Chapter 353

Chapter 353: If You Go to Otherworld, You Have to Bring Something Back

Yu Sheng didn’t step through immediately. He paused at the threshold and glanced back at the siege giant divine armament peak beside him.

Xuan Che, already preparing to leave, asked, “Is there another issue?”

“I was thinking…” Yu Sheng rubbed his chin. “Shouldn’t we haul one of these giant divine armament peak out?”

Irene, perched on his shoulder, blurted, “So wherever you go, you have to loot the local specialty?”

“This is sampling for exploration,” Yu Sheng said, lifting his shoulder just enough to jostle her. “And this one even has the Reclining Cloud Ten Halls mark on it. That’s suspicious. Shouldn’t we bring one back to study?”

“Mr. Yu is absolutely right,” Xuan Che agreed at once. Then he frowned. “But it’s enormous. How do we get it through the door?”

“That’s not a problem,” Yu Sheng said lightly. “I’ll open the door bigger. We just need to decide where to send it—straight to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, or to open ground outside first?”

Xuan Che thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Even with the Reclining Cloud Ten Halls mark, it’s still an otherworld object. Sending it outside seems risky. Better to send it directly to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, to the Parted Clouds Palace. I’ll report to Master and have him arrange the reception.”

“All right,” Yu Sheng said. Then, as Xuan Che turned to go, Yu Sheng added with a sigh, “You’ve been running back and forth a lot in a short time.”

Xuan Che spread his hands with a wry smile. “It’s my first time ‘exploring the otherworld’ like this.”

Inside the grand hall of the Parted Clouds Palace, Immortal Yuan Ling had come out from the inner hall and was waiting in person. After Xuan Che’s earlier trips—delivering a prisoner, then corpses—he’d decided it was safer to sit where he could see whatever absurdity came next.

When the door opened again, a few disciples near him whispered before anyone could stop them.

“Senior Brother is coming back again?”

“Looks like it. Same as the last two times.”

“I wonder what he’s bringing back this time.”

“Who knows? I heard Senior Brother went to investigate that strange secret realm on Nethermoon. But he keeps coming and going… is that what exploring is like?”

“It looks so easy… Maybe I could do it too? I always heard otherworld secret realms are easy to enter but hard to leave, full of danger. But this looks—”

Immortal Yuan Ling finally snapped. He turned and fixed the two whispering disciples with a glare. “You two. Exploring a secret realm is not child’s play. Your Senior Brother has an expert assisting him, and he’s only providing support. Of course it looks convenient. If you rushed in recklessly, how many lives do you think you have to spend?”

The disciples immediately shut their mouths and shrank back.

At the same time, Xuan Che stepped through the door. Seeing his master, he hurried forward.

Immortal Yuan Ling asked, “Xuan Che, how did it go?”

“Master,” Xuan Che said, bowing, “there’s another thing to send over. This time you need to prepare personally.”

“…Another thing?” Immortal Yuan Ling’s eyes widened, then he forced composure. “What is it this time?”

“A sample from the otherworld,” Xuan Che said without blinking. “A siege giant divine armament peak. Twelve meters tall. We need seals, then we need to send it into the Demon Suppression Tower. We’ll also need people skilled in mental-force transport to help move it out. It’s buried in sand.”

Immortal Yuan Ling opened his mouth, then closed it again.

He had traveled widely. He’d seen large automaton before. But the casual way this had escalated—from “investigation” to “dragging a twelve-meter siege automaton home”—still left him speechless.

In the end, he glanced at the disciples watching nearby. “You few, go with your Senior Brother and help move it. Before entering, take a soul-calming pill. Once you’re over there, follow the expert’s orders in everything.”

After a long commotion, they finally hauled the best-preserved siege giant divine armament peak out of the yellow sand and delivered it to the open ground outside the Parted Clouds Palace grand hall.

To move it, Yu Sheng opened a door more than ten meters tall between the otherworld and the palace.

