Chapter 65: The Terrifying North
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes slightly, instinctively activating his Double Pupils.
He noticed that the path the Land God had taken was stained with faint traces of blood, though they were gradually being absorbed by Abi Hell.
The blood was clearly flowing from the Land God’s body. Combined with his worsening mutation and hazy memories, Ren Qing felt the man’s condition was far from optimistic.
The door to the Secret Pavilion closed automatically.
Ren Qing walked toward the bookshelves. He could inform Song Zongwu about the Land God’s condition when he had a moment.
The Secret Pavilion was divided into five floors. Prospects were allowed on the first three, so the books recording insights on advancing to the Ghost Envoy Realm should be on the upper two.
However, he was in no hurry and began to casually flip through the books.
The dossiers themselves were made of some unknown material that felt quite tough to the touch.
Even if someone deliberately tried to damage them, it wouldn’t matter. The Secret Pavilion surely had some measures in place; otherwise, the dossiers couldn’t possibly be so complete.
Ren Qing discovered that the ground floor contained the dossiers of Forbidden Guards who had died in recent years. They also detailed the whereabouts and handling methods of various Mysterious Objects.
After looking through the dossiers for a moment, he was just about to head upstairs.
But suddenly, he noticed claw marks on the side of a bookshelf in the corner. They seemed to have been left by the Land God.
Ren Qing frowned and walked over, reaching out to touch the claw marks.
The wood of the bookshelf was hard, likely soaked in tung oil. It would be impossible to create such deep marks without exceptional force.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes. The Land God had clearly been reading dossiers here. ’Could it have been caused by a sudden loss of emotional control?’
With this in mind, he began to flip through the dossiers, his expression growing more and more peculiar.
A dozen or so dossiers recorded the Forbidden Guards who had died in the Disaster Mitigation Forbidden Area.
The pages were quite new, indicating they had been bound by the Forbidden Soldier Hall not long ago.
Ren Qing guessed that because some Forbidden Guards had mastered multiple Magic Techniques, the Disaster Mitigation Forbidden Area had devoured their Mysterious Objects.
That must be why there were thirteen medicinal herbs in the medicine garden, each representing a Mysterious Object.
Through these records, Ren Qing also learned the full story behind the Disaster Mitigation Forbidden Area.
Initially, a Forbidden Guard discovered the area. He sent word back to the Forbidden Soldier Hall but then unexpectedly died inside the Disaster Mitigation Forbidden Area himself.
The Forbidden Soldier Hall then dispatched many Forbidden Guards, but not only did they die inexplicably, their very existence was nearly erased by the Disaster Mitigation Forbidden Area.
In the end, Song Zongwu led a team to seal off the Disaster Mitigation Forbidden Area.
Ren Qing checked the information on the Forbidden Guards several times. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. ’How could the most critical technique, the Sutra of Planting Demons, not be mentioned?’
Unconvinced, he began checking the other bookshelves and soon found something.
In one of the dossiers on missing Forbidden Guards, Ren Qing found a Cultivator named Jiang Ge whose main Magic Technique was the Sutra of Planting Demons.
This person had been missing for three years. It was unclear if his disappearance was related to the Disaster Mitigation Forbidden Area. ’But why would the Land God be looking for this type of information...?’
Ren Qing let out a long breath.
’The Disaster Mitigation Forbidden Area is sealed now, so there’s no point in digging into this any further. As for what’s wrong with the Land God, I should just leave that for Song Zongwu to handle.’
Ren Qing mentally noted the details, then turned and stepped onto the stairs.
There were only four bookshelves on the second floor. It was slightly neater; at least the dust wasn’t thick enough to make one choke.
A map of Xiangxiang hung on the wall. At its center was the most prosperous Sanxiang City, surrounded by scattered villages.
The mountain forests south of Sanxiang City were the territory of the Miao people, marked on the map as the "Nanjiang Tribe."
There were a few other small towns, but they were all located near the south. Conversely, the further north one went, the more desolate and uninhabited the land became.
