98: Chapter 98 Bottom of the Pool

Jiang Yan turned sideways and squeezed through the gap between the giant rock and the cave wall.

The gap was extremely narrow, and both of his shoulders brushed against the rock—the cold obsidian wall on the left, and the rough surface of the giant rock on the right. Water moss rubbed against his robe, leaving several streaks of dark green slime.

After squeezing out of the gap, the interior of the cave suddenly opened up.

It was about four or five zhang square, with the highest point of the ceiling at about two zhang, allowing a person to stand fully upright inside.

The cave walls were covered with a layer of dark green glowing moss, whose light was dim and faint, but sufficient for illumination.

Refracted by the ripples of the water, the light cast moving patches of brightness onto the cave walls, making the entire cavern resemble a crystal palace submerged on the ocean floor.

In the center of the cave was a flat black stone platform.

The surface of the stone platform was as smooth as a mirror, forming a sharp contrast with the rough cave walls around it—a trace left by the snake's body coiling and rubbing against it for a long time, polishing it.

Indistinct circular indentations could be seen on the stone platform, ring after ring. The thickest ring of indentations was about three feet wide, perfectly matching the thickest part of the Black Water Mysterious Snake's torso.

The stone surface at the edge of the indentations had been worn shiny, shimmering with a faint, dark glow under the illumination of the moss.

More Yao Beast skeletons were scattered around the stone platform.

A few of the skeletons still retained extremely faint fluctuations of Spiritual Qi—a complete Wind Wolf skeleton lay on the left side of the stone platform, its wolf skull facing downward, limbs curled up, resembling remains that had been swallowed whole after being strangled by the snake and then spat out.

On the other side were some scales and a spine from an Iron-Tailed Lizard; the iron-gray luster on the scales had not yet completely faded, and traces of dried bone marrow could be faintly seen at the broken end of the spine.

These Yao Beasts were at least First Rank Mid-to-Late Stage when alive, but in front of the Black Water Mysterious Snake, they were nothing more than ordinary prey.

His gaze fell upon a depression in a corner of the stone platform.

Embedded there was an Ore the size of a fist, entirely dark blue.

The surface of the Ore swirled with natural water-ripple patterns, which emitted a soft blue light in the dim cave.

It was not a dead blue, but a living one—the blue light breathed, brightening and dimming with the faint fluctuations of the water current, like a blue heart buried in the stone that was still slowly beating.

He probed the interior of the Ore with his Divine Sense; the crystal structure was dense and uniform, and the water-attributed Spiritual Qi was so abundant it was almost overflowing.

It was a water-attributed spiritual Ore, with a quality between First Rank High Grade and top-grade. Water-attributed Materials of this quality were hard to come by on the market, especially those with naturally formed water-ripple patterns; it was an excellent material for refining water-attributed defensive Magical Artifacts or auxiliary Magical Artifacts.

He pried the Ore out of the stone crevice.

The bottom of the Ore was stuck tightly to the crevice, so he used his Flying Sword to carefully cut around the gap before he could extract the Ore intact.

It felt cold and damp in his hand; although there was clearly no water on the surface, it felt as slick as if it had just been fished out of the water.

He put the Ore into his Storage Pouch and searched around the cave once more.

On a relatively flat wall in the deepest part of the cave, he discovered a man-made groove.

The groove was not large, about a foot deep, with a rectangular opening. The chisel marks on the edges had weathered until they were blurred, but it was still possible to see that they were traces left by the cutting of a Magical Artifact—the cuts were smooth and straight, not the jagged cross-sections of a natural crack.

The opening was covered by a crude Restriction. The patterns of the Restriction were simple and rough, the Spiritual Qi nodes were loosely arranged, and it used only two or three circuits; the technique was as amateurish as a sketch drawn by a beginner.

But a Restriction of this level could not even stop a Cultivator at the Early Stage of Qi Refining; it seemed more like it was used to isolate aura rather than to defend against external enemies.

He flicked a strand of Spiritual Qi to unlock the Restriction. When the Restriction shattered, it made an extremely faint crisp sound, and the weak spiritual light produced by the collapse of the nodes flashed and vanished in the water.

Inside the groove was a stone box. The stone material was the most common obsidian found at Black Wind Cliff, roughly polished, and the lid still bore the tool marks from when it was carved.

Between the lid and the box body was embedded a Spirit-Sealing Restriction that had already failed. The remaining Restriction patterns were much more refined than the one at the cave entrance—not because the technique was more skilled, but because it was a completely different level.

The pattern's flow was rigorous and orderly, every turn was just right, and the arrangement of the Spiritual Qi nodes followed a certain pattern that even Jiang Yan could not fathom.

It was at least a technique of the Second Rank or higher, and it might even have been carved by a Cultivator at the Second Rank Late Stage.

The stone box opened, and inside lay a layer of long-dried, blackened spiritual liquid residue.

The surface of the residue had cracked into irregular pieces that crumbled into powder at the slightest touch. In the center of the residue lay a snake egg quietly.

The snake egg was the size of a fist and entirely dark blue. The eggshell was as smooth as porcelain; it did not have the rough texture of an eggshell, but rather the warm and delicate feel of the surface of carefully fired porcelain.

Its surface naturally featured water-ripple-like hidden patterns, and the flow of these patterns was almost identical to the lines on the water-attributed spiritual Ore—they shared the same origin, both nourished for centuries by the water-attributed Spiritual Qi of this cold pool.

He placed his palm over the eggshell. Through the shell wall, an extremely faint life fluctuation could be vaguely felt.

It was not a heartbeat, nor breathing, but a slower, more primitive pulsation—like a creature sleeping in the deep sea that only breathes once every long while, with every pulsation separated by a long silence.

He carefully probed the eggshell with his Divine Sense and could feel a mass of unformed Yao Beast soul slowly wriggling in the egg fluid.

The soul was still in the most primitive state of Chaos, without consciousness or perception, only a thin layer of life instinct wrapping around that fragile Divine Soul.

The egg of a Black Water Mysterious Snake.

The mother snake had coiled around the cold pool for centuries, sealing the snake egg in the stone box and nourishing it with spiritual liquid, just waiting for the day it would hatch.

That Second Rank Spirit-Sealing Restriction on the stone box was probably also placed there for it a long time ago by some Cultivator who had passed by this place.

Regardless, the mother snake was dead, and this snake egg had become an ownerless object.

He put the snake egg together with the stone box into his Storage Pouch and searched the cave once more—he probed every crack in the cave walls and turned over the silt under the stone platform, confirming that no valuable spiritual objects had been left behind.

Afterward, he surfaced from the water and took off on his Flying Sword.

The cold pool gradually shrank into a speck of dark green between the mountains behind him.

Sunlight leaked down from between the clouds, shining on the distant Black Stone Mountains, and the ridgeline shimmered with a gray, hazy reflection in the midday sun.

Jiang Yan flew toward Black Stone City without looking back.