Chapter 324

Chapter 324: New Discoveries While Probing the System

The next day, Shen Sang Ruo and Immortal Maiden Azure Luan said goodbye to everyone and prepared to leave Ninghua Sect.

She took one last look at Ninghua Sect. She did not know how long her trip to Shadowmist Ravine would take.

Counting their group, Ninghua Sect now had 10,007 people. Two were at the Divine Transformation Stage, fewer than one hundred were at the Nascent Soul Stage, and among the rest, Golden Core cultivators made up thirty percent while Foundation Establishment cultivators made up seventy percent.

Training rules had been improved in many ways, so the sect’s overall strength should rise during this time.

When she returned from Shadowmist Ravine, she might see changes that would surprise her.

After parting, the two set out.

They did not go straight to Shadowmist Ravine but first visited the Hall of Myriad Spirits.

After breaking through to the Mid Nascent Soul Stage, her Divine Soul Power had grown. She wanted to see if she could find new things inside the System.

Immortal Maiden Azure Luan was very fast, so the trip to the Hall of Myriad Spirits did not take long.

The Hall of Myriad Spirits was made of many palaces. From a distance it looked vast and sacred.

Shen only glanced over it, then looked away. Her main goal was to check the System.

Inside the Hall’s range, the weakest cultivators were at the Nascent Soul realm, and many were at the Divine Transformation Stage.

Only such people were qualified to keep order across the Cultivation World.

When people in the Hall saw who they were, they let Shen and Immortal Maiden Azure Luan pass and sent someone to lead them to the main hall.

The main hall stood at the center of the palaces. It was the core of the Hall of Myriad Spirits.

The System was stored there with layers of defenses, making escape impossible.

Along the way, Shen saw people hurrying back and forth in a busy rush.

All sects had reported the plot by the Heretic Cultivators, and the Hall of Myriad Spirits had been working hard, searching everywhere for traces and hideouts of those enemies.

When they reached the area where the System was kept, she probed it with her Divine Soul Power. The strong force tore through the System’s defenses layer by layer.

She did find more than last time.

True Lord Gu Ci stood beside her. Seeing her expression change, he asked: “Did you find something new?”

Shen said as she thought, her eyes dark: “I found two more things Bai Mu Mu did with the System.”

She said: “First, she struck a deal with Feng He Yun and three others and took part of their souls.”

She added: “Second, helping Master Ling Xiao through Tribulation Crossing was one of her tasks. The goal was Master Ling Xiao’s soul.”

She explained: “After Master Ling Xiao used his soul to patch hers, that piece of soul was taken away by the System. I do not know where the System hid it.”

These two records about souls seemed more protected than the other task records. She only saw them after her breakthrough. [Is it because they are about souls, or is there something even more hidden?]

True Lord Gu Ci nodded and said: “You have worked hard. I will inform Flying Cloud Sect at once so they can be on guard.”

Things still seemed hopeful. At least Shen Sang Ruo kept growing stronger. One day she would uncover all the secrets inside the System. There was still hope.

Shen said calmly: “I cannot see anything else.” She did not look pleased with that result.

She had wanted to find some link between the System and Heretic Cultivators or Devil Cultivators.

Just as she was about to pull back her Divine Soul Power, the black mist that had been sulking for days suddenly became lively, darting around inside her.

Riding along her Divine Soul Power, it released another strand of faint black Divine Soul Power and slid into the System.

Shen first meant to stop it, thinking the black mist was being naughty again. But when she sensed it grinning at her in a fawning way while it worked, she decided to wait and see. [This does not look like a rebellion.]

After last time, when she had toyed with it, the black mist seemed to lose all its tricks. It lay like a corpse beside her Nascent Soul every day, a living fog that looked half dead and unusually well behaved.

Soon she saw she had made the right choice.

When the black mist’s Divine Soul Power entered the System, the System reacted as if it heard a call. A section that had been tightly locked suddenly activated and opened.

Shen grew excited, but doubt flickered in her heart. [Is the black mist tied to the System? No. It should be that Devil Cultivators are tied to the System.]

Divine Soul Power that carried Devil Qi had fooled the System into thinking it belonged to a Devil Cultivator, so it granted access.

This proved that Devil Cultivators had contacted the System.

Sadly, there was very little inside. It only showed the words “contact Shadowmist Ravine.” The rest seemed either deleted or hidden deeper.

There was no way to learn more.

Such careful handling meant the matter was extremely important to both the System and the Devil Cultivators.

After checking again and finding nothing else, she pulled back her Divine Soul Power and said what she had found.

She said: “I have new findings.”

She concluded: “I still have not found a link to Heretic Cultivators. It may be hidden deeper, but I think it is very likely that such a link exists.”

If both Heretic Cultivators and Devil Cultivators were linked to the System, it was hard not to think about the great chaos they had caused long ago by joining hands. Perhaps they wanted to repeat it. As for the System’s origin, although it called itself a Strategy System from another world, Shen felt that was not true.

The System felt soaked in the flavor of the Cultivation World, not a simple thing from outside.

After hearing her, True Lord Gu Ci and Immortal Maiden Azure Luan showed different looks, but both showed strong disgust at the System’s collusion with Devil Cultivators.

True Lord Gu Ci said with a stern face and a cold voice: “We have kept a truce with Shadowmist Ravine for many years. Perhaps it is time to talk with them again.”

Their main partners for talks would be the Devil Cultivators in the Radical Faction. The Conservative Faction Devil Cultivators usually did not join those fights.

Immortal Maiden Azure Luan stayed silent, but her face turned fierce.

Those two men had lied to her and were still doing shameful things in secret. [They still have a thief’s heart.] When she entered Shadowmist Ravine, she would make them pay.

True Lord Gu Ci then said more gently: “We also found something about the System. It seems to be alive.”

Shen frowned slightly and asked: “Alive?”

True Lord Gu Ci explained: “Strictly speaking, it is not fully formed yet. It keeps growing by absorbing power, and it already has a bit of its own mind.”

That meant if it was not removed and it absorbed enough power, it would become a separate living being.

By then, it would act like a parasite on its so-called host.

In the end, it would either leave the host or replace the host.

With this news, Shen felt even more sure that the System was not a simple foreign object, and Bai Mu Mu most likely did not know the truth.

Bai Mu Mu was probably just a pawn used by the System.