199: Chapter 199 You Don't Understand If You Don't Transform into a Dragon

Regarding where the Ancient Heavenly Court actually was, Li Xiuyuan had asked others more than once before.

Fairy Caiyun, Qing'er, and even the remnants and lingering souls he had slain with his blade—the answers were surprisingly consistent: in the sky.

But where exactly? No one could say for sure.

Some said it was above the Nine Heavens, some said it was deep within the galaxy, and others claimed that the Ancient Heavenly Court was not in this Universe at all, but rather in another timeline.

Li Xiuyuan had discussed it in detail with Qing'er. Before the Juedi Tiantong (Severing of Heaven and Earth), those deities only needed a slight glance to perceive all phenomena in the Mortal world. They traveled between heaven and earth as easily as a Mortal stepping over a threshold.

But where exactly that door opened remained an unsolvable mystery.

...

While on the way to the location of the next artifact, Gu Xiao received a call from the bureau. Those madmen in research were very dissatisfied with his actions, and one person, using an extremely rigid and commanding tone, forced Gu Xiao to send those two artifacts back to the Jiantian Bureau.

If he did not send them back, then Gu Xiao would be severely punished.

As it happened, Gu Xiao had a personality that responded better to soft persuasion than hard pressure. If the other party had spoken nicely, Gu Xiao might have felt a bit conflicted, but since they spoke like that, Gu Xiao simply cut off the communication.

The people on the other end, having no other choice, went to find the director of the Jiantian Bureau.

"Old Gu, what do you need that thing for? You'd better bring it back."

Gu Xiao scratched his head, his tone frank: "Leader, those two artifacts are for Li Xiuyuan to use. He needs to set up the Dragon Gate Formation along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers and is missing the Formation eyes. Those two items will come in handy."

"Li Xiuyuan needs them?" "That's right."

After a brief silence, Gu Xiao could hear a very faint sigh from the other end of the phone: "Since he needs to use them... then let him. I can't do anything about this matter either."

Gu Xiao raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised by this change in attitude, but upon reflection, it made sense.

Ever since Li Xiuyuan resolved the two major incidents on the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the leadership above had given him the green light. As long as Li Xiuyuan did not do anything to harm the Xia Kingdom and its people, he would almost never be stopped from doing whatever he wanted on this land.

Looking across the entire Xia Kingdom, Li Xiuyuan was the only one who could enjoy such a special exception.

"However... you just said he wants to set up the Dragon Gate Formation on the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. With two waterways, wouldn't that be eighteen Dragon Gates in total? Why is he only looking for nine artifacts?"

Gu Xiao was stunned for a moment, then turned his head to look at Li Xiuyuan: "That's right, didn't you say there were nine Dragon Gates for each waterway? That adds up to eighteen, so why are you only looking for nine items?"

"The Dragon Gate Formations of the two waterways can be interconnected, so we can use fewer," Li Xiuyuan said.

"If you do not turn into a Dragon, you will not understand."

"..." This sentence, 'If you do not turn into a Dragon, you will not understand,' immediately silenced both the director and Gu Xiao on the other end. That was true; they did not turn into Dragons, so they really did not understand.

The other end was quiet for a few more moments, then the director's voice sounded again: "Old Gu, in that case, I will give you a coordinate. There is also an artifact there with a deity attached, but the location is quite remote. We have sent two batches of people there before, but none could get close. That area is near a crustal rift zone; the environment is harsh, and the Spiritual Qi is chaotic. Ordinary Cultivators cannot last long there."

He paused, then continued: "The remnant soul of the deity attached to that artifact is not too strong, but the artifact itself is of a high grade and should meet your requirements."

Gu Xiao was stunned for a moment, then smiled: "Leader, your change in attitude is quite fast."

"During this period, for these damn things, quite a few colleagues have already sacrificed their lives." "That group of researchers has support from above, so I cannot forcefully stop them. However, the people under my command were sent out because I signed the papers. They are all our family, and I am not willing to let these people die for the sake of some research."

As he spoke to the end, the director's tone became increasingly dejected. Although the employees in the Jiantian Bureau did not have low Cultivation Realms and could calmly deal with Rising Beings, the entities residing within those artifacts were all deities of the Ancient Heavenly Court. The methods used by those deities were things everyone had never seen before. Even with many countermeasures, one or two people would be lost if there was the slightest carelessness.

The director had long wanted to offload these troublesome matters, but those researchers were all specially dispatched, and the director himself had no way to deal with them.

Gu Xiao did not tease him anymore; he put away his smile: "Send the coordinates over."

The moment the coordinates were transmitted to the communicator, Gu Xiao looked down at it, then raised his head to look forward: "We have to change course; we are heading southwest."

