178: Chapter 178 The Spirit Rats Stir, the Altar Changes (1)

The vibration traveled from the first vertebra of the Spirit Mouse toward its tail—the frequency was extremely stable.

Gu He closed his eyes, using his palm to feel the vibration. The interval of the vibration was about forty breaths—completely synchronized with the frequency of the main fluctuation on the Receiving Formation.

The vibration transmitted from inside the Spirit Mouse, passing through its fur, into Gu He's palm, and traveled up along his wrist bone. When the vibration reached it, his wrist bone emitted a faint resonance—something only he could feel.

"It's not a natural predator." Gu He gently pried the Spirit Mouse off his finger—as he did so, the Spirit Mouse's incisors left a tiny scratch on his fingertip.

He cradled the Spirit Mouse in his palm—it was still trembling, and not a single hair on its back had flattened.

"The Spirit Mouse's reaction to a natural predator is to stiffen—to play dead. Its four legs tighten, its tail presses against its body, and its breathing drops until it's almost undetectable. This reaction..." He gently stroked the Spirit Mouse's back along its spine with his finger. Under his fingertip, the Spirit Mouse's spine was still vibrating at a frequency of once every forty breaths. "It has smelled one of its own kind."

Su Qingli walked over from beside the Receiving Formation and crouched next to Gu He. She looked at the Spirit Mouse—its eyeballs were darting rapidly in their sockets, in the same direction as when it usually searched for spirit objects.

But its body language was the exact opposite of when it searched for spirit objects—when searching, it would be excited, body surging forward, all four claws scratching at the ground. Now, it was fear—its hind legs were pressing down into Gu He's palm, and its tail was tucked between its legs.

"The reaction to one of its own kind should be to approach—not to bite."

"When the size of one of its own kind reaches a certain point..." Gu He held the Spirit Mouse up to his eyes. The Spirit Mouse's nose was still pointing straight toward the Dragon Burial Trench—not a single fine hair on its nose tip had shifted direction.

"The Spirit Mouse's sensory System misidentifies it as an earthquake. This type of vibration..." He pressed his palm against the Spirit Mouse's abdomen. The internal organs in its abdominal cavity were resonating with the vibration frequency—stomach, intestines, liver; every organ was slightly shifting position at a frequency of once every forty breaths.

"It's not a large Spirit Mouse. It's one of its own kind that is so large the Spirit Mouse doesn't even recognize it as its own kind anymore. It's so large that the Spirit Mouse's ancestors carved a new rule into their Bloodline: when encountering this kind of vibration—bite the nearest person's finger to make them run."

He placed the Spirit Mouse back into his sleeve. Even after retreating into the cuff, it was still trembling—the fabric of the cuff was vibrating ever so slightly.

Gu He stood up from the ground—his knees emitted a faint sound of bone misalignment as he broke his crouch. He walked over to the Receiving Formation's Formation Plate, looking at the main fluctuation on the plate that cycled every forty breaths.

Su Qingli increased the sensitivity of the Receiving Formation by half a notch. The waveform on the Formation Plate changed from one and a half circles to nearly two—after increasing the sensitivity, the details of the main fluctuation's waveform were revealed.

The peak of every wave in the main fluctuation was trifurcated—three extremely fine spikes branched out from the same wave peak. The frequencies of the three branches were highly consistent—meaning there were three mutually independent spiritual power cores pulsating simultaneously within the same fluctuation source.

She expanded the sensing range of the Receiving Formation from the second sensing point to all four sensing points. Four sensing lines lit up on the Formation Plate—each line corresponding to a sensing formation piece on the Ring Reef. All four lines received simultaneously—and then she overlapped the waveforms of the four lines.

There was more than one fluctuation source deeper than two thousand zhang within the Dragon Burial Trench.

Besides that main fluctuation with a forty-breath cycle—the four sensing lines captured at least seven or eight smaller fluctuation sources. The waveforms of the smaller fluctuation sources were shorter than the main fluctuation—with frequencies ranging from once every twenty breaths to once every sixty breaths.

The distribution range covered a fan-shaped area of nearly fifty li between the second and fourth sensing points. The eastern end of this fan-shaped area faced the location marked by the red circle on the remnant map—the western end faced the direction of the altar that Leng Feng had discovered three months ago.

The seven or eight small fluctuation sources were arranged in two rows on either side of the main fluctuation—the spacing between the two rows varied from three to eight li.

Su Qingli traced the overlapped waveform map onto a piece of animal hide. She used a formation brush to draw a small circle at the location of each fluctuation source—and a large circle for the main fluctuation.

The large circle and the seven or eight small circles on the animal hide formed a fan shape that spread from the depths of the Dragon Burial Trench toward Blue Moon Island. The tip of the fan—the small fluctuation source closest to Blue Moon Island—was less than one hundred li away from the Ring Reef.

"Three months ago..." Leng Feng's voice came from the doorway of the Formation Affairs Room. He was standing in the doorway—the Blue Moon Grand Commander's seal tied at his waist. He had been standing in the doorway for about half an incense stick of time—he had been watching since the moment Gu He took out the Spirit Mouse.

He walked into the Formation Affairs Room—and went over to the Receiving Formation's Formation Plate. His finger tapped on the location of the small fluctuation source on the Formation Plate that was closest to Blue Moon Island.

"When I saw the altar at the bottom of the Dragon Burial Trench—the altar's cold light was stable. A ghostly blue light seeped out from deep within the rock wall—spreading across the trench floor, its brightness unchanging. The rotation rhythm of the patrolling Haiyuan Clan was fixed—changing once every about half an incense stick of time."

"The cold light..." He moved his finger away from the Formation Plate—to the Jade Slip that bore the tracing of the altar's patterns. The Jade Slip was something he had brought back from his first exploration of the abyss three months ago—it was engraved with the tracings of those patterns on the altar's stone surface.

"Back then, it was a dead light. The light source was suppressed beneath the stone surface—seeping out, not emitting outward. Now..." He looked at the fluctuation on the Receiving Formation that cycled every forty breaths. "The light source has awakened."

He picked up the tracing Jade Slip from the table—and hung it at his waist. After hanging it up, he opened the seabed topographic map on the chart table—the map marked the safe passage he had descended through three months ago.

The passage extended from the Outer Port of Blue Moon Island toward the east-southeast—first passing through the Outer Port's cold water layer, crossing the black fish school activity zone, passing by the Cold Dragon Abyss Mouth, traversing the living layer of the bloodthirsty Bone Fish school, and reaching the Dragon Burial Trench mouth at two thousand zhang.

"The black fish schools have already dispersed..." Leng Feng used his finger to draw a horizontal line across the area marked for black fish schools on the topographic map. The horizontal line crossed out the entire area.

"After the giant beast re-entered deep slumber, the black fish have no reason to float up from the bottom layer again. The Bone Fish schools are still there—at one thousand eight hundred zhang, with numbers nearly half again as many as three months ago." He moved his finger downward—to the one thousand eight hundred zhang mark line. "There is still Bone-Repelling Paste—what was left from last time is enough for another trip."