Chapter 118: Ghost Essence
In a Great Evil Stone Chamber, placing a suppressive item with auspicious, compatible properties can indeed quell the chamber's malevolence, turning misfortune into good fortune.
However, if the suppressive item is malevolent and has conflicting properties, the Great Evil Stone Chamber will become a place of even greater evil. In a place like this, an ordinary person would fall gravely ill after just a short time. Staying for half an hour could very well be a death sentence.
And the ancient sword that Yang Yushan and his group took was exactly that—a malevolent suppressive item.
The four from the Nanchuan Yang Family were unaware of the item's properties. Had they known, they surely would have stopped and explored no further. If the tomb was drawing its malevolence from a place of such extreme evil, one could only imagine what lay in the main chamber.
However, now that this secret stone chamber had been breached, its feng shui was shattered. The great serpent Chen Dong had seen only came through the chasm's opening because the chamber had been broken into, which in turn misled the four from the Yang Family. After all, no living thing should be able to exist in a place of such extreme evil.
Chen Dong observed for a moment before following the Yang Family into the chasm's opening. The tomb had thoroughly piqued his interest.
After diving into the underground river, Chen Dong spotted the glow of lamps ahead. He was about to follow the Yang Family's route toward the light but changed his mind when he felt an intensely sinister chill emanating from further downriver. He began swimming toward the cold instead.
As the chill intensified, Chen Dong came upon another opening in the rock above, this one the size and shape of a large water vat. Without hesitation, he swam up through it and surfaced.
A secret chamber, identical to the one before, appeared before Chen Dong's eyes. It had the same water vat and the same altar, upon which sat a thoroughly decayed wooden box.
Chen Dong opened the box. Inside, an ancient sword, identical to the rust-covered Ancient Sword Divine Artifact he'd seen before, lay quietly.
Chen Dong's breath hitched as a terrifying thought surfaced in his mind.
Here in this intensely malevolent chamber, Chen Dong could feel his very life force being stripped away with every passing moment.
He snatched the ancient sword, leaped back into the water vat, and followed the underground river until he found yet another opening emanating an intensely sinister chill.
Chen Dong surfaced through the opening, and once again, an identical secret chamber appeared before him…
Meanwhile, the four members of the Yang Family surfaced from their chasm into a spacious cavern. In the center of the cavern sat a lotus-shaped Everlasting Lamp, casting a faint yellow glow. The flame wasn't bright; instead, it seemed fragile, a mere flicker that looked as though a soft breeze could snuff it out.
Strangely, beneath the lamp, clusters of blue flowers bloomed in abundance, covering the cavern floor in an unbroken sea of color.
None of the four from the Yang Family had ever seen such a flower. Each was the size of a fist with crystalline, translucent petals. They looked like a cross between an orchid and a rose and gave off a faint scent of sandalwood.
Yang Lin described the scene to the old man outside using the Communication Talisman. The old man's voice came back, so overcome with excitement that the talisman itself seemed to vibrate from the force of it.
"It's Ghost Essence! It has to be Ghost Essence! Thousands upon thousands of stalks! Our Yang Family has struck gold! Forget the great clans and powerful houses, forget the Hidden Sects and secret orders—nothing can stop the rise of our Yang Family now!"
The old man's ecstatic voice piqued the group's curiosity. Yang Lin spoke up, "Grandfather, what is Ghost Essence?"
"No questions! Quick, pick one and tell me—does it disappear the moment it's plucked from its stem?"
Hearing this, Yang Lin bent down and plucked one. Sure enough, the hauntingly beautiful flower swayed for a moment, then dissolved into shimmering blue motes of light and vanished completely.
An urgent voice immediately came through the Communication Talisman again. "Stay right where you are. Don't move. I'm on my way." The old man could no longer contain himself; he had to see this with his own eyes.
The four members of the Yang Family waited in place as the old man's explanation came through the Communication Talisman. "Ghost Essence typically only grows in places of great evil. Our ancestors were lucky enough to find a few stalks, but a field of thousands upon thousands is completely unheard of! Ghost Essence can be used to refine anything, and each flower provides one refinement. Take that Communication Talisman in your hand—right now, it only has a five-hundred-meter range. Refine it with Ghost Essence, and its range could extend to thousands, even tens of thousands of meters!"
The four Yang Family members were stunned.
The old man's voice crackled through the Communication Talisman again. "And that's not all. Ghost Essence can also raise an item's quality. For example, by continuously refining a Magical Artifact with it, it's not impossible to turn it into a Divine Artifact! An ancestor of mine once used a single flower to refine a common Red Ginseng into a hundred-year Red Xuan Ginseng!"
The four members of the Yang Family were now speechless with shock. With this much Ghost Essence, wouldn't their family soon possess innumerable Divine Artifacts? In their eyes, the field of blue flowers had become an endless trove of treasure.
Just as the four Yang Family members were lost in their dreams of this staggering fortune, a pair of lantern-sized eyes began to close in on them.
An incessant HISSING sound snapped the four of them out of their daze.
The man in the suit shouted a warning, "Watch out, everyone! Something's coming!"
A murderous glint flashed in the grim-faced man's eyes. He drew his dagger and pointed. "Snakes! Over there!"
The farmer-like man produced a shovel from behind his back. "Looks like there's more than one Tomb Guardian Beast!"
As the HISSING grew louder, an endless swarm of snakes slithered into view.
The four of them were skilled tomb raiders, heirs to a family tradition. They weren't afraid of snakes, but the sheer number of them was a daunting problem.
They already considered the Ghost Essence here to be the private property of the Yang Family, and the thought of damaging the precious flowers while fighting the snakes pained them greatly.