After hearing this, Li Xiuyuan adjusted his flight direction. His silvery-white Dragon body traced a smooth arc in the night sky as he swept toward the outline of the continuous mountain range.

...

The further southwest they went, the denser the vegetation on the ground became, and the mountain terrain gradually became steeper. Those mountains were not round and gentle like hills; instead, they were sharp-edged, like a stone Formation chiseled by a giant axe.

Li Xiuyuan was not flying low, but his Spiritual Sense could still perceive the ravines and crevices below covered by vegetation, some of which were bottomless, like wounds torn open in the earth.

After the recovery of Spiritual Qi, the surface area of the Blue Planet had expanded significantly from its original size. The mountain forests that once had human footprints had now become deeper and even more difficult to reach.

After flying for about half an hour, the mountain terrain ahead suddenly narrowed, and a crustal rift zone stretching for several miles lay across the valley.

The rock walls on both sides of the rift were jagged and steep, and a layer of grayish-white mist permeated the depths of the fissure, shimmering with an unnatural glow under the moonlight.

In the center of that crustal rift zone, a huge Formation was in operation. The outline of the Formation was vaguely visible; it was formed by dozens of stone pillars covered in runes, surrounding an irregular circle, with pale cyan light arcs connecting each stone pillar.

In the center, tiny specks of Spiritual Qi light were constantly drifting upward, only to be pressed back to the ground by the barrier at the edge of the Formation. Above and around the Formation, more than a dozen pitch-black drones were flying back and forth in regular trajectories, and occasionally one or two mechas swept past from the higher clouds.

Judging from the flight paths of the drones and mechas, they seemed to be searching for something.

"The seventh-generation Falcon mecha, using the most Advanced Spiritual Qi propulsion device. I remember it hasn't even been mass-produced, yet they've brought even this thing out." Gu Xiao looked at a red humanoid mecha, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Li Xiuyuan glanced at it. The flight speed of that mecha was already fast enough; calculated in human speed units, it was probably at Mach 35, equivalent to being able to fly 10,000 meters in one second. Many demon birds in the sky, even with a Five-Realm cultivation, did not have such fast flight speeds.

His guess was correct. In this era of Spiritual Qi recovery, humans could not return to simplicity and pursue those ancient Cultivation Techniques; they would inevitably combine Spiritual Qi with technology.

Humanity never lacked incredible Geniuses, and of course, they never lacked madmen either. In a few more years, it was even possible for someone to hand-craft a cave-heaven world using their own power.

...

The drones discovered Li Xiuyuan and Gu Xiao, so a Falcon mecha in the sky traced an arc and came before Gu Xiao and Li Xiuyuan.

The mecha mask opened automatically, revealing a very young face. Seeing who it was, Gu Xiao immediately raised an eyebrow: "Yo, Little Wang? Why is it you?"

"Uncle Gu, long time no see." Little Wang greeted with a smile, then looked at Li Xiuyuan and saluted solemnly. "Why did you two come here at this time?"

Gu Xiao said: "The leader ordered us to come and help." Previously in the South China Sea, when Gu Xiao said he was going to help, he felt a bit guilty, but this time was different; this time the leader had truly ordered it.

"We just happened to encounter some tricky problems; you two coming at this time is definitely a timely rain."

Without too much polite small talk, Little Wang led Li Xiuyuan and Gu Xiao through a few old trees as thick as a person could embrace, and along a path covered with fallen leaves, they circled to the back of the mountain col.

There, several grayish-green tents were scattered on relatively flat ground. Antennas and signal receivers poked their heads out from between the tents. A simple cordon was pulled around the perimeter of the tents, and several young team members in uniform were debugging equipment. Seeing Little Wang bringing people near, they stopped what they were doing and cast curious glances.

Little Wang lifted the curtain of the largest tent in the middle and stepped aside: "Captain Ye, Uncle Gu and the others are here."

Inside the tent, Ye Xiaoqing was standing before a virtual map, his brows locked in a frown, holding an electronic pen in his hand. The map was covered with red and blue intersecting markers and arrows, looking as if he was repeatedly deducing a certain action plan.

Little Wang's voice interrupted his deduction. Ye Xiaoqing raised his head abruptly, clearly displeased at having his train of thought interrupted, but his gaze crossed over Little Wang and landed on the two figures behind him.

The words that had reached his lips seemed to be blocked by something; his Adam's apple moved up and down, and he swallowed them back. The dissatisfaction in his eyes also disappeared rapidly, replaced by surprise.

"Old Gu? Lord Dragon Lord?" His voice carried an unexpected surprise, and he put down the electronic pen in his hand: "Why did you run here?"

