Chapter 93: Breaking the Restriction

Song Qingming cast a series of incantations, and the spiritual power within his body slowly merged into the array disk in his hands. A moment later, a golden light erupted from the grey array disk, which began to rotate slowly and float into the air.

"Two fellow Daoists, quickly inject your spiritual power into the array flags on the stone gate. You must not stop until I have broken the restriction, otherwise, all our previous efforts will be wasted."

Hearing Song Qingming's urgent urging, Old Daoist Chen and Zhou Tangjin did not ask any questions. The two of them quickly struck their red and blue spiritual powers toward the array flags on the outer side of the stone gate ahead.

Six rays of spiritual light instantly erupted from the six array flags, then converged and were injected into the array disk above Song Qingming.

Song Qingming carefully controlled the array disk. Only after the spiritual power within it had gradually stabilized did he begin to operate the golden-glowing array disk, pressing it against the pitch-black stone gate.

Upon contact with the stone gate, the golden spiritual power within the array disk transformed into thin lines, directly connecting to the runes above the stone gate.

The originally pitch-black runes began to turn golden where they touched the golden spiritual light, and then the color slowly spread upward. The golden spiritual power flowed slowly along the runes as if it were golden blood.

It was not until half an hour later that the golden spiritual light completely covered the entire rune, and the originally lifeless black rune had turned a golden yellow.

"Daoist Song, can we stop now?" Seeing that the black rune had turned golden, Zhou Tangjin immediately asked Song Qingming.

Hearing Zhou Tangjin's words, Old Daoist Chen also turned his head and looked at Song Qingming with a smile.

Song Qingming shook his head at the two of them and replied calmly: "It is not that simple. I have only just begun. I ask that you both have more patience; next, I must patiently deal with this rune restriction."

"Daoist Song, rest assured and do your work; leave this side to us. Since we have already come this far, a little more time doesn't matter, right, Daoist Zhou?" Old Daoist Chen said with a chuckle to Zhou Tangjin beside him, fearing he might be too impatient.

Zhou Tangjin revealed a smile, nodded, and did not speak again.

The method Song Qingming was using to break this restriction was precisely a technique called the "Rune-Stealing Imprint Method" from the Liu family's array classics.

This method is very effective for some relatively simple arrays and restrictions. As long as the person breaking the array can understand the general rune patterns of the array, they can use the stealing imprint method to work backward from the final line of the rune, re-opening the spiritual pulse of the entire array restriction with their own spiritual power.

Afterward, by forcibly dispersing a portion of the already opened spiritual pulse, the power of the array restriction would be greatly weakened, allowing the array to be forcibly broken from the outside.

Three hours later, Song Qingming withdrew his spiritual power, and the array disk pressed against the stone gate instantly returned to his hands. The runes on the stone gate's restriction also turned from gold back to their original pitch-black color.

After putting away the array disk in his hand, Song Qingming said to the two people behind him: "It is done, fellow Daoists. Next, as long as we all attack with full force, we should be able to break this restriction."

By this time, the spiritual power within Old Daoist Chen and Zhou Tangjin had been more than half consumed. Old Daoist Chen, whose cultivation was lower, had a somewhat pale face due to excessive spiritual power consumption.

Hearing Song Qingming finally announce that the breaking was complete, the two breathed a long sigh of relief, hurriedly withdrew their spiritual power, and took elixirs again to begin recovering their internal spiritual power.

In fact, once the Rune-Stealing Imprint Method begins, it does not require the cultivator to continuously inject spiritual power; one only needs to inject spiritual power at intervals to replenish the golden spiritual power inside the array disk.

The reason Song Qingming did not explain this clearly to the two was, firstly, that it was troublesome to explain to those who did not understand arrays, and secondly, he wanted them to know that breaking this restriction was very difficult, so that they would not underestimate his contribution. That was why he did not explain the situation to them.

