54: Chapter 54 Three Tokens

Jiang Yan's gaze followed the mountain range as it moved downward.

This north-south oriented mountain range was not within the Jin Kingdom.

The mountains in the Jin Kingdom ran east-west; from Qing Prefecture west all the way to Ding Prefecture, they were horizontal mountain systems.

Some of the mountains in Northern Yan did run north-south—branches of the Northern Border Snow Mountains—but those ranges tended to run northeast-southwest, not as straight as the one on the map.

He flipped the map over; on the back, a few lines were written in very faint ink.

The handwriting was clearly different from that of the suicide note—it was not written by Li Xuan, nor did it have the ruthless edge of the demonic Cultivator.

The handwriting was neat and cautious, written slowly stroke by stroke, like a scribe transcribing official documents onto paper.

"Deep in the valley of Cangwu Ridge, there is suspected to be an ancient Cultivator Immortal Cave. The entrance Restriction is intact; I did not dare to enter without authorization. There are three tokens, kept by three people. I will report this to my Sect upon returning before making a decision."

Below the handwriting was a blurred stamp.

Only the last two characters of the stamp were barely recognizable.

The rest had been worn away, leaving only faint red traces, impossible to distinguish.

Those last two characters were written in neat seal script.

"——Hidden Valley."

Jiang Yan was silent for a long time.

He laid the broken needle, fragmented jade pendant, map, and blood-stained sleeve on the ground one by one, then took the purple copper token out of his Storage Pouch and placed it in the center.

The items were lined up, each emitting a faint luster in the dim stone chamber—the dark dullness of the broken needle, the warmth of the jade pendant fragments, the withered yellow of the animal skin map, the deep tone of the purple copper token, and the black, hardened blood on the sleeve.

His fingers traced slowly over the animal skin map.

Three tokens, kept by three people. Li Xuan held one—the purple copper token.

The demonic Cultivator held one—the purple jade pendant.

And there was one more, in the hands of that "scribe."

Three Cultivators from different factions.

Li Xuan was a Cultivator from the Li family of Xuri Ridge, under the Taixuan Sect, as evidenced by his white jade identity tag.

The demonic Cultivator's background was unknown, but anyone capable of using a Flying Needle to ambush a Divine Soul with such a vicious Magical Artifact was unlikely to be a Loose Cultivator.

The scribe who wrote the notes was of unknown origin; his handwriting was neat and cautious, and he knew how to transcribe records and stamp seals—these habits resembled those of a Sect administrator, or at least a Cultivator with a master's lineage.

They had discovered an ancient Cultivator Immortal Cave deep within Cangwu Ridge.

The entrance Restriction was intact and required all three tokens to be used simultaneously to open it.

Perhaps sensing great danger, the three agreed that each would hold one token and return to their respective Sects to report the matter before making a decision.

Then what happened?

Li Xuan and the demonic Cultivator turned against each other.

Was it a dispute over the spoils? Or did Li Xuan want to swallow all three tokens to open the Immortal Cave alone?

Or perhaps the opposite: did the demonic Cultivator want to kill to seize the tokens? The reason was unknown.

But the two had hunted each other from Cangwu Ridge all the way to the mountain forests of Luzhou in the Jin Kingdom.

The demonic Cultivator's Magical Artifact was vicious; Li Xuan was struck by his flying needles, which were coated in poison.

After being poisoned, seventy or eighty percent of Li Xuan's Meridians were shattered, and his cultivation level plummeted from the Late Stage of Qi Refining.

But Li Xuan won.

The demonic Cultivator must have died. Li Xuan took the second token from the demonic Cultivator's corpse.

So Li Xuan had two tokens—one of his own, and one from the demonic Cultivator.

His own white jade identity tag and Magical Artifacts were stored in his Storage Pouch, but not the token.

The token was the item he clutched in his hand, refusing to let go, before he died.

A man on the verge of death, not reaching for Medicinal Pills or taking Magical Artifacts, but clutching a copper token tightly.

Jiang Yan flipped the purple copper token over; those incomprehensible symbols remained silent in the dim light.

An ancient Cultivator Immortal Cave. A token forged by a Cultivator above the Foundation Establishment stage.

Three tokens, three keys; only by gathering all three could the entrance be opened. Li Xuan had two; he was only one short of being able to enter.

But he was dying. So what did he do? He hid the two tokens separately.

One was placed in the open—clutched in his hand, which Zhou Tai saw at a glance.

The other was hidden in the dark—pressed under the pile of rubble, along with the demonic Cultivator's remains.

Why hide them separately?

Jiang Yan's finger tapped lightly on the animal skin map.

If Zhou Tai had sent Li Xuan's remains back to the Li family of Xuri Ridge, the family would have come to investigate the cause of his death.

They would have found the suicide note, the clues hidden in the text, and found these items under the rubble—the sleeve, the map, the broken needle, and the second token.

They would have pieced together the whole trail from these remnants and sent people to Cangwu Ridge.

