98: Chapter 98 Whispers of the Ringwraiths

Once this thought took root, it was like a wildly growing vine, instantly entangling Lin Chen's entire mind.

He no longer hesitated and immediately stood up, selecting a few fist-sized pieces of the highest quality Void Gazer stones from the pile of seized Materials in the corner.

The desk in the study was cleared, and a white jade bowl filled with clear water was placed in the center.

Lin Chen took a deep breath, and with spiritual power flowing through his fingertips, he carefully ground a Void Gazer stone into a fine, silver-gray powder, sprinkling it evenly into the clear water.

"Sizzle—"

After a faint sound, as if hot oil had been poured into water, the entire bowl of water began to shimmer with a faint silver halo.

Wisps of spatial energy, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, began to swim slowly in the bowl like fish in water.

Not enough.

Lin Chen's eyes narrowed, and he crushed another Void Gazer stone and added it in.

The silver light in the bowl became richer, and the surrounding air seemed to thicken because of it.

He did not stop, adding the third, the fourth... until all the high-quality Void Gazer stones were exhausted. The bowl of water had completely transformed into a viscous, silver liquid emanating intense spatial fluctuations, resembling a bowl of melted galaxy.

Having done all this, Lin Chen slowly removed the rough stone ring from his thumb, feeling the weak connection between it and his Divine Soul, and then gently immersed it into the silver liquid.

The moment the stone ring entered the water, it did not stir up any ripples.

But the next moment, the entire bowl of silver liquid seemed to be imbued with life, forming a tiny, silent vortex centered on the stone ring.

Streams of pure spatial energy were crazily extracted and guided by the stone ring, as if it were swallowing a whale, and injected into it.

The rough stone surface of the stone ring began to become warm and translucent again, and a glimmer of light ignited within it, then rapidly expanded.

"Hum—"

A message, no longer blurry and hoarse as before, was imprinted directly and clearly into Lin Chen's mind.

[High-concentration homologous energy detected, Ring Spirit core module activated.]

[Information unlocked: At the bottom of the Zangtian Abyss lies the 'Void Crystal Essence'. This item can completely repair the spatial trauma in the host's right arm and serve as the core driver to activate the 'Spatial Folding' function.]

Zangtian Abyss! Void Crystal Essence!

Lin Chen's pupils contracted sharply, and his heart skipped a beat.

This connected perfectly with the previous, intermittent prompts!

However, just as he was preparing to investigate further, the luster on the surface of the stone ring rapidly dimmed.

The silver liquid in the bowl also seemed to have been drained of all its essence, turning back into a bowl of murky, dead water mixed with gray stone powder.

Energy... still not enough.

Lin Chen put the stone ring back on his finger, and its cold touch calmed his chaotic thoughts.

He knew that the trip to the Central Continent was imperative.

He stood up, walked to the door of the study, and said calmly to the shadows: "Please ask Miss Liu to come over."

A moment later, Liu Ruxu appeared silently in the study.

She had changed back into her capable combat attire, and her expression had returned to its usual composure, as if the terror of last night had never happened.

"Clan Chief." She bowed, but her gaze swept subtly over the bowl of discarded stone powder water on the table, and she already had some guesses in her heart.

Lin Chen did not waste words and pushed a blank recording Jade Slip in front of her.

"Record it."

He said this and immersed the stone ring into another bowl of spiritual liquid prepared on the side; this time, he injected his own spiritual power as a primer.

On the surface of the stone ring, those few lines of ancient characters slowly emerged again, though the light was much weaker than before.

Liu Ruxu did not dare to delay and immediately activated the Jade Slip, completely copying the text.

But just as she was about to put away the Jade Slip, her peripheral vision caught a strange detail.

The text copied onto the Jade Slip would undergo an extremely slight distortion every three breaths, squirming like a living thing before returning to its original state.

This distortion was extremely subtle; if it weren't for someone like her who specialized in intelligence and was extremely sensitive to every detail, she would never have noticed it.

Her heart sank to the bottom instantly.

The highest-level secret code of the Central Continent royal Family!

She had only seen descriptions of this anti-counterfeiting feature in the most confidential files of the Wantong Trading Firm.

Ordinary copying or tracing would only result in a mass of blurred garbled characters; only the royal Family's specially made "Star Disk" could decipher it.

What exactly was the origin of this ring?

Lin Chen did not seem to notice her anomaly, or rather, his attention at this moment was completely drawn to another matter.

Zhu Waner moved with light steps and entered the study again.

She was slightly taken aback when she saw Liu Ruxu present, but she still carefully spread out a tattered ancient beast-skin Talisman on another empty desk in front of Lin Chen.

"Clan Chief," her voice carried a trace of imperceptible nervousness, "My father said this is a special communication Talisman made by an old friend of his who works at the 'Tiangong Workshop' in the Central Continent. This Talisman comes in a pair; as long as the sub-Talisman here is activated, the other party will be able to sense it, but... the conditions for activation are somewhat harsh."

Her fingertips pointed to a blurry section of the rune on the Incomplete Manual.

The structure of that rune was complex, far beyond what the Southern Region's Talisman system could compare to.

"Activation requires using one's own essence blood as a primer, supplemented by spiritual power of at least the Golden Core Stage, and tracing it in one go according to the stroke order here, without the slightest pause or fluctuation in spiritual power midway."

Her voice stopped abruptly, and she bit her lower lip.

