Chapter 169
Chapter 169: Tracked to the Cave Abode
There was another door here, sealed by a formation. It looked advanced: interlocking array patterns layered in permutations so complex they were hard to parse.
Rong Shu could not read it, much less break this formation gate. So she let Fire Spirit return into her body, then told Little Hamster: use Space Teleportation.
Hoping for good luck and a one-shot success into the formation gate’s interior, Little Hamster obediently raked open a Spatial Rift, and Rong Shu stepped in.
The next second she materialized outside the cliff. More precisely, she was in the sky, plummeting fast toward the base of the escarpment. Rong Shu shouted at top speed: “Yan Yan!” A Spatial Rift opened beneath her; as she fell, she dropped straight into it.
With a swish, Rong Shu returned to the cave abode, this time teleporting cleanly to the inner side of the formation gate. Feeling solid ground underfoot, she finally let out a breath. [Good grief, that was way too thrilling.]
Little Hamster’s downy fur had been blown until each hair stood on end, turning him into a prickly ball. He looked up at Rong Shu to make sure she was still all right and squeaked: “Gu?” Rong Shu stroked his fur smooth with a finger, rubbed his little head, and said: “I’m fine. We finally made it in.”
She summoned Fire Spirit again. As a living lamp, Fire Spirit came with its own glow, and the pitch-black passage brightened considerably. After Rong Shu had walked a short way, the path forked.
Studying the several branching corridors, she considered, then casually used an object-control art to guide a few pebbles, sending them flying into each passage in turn. The stones elicited no reaction, so Rong Shu picked one branch at random and proceeded.
The corridors led, respectively, to a study, an alchemy room, a training room, and a bedchamber. Rong Shu made a full circuit and found the place well supplied. Over the years, the formations had both hidden the abode and automatically cleared dust, so the cave remained far from dirty or disorderly.
In the alchemy room, she found a cache of pills and pill recipes left for over a thousand years. She did not quite dare to ingest the pills, but she could grind them to study their properties. Many of the recipes, lacking protective arrays like those of Scripture Tower, crumbled to confetti at a touch; only those written on bamboo slips or inscribed into jade plaques survived.
She read as she sorted: “Fourth Grade Fire Refining Pill: a fire-attribute Body Refining pill that strengthens the physique and improves control over fire spiritual energy.” Then: “Fifth Grade Soul Nurturing Pill: treats damage to the soul.” Then: “Sixth Grade Tortoise Breath Pill: after taking it there will be no breath or pulse, as if dead, also called the feign-death pill.” Then: “Seventh Grade Disguise Pill? Is this the same Disguise Pill Senior Brother gave me?” Then: “Eighth Grade Shapeshifting Pill: allows one to transform into various animals at will.” Then: “Ninth Grade Genesis Pill: seizes the fortune of heaven and earth, greatly reducing rejection when implanting a foreign spiritual root. There’s even a pill like this?”
By the time she had flipped through recipe after recipe, Rong Shu was shocked into numbness. Back at Scripture Tower she had stalled before the fourth?grade threshold, so there had been no chance to obtain anything above third grade. Now happiness had arrived too suddenly. “This one’s good, stash it,” she said, then: “This one’s nice too…” She paused. “Huh? Spring Brew Pill? After taking it, the user exhibits drunken reactions: flushed cheeks, limp limbs, docile and compliant, letting others do as they please with wandering hands… hiss! The more I read, the creepier it gets.” Baffled and disgusted, she voiced strong condemnation, then still slipped that recipe into the Han Chuan Cosmos Pearl.
“Gu?” came Little Hamster. “Wu~” murmured Wind Spirit. Perched atop Wind Spirit’s head, Little Hamster, seeing Rong Shu’s odd reaction, peered over in curiosity. “The light’s too dim, Fire Spirit,” Rong Shu remarked. Fire Spirit held a breath; the flame on its head, like flying strands of hair, surged to double, and it barked: “Hou hou!” The study grew brighter at once.
While Rong Shu was happily sweeping up the cave’s treasures, more and more cultivators outside were converging on the western cliff. Along the way, one cultivator’s robe hem brushed a tree branch. He paid it no mind and did not see that once he walked off, that portion of leaves vanished.
Meanwhile, inside the abode, Rong Shu took out a Formation Disc and discovered it had lost contact with one of the small warning arrays she had set outside. She checked the position; it was not far from the cave. While being chased, she had installed warning arrays along the route. Her formation resources were limited, so she had to think hard about where to place them to be both discreet and effective. Although they could not compare with the young man’s real-time tracking, they could occasionally send information back—just like now, when Rong Shu realized someone was coming toward this cliff. [How did they find their way here?]
In theory, the concealment formations in the abode should hide her as well. Then she glanced down at Little Hamster in her hand and understood: at that instant she had gone out, she had left the concealment formation’s range and been recaptured by the young man’s tracking artifact. Now everyone was rushing here based on the last place she disappeared.
Thinking this through, Rong Shu accepted the present situation. Even if she could do it over, knowing she might be exposed, she would still choose to enter through the formation gate. [With a master alchemist’s cave abode right in front of me, I have to go in no matter what.]
“The concealment formations here can, to some extent, block external spying,” she murmured. [I wonder which will win out against the young man’s tracking treasure?] Was her position continually exposed, drawing them here? Or had that single instant in the sky been enough to capture her coordinates?
