Chapter 880: Blue Soul Stage
About an hour after Max and the general had left, a figure emerged from a narrow crack in the cave wall.
It was a young monk dressed in a simple cassock, his round face flushed and his belly protruding slightly with every hurried breath he took. His eyes darted nervously around the now-quiet valley, and a long sigh of relief escaped his lips as he wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead.
"That was far too close," he muttered under his breath, his voice carrying the lingering tremor of fear. "If I hadn’t suppressed my energy using that secret technique, I would have been discovered by that man."
He paused, his brows furrowing as he recalled the scene he had just witnessed. "But who was that person? To be able to subdue the spirit of the Yin Cave so effortlessly... that kind of power isn’t something an ordinary cultivator could ever wield."
A trace of regret flashed in his eyes as he glanced back at the Yin Cave that was now calm and lifeless. "What a pity... I had hoped to harvest some of the Yin energy here for my cultivation, but it seems I’ll have to find another place just as rich in Yin essence. Staying here any longer would be courting death."
Shaking his head, the big-bellied monk tightened his cassock and leaped away from the valley, moving with surprising agility for someone of his size. His figure soon disappeared into the gray, gloomy sky of the secret domain.
A few moments later, another figure stepped out from behind a large rock about a thousand feet away. It was Max, his face showing clear puzzlement as he watched the monk vanish into the distance.
The general had long since departed, leaving Max alone to investigate something he had sensed earlier. When the general refined the Yin Cave and its spirit, Max had caught a faint trace of an energy that didn’t belong there—a pure, righteous Buddhist aura hidden deep within the Yin energy.
This had intrigued him enough to stay behind and look deeper into it, and his suspicion had proven correct. The fat monk he had just seen was clearly a member of the Bright Buddha Palace, one of the renowned Buddhist sects known for cultivating pure, masculine Buddha power—the exact opposite of Yin energy.
"Why would a member of the Bright Buddha Palace need Yin energy?" Max murmured to himself, frowning deeply. The contradiction gnawed at him, but no matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t find an answer.
All he could do was commit the image of the fat-headed, big-eared monk to memory. If fate allowed, he would investigate this matter later.
For now, he shook his head, letting out a small sigh. There was no point dwelling on what he couldn’t solve at the moment. With that thought, Max turned and moved on, leaving Hidden Sound Valley behind. Half an hour later, he arrived at a jagged group of peaks, their edges sharp like blades cutting into the heavens.
After a quick survey of the area, he located a secluded cave and stepped inside.