Because Lin Chen, who knows when, had already extended his left hand, which was still wrapped in thick bandages, his index finger joined, his fingertip lingering with faint spiritual light, and was tracing the complex rune stroke by stroke, slowly and firmly.

From the edge of the bandages, a glaring crimson color was slowly seeping out, dripping onto the yellowed beast-skin paper, blooming into a small, shocking flower of blood.

"Clan Chief, your hand!" Zhu Waner exclaimed.

"It is fine."

Lin Chen's voice was calm and waveless, but the fine beads of sweat seeping from his forehead exposed the pain he was enduring at this moment.

Just then, a deep shout came from outside the door.

"Stop! Do you not want your life anymore!"

Master Chiyang stepped into the room, and his large, fan-like hand pressed down on Lin Chen's wrist.

Upon contact, a bone-chilling coldness made his expression change.

"Your injury..." Without another word, he channeled a stream of pure earth-attribute True Essence along Lin Chen's wrist, carefully probing into his Meridians.

In just an instant, Master Chiyang's expression changed drastically, becoming even paler than Lin Chen's.

"You... how could spatial turbulence have mixed into your Purple Mansion?!"

He pulled his hand back violently, as if he had been stung by a scorpion.

On his thick palm, a layer of silver-white ice crystals had condensed in an instant, with wisps of cold air constantly emerging.

Master Chiyang looked at his frosted palm, then at Lin Chen with shock and fear, his voice even carrying a trace of trembling: "Foolish! You are truly foolish! With this kind of alien energy entrenched in your body, you still dare to attempt the Golden Core? Once you try to condense the Golden Core, these rampaging Impurities will instantly freeze your Golden Core along with your Divine Soul into powder! It will take your life!"

The atmosphere in the study instantly dropped to freezing point.

Liu Ruxu stood on the side, watching this scene, her eyes shifting uncertainly.

She quietly stepped back half a step and walked to the large sand table in the corner of the study.

On that sand table was the rough map from the Southern Region to the Central Continent that had just been drawn.

She took a deep breath, took out seven small black flags from her sleeve, and inserted them precisely on the sand table, extending from the border of the Southern Region to the hinterland of the Central Continent, forming a tortuous route.

"This is information cracked from the star chart disk of that flying ship's wreckage." Her voice broke the silence, drawing everyone's attention, "The flying ships of the Shadow Moon Pavilion have a fixed secret supply point every thousand miles or so. Although rudimentary, it is enough for us to avoid the eyes and ears of the major Sects."

With a wave of her hand, she moved the white jade chess piece representing the Lin Family on the sand table from the position of Qingxuan City and placed it at the starting point of that black route.

"My suggestion is to disguise ourselves as a caravan heading to the Central Continent and use this route. But to make this disguise seamless, we need real goods—a batch of goods interesting enough to catch the attention of those arrogant fellows in the Central Continent."

As soon as she finished speaking, Lin Chen had already used his spiritual power to shake off the frost on his hand and sat back in the main seat calmly.

The Central Continent, he must go.

But not as a weakling seeking medical treatment, but in an equal, or even more powerful, stance.

The night deepened, and only Lin Chen remained in the study.

He rubbed the stone ring on his thumb and sank a wisp of his Divine Sense into it.

"To advance the 'Basic Spatial Folding Technique', what is the price?"

The cold, mechanical voice of the Ring Spirit sounded again.

[Insufficient energy, cannot exchange.]

"I can use Materials as collateral." Lin Chen's voice carried no emotion.

[…Detecting host authority…Authority passed…Collateral advance is possible.]

[To advance the 'Basic Spatial Folding Technique' (incomplete version), you need to pledge three catties of 'Star Meteor Iron', or equivalent Advanced Materials.]

Lin Chen's heart sank suddenly.

Star Meteor Iron, that was the top-tier Material he had found among the seized supplies, which was intended to be used to repair the core of the mountain-protecting formation!

There was only about five catties in total.

On one side was the safety of the Family, and on the other was his only hope to break the deadlock.

He was silent for a long time, as if experiencing a battle between heaven and man.

Finally, he slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were full of determination.

"Deal."

Almost the moment he made the decision, on the distant sickbed, Lin Haoyu, who had been in a coma, suddenly opened his eyes!

His gaze was sharp as a sword, without the slightest confusion of having just woken up, and he grabbed the half-broken pitch-black banner pole by the pillow.

It was cold to the touch, and he subconsciously rubbed the sword marks on it.

Just then, the Sword Qi within his body resonated with the Sword Intent remaining on the banner pole.

On the smooth pole, lines of Sword Qi markings, thinner than hair, slowly emerged as if they had come to life, eventually combining into a small, yet incredibly precise star chart.

At the end of the star chart, next to a specially marked vortex-shaped abyss, three ancient characters were carved—Zangtian Abyss.

In the study late at night, after completing the transaction, Lin Chen felt dizzy, as if a part of his Divine Soul had been extracted.

He leaned on the table, just wanting to catch his breath, when Qin Ruowei's cold voice came from the door.

"Husband, Manager Han is here."

Before the words had faded, Manager Han of the Wantong Trading Firm had already walked in with a stooped posture, his face wearing the humble smile peculiar to a merchant, but deep in his eyes, he hid a trace of imperceptible shrewdness and exploration.

Qin Ruowei ignored him, walked straight to Lin Chen, and pushed a heavy rosewood box onto the desk in front of Manager Han, making a soft sound.