Rong Shu glanced back at the shelves full of recipes. If she used Little Hamster’s Space Teleportation to keep running now, she might pop straight into the dense mass of cultivators outside. And if she wanted to return to the cave later, three quick teleports probably would not be enough to slip easily back inside. After thinking it over, she decided to hold position for the moment. First she needed to determine whether the young man’s group actually had her precise location. Even if they did, the concealment array outside still afforded some protection. Breaking a formation would take them time, and she could seize that small window to teleport away without getting flustered. If they did not know she was hidden within the cliff face and she ran out now, would that not be a self?inflicted confession?
At this moment, the young man had reached the edge of the cliff and was looking down. “The last place the signal appeared was here. Could the target have slipped and fallen to their death?” he said, though he found it unlikely. They were all cultivators; how could one simply tumble into a cliff by accident? Unless the person was an idiot. But if they were pig?dumb, how could they have stolen his Fire Spirit Tribulation Fruit?
“Young master, everyone has almost arrived,” someone reported. The young man gave the order: “Search! Comb this area inch by inch and miss no crack or crevice!” The cultivators fanned out and began a carpet search.
Below, inside the cave, Rong Shu watched the formation gate with furrowed brow, as if afraid the rock?solid door might be forced open the very next second. After she waited a while, the formation gate remained unmoved. After the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, it was still quiet. Rong Shu understood at once: the young man outside did not have her exact location and could not find the abode for now. [All right then, that’s settled; wash up and sleep… cough, cough!]
She set more defensive arrays along the passageways, so if cultivators did break in, she would at least have a buffer. Then she quickened her pace, turning the abode inside out and checking every last corner.
Outside, the young man’s party searched the area for several hours, even sending people down to the foot of the cliff, but still found nothing. A middle?aged man voiced his guess: “Young master, could the person have already fled?” “Fled? Where could they go?” the young man said, tapping the ground with a finger. “This is the last place their position vanished. There is definitely something strange here.” The middle?aged man continued: “Maybe this time their Space Teleportation jumped so far that even the Chaos Compass cannot detect it.” The young man’s eyes were deep and edged with cruelty as he stared at the cliff: “Impossible. If they could teleport that far, they would have left immediately. There must be something nearby shielding the Chaos Compass.” He snapped: “Even if you have to dig three feet down, find it!”
…But where had the person actually gone? The middle?aged man sighed softly. “All this time, no cultivator has found any ruins in the western region. Over the years people assumed there was nothing here. Could there be a special ruin hidden in this place that no one has discovered?” His eyes flashed, barely suppressing his delight. The young man’s face darkened slightly: “I can’t rule it out. If your guess is right, Uncle Feng, then that little thief’s luck is…” Stealing the Fire Spirit Tribulation Fruit and getting away, carrying a spatial treasure, and now likely stumbling upon a special ruin—he found himself jealous of such heaven?favored fortune. “We must find him. At present, the value of locating this person exceeds that of merely taking back the Fire Spirit Tribulation Fruit.” “Yes,” came the reply.
As for Rong Shu, whom the young man could not stop thinking about, she was comfortably ensconced in the cave, tallying her haul. There were over eight hundred pill recipes; although half were damaged, the remaining number was still considerable, and they were mostly sixth grade and above. In an alchemist branch or a sect, low?grade recipes are relatively easy to acquire; high?grade recipes, however, are often a power’s deep heritage and not given lightly. Rong Shu was currently a third?grade alchemist; without higher?grade recipes to follow, she could not hope to advance. An alchemist without recipes—is that still an alchemist?
Beyond the recipes, there were various alchemy treatises and ancient books. These were protected by formations, so the proportion damaged was smaller, only about a quarter. There were also some miscellaneous items.
Rong Shu did not know the exact situation outside, but judging by the posture of things, there were likely many people still doggedly trying to find her. Fortunately, the cave abode was sufficiently safe and hidden. Having reached Foundation Establishment, she no longer needed Fasting Pills or food; as long as spiritual energy was plentiful, there would be no problem. The abode was built for living; with the protection of formations through the years, a little tidying on her part made it livable again.
In the study, Rong Shu drew an entire bed from the Han Chuan Cosmos Pearl, along with pillows, quilts, and Little Hamster’s small nest. Just as she was about to sprawl out in comfort, she suddenly remembered something, pressed her palms together, and muttered to the empty study: “Junior disciple Rong Shu, persecuted and bullied with nowhere to turn, has entered respected senior’s cave abode to seek refuge. I beg respected senior’s magnanimity.” She added: “Everything in this cave will be well cared for; I will not damage so much as a hair. The recipes and books I take will be cherished, never wantonly abused, and I will carry forward respected senior’s alchemy.”
“Hmm… that should do it, right?” She bowed twice more, then flopped onto the soft bed. “Gu!” “Wu~” “Hou hou!” At the three cries, Rong Shu propped her head on one hand, half?reclining, and beckoned to the three little cuties: “Come here… wait, Fire Spirit, be careful, don’t burn my bed.” “Hou?” it chirped. “I only prepared five beds,” she said.
Scooping Wind Spirit and Little Hamster onto the mattress, she gave them a thorough scratching from head to toe. Left alone at the bedside, Fire Spirit slowly manifested a question mark above its brow.
“Right, it’s not a long?term solution to have you be the lamp yourself,” she told Fire Spirit. “Light these three oil lamps. Put one at the passage entrance, one in the alchemy room, and the last one here.”
As she spoke, Rong Shu took three oil lamps from the Han Chuan Cosmos Pearl and handed them to the utterly baffled Fire Spirit. Fire Spirit stared at the lamps and fell into deep thought: [Wait, this isn’t what I imagined at all. Weren’t we coming out to have fun? To make a companion? And maybe find a gullible patron to feed me well?]