Free Web NovelChapter 63: Chapter 62: Alchemy Array
"Keep moving."
At Uncle Qu’s word, the group tightened their formation.
Li Yuan fell back to a rear position, his hand reaching for the Flame Snake Tube inside his robe. With a thought, he equipped it.
[Obtained Entry: Precision (White)]
The deeper they went into the mine, the more the tunnel walls turned a dark red. Many places were streaked with blackened mineral veins, looking as if they had been burned by fire for many years and then thoroughly soaked in Yin Qi. The wooden supports on both sides had long since rotted, leaving only stumps. Beneath their feet, amid the gravel, they could occasionally step on broken steel drills and decayed wooden handles.
Li Yuan glanced around and asked, "What did they use to mine in this tunnel?"
"A Fire Vein." Uncle Qu didn’t turn back, illuminating the fork in the path ahead with his lantern. His voice wasn’t hushed. "It’s been a long time. A group of Demon Cultivators first opened this mine, digging for Jade Sun Stone."
"Later, the Primordial Yang Sect drove those people away, and the mine was pretty much depleted. After that, this area slowly became populated, and several market towns were established one by one."
Uncle Qu continued walking forward as he spoke.
The mine tunnel curved, and the path ahead suddenly narrowed.
Uncle Qu stopped short, raising a hand to halt the guard Cultivator in front of him.
"Don’t move."
Everyone tensed.
As the lamplight tilted, a dark shadow on the ceiling swayed with it.
Li Yuan’s pupils contracted sharply.
That wasn’t rock.
A grayish-white, beast-shaped shadow was crouched above them. Its limbs were thick and long, its back arched high, and its head craned forward. Half of its face had rotted away to a mere outline, yet a row of long, thin fangs was still visible.
Its form was a whole size larger than the spirit from before. Its claws clung to the stone ceiling, and a section of its tail dangled down like a tattered, smoke-blackened rope.
What was more striking was its silhouette.
Uncle Qu stared at it for two breaths, his gaze hardening.
"The silhouette looks a bit like that Tier Two High Grade Mountain-rending Mastiff from the deep mountains."
The moment Uncle Qu finished speaking, he flicked his lantern upward. "Get back!"
At the same instant, the beast-shaped spirit lunged down.
There was no sound of wind, only a wave of frigid cold pressing down on them. The hairs on the back of the guard Cultivator at the very front stood on end. He scrambled backward, not even having time to form the Magic in his hands.
Li Yuan was faster.
His palm dipped, and a line of fire instantly condensed.
TSS.
The first fire arrow shot past the guard Cultivator’s shoulder, heading straight for the spirit’s left eye. The beast-shaped spirit twisted in mid-air, and the fire arrow only grazed the side of its face, searing a long, thin scorch mark.
It didn’t die, but the blow made its form falter.
The second arrow followed immediately.
This one was more accurate. With a flash, the line of fire shot directly into its open mouth. The spirit’s entire head snapped back, and it let out a shriek so sharp it set one’s teeth on edge.
Only then did He Shou and the other two guard Cultivators act, unleashing several spells at once.
Yin Qi surged, and the mine tunnel was suddenly filled with chaotic, grayish-white shadows.
The beast-shaped spirit endured the brilliant fire and pounced to the ground. It seemed less like a spirit and more like a living Demon Beast, attacking on pure instinct.
Its front paws slammed down, gouging four shallow marks into the stone floor. Just as it was about to charge again, Uncle Qu stepped in front of it.
The flame in the lantern, originally only the size of a bean, suddenly flared half a foot high as he lifted it.
The flame didn’t disperse; instead, it twisted into a single line and lashed out like a whip.
CRACK.
The beast-shaped spirit was sent flying sideways, crashing heavily against the tunnel wall. A large gash split open its grayish-white body, and Yin Qi gushed out.
Uncle Qu gave it no chance to struggle and pressed his attack.
The line of fire descended, and the entire spirit, as if crushed by a branding iron, disintegrated into a scattered cloud of gray gas before its shriek could even fade. The gas then trickled down the stone wall.
For a moment, only the sound of heavy breathing filled the mine tunnel.
The guard Cultivator at the front, his face pale, raised a hand to wipe his forehead. His palm was covered in cold sweat.
He Shou stared at the dissipating Yin Qi and said in a low voice, "Tier One Top Grade."
"About right." Uncle Qu withdrew his lantern, and the flame shrank back. "If it were nurtured a while longer, it might have been on the verge of reaching Tier Two."
Zhou the Array Master also walked over to take a look, crouching down to poke at the black ash on the ground with a short ruler.
"The beast shape was more complete, and the Yin Qi was more condensed," he said. "The things nurtured in this mine are much stronger than the ones wandering outside."
The words had barely left his mouth when a soft rustling sound came from deeper in the mine tunnel.
It didn’t sound like footsteps, but more like something scraping rapidly along the stone wall.
Uncle Qu stood up and shone his lantern forward.
"It’s not over. Push forward."
This time, it seemed the spirits had been stirred up by the commotion.
The group had only walked another ten zhang or so when a dog-shaped shadow shot out from behind a collapsed wooden frame on the left. It wasn’t large, but it was fast, lunging for their legs the moment it appeared.
Li Yuan raised his hand and fired a fire arrow.
A straight line of fire shot out, instantly piercing the spirit’s chest. The creature froze in mid-air from the impact and had mostly dissipated by the time it hit the ground.