"Sent by the leader, who said there was trouble here. I didn't expect you to be here too." Gu Xiao nodded, his eyes landing on that virtual map. Between the contour lines of the map, there were dense markings of Spiritual Qi turning points and flow trajectories. He looked for a while, then reached out and pointed to a position where a Spiritual Qi trajectory suddenly twisted: "Why are you marking these turning points? Normal Spiritual Qi flow would not bend like this."

Ye Xiaoqing looked along his fingertip: "I also thought it was a normal change in the earth's veins at first, but later I discovered that those turning points would shift position every so often, as if something underneath was pulling the Spiritual Qi to change course."

He put down the electronic pen and circled several turning points on the virtual map: "When we first found that artifact with the Ancient Heavenly Court deity attached, everything was normal. The artifact was in a rock crevice at the bottom of the crustal rift zone, the Spiritual Qi fluctuations were stable, and there were no obvious signs of danger. I sent three team members down to confirm the location, and after they went down, they replied that everything was smooth, so we started the salvage."

Ye Xiaoqing said to this point, his tone sinking: "Then, just at the moment they touched that artifact, the sound in the communication suddenly became intermittent, as if something was interfering with the signal. Before I could ask about the situation clearly, the communication returned to normal."

"Their communicators could still connect, and they could still receive my voice. They said they were still in the mountains and had not left, the surrounding scenery was the same as before, but we could not see them." "Correspondingly, they could not see us either."

Obviously, those few team members were trapped in another space. Ye Xiaoqing immediately realized something was wrong, and the matter exceeded his scope of resolution, so he immediately requested support from the bureau.

The Jiantian Bureau immediately arranged a mecha squad and a drone Formation to help, and Ye Xiaoqing immediately set up a restraint Formation on the spot to trap all living beings on the entire mountain.

After Ye Xiaoqing finished speaking, the tent was quiet for a moment. Gu Xiao crossed his arms, his gaze turning on that virtual map twice, then he turned very decisively to Li Xiuyuan: "I don't understand this aspect; you should do it."

Li Xiuyuan looked at the map, calculating in his heart. Those missing team members were definitely still in the mountains at this moment, but they had been sent into another space. This situation was a bit like the so-called 'Ghost Wall' (a phenomenon where one walks in circles). However, this was a more Advanced 'Ghost Wall'.

And to break this 'Ghost Wall', one needed to find the thing that set it up. Thinking of this, Li Xiuyuan looked at the restraint Formation again and immediately saw the problem.

"Who set up this restraint Formation?" Li Xiuyuan asked.

Ye Xiaoqing said: "It was set up by Elder Cheng."

"Is it that Elder Cheng from Longhu Mountain?" Gu Xiao was stunned upon hearing this.

"That's correct. Since one of the missing team members is his grandson, he came over himself. He should be resting at the moment." Ye Xiaoqing nodded.

Judging from their conversation, that Elder Cheng should have a high seniority.

Li Xiuyuan did not care about these social conventions or seniority, and without fear of offending anyone, he said: "The Formation he set up is wrong. This restraint Formation has not completely isolated everything in the mountain."

Hearing this, Ye Xiaoqing was somewhat surprised: "You mean, Elder Cheng did something to it? That couldn't be, right?"

"I did not say he did something to it; I only said his Formation has a problem. You find him and let him solve the problem in the Formation first," Li Xiuyuan said.

Ye Xiaoqing looked troubled, hesitated for a moment, then said: "Okay, I will go now."

Having said that, he gave Gu Xiao a wink. After Ye Xiaoqing left, Gu Xiao leaned over to Li Xiuyuan and said: "Li Xiuyuan, since it wasn't Elder Cheng who tampered with it, when he comes later, please be a little more restrained in your speech."

"Mm." Li Xiuyuan nodded.

With Li Xiuyuan's promise, Gu Xiao secretly breathed a sigh of relief. The reason for this was entirely because that Elder Cheng had a very foul temper and was not easy to get along with. For an official institution like the Jiantian Bureau, when dealing with Longhu Mountain, no one wanted to face that Elder Cheng.

Before long, Ye Xiaoqing brought over an old man wearing a Daoist robe. The old man was about seventy or eighty years old, but when he walked, his steps were brisk, and his body was extremely sturdy.

"Elder Cheng, this is Lord Dragon Lord, and that is Gu Xiao. You should have met them," Ye Xiaoqing introduced.

Elder Cheng bowed his hands to Li Xiuyuan neither humbly nor arrogantly: "Greetings, Lord Dragon Lord."

Seeing that Elder Cheng was actually so polite, Ye Xiaoqing also felt relieved, estimating that if they chatted properly, there shouldn't be any mishaps.

Li Xiuyuan nodded lightly, then said straightforwardly: "The restraint Formation you set up has a problem."

As soon as these words were spoken, the expressions of the three people present simultaneously stiffened.