successively cut down the ones approaching from the side.
‘It seems weak for a demonic beast.’
Keeping the One-Star Sword floating in the air, Baek Cheong sent Baek-roe and Heuk-roe forward.
The two puppets shoveled the split soil to either side and pulled out the scaled earthworm’s body.
Its torso, as thick as a person’s thigh, had been severed into several pieces.
Dark red bodily fluid flowed between its yellowish scales, and its round mouth contracted several times even after death.
When she brought her divine sense closer, she sensed faint demonic qi inside the pieces.
It was difficult to call it strong, but it was unquestionably a demonic beast.
‘There are demonic beasts living in the spirit-herb field?’
It was difficult to believe that they had approached by chance.
Three earthworms of similar size had targeted the puppets at the same time.
Moreover, holes left by passing earthworms extended in every direction beneath the thick weeds.
And this was only the outskirts of the spirit-herb field.
The deeper she went, the denser the undergrowth became, and the number of spirit herbs worth harvesting gradually increased.
The scaled earthworms were also likely to grow stronger the farther inside she went.
‘This...’
Baek Cheong washed the dirt-covered One-Star Sword with the Cleansing Technique and gazed toward the interior of the spirit-herb field.
Beyond the dense undergrowth, the ground was trembling faintly but continuously.
‘This is merit, right?’
Only belatedly did alarm stir in the small heart that had grown complacent.