After Song Qingming put away the array flags around the stone gate, he saw Old Daoist Chen and Zhou Tangjin still sitting in meditation to recover their spiritual power, so he also sat down and began to meditate to recover his own.

Breaking the restriction just now had also consumed a lot of spiritual power, but compared to the two of them, he was much better off. After taking a Qi-Returning Pill and meditating for a while, the spiritual power in Song Qingming's body was soon restored to seven or eight tenths.

In order not to let the two easily see the little tricks he had used while breaking the array, Song Qingming pretended to meditate in place for a while longer after his spiritual power was fully restored.

After ending his meditation, Song Qingming stood up and looked at the two who were still meditating. He knew that it would be very difficult to open this black stone gate by himself, so he did not waste his energy trying at the stone gate.

Feeling a bit bored in this spacious cave, Song Qingming walked to a stone table on one side of the stone gate, picked up the scattered bamboo slips on the ground, and began to read them.

These bamboo slips were basically classics introducing some common spiritual objects, as well as some experiences of the cave's owner while traveling abroad and insights from cultivating certain techniques.

Song Qingming had always been interested in unknown things in the cultivation world, and he became interested as soon as he saw these classics.

However, before he could finish reading one of the bamboo slips in his hand, someone interrupted his thoughts. Zhou Tangjin, who had always been impatient, was the first to stand up and end his meditation.

Seeing that both of them had finished meditating, Old Daoist Chen, whose spiritual power had only just recovered by half, could only stand up helplessly.

Seeing Song Qingming still looking at the bamboo slips by the stone table, which he had already picked through several times, Old Daoist Chen asked with some confusion and urged him:

"Little Friend Song, I have already looked through those things several times; they are indeed useless items. Daoist, you should not waste your time there."

Song Qingming put away the bamboo slip in his hand, narrowed his eyes, and said faintly: "I have some interest in the scenery and strange tales in these bamboo slips. If you two do not want these things, I will take them back to read slowly. You two Daoist brothers have no objections, right?"

"Let it be so. They are useless things anyway. Daoist, hurry up and don't delay the main business. After all, this place is deep in Mount Yunwu; it would be troublesome if we encountered a second-level demonic beast." Zhou Tangjin did not care about these things, thinking that Song Qingming was living too frugally, which was why he wanted these items of little value.

Song Qingming took out an empty storage bag, quickly packed the bamboo slips into it, and then walked toward Old Daoist Chen and the other.

Song Qingming now had more than one storage bag on him. He had obtained two storage bags when he was attacked on Mount Longteng last time, and two years ago at Qinghe Market, Song Qingming, not lacking spirit stones, had specifically exchanged his original low-grade storage bag for a high-grade one.

After putting away these bamboo slips, Song Qingming flipped his hand and released his White Jade Sword. Old Daoist Chen took out a silver iron ruler, and Zhou Tangjin also had a yellow long spear in his hand. The three of them released their respective magic tools and simultaneously launched an attack on the rune above the black stone gate.

After a violent sound, a crack appeared on the rune above the stone gate. Seeing that the attack was effective, the three of them smiled and increased their spiritual power, continuing their attack on the rune.

A stick of incense later, with a bang, under a powerful strike from the yellow golden spear in Zhou Tangjin's hand, the rune shattered completely. As the rune shattered, the black stone gate automatically sank into the ground.

Among the three, Song Qingming and Old Daoist Chen both held middle-grade magic tools, while only the golden spear in Zhou Tangjin's hand was a high-grade magic tool. The reason they were able to break the restriction so quickly was mainly due to the great effort put in by Zhou Tangjin.

As the stone gate fell, this senior's cave dwelling, which had been hidden for many years, finally appeared before the eyes of Song Qingming and the other two.

Song Qingming glanced at it and found that this cave dwelling was much larger than the outer room. A burst of abundant spiritual energy emerged from within. Although it could not compare to the spiritual vein of Qinghe Market, the intensity of the spiritual energy exceeded that of the Song family's Mount Funiu, and it was estimated to be close to the second level.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 94 =====