Chapter 112: The Secret of the Martial Stone (Part 1)

But what they had just said was Martial Stone?

Only now did Baichuan react sharply — he had nearly missed the most important treasure: the Martial Stone!

The power of every martial artist in this world comes from this thing!

He had actually managed to forget such a treasure — truly careless of him!

But then he recalled that it had already been over two years since he had any contact with the people of the Great Zhou.

After such a long time, forgetting was still fairly normal.

Fortunately, it wasn't too late now.

So Baichuan, who had only just walked out of Yingu, once again turned and flew back toward Yingu.

Perhaps because of his urgency this time, he only needed half the time it took him coming, and he was back at the entrance of Yingu again.

Seeing that the traces here were no different from when he had just left, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Without hesitation, he walked straight back into Yingu, and once again every sensory organ across his body went into full operation.

Such an important treasure — where would these humans have hidden it?

Baichuan was rather puzzled. Logically speaking, when he had been searching for the Strange Beast earlier, he had already searched the entire Yingu, yet he had found not the slightest trace.

This was also one of the reasons he had overlooked this treasure before.

He raised his head, his eyes working in concert with his perception system, preparing to search the entire valley inch by inch.

He refused to believe that even if he dug three inches into the soil here today, he still wouldn't find it.

……

Time vanished as Baichuan searched inch by inch through the soil, and in the blink of an eye two days had passed.

On this day, Baichuan, who had already searched every bit of land, still couldn't find it.

He gazed somewhat forlornly at the valley he had plowed over once, his heart filled with speechlessness.

It was only a Martial Stone — was there really any need to hide it so thoroughly?

He let out a long, quiet sigh. Since the ground had already been thoroughly plowed by him once and still nothing had been found,

then it was time to turn his attention to the stone walls surrounding the valley. Since there could be a first hollow within the mountain body used to preserve that Yingzhua Yanwang,

then the existence of a second similar place shouldn't be much of a problem, right?

After all, the Martial Stone was the foundation of all supernatural power for an entire sect, so treating it this way was understandable.

Thinking of this, he once again began to scan his surroundings meticulously.

To improve the precision of his perception, he deliberately reduced the range of his scan, just so as not to miss any suspicious point.

Time passed once again. Three days later.

Baichuan finally discovered a suspicious point on the stone wall in mid-air behind the palace complex at the very center of the valley, where he had started.

He stared at it, momentarily speechless. Who could have imagined that such a concealed place was not only blocked by a large number of palaces, but also fitted with various mechanisms made of materials that blocked sound waves?

The reason he had been able to discover it this time was that he had previously torn down those buildings, which had also destroyed all the mechanisms leading inside.

Then plowing the ground once more had, to a certain extent, shaken that layer of special material into slight deformation.

And so, those extremely faint traces on the cliff face were finally spotted through his careful observation.

So, how should he get in? Or rather, how had those humans gotten in?

Baichuan did not immediately think of simply breaking in. After all, this was the supernatural foundation of a great sect — such a precious object could have any manner of defensive measures, and it would be perfectly reasonable.

He was afraid that one careless move on his part might trigger some chain switch and destroy the Martial Stone outright.

Baichuan raised his head, looked at this flat cliff face, and slowly extended a claw to press against it.

Instantly, an extremely hard and rough texture transmitted through — a place that now appeared flat and seamless.

For a moment, Baichuan was at a loss as to how to proceed.

But since those humans had been able to get in, there must be various mechanisms.

Thinking of this, he began to continuously emit rings of invisible probing ultrasonic waves.

Although most of these ultrasonic waves returned empty-handed, or were silently absorbed by some substance,

he still had a pair of sharp claws. He directly curled his claws and gently tapped against it, as delicately as caressing a lover's fine skin — though Baichuan didn't have such a thing.

But he swore this was absolutely the gentlest he had ever been, afraid that even a slight exertion of force might tap some fragile mechanism.

He went on like this — tap, probe, listen.

Finally, after probing for over half an hour, he finally detected a faint change.

It was a flat stone block that had undergone slight deformation. In an instant, Baichuan's heart tightened.

He directly extended a claw as if to press down, paused halfway, then curled his claws for fear of puncturing the stone block.

Only then did he gently press against it, beginning to apply force tenderly, bit by bit.

As the stone block deformed, a groove appeared.

At this moment, Baichuan finally heard a distinct sound — those cliff walls were no longer a single seamless whole, and gaps began to appear.

He could already faintly hear the mysterious mechanisms inside beginning to slowly turn.

A few seconds later, with a crisp sound, the area beneath that flat cliff face abruptly began to tremble.

Then a rectangular stone door, six meters tall and three meters wide, slowly slid open to both sides.

A wide cave mouth was abruptly revealed.

This sight left Baichuan staring in a daze.

Could this really be something that people from an era similar to his previous life's ancient times could manufacture?

But he didn't dwell on it too much — having it was a good thing.

Looking at this cave mouth, Baichuan also felt a wave of relief.

Fortunately, he hadn't continued evolving the blue whale's abilities back then, otherwise he definitely wouldn't have been able to fit through.

While thinking it over, he lowered his dragon head and burrowed straight in.

The moment he entered, Baichuan felt a wave of intense discomfort, because the ultrasonic waves he constantly emitted had all vanished in that instant.

Right—the ultrasonic waves he sent out could no longer carry information back by bouncing off things; they were completely absorbed and dissolved.

In other words, inside this place he had lost that other "omniscient"-like perspective.

Having already encountered this kind of situation outside, he could only sigh at it.

Truly worthy of being an expert at manipulating ultrasonic waves—even though in terms of damage and exploitation he's not as terrifying as Baichuan, when it comes to countermeasures against them, it's really like an old sow wearing a bra—one set after another.

Not minding it much, without his "omniscient" sense he still had his extraordinarily sharp, superhuman vision.

What met his eyes was an utterly empty space, with only a large pool of water at the center.

Inside the pool was a pool of liquid emitting a faint white glow.

What the hell? A pool of water that actually glows!

What's going on here? Could this pool itself be the Martial Stone?

If it really is, does he have to drink the whole thing to take it away?

Or is the Martial Stone at the bottom of the pool?

Baichuan stared at this circular pool, and for a moment fell into a storm of thoughts.

At the same time, he slowly approached and leaned in to carefully examine the pool's specific situation.

However, before long, he once again spotted something familiar!

(End of chapter)