27. Adventure Carries Risks

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Only belatedly did the three of them realize that their spiritual senses had spread throughout the entire sect.

Nothing. Nothing. Still nothing!

There was no sign of Lin Jiuci, nor of Lin Jiugo and Zhou Yan.

“Senior Brother, I asked the disciples guarding the gates. They didn’t see A-Yan or the others.” The Sect Master was growing anxious as well. Although A-Yan’s constitution had been brought under control, who knew whether someone capable of recognizing its value might have noticed him?

“Where could the three of them have gone? They must still be somewhere in the sect. The forbidden areas are all clearly marked. They shouldn’t have wandered into one by accident, should they?” Li Yun was frantic. His newly acquired star disciple was missing.

Then he thought of something.

“Go to the Life Tablet Pavilion.”

His disciple’s life tablet was there. They could at least determine whether the boy was safe.

The three of them appeared directly inside the Life Tablet Pavilion, frightening the disciple who was sweeping the floor. They looked toward the tablets belonging to the Sect Master’s lineage. The two at the very bottom were still intact, and they all breathed a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, nothing had happened to them. But where had they gone? Why could they not find them anywhere?

“Should we ask Martial Uncle?” someone suggested, thinking of the Heavenly Mechanist, who had appeared not long ago.

Smack!

A wooden tablet materialized and landed squarely against the Sect Master’s face.

The Sect Master was just about to lose his temper when the tablet moved.

“You three are truly hopeless. You even proclaim yourselves the strongest generation in the Sect Master’s lineage, yet you couldn’t spot so much as the edge of the treasure left behind by the Ancestor.” The Heavenly Mechanist’s contemptuous voice came from the tablet.

For some reason, however, the voice sounded rather childish.

“Martial Uncle, you have no right to criticize us. Go back ten generations and nobody has any reason to laugh at anyone else, all right?” Li Yun unleashed a torrent of complaints at the tablet, completely ignoring the strange change in its voice.

“Exactly. The Second Ancestor and the Third Ancestor couldn’t find it either,” the Venerable Dao-Seeker added. This concerned their dignity, after all.

“There is no need to search for your disciples. They have already reached the threshold of the Ancestor’s treasure. I truly envy the three of you. Your luck is astonishing.”

After leaving behind those words, the wooden tablet fell to the ground and turned to ash.

Inside the Pavilion of Heavenly Mechanisms, an identical pile of ashes lay before the Heavenly Mechanist. In the form of a five-year-old child, he looked even paler than before, and his body had shrunk by another size.

“Cough, cough. If I didn’t curse them, I’d feel sorry for our generation. I’ve seen people carried by their disciples, but I’ve never seen anyone carried quite this far. In every other generation, the masters create opportunities for their disciples. This generation is something else entirely. They leech off their masters in the beginning, then leech off their disciples afterward. And I’ve yet to see those three idiots perform any great merit. How can they possibly be this lucky?”

The Heavenly Mechanist was genuinely envious.

The moment Zhou Yan and the other two stepped into the cavern behind the waterfall, the Heavenly Mechanist seemed to sense it.

The Ancestor’s treasure, which had been passed down to their generation and had become a laughingstock, had truly appeared!

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The funniest part was that every generation had practiced swordsmanship beside this waterfall. Many had possessed extraordinary skill, and some had even cleaved the waterfall apart.

Yet not one of them had struck the right spot.

Thinking about it, perhaps it was precisely because of the three of them—or rather, because the sisters Lin Jiugo and Lin Jiuci were the ones destined to find it.

It was no wonder the Heavenly Mechanist thought so. Zhou Yan had entered the sect first, and before Lin Jiugo appeared, he had often cultivated beside the waterfall. He had never discovered anything.

Lin Jiugo, however, had noticed it long ago. She had simply only now taken action.

The three people being anxiously awaited stepped into the cavern. Zhou Yan took out a merfolk pearl, which emitted a soft radiance and illuminated their surroundings.

“This is a merfolk pearl. It is unique to the merfolk and contains no elemental energy, but it is very convenient for lighting,” Zhou Yan explained.

He noticed that Lin Jiuci’s eyes were sparkling with delight, while Lin Jiugo merely looked curious. For the first time, Zhou Yan clearly realized that the sisters had different interests.