But Zhou Tai did not. Zhou Tai only took the Medicinal Pills, Cultivation Techniques, and Magical Artifacts from the Storage Pouch, and pried open the dried corpse's fingers to take one token.

He did not recognize the clues hidden in the suicide note, nor did he rummage through the pile of rubble in the corner.

In his eyes, Li Xuan's legacy was just the Medicinal Pills, Cultivation Techniques, and that purple copper token—a token he could not understand and did not want to understand, so he stuffed it deep into the Storage Pouch and never touched it again.

What about that third token?

It was in the hands of that scribe. That scribe did not participate in the chase; he returned to his own Sect.

If neither Li Xuan nor the demonic Cultivator had sent the news back to their respective factions, then that scribe might be the only person alive who knew the location of the ancient Cultivator Immortal Cave.

He returned to his Sect and reported the situation, but his Sect lacked the other two tokens; the Immortal Cave could not be opened. They might have been waiting.

Waiting for news from the other two, waiting to send people to contact them, waiting for one year, two years, three years.

A few years passed, and there was no news from Li Xuan or the demonic Cultivator. What would the scribe's Sect think?

Was the disappearance of those two related to the Immortal Cave, or to each other?

Would they send people to Cangwu Ridge to re-investigate? Did they search a few times, fail to find the entrance, and eventually give up?

Or—perhaps they hadn't given up.

Jiang Yan folded the animal skin map again and put it into his Storage Pouch along with the broken needle, fragmented jade pendant, blood-stained sleeve, and purple copper token.

He checked the dried corpse a second time to ensure nothing had been missed.

Li Xuan's remains were still leaning against the corner, his withered eye sockets staring at the empty stone chamber, the bones of his broken fingers scattered by his side.

Jiang Yan flicked a strand of spiritual power. A pale cyan flame emerged from his fingertips and landed on the corpse.

The flame spread silently, lighting up a pale, ghostly glow in the dim stone chamber.

The smell of burnt cloth, dried flesh, and bone mixed together; black smoke rose from the flames and was carried away by the airflow through the rock crevices at the entrance of the stone chamber.

The pale cyan flame burned quickly. Within a few breaths, Li Xuan's remains were completely reduced to ashes.

The ashes curled in the residual heat of the flames and then settled flat over every chisel mark in the corner.

Jiang Yan flicked a second strand of spiritual fire—this time, a tongue of flame covering the entire stone chamber.

The large characters of the suicide note on the ground melted into blurred indentations in the flames, and then even the indentations were warped and distorted by the scorching heat.

Torn cloth, residual dregs of Spirit Medicine, footprints on the ground, the traces he had left himself—all turned to nothingness in the flames.

When the fire went out, the stone chamber returned to its initial deathly silence.

The sunlight outside the rock crevices made Jiang Yan squint. It was noon; the sky was bright and white.

Sunlight leaked through the canopy of the pine forest, casting dappled fragments of gold on the leaf-covered ground.

The wind blew, and the withered leaves rustled.

The old pine tree, split in two by lightning, remained motionless in the wind, with carbonized wood shavings falling from the broken end of the withered half.

He stood under the cliff, wrapped his cloak tightly, and went over the clues he had pieced together in his mind once more.

The location of Cangwu Ridge was unknown.

The north-south trend of the mountain range on the map did not match the geography he had seen while passing through the various prefectures of the Jin Kingdom, and it only partially matched the mountain systems of Northern Yan mentioned by Tuoba Lie.

He needed to find more geographical data to compare before he could be certain.

The third token was with the third person.

The third person knew the location of the ancient Cultivator Immortal Cave. He returned to his Sect; which Sect was it?

Li Xuan was under the Taixuan Sect, the demonic Cultivator's background was unknown, and the scribe's origin was also a mystery.

The trail ended here.

But this clue was valuable. Three tokens, and he already had two.

An ancient Cultivator Immortal Cave—these five words, in any corner of the Eastern Profound Immortal Realm, were an Opportunity that would make any Sect scramble to seize it.

Li Xuan had hunted the demonic Cultivator for hundreds of miles for it, dying in a cave in the wilderness of the Jin Kingdom.

The demonic Cultivator had lost his life for it. What about that scribe?

Jiang Yan walked a few steps down the mountain, his boots crunching on the pine needles. He stopped when he reached the edge of the woods.

The most urgent task now was to digest the resources obtained from Yong Prefecture.

That top-grade Flying Sword could be repaired, and the purple pattern gold could be used to refine a Magical Artifact for Divine Sense attacks.

Until these resources were fully utilized, the matter of Cangwu Ridge could be temporarily set aside.

But it was not a full stop. It was an arrow.

Like the arrow carved on the wall of the stone chamber, shallow and narrow, pointing in a certain direction.

Once his strength increased, he would look back at the map and find that north-south mountain range that no one had ever seen.

Jiang Yan pulled his hood up, covering half his face, and his figure disappeared into the depths of the pine forest.