Digging it free took effort, but the process went smoothly. Xuan Che brought over beasts of burden and a few junior brothers from the sect’s infamous “cow-horse university” work crew. Foxy, meanwhile, was terrifyingly good at digging. In the end, they delivered the otherworld sample intact.

Now the twelve-meter siege giant divine armament peak stood like a monument before the grand hall—ancient, heavy gold armor gleaming in daylight, long halberd angled toward the sky.

Immortal Yuan Ling began layering safety restrictions over it at once, guarding against any hidden otherworld contamination.

Misty radiance spread in overlapping sheets across the armor. Illusory chains descended from above, binding limbs and torso. Immortal Yuan Ling hovered in midair, sword pointed toward the automaton’s chest. With rapid strokes, he traced dizzying, profound symbols, driving talismanic runes into the puppet core one after another.

Then he saw Xuan Che step out of the door again and called down, “Xuan Che, do you have anything else to haul out?”

“No—” Xuan Che began.

“That’s the last one,” Yu Sheng’s voice cut in. He stepped through the door and waved up at Immortal Yuan Ling.

“Ah, finally,” Irene groaned the moment she came out. Then she started squirming on Yu Sheng’s shoulder. “Ugh. I hate deserts.”

Yu Sheng reached back automatically to steady her. “Why are you wriggling?”

“Sand got into my joints,” Irene said miserably, rotating an arm right beside his ear. “Listen. It’s grinding.”

Yu Sheng blinked and looked toward Luna, expecting her to be worse after fighting in the desert.

Luna stood there calmly, immaculate, as if she’d been carved out of clean air.

Irene noticed too and stared at her rival—at least, in her own mind. “C Buckle, you didn’t get sand in your joints?!”

“No.”

“…Why not?!”

Luna thought for a long moment, then produced a single word. “Training.”

“That can be fixed with training?” Irene’s eyes nearly popped out. “You’re messing with me!”

Luna ignored her.

At that moment, Foxy stepped aside into an open space, flopped down, and shifted into a giant demon fox.

Yu Sheng was still trying to process what she was doing when Foxy spread her legs, whipped her head, and started shaking.

A nine-tailed fox the size of two vans, fresh from a desert battlefield, shaking sand off is not a small event. A demonic wind rose instantly. Flying sand and stones swallowed the courtyard.

Two unlucky disciples who were too slow cried out—and then their silhouettes vanished in the storm.

When the dust finally settled, Foxy emerged, shifted back into human form, patted at her tail, and muttered to Yu Sheng, “Benefactor, I need a bath when we get back. My tail still itches.”

Yu Sheng stared at her.

Then, after a long silence, he said to Irene, deadpan, “I’ve realized something. Desert environments are really bad for our team.”

While Yu Sheng dealt with the aftermath, Immortal Yuan Ling finished the emergency sealing work and ordered disciples to send the enormous sample into the Demon Suppression Tower.

“Today I will send a message to the Reclining Cloud Ten Halls to explain this matter,” Immortal Yuan Ling said, stepping before Yu Sheng with a serious expression. “I saw the mark on the automaton. It is indeed their emblem. But it’s very strange. This design is unlike any of the Ten Halls’ current forges. Even the spiritual power channels inside are different from modern mechanisms. We’ll have to see how they respond.”

Yu Sheng nodded, then asked, “What about those black-robed cultivators? Can you confirm their identities?”

“Not yet,” Immortal Yuan Ling said. “The living captive is locked in the prison, but he likely won’t wake soon. I haven’t had time to examine the corpses in detail—only a rough glance. From the traces of cultivation left behind… their paths are extremely mixed. Some show shadowspawn traces from major sects, and many show scattered cultivation.”

“Wandering cultivators?” Yu Sheng asked. “The kind who also stole a bit of famous sect techniques on the side?”

Immortal Yuan Ling stroked his beard. “That’s the old way of saying it. Nowadays we generally call them ‘correspondence courses.'”

Yu Sheng stared.

They even kept up with the times like that?!