Volcanic Age

Zhou Xuchuan didn't think much of it, but Frostedge was among the upper tier of famed swords. As its name suggested, its blade was so sharp that a chill could be felt from it.

Zhou Xuchuan and the group took a break in the reward room. They ate and made up for their lack of sleep. They didn't know if it was day or night. Since they were underground, their only sources of light were torches and luminescent pearls.

Their bodies served as their internal clock. Honed through years of training, they helped them to determine when it was morning, midday or night.

After recuperating, the group resumed their journey.

They still faced a frustrating number of traps and mazes, and getting past all of them took a lot of time. Even with Zhuge Shengji's help, the sheer number of traps gave them endless trouble.

What they hated the most were mazes. Although they didn't get lost, some of the mazes intentionally made them take roundabout routes, wasting their time.

One day, two days, three days… they started losing track of time. They slept in safe areas where all traps were dismantled and took shifts for night watches.

It's not strange that it's taking so long.

Even in his previous life, exploring the treasury took a long time. Not only that, various forces sent different exploration teams.

"Descending, ascending, then descending again... I've lost track of how deep we are."

The group had unexpectedly strong mentalities. Whether that was a result of orthodox cultivation arts, or the desire to protect their loved ones was a mystery. Although they were fatigued, they explored the treasury without complaint.

Among them, the youngest, Zhuge Shengji, was delighted instead of exhausted. His eyes sparkled with increased fascination at the appearance of different types of mechanisms.

Zhou Xuchuan didn't neglect his cultivation even while exploring the treasury. He trained whenever he had time.

Plum Blossom Cultivation Art or the Plum Blossom Six Cardinal Cultivation Art, he had achieved complete mastery in both. He simply circulated his internal qi to accumulate it.

However, the quantity of qi he accumulated was extremely small. Not only were there no plum trees here, the qi of nature was hard to find as well.

Instead, he mostly trained his sword art and footwork art. He had long since attained complete mastery in the Fourteen Forms of the Plum Blossom Sword, and was focusing on the Twenty-four Forms. However, unlike before, his pace was quite slow.

The Twenty-four Forms of the Plum Blossom Sword shared similarities with the Fourteen Forms, but were different. They were more obscure, complex, and taxing. It was also Zhou Xuchuan's first time executing the Twenty-four Forms, relying solely on his memory. He had never learned it because it was only taught to the Twenty-Four Swordsmen, an elite group of the most powerful swordsmen in Mount Hua.

The silver lining was that due to having reached the Harmony Realm, he was able to train in the forms relying solely on the manual stored in his memory.

"Mm, I'm feeling somewhat itchy."

"It'd be better if we could not hear anything and not feel his movements…"

While he was training, the other cultivators refrained from glancing in his direction. In the Martial World, observing other people's training was taboo. Zhou Xuchuan also cautioned them, worried that he might display something that would reveal his identity.

From the perspective of the cultivators, who wanted to watch an expert training, they found it agonizing.

*

Presumably two days later.

While they were searching, they found another hidden room with treasures. However, there was nothing special this time. At most, there was gold, silver jewelry, and some famed weapons like Frostedge. They moderately picked out items of high value.

Since they entered the treasury, about a week had passed. They were all smelly because they couldn't bathe.

"Captain!" Lee San, a Second-Class cultivator, shone the torchlight against the wall. The three-eye symbol unique to the Three-Eyed Godly Thief could be seen on the wall.

"I've never seen a door like this before…"

Although they had encountered numerous doors, none had symbols drawn on them.

"It smells like treasure."

"What are you going to do?"

Zhuge Shengji tapped the handle attached to the stone wall. It seemed to be designed to be pulled open.

"Are there any traps?"

"I don't think there are… or to be precise, I'm not sure. The wall is thick, and all I can see is the handle, so I can't figure anything out." Zhuge Shengji frowned and looked around.

The only thing he saw were luminescent pearls on the ceiling and the walls. They only emitted light, and there didn't seem to be anything special.

"We can't go back after coming this far. There are places we haven't explored yet, but it'll be bothersome to explore them all."

Zhou Xuchuan pulled on the handle instead of Zhuge Shengji.

Grrrrind… clack-!

The sound of something moving and activating could be heard, accompanied by creaking and grinding noises.

At first, the group was startled, but they eventually got used to it.

Rumble-!

"Hm, the ground is shaking again."

"It's shaking up my innards!"

The tremors felt as if the world was collapsing around them, impossible to ignore. Yet, they had grown accustomed to such occurrences in the treasury. Although the shaking was pretty big, it wasn't anything surprising.

