Chapter 246 Treasure Room, Revival Round

When the light surged into her body, it was like a warm spring bubbling up inside her, flowing along her meridians and gathering in her abdomen.

The pain slowly faded. She could clearly feel her internal organs shifting inside her, as if broken pieces were being fitted back together and healed anew.

Lian Mu let out a breath that carried the taste of blood, her whole body loosening in relief.

However, the light did not last long. Once the Spirit Artifact was damaged, it stopped functioning. The little remaining radiance was only enough to keep her alive, the wounds on her skin were still left untreated.

She finally had some strength again. Forcing herself to pull her hands free, she let her body fall. Beneath her was a pool, and she plunged straight into it, blood immediately blooming scarlet through the water around her.

Lian Mu floated in the pool. Under the pool’s warmth, the pain in her body eased. Her external wounds could not heal, but at least what came next would be a little easier to handle.

Lian Mu climbed out of the pool and rested for a while against the bank. Black Flood Dragon flew over to her of its own accord.

That fierce, vicious dragon head suddenly came so close it almost touched her face. Lian Mu could not help shrinking back. As soon as she moved, the dragon head leaned in even further, a pair of eerie green eyes staring unblinkingly at her.

Lian Mu suddenly remembered that she had said before that as long as it killed the Horned Lion Beast, she would return its freedom.

She fell silent for a moment: “…”

She had only blurted that out in the heat of the moment. She had absolutely no idea how to free it from the restraints of the Jiao Pearl.

“Um…” Lian Mu had just opened her mouth to explain when the Spirit Summoning Talisman suspended in the air burned out. The Jiao Pearl flashed, about to draw the dragon back inside.

Black Flood Dragon’s claws dug into the ground. It flung her a vicious look, its gaze full of ferocity. It was obvious it thought she was cheating it.

The Jiao Pearl did not give it a chance to lash out. In an instant, it sucked the dragon inside.

Lian Mu: “…”

Fine, it clearly bore a grudge against her now. Until it cooled off, she absolutely could not let it out again, or the next one to suffer would be her.

Lian Mu suddenly missed Green Bean very much. If it were still here, things would definitely have turned out better.

She had originally thought that after Bai Su took Green Bean away, it would find its way back to her on its own. But so much time had passed with no sign of it. Most likely, it could not return.

Thoughts of Green Bean lingered in her mind for only a moment before she pushed them aside.

She climbed out of the pool, swallowed a few spirit replenishing pills, then immediately sealed her metal-wood Spiritual Root to reduce the drain on her spiritual power.

Once her qi recovered by half, she used her fire spiritual power to steam the water off her clothes and walked over to the two Horned Lion Beasts.

They were thoroughly dead. Their massive bodies had been bitten into four or five mangled pieces and were sprawled in front of the white jade palace, eyes still wide open.

To be honest, Lian Mu had not wanted to kill them at first. After all, they were the guard dogs Xuan Che had raised, and as an outsider, it felt wrong for her to lay hands on them. It was only after the Horned Lion Beasts issued that life-and-death warning at her that she had changed her mind.

Now that they were dead, there was nothing left to explain. She would just confess to Xuan Che when she went back.

Lian Mu examined the Horned Lion Beasts’ corpses, trying to see if there was anything useful on them.

These two Spirit Beasts had no small cultivation. It would be best if she could make full use of them. She had always heard that twin beasts were especially suitable for forging a pair of swords. She did not use dual swords herself, but there was no harm in collecting the materials.

Besides, materials from Spirit Beasts were far superior to those from demonic beasts. Back when the demon race wreaked havoc on the world, one of the reasons was that they used Spirit Beasts for artifact forging. Spirit Beast Spirit Artifacts were stronger than demonic beast Spirit Artifacts and could even crush across an entire realm.

Lian Mu first checked a few of the standard parts, but they had been torn to shreds by Black Flood Dragon and were not very intact.