Unfortunately, the map didn’t show any areas outside of Xiangxiang. The Forbidden Soldier Hall had likely concealed it on purpose.
In addition, the map used blood-red dye to circle the locations of the forbidden areas.
But it would be difficult to actually find these sealed forbidden areas by relying on the map, because the areas covered by the red circles were simply too large.
Ren Qing’s gaze fell on the very top of the map—the Hundred Thousand Mountains—and his eyes widened in shock.
A red circle that took up a quarter of the map surrounded the depths of the mountain range, completely severing the path between the north and south. It was hard to imagine how terrifying such a forbidden area could be.
It very likely involved the Yang God Realm.
What shocked Ren Qing the most was that the forbidden area’s location was perfectly situated to cover the mountain range, flanked on both sides by canyons and the Gobi Desert.
He couldn’t help but have an absurd thought.
’Could it be that a Cultivator at the Yang God Realm voluntarily died deep within the Hundred Thousand Mountains, just to seal off the north?’
Ren Qing recalled something Song Zongwu had said.
"Forbidden areas are only one of the threats."
Goosebumps erupted all over him. He was shaken by the sudden thought, and it took a long while for him to calm his racing mind.
’I’m probably just scaring myself. How could someone at the Yang God Realm die so easily?’
Ren Qing suppressed his stray thoughts and started flipping through the books on the second floor.
They detailed the forbidden areas formed by known Mysterious Objects and included methods for dealing with them.
However, the authenticity of these records was questionable. After all, other Forbidden Guards lacked his Information Flow, making it difficult to understand things clearly through subjective observation alone.
For example, in the forbidden area formed by the Divine Sutra, any Creatures that entered would gradually undergo Beastification.
The method recorded in the book was extremely simple and crude: send a Forbidden Guard who had already fully undergone Beastification into the area to counteract it.
But typically, a forbidden area would surely have devoured other Mysterious Objects as well, which was why sealing it off was the safest approach.
Ren Qing put the book down. ’For now, I should focus on advancing to the Ghost Envoy Realm.’
He walked toward the third floor without hesitation.
The third floor of the Secret Pavilion had even fewer books, only a dozen or so. On a table in the corner sat several Glazed Jars.
Soaking inside were severed limbs, and even a swollen, disembodied head.
One could tell the head had belonged to a man, likely in his forties, but there was no telling why it was being kept in the Secret Pavilion.
Just as Ren Qing was about to get a closer look, the head’s eyes snapped open, and it stared viciously at him.
’Is this some kind of strange Cultivation Technique...?’
Ren Qing gave an awkward smile and said, "Senior, I’m just here to look up some books related to the Ghost Envoy Realm. I really didn’t mean to disturb your rest."
"GURGLE GURGLE."
The head drank all the water in the Glazed Jar and said in a deep voice, "Second bookshelf from the left."
Ren Qing nodded, completely ignoring the head’s strange gaze, and turned his attention to the books themselves.
The head spat out some clear water to refill the Glazed Jar, then closed its eyes and fell back into a deep sleep. Its mouth could still be faintly seen opening and closing.
Ren Qing breathed a sigh of relief.
The head was probably the Forbidden Guard in charge of managing the Secret Pavilion, though he seemed a bit careless.
He picked up the book and began to read, quickly finding the section on advancing to the Ghost Envoy Realm.
The handwriting varied from book to book, a clear sign that they weren’t written by a single person.
Each Forbidden Guard’s perspective differed slightly, but they all mentioned that when advancing from the Half-Corpse Realm to the Ghost Envoy Realm, one might face a Heart Demon Tribulation triggered by their Magic Technique.
This was something he could bypass with his Information Flow.
Ren Qing learned from the rest of the text that the three Deceitful Transformations of the Ghost Envoy Realm were the process of forging one’s Dao foundation.
However, not all Cultivators could complete all three Deceitful Transformations. Countless numbers got stuck at that bottleneck, unable to advance.