Immediately after, two more appeared from a pile of rubble on the right.
One looked like an ape, the other a badger. Their tattered silhouettes, wreathed in gray qi, lunged at them one after the other.
Li Yuan shifted his footing, moving half a step aside, his Fire Arrow Skill barely pausing. He fired one long, thin line of fire after another. In the narrow mine tunnel, there was no need for fancy maneuvers; as long as he was fast enough and accurate enough, he could pin these things down mid-charge.
The Fireball Technique was powerful, but this wasn’t the right place to be throwing fireballs around recklessly.
The Fire Arrow Skill, on the other hand, was perfect.
It consumed little energy, was fast to cast, and picking targets off one by one in a straight line was more efficient than anything else.
The other guard Cultivators also began to attack.
Another rat-shaped spirit scurried out from a crack in the rock by their feet. It had just raised its head when a spark of fire exploded on its forehead. Its whole body jerked back, twitched twice, and then went still.
In about the time it takes to burn an incense stick, they had cleared out seven or eight spirits from the tunnel.
Most were Tier One Middle-Lower Grade.
The few that were tougher to deal with couldn’t hold out against the sheer number of fire-based spells on their side.
As the others around him fought with growing confidence, Li Yuan raised his hand and dispatched another wolf-shaped spirit. A panel flashed before his eyes.
[Precision (White) Permanence Progress: 56/100]
[Magic: Fire Arrow Skill - Novice (71/200)] free𝑤ebnovel.com
His Fire Arrow Skill proficiency was rising quickly. It helped that the skill was based on the Fireball Technique, and the Precision entry further accelerated proficiency gain for ranged Magic.
Li Yuan looked away from the panel and continued moving forward without stopping.
After they had ventured a bit further inside, the mine tunnel suddenly widened.
Ahead of them was no longer a straight tunnel, but a nearly circular cavern that had collapsed open, as large as two or three rooms. There was less gravel on the ground, but far more carved marks—circles within circles of varying depths. In some places, broken stone troughs and metal bases were still embedded in the floor.
In the very center was a half-collapsed stone platform.
The surface of the platform was pitch-black, its edges cracked from being repeatedly subjected to high temperatures, as if something large had once been set upon it. Several grooves next to it were empty, containing only some whitish debris and a layer of black ash.
Zhou the Array Master immediately quickened his pace.
He held out his Array Disc, and the fine needle on it trembled even more violently.
He circled halfway around the stone platform, first examining the ground, then the surrounding walls, too absorbed to even speak. Only after he had traced the patterns in several places with his fingers did he slowly let out a breath.
"The Array creator’s methods are far more brilliant than mine, but they’re a bit crude. They were probably in a hurry."
"This isn’t a node of the main Array, nor a node of a smaller Array within the main one. It’s a separate Array."
He Shou frowned. "Then what is it?"
"An Alchemy Array." Zhou the Array Master crouched beside the stone platform. He ran a fingertip over a carved line, picking up a layer of black ash. "It borrows the residual energy of the Fire Vein and follows the principles of Alchemy. These patterns and troughs on the ground are all for suppressing the fire, locking in the medicinal properties, and stabilizing the furnace."
Uncle Qu shone his lantern on the empty grooves.
"The materials are gone."
"They were taken long ago." Zhou the Array Master nodded. "And it was a clean sweep. The main and auxiliary materials are all gone, with no attempt at concealment. Look at these stone troughs—whoever pulled the materials out didn’t even bother to fill the holes with ash."
Zhou the Array Master walked over to another spot and used his short ruler to pry at the ground, picking up a layer of grayish-white powder.
"They also used a lot of yin material."
Uncle Qu glanced over. "Yin-attribute materials?"
"Correct." Zhou the Array Master rubbed the powder between his fingers, which were immediately coated with a sticky gray dust. "Alchemy with a Fire Vein should follow a Pure Yang path, but they’ve mixed in so many yin things here. They were either refining some unorthodox medicine or using this Array for another purpose."
He Shou glanced back down the mine tunnel.
"So those spirits... they came from here?"
"Most likely." Zhou the Array Master stood up and scanned the area. "Soul-trapping, yin-nurturing, array-fueling—these are all old techniques. The Array was abandoned and the materials were removed, but these things didn’t completely dissipate, so they were left behind in the mine."
Li Yuan’s gaze fell on the stone wall to the left.
There were several deep claw marks there, at least half a foot long. A little higher up, there was another type of finer, denser scratching, as if something had clawed at the wall in a frenzy. Farther away, a stone ridge had been snapped off by force, the break extending all the way to the ground.
They weren’t made by a single creature.
Uncle Qu had apparently noticed them too. He walked over and illuminated the marks with his lantern.
"Several different kinds."
"Mmm." Zhou the Array Master walked along the wall. "Some large, some small, all different shapes. It’s highly likely they trapped more than one Demon Beast here. Or rather, more than one type."
He Shou’s brows furrowed as he listened. freёweɓnovel.com
’An abandoned mine with an Alchemy Array hidden in its depths, mixed with yin material and so many beast-shaped spirits... This is strange.’
Zhou the Array Master was engrossed in his examination. He placed his Array Disc on the center of the stone platform one more time to confirm there were no hidden compartments, then finally put it away.
"We’ve seen pretty much everything there is to see here. Let’s go."
The group didn’t linger and retreated the way they came.