In the end, she set her sights on the Horned Lion Beasts’ chests. There was a glassy sphere there, currently radiating purple light. That was the Horned Lion Beasts’ crystal core.

Lian Mu thought for a moment and only took their crystal cores, leaving everything else untouched.

After that, she stepped over the Horned Lion Beasts’ corpses and continued forward.

Lian Mu pulled Wealth Bringer out of the ground. The Moonlight sword qi still had not returned.

She had thought earlier that the two beasts had absorbed it, but that was clearly not the case.

Lian Mu swept her gaze over the area in front of the hall and noticed that the Bright Pearls at the main doors seemed to be glowing more brightly.

When she had first come in, everything around her had been a pure white, and only those dozen or so pearls were gray and dull. She had assumed they were some special kind of decoration.

Lian Mu walked up to the Bright Pearls and probed them carefully. As expected, the last thread of sword qi had been absorbed by them. The Bright Pearls were now brimming with a familiar aura and shone so brightly it hurt the eyes.

Since it had already been absorbed, there was nothing she could do except accept her misfortune. She did not have the ability to draw the sword qi back out anyway. From here on out, she could only rely on herself.

Lian Mu went to the palace doors. The gold-inlaid jade gates, several zhang tall, were still tightly shut. Even after the Horned Lion Beasts died, the barrier had not been lifted.

She tried to forcefully break the barrier, but it was useless. An array seal emerged on the jade gate, looking oddly familiar.

Before the Immortal Sect Grand Competition, Xu Xianxing had taken her up to the higher floors of the library pavilion to see the famed swords’ Image Projection. Those upper floors had been sealed with this same kind of barrier. It had required a specific pattern and a registered jade token to unlock.

Things like jade tokens were the equivalent of keys. Xuan Che had never mentioned anything of the sort, so he probably did not have one.

She did not believe someone like him would obediently use a key to open a door. He seemed much more like the kind who would split the door apart with one swing of his sword if he could not get in.

If there was no special key, only the pattern was left.

Lian Mu looked at the array seal on the door. There was an empty space in the middle, and that had to be where the unlocking pattern was supposed to be drawn.

She thought for a while and really could not figure out what kind of pattern Xuan Che would have set. After half a cup of tea, she stretched out her hand and drew a straight snake, so ugly it was painful to look at.

Her drawing skills were atrocious. You could only barely make out what it was meant to be. She herself could tell what she had drawn, but the array might not.

As expected, the pattern she had drawn vanished from the array seal and the barrier stayed firmly shut.

Xuan Che’s most hated long, thin creature did not seem to be the answer.

She pondered for a moment and drew a bird, somewhat resembling the Red Fire Green Phoenix Xuan Che kept. He clearly liked birds. Among all the Spirit Beasts at his command, the only one he kept constantly by his side was the Red Fire Green Phoenix.

Still wrong.

Lian Mu then drew a scorpion. She saw scorpions every day, so this was the best drawing she had managed so far.

Wrong, wrong, wrong…

Lian Mu was getting annoyed. This was obviously a general beast-type barrier. For the unlocking pattern, it should have been enough if the species was correct. It was not like a precision barrier where the pattern had to be an exact match. So why did nothing work?

Xuan Che himself had said that the truly difficult barriers were the passageway barriers. Palace barriers were easy to open.

Could it really be that she drew them so badly that the array could not recognize them?

Suppressing her irritation, a spark of inspiration flashed through her mind. She quickly drew a turtle in the center of the array seal.

The purple-red seal flared to life. The pattern linked up with the surrounding runes and then turned blue.

It unlocked!

Joy stirred in Lian Mu’s chest. She had never expected the unlocking pattern to be a turtle.

It was identical to the unlocking pattern in front of Feng Tianche’s residence. Those two were from the same era. Was the turtle motif really that popular back then?

The thought flashed through her mind and vanished. All of her attention was pulled to the palace doors.

Lian Mu was a little excited, but when she pressed her hands to the doors, she still hesitated to push them open.

