Chapter 141: Forest of Stone Tablets

The characters above were not painted, though it is also possible they had flaked off due to the passage of time, yet Ruan Xing could still perceive the force of a blade and axe in the strokes; if this were not a Land of Forbidden Spirit, this stone tablet left by a predecessor might well have become a Dao tablet for people to contemplate.

There was no signature above either, making it impossible to know the title of that Immortal from several thousand years ago; Ruan Xing walked around it and continued to look at the next inscription.

"Penglai Immortal visited here."

"The Heavenly Dao is heartless; what sin have we committed?"

"Pah, so expensive!"

"Han Qianjun visited Heaven Pool with friends, very pleased, specially left this thought."

"Hehe, Grandpa is leaving first, waiting for you all above."

Ruan Xing looked at them one by one; most were only a sentence or two, and Ruan Xing also learned a little bit of information about this place.

An unknown number of years ago, this was a place called Heaven Pool, and the slightly smaller pit next to it was Earth Pool.

This place was open for a fee to cultivators above the Transformation Stage; it seems this Heaven and Earth Pool had some special effect useful to high-level cultivators, but now both pools have become dried-up, large pits, and whatever wonderful uses they had are a thing of the past.

Those stone tablets were all left by big shots of the Return to Ruins Stage.

Placed in modern times, it is equivalent to a VIP customer guestbook, stored here for junior cultivators to admire and view.

The cultivators of the entire Xianyuan Continent number far more than tens of thousands, yet those who could ascend to the Return to Ruins Stage and leave a stone tablet are merely a hundred or so.

This might also be the origin of the title of Return to Ruins Stage Immortal; after all, once one enters the Return to Ruins Stage, regardless of whether one can successfully ascend in the end, at the very least, becoming a Loose Immortal is absolutely no problem.

A Loose Immortal is still an Immortal, after all.

Having almost finished looking at the hundred-plus stone tablets, Ruan Xing's expectations grew lower and lower; let alone treasures, not even half a sentence of a Mental Method Formula was left behind.

But it is also normal... if a customer manager held a notebook and asked me to leave some calligraphy as a souvenir, I might also just wave my brush and write the word "Awesome."

With only the last few left, Ruan Xing walked over without hope, but suddenly she froze for a moment.

"Revisiting the old place, the earth is severed and the heavens are blocked, with no day to meet old friends again. Grief is hard to block, lingering in soul and dreams, abandoning the wish of the same heart held when I first arrived."

These were the two longest sentences among all the stone tablets, and the content above was just ordinary sentences missing friends, but what surprised Ruan Xing was that the handwriting here looked familiar.

Quickly comparing it with the previous stone tablets, Ruan Xing confirmed that this was the handwriting on Han Qianjun's tablet.

One person left two inscriptions... and this latter inscription was not placed as neatly as the previous ones; combined with the description of "earth severed and heavens blocked" and "no day to meet again," could it be that when this inscription was left, it was exactly when this place became a Land of Forbidden Spirit? Moreover, after she looked at the name Han Qianjun a few more times, it also became somewhat familiar.

Was it recorded in some travelogue or biography? Or perhaps some register of famous people?

The memories stored in her mind were truly too many; among the thousands of idle books in the library, just based on a name that didn't leave a deep impression, she really couldn't remember who this person was.

Perhaps the Demon Lord and the others would know... if the years they were active didn't differ by more than a thousand years, there were only so many Return to Ruins Stage Immortals; even if they were low-key, they would certainly have heard of each other's titles. Next time there is a chance, she can ask; perhaps after reading the biography of this Immortal, she could know something about the Land of Forbidden Spirit.

Patting the dust off her hands from checking the inscriptions, Ruan Xing looked at the two sinkholes again; taking advantage of the fact that it was daytime, she scanned them with her Divine Sense, but inside, apart from soil and insect dust, there was nothing else—completely clean.

Another day was passing by so quickly with meager gains; Ruan Xing asked Sword Lai, "How is it looking on your side? What has the old man been doing?"

Sword Lai quickly sent back a message: the old man left the house on the second day, never once taking out the key from start to finish; instead, after walking for a distance, he met up with another cultivator.

Now the two of them are exploring this place aimlessly in one direction.

Why doesn't this old man use the key? But she had no way to force the old man to use it... Ruan Xing sighed and left the vicinity of the sinkhole; she had to change her method.

Everything here, after the long passage of time and the erosion of the Land of Forbidden Spirit, has lost its effectiveness regardless of what treasures or top-grade materials there were; besides the inheritance left by Guangyou Xianjun, all that remained for her to find were those Magic Arts and cultivation techniques that might have existed.

It would be best to find a complete cultivation technique so that she could specialize in it and not be constrained by the Xuanbing Sect.

But it is impossible for these to be in the town... no one would build a Sect in the center of a town; those places in the city need a large flow of people to open shops and hold markets to become lively, and if a Sect were among them, it would be too unsafe.

So she still has to go outside the city.

Perhaps in the surroundings, there are a few Sects that were once glorious but have now vanished, leaving behind some Heaven-grade cultivation technique waiting for a fated person to inherit it.

Thinking of this, Ruan Xing was full of energy again, continuing to walk toward the desolate places outside along the dirt road under her feet.

The dirt road stretching outside was boundless, the terrain flat, and there were no ruins of buildings nearby; Ruan Xing simply took four power pulleys out of the wooden box, installed them on the box, sat on top of the box, and relied on her body's center of gravity and the kinetic energy of her feet to make the box slide.

This way, the speed was much faster, and she could save some effort.

She didn't use it before because the roads inside were not very flat, and every so often there would be a stone wall or half a pillar blocking the way, which was truly inconvenient.

There were less than two hours left until dark; she had to be faster. Now, one day of Real-scene Simulation costs her one hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones; time is Spirit Stones.

After traveling a distance, although the plain in front of her was still boundless, Ruan Xing felt that the pulleys of the box were already struggling to turn, and there were even times when it would slide backward on slopes.

"Could it be that the current road is going uphill?" Ruan Xing pondered; although her naked eye couldn't see the slope, the fact that the terrain had changed was good news, because it meant there was a new situation ahead.

Ruan Xing was just about to continue walking forward when suddenly Sword Lai sent another message.

"Three people... the old man... is dead..."

Hearing Sword Lai's words, Ruan Xing was stunned for a moment.

Elder Wen is dead? She hurriedly asked Sword Lai what situation he had discovered.

After Sword Lai's stumbling explanation, she finally understood: the cultivator the old man met at the beginning was a cultivator from the Hanhai Sect; although the two traveled together, they were in a state of mutual precaution until the arrival of a third person broke the balance. The three cultivators, with an average age of one hundred, fought fiercely in a place where Spiritual Power and Magic Arts could not be used, engaging in hand-to-hand combat and beating Elder Wen to death.

No, why is it so easy for you people to run into each other? Thanks to book friend 20200223140710205 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to sisi88 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to sissid for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to Wangxian O for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to book friend 20210301106537311646 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to book friend 20200530093008398 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to book friend 160828234348349 for the monthly ticket~ (End of chapter)