Lady Cultivator

Mo Tiange halted her steps. She observed the rock wall for a while then started to feel the surface with her hands.

Qin Xi stopped beside her. “What’s wrong?”

Mo Tiange kept observing for a while before answering: “There’s something different here.”

Hearing her speaking like that, Qin Xi walked closer, but he only noticed that the rock wall still had natural irregular patterns covering its surface.

Mo Tiange noticed his doubtful gaze and pointed at a certain pattern on the wall. She said, “Do you remember what the other patterns looked like?”

Qin Xi shook his head. “I’m not good at formations; I didn’t see them.”

Mo Tiange said, “It might seem like it has no meaning, but in reality, there’s a subtle layer of enchantments on its surface. This pattern is, in fact, the orientation chart of the Eight Trigrams.”

“The Eight Trigrams?” Qin Xi frowned. “Do you mean the problem lies on this rock wall?”

Mo Tiange nodded. “Yes. If I’m not mistaken, this is the Eight Gates Life and Death Formation mentioned inside the Qimen Dunjia ¹ .”

“Eight Gates Life and Death Formation?” Qin Xi’s frown became more severe as he muttered those words. He then suddenly said, “In that case, doesn’t it mean we can leave this formation if we find the Gate of Life and the Gate of Beginning?”

“Theoretically, it’s supposed to be like that,” Mo Tiange said, “but in reality, it isn’t certain. In high-level Eight Gates Life and Death Formations, the eight gates could change positions irregularly and could be very hard to find. Since it took me this long to find clues about this formation, it’s obvious that this formation isn’t at all simple. In the end, I’m also not sure whether I can find the Gate of Life or not.”

“No matter what, we definitely need to try.”

Mo Tiange nodded. “Yes, losing is better than being trapped here. Failing to seize even a single identity tablet, after all, can’t be considered victorious.” She then proceeded to cautiously look for the spot then said, “This is the thunder trigram, one of the Eight Trigrams. I believe this is the Gate of Injury. Injury is affiliated with the wood element. Since the technique I’m practicing has wood attributes, let me try this one.”

Hearing what she said, Qin Xi stood aside.

Mo Tiange stood in front of the rock wall and took out her Green-Wood Sword. She poured some spiritual aura into the sword and maneuvered it, abruptly rushing it towards the rock wall. The moment her sword was about to strike the rock wall, a layer of bright rays emerged on the surface of the wall, blocking the attack of her Green-Wood Sword.

Upon seeing this, Mo Tiange moved the spiritual aura in her entire body and maneuvered the sword to rush forward without backing down. The bright rays eventually got pierced by the sword and disappeared without any trace.

The rock wall exploded instantly when the Green-Wood Sword finally struck it. All of a sudden, there was a change in scenery and they found themselves standing in front of another rock wall. The rock wall was intact; it looked as if everything that just happened was only a figment of their imagination.

Nevertheless, Mo Tiange smiled and said, “The Gate of Injury has been broken. This is… fire trigram, which means this is the Gate of Scenery. It’s affiliated with the fire element.” She frowned in embarrassment. “I’m not good with fire element magic; I can only make several small fireballs. Senior Martial Brother Qin, what about you?”

Qin Xi said, “I majored in metal and fire element magic. I’ll do this one.”

Mo Tiange felt relieved. She stepped back to move out of Qin Xi’s way and saw him taking out a sword from his Qiankun Bag.

She couldn’t help but felt quite astonished when she saw that sword. His entire sword was golden and covered in fire. Its momentum was staggering, multiple times stronger than her Green-Wood Sword. The most important thing was that it was actually a magic weapon!

It wasn’t like she had never seen a magic weapon before; the Spirit-Concealing Jade Pendant Ye Jingwen gave her to conceal her constitution back then was a magic weapon too, as was the Enchanting Lantern she obtained more than half a year ago from killing that man from the An Clan. However, except for concealing her constitution and purifying spiritual aura, the jade pendant didn’t have any other use. As for the Enchanting Lantern, it was a psychotic magic weapon and looked completely ordinary. They were nothing like the sword before her eyes which had such a threatening might.

Qin Xi shifted his spiritual aura. Although he only brandished the sword casually, they heard a ‘BOOM’ sound. The rock wall exploded and its defense enchantment was easily destroyed. They once again returned to the first scene in which they stood in front of a completely intact wall.