She was a bit worried. If there was another guardian beast inside, she would not survive a second encounter.

Before going in, Lian Mu decided to sacrifice Wealth Bringer a little. She slid Wealth Bringer through a crack in the doors to use it as bait. Once she was sure there was nothing inside, she finally dared to push the doors open.

As the doors swung inward, Lian Mu was nearly blinded. The splendor within was beyond words.

Despite a thousand years of neglect, the hall was spotless, filled with brilliance and gold.

Lian Mu had her mind set on getting the Rainbow Spring Stone. With a single glance, she locked onto the iridescent jade set on the throne.

She walked up, used her sword to pry the jade loose, and the instant it fell into her hand, she felt her whole heart grow calm, as if it had been purified.

This had to be the Rainbow Spring Stone that could disperse Demonic Qi.

She stowed the Rainbow Spring Stone in her spatial pouch, then turned to look elsewhere, following a side door into a passage.

Xuan Che had told her that he had a treasure vault, where many precious items were stored, and that she could take from them.

With benefits to be had, Lian Mu would never pass them up. She arrived at the treasure room, pushed the door open, and was greeted by four walls of water.

On the watery walls were countless reflections, each one showing a treasure stored in this room.

Lian Mu was dazzled at once. Starting from the first treasure by the door, she examined them one by one, picking out what she wanted.

The reflections on the water walls showed not only the appearance of each treasure, but also its name and origin.

“Thousand Faces Faceless, third-tier Body Concealing Spiritual Tool. Can alter the user’s appearance and physique, leaving no trace for others to detect.”

Lian Mu skipped it without hesitation. She did not need something like that; she could already change her face with pills.

“Rejuvenating Bone, first-tier demonic beast material. Grind into powder and mix into soil to restore vegetation. Duration: three hundred years.”

“Blood Coagulation Pearl, peak-grade Spirit Artifact. Held in the mouth, it can suppress blood from flowing out of the body. Where blades pass, no blood is seen.”

“Thunder Roar Jade, peak-grade Spirit Artifact. Lightning is formless, jade knows no fear. It gathers lightning into its core and wards thunder from the ears.”

“Phoenix Dance Sword, first-tier Spirit Beast sword. Its sword qi is like a phoenix, dancing across the nine provinces, leveling mountains and cutting off rivers.”

Among all these treasures, Lian Mu only took a fancy to these few. The rest were either useless to her, or clashed with her Spiritual Roots and were not very suitable.

Rejuvenating Bone could be used for farming and might come in handy later. The Blood Coagulation Pearl was just right; she often ended up covered in blood when she fought. With this pearl guarding her, she could take fewer blood-replenishing pills.

As for the Thunder Roar Jade and the Phoenix Dance Sword…

Lian Mu thought it over and, following the principle of not wasting anything she could take, decided to claim them as well.

But when she reached out to retrieve the Phoenix Dance Sword, she felt a powerful resistance, not only from the Phoenix Dance Sword itself, but also from Wealth Bringer.

One refused to come out, the other stopped her from taking it. Stuck between the two, she could not move it at all.

No matter how she tugged, Lian Mu could not pull it free and could only give up on it.

She also guessed the reason why the Phoenix Dance Sword was unwilling to leave with her. She already had Wealth Bringer in her hand and a Sword Contract on her body, so of course no other sword would be fond of her.

What a pity. She had wanted to see what a Spirit Beast sword felt like in the hand…

Just as she was regretting this, the ground suddenly trembled twice, and a familiar roar sounded from outside.

A trace of doubt flashed through Lian Mu’s heart. She glanced out the window and saw light flowing once more by the pool outside the hall, covering the Horned Lion Beast’s corpse.

Under the healing white light, the pile of minced flesh actually began to reassemble, and in the spot where its crystal core had been dug out, a new crystal core began to grow.

Lian Mu: “…”

She had never imagined that the Moon Wheel, apart from healing others, could also repair itself.

Were these two Horned Lion Beasts really about to be resurrected?