Chu Lian held onto Zhuge Shengji's clothes to prevent him from falling, while the others maintained their balance.

Psss-

"It sounds like gravel is falling."

"It's not stalactites or blades? It's quite kind this time."

"When I leave this place, I'm definitely going to tell everyone that the Three-Eyed Godly Thief was a total son of a bitch. If there's anyone claiming to be his descendent, I'll go punch them in the face."

Although their lives weren't threatened, thanks to Zhuge Shengji, they weren't entirely unscathed. Sometimes, dismantling a trap triggered another, which almost put them in danger.

Rumble-!

While they were chatting, the stone wall in front of them started going up. Light seeped out from the opening.

*

When the wall opened, a large clearing appeared before them. The floor was decorated with luxurious-looking carpets while extraordinary-looking swords, axes, spears, and other weapons were pierced on the ground.

The three eyes symbol of the Three-Eyed Godly Thief was engraved on the ceiling, the left wall, and the right wall. The symbols were big as well.

Also, they didn't know what kind of principles were behind it, but there was fresh air, unlike before. They couldn't help but wonder if they were really underground, seeing as there weren't any lingering smells either.

At the end of the carpet on the floor was a three-step staircase leading up to what resembled an altar.

Approaching the altar, the wall behind them was sealed shut, while something on top of the altar began to move.

"That… doesn't happen to be a livebody zombie, right?"

Chu Lian looked at the person, no, zombie, on top of the staircase with unease. Its face was incredibly pale and looked blue, and there was no light in its eyes. It was definitely a corpse.

However, for some reason, it was standing up. It didn't look like it was because the person had died standing up and experienced rigor mortis.

As Zhou Xuchuan's group approached the altar, the elderly man they believed to be a zombie descended gracefully. The problem was that its actions weren't stiff but very natural.

Normally, when a dead body was reanimated into moving through some sort of spell, they were called zombies. They were weapons primarily used by the Two Demonic Factions.

"Hieeek!" Zhuge Shengji hid behind the cultivators.

"If that thing happens to be a livebody zombie, we're all dead," Wang Yi said, gulping.

An encounter with a zombie wasn't entirely unexpected, given the sorcery stolen by the Three-Eyed Godly Thief to build the treasury.

The problem was how the zombie moved. Usually, a zombie had unnatural, stiff movements because of rigor mortis. They were slow even if they were put in fights, and their movements were simple and weren't threatening, aside from the fact that they would keep rising unless their heads were severed.

However, zombies had their tiers. Among them was a kind of zombie, known as livebody zombies which retained the agility and martial skills of their former lives. They were very few, even in the Two Demonic Factions.

Also, they were so strong that not many experts could win against them.

"No, we'd be better off if it's a livebody zombie." Zhou Xuchuan said, warily raising his sword against the zombie.

"If we have come across something like a diamond zombie, we would really have to bury our bones here."

Diamond zombies, as their name suggested, referred to zombies with bodies as hard as diamonds. No attacks would work on them without vajra qi.

Zhou Xuchuan had sufficient enlightenment and internal qi, but he lacked other things required to obtain vajra qi. Even if he fulfilled those two criteria, he couldn't just break through to the next realm just because he wished to. He needed some time.

If that was possible, he would have reached the Harmony Realm already after surviving against Lu Dalang.

"Don't provoke it and step back…"

Pah-!

As soon as Zhou Xuchuan finished his words, the mysterious zombie lunged at him. The frightening part about it was that there was no hint of movement at all. Before he could even say watch out, the zombie had already reached him, pulled a sword out of the ground, and swung it.

It's fast!

Clang-!

Two swords clashed, the metallic noise resounding. Fortunately, he acted instinctively.

Dammit!

Based on martial prowess alone, the zombie was above Peak Realm. That one single clash was enough to make him figure that out. Fortunately, the fact that he could subconsciously defend meant that the difference wasn't so large.

"Captain Zhou!" Wang Yi shouted to warn him.

"Hah!"

Zhou Xuchuan raised his sword to block the attack that came down on his head. Sparks flew, and a loud noise hit his ears.

The zombie's muscular strength and the qi behind the attacks weren't all that special. However, its movements were extraordinary.

Clang—!

Zhou Xuchuan and the zombie clashed again. However, the zombie was holding an ax instead of a sword this time.

I can't follow its movements at all.

Although the qi and strength contained in the attacks weren't weak, the zombie's movements were problematic for Zhou Xuchuan to handle. Not only was there no noise, there was no hint of movement either. It was impossible to figure out what kind of footwork art it was using either. Not to mention his eyes, he couldn't follow it with any other senses.

"A livebody zombie!"

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