Qin Xi returned the sword to its scabbard. He glanced at Mo Tiange and said, “It wasn’t easy for me to get this sword. I definitely won’t have any peaceful days if other people find out about its existence. I hope Junior Martial Brother Ye can keep this secret for me and won’t tell others about it.”

What did a flying sword magic weapon represent? Mo Tiange was certain many cultivators would covet her Enchanting Lantern if she took it out, not to mention this kind of sword. It was no wonder Qin Xi had never taken this sword out; a man’s wealth would be his ruin because it incited greed in other people. A small Aura Refining cultivator would never be able to guard this kind of magic weapon.

Mo Tiange nodded in understanding. “Senior Martial Brother Qin can rest assured. We can only get out of here if we work together. Until we’re out, I’ll say I saw nothing.”

Qin Xi showed a slight smile that Mo Tiange was dazzled by. In all the time they’d known each other, she had never seen him smile. His face was already handsome and with this smile, he looked even more graceful and elegant. She couldn’t help but keep staring at him.

When she finally saw him showing a doubtful expression, she hastily withdrew her gaze, feeling rather angry at herself in her heart.  Really! It isn’t like I’ve never seen a man before! Besides, I’ve been pretending to be a man and mingled with men for a long time. It’s really funny how I can still be so dazzled when I see him!

To cover up her momentary loss of self-control, she hastily went to observe the pattern on the rock wall.

“Swamp trigram, Gate of Fright, affiliated with metal.”

Qin Xi stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

He still used the same sword, but this time, it was covered with a layer of gold-colored aura. Qin Xi manipulated the spiritual aura on its surface and in an instant, the Gate of Fright was broken.

This time, Mo Tiange was exhilarated. Some differences started to appear on the rock wall in front of her. One after another, the rock walls around them moved. Suddenly, the path between the rock walls turned into a stone chamber.

The two of them cast defensive spells before they cautiously walked into the chamber.

This stone chamber had a very high ceiling and was extremely spacious. A shelf that had several random things on it was in the corner of the room.

After observing the area surrounding the shelf and finding no traces of a restricting formation, Mo Tiange finally reached out and took a book made of animal skin from the shelf.

“Qimen Dunjia?” Mo Tiange opened the book and found it was indeed a book that described formations.

Qin Xi took a book himself and uttered a surprised gasp.

Mo Tiange stared at him. “What’s wrong?”

As he showed her the book, he said, “This ‘Art of Golden Body’ is a high-level Body-Refining Technique manual. I made some inquiries before, but this technique manual was placed in the most hidden room in the Ten Thousand Laws Pavilion. Apparently, only grandmasters whose cultivation level was in the Core Formation realm or higher were allowed to read this.”

Mo Tiange remembered he also practiced Body-Refining Technique. Apparently, he was really interested in this book.

While flipping through the pages, Qin Xi said to her, “Junior Martial Brother Ye, this book is very useful for me. How about I take this book and you can take everything else in this room?”

This Body-Refining Technique manual was of no use for Mo Tiange. On the contrary, for her, the formation book she was holding was as important as the Body-Refining Technique manual for Qin Xi. She originally thought she absolutely had to have this book even if she had to offer everything else to Qin Xi. Now, since Qin Xi was willing to give up these things, she naturally didn’t have any objections.

In addition to these two books, there were also several other books, Jade Slips, and two jade bottles. Among them, there was a book about pills-concocting while the others offered knowledge and insight about cultivating. The medicinal pills inside the bottles weren’t anything special—they were nothing but Aura-Purifying Pills. Consuming medicinal pills would leave behind harmful residue, and these medicinal pills removed that residue. They weren’t rare at all.

Mo Tiange, without feeling guilty at all, swept everything into her Qiankun Bag.

“What is this place? Why does it feel like this place was deliberately created and left behind to reward us?”

Qin Xi said, “Maybe this was really left behind by the older generations from the sect. These things weren’t valuable to them. They might’ve left these behind as rewards for disciples who could break the formation.”

Voices appeared outside the stone room as they talked. It was as if there were people walking towards them.

Mo Tiange and Qin Xi stared at each other. They took out their spirit tools and cast defensive spells before training their gazes on the door.

At this moment, the voices from outside the door became clear. Several cultivators in yellow robes walked into the room.