Lin Jiugo nodded and withdrew her curious gaze, but she did not stop Lin Jiuci from continuing to stare. At the same time, she made a note to herself:

Little Fortune likes shiny things!

The farther they went, the wider the passage became. What had begun as a single-file journey turned into a side-by-side stroll.

Zhou Yan carried Lin Jiuci, while Lin Jiuci held the merfolk pearl against her chest.

Once she had touched the gleaming treasure she had been longing for, Lin Jiuci tilted her head and fell asleep. She smacked her lips once, clearly pleased.

“Junior Sister, you light the way.”

Seeing that Lin Jiuci had truly fallen asleep and that the merfolk pearl was about to slip from her arms, Zhou Yan spoke up. Lin Jiugo took it from her.

Their field of vision continued to widen. Along the way, they came across quite a number of first- and second-grade water-element spirit plants.

“Senior Brother, this is an excellent place for me to work off my debt.” Lin Jiugo’s eyes lit up. This harvest alone would be enough.

“It suits you perfectly. As for me, I’ll pass.” Zhou Yan thought about it. He had been somewhat rash at the time. Now that he had reached the Mortal Transformation Realm, he owed even more. By Junior Sister’s calculations, even ten years of unpaid labor would not be enough to settle his debt. He might as well take a chance on finding some higher-grade spirit plants.

“Senior Brother, let’s keep going.” Lin Jiugo shook her head and made no move to dig them up. The fact that these low-grade, first-level spirit plants grew so luxuriantly proved that they had no natural enemies. This area was not dangerous, and they could dig them up on the way back.

The two continued onward and soon came upon a pool. Icicles hung above it, with droplets of water suspended from their tips, poised to fall but never quite doing so.

A layer of violet light unconsciously spread across Lin Jiugo’s eyes. Then, without warning, she summoned the Golden Sword.

The Golden Sword touched the droplets above and absorbed them at once. Its entire blade began to glow with golden radiance.

The light completely overwhelmed the glow of the merfolk pearl, and Zhou Yan instinctively turned away.

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He missed a streak of black-and-red light that swept through the droplets on the icicles like a swarm of locusts, plundering more than half of them.

Lin Jiugo stopped it with a single thought. The light returned to her sea of consciousness, giving an aggrieved ringing cry.

After a while, the radiance surrounding the Golden Sword faded. Lin Jiugo could sense that its blade had become even sturdier. Moreover, its glow was no longer gentle and mild. It now carried a sharp, cutting edge.

“As expected of one of the Ten Famous Swords. Those droplets must be something extraordinary.” Once the light dimmed, Zhou Yan turned back and praised it.

Lin Jiugo said nothing. She silently recalled the Golden Sword, which seemed to follow her everywhere and exist solely to take the blame.

The violet light in Lin Jiugo’s eyes had not faded. She continued staring at the droplets above them.

Suddenly, two drops fell straight toward her eyes. There was no time to react before they landed in them.

They were clearly water, yet the moment they entered her eyes, a searing pain erupted.

Lin Jiugo dropped to her knees, and the merfolk pearl rolled away. She braced herself against the ground with her left hand while covering her eyes with her right.

“Senior Brother, seal Little Fortune’s sleeping acupoint. Don’t let her wake up!”

Lin Jiugo’s voice was filled with pain. Zhou Yan did as she asked, watching her anxiously, utterly unsure of what else to do.

A wave of agony struck. Unable to endure it, Lin Jiugo collapsed onto the ground. Black tear marks streamed from the corners of her eyes.

Zhou Yan had never imagined that such a dangerous place existed within the sect. What on earth was this?

He hurriedly released several paper cranes bearing distress messages. Yet while holding Lin Jiuci in his arms, he had no idea where to begin helping Lin Jiugo.

He needed pills to ease the pain.

Zhou Yan set Lin Jiuci down and began rummaging through his belongings in a panic, all the while trying to reassure himself.

“Zhou Yan, don’t panic. You can do this.”

Though his hands and feet were in disarray, he eventually found the medicine he needed.

But the moment he touched Lin Jiugo’s hand, he hastily withdrew his own. The heat radiating from both of her hands had burned him, leaving a blister on his skin.

Disturbed by that brief touch, Lin Jiugo rolled unconsciously.

So hot!

With one turn, Lin Jiugo fell into the pool before her.

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