"It's fine, just chatting casually. Let's go in too." Lu Li smiled faintly, offering no further explanation as he walked straight inside.
Directly facing the entrance was a main house of three connected rooms, with the central room serving as the living room and the two sides as bedrooms. On the left side of the courtyard stood a guest house of two connected rooms.
The courtyard was paved with flagstones, and the flowerbeds in the corners contained a few scattered plants along with an unknown ancient tree, making it far superior to the living quarters in the Miscellaneous Valley.
After assessing the layout, Lu Li chose the room on the right side of the main house. Liu Xinyu stated that she did not wish to stay too close to Qin Feng, so she selected the room on the left.
Qin Feng said nothing from beginning to end, simply standing in silence as he watched the two move about, his gaze resembling that of a predator eyeing two lambs waiting for slaughter.
Unable to endure that look any longer, Lu Li exchanged a few brief words with Liu Xinyu before heading toward his own quarters.
Unlike the thin wooden partitions of the Miscellaneous Valley, the walls of this room were constructed from solid ancient stones each a chi in thickness, complete with a heavy stone door that offered a genuine sense of security.
This brought Lu Li a measure of relief. Given Qin Feng's current cultivation level, shattering these stone walls would not be an easy task.
Yet Qin Feng remained like a thorn buried deep in his heart. With no immediate means to eliminate the threat, Lu Li was forced to remain constantly on guard against potential treachery.
He pushed against the stone door. Even with his basic physical strength having reached three thousand catties, he still found it somewhat strenuous. Fortunately, a mechanical toggle stood nearby; a gentle press was all it took to slide the heavy barrier shut.
Once the stone door was sealed, Lu Li walked over to the table, sat down, and began taking stock of his gains from the secret realm.
Inside the first-tier herb garden within the pagoda, the sixteen stalks of Emerald Bamboo Grass were growing with exceptional vigor. This sight filled Lu Li with anticipation, reminding him that it was soon time to seek out an opportunity to venture outward and gather the remaining three ingredients for the Piercing Acupoint Pill.
The efficacy of the Piercing Acupoint Pill was nothing short of heaven-defying; a single pill could force open an acupoint, making it without doubt his most reliable path for rapidly advancing his cultivation.
Aside from the Emerald Bamboo Grass, to Lu Li's surprise, the Xuanzhu Grass plucked from Tianjue Peak now bore fifty spiritual patterns. This left him thoroughly perplexed. Barely a year and a half had passed, so how had its age suddenly jumped from thirty years to fifty?
Could it be... that this layer of the herb garden truly possessed the ability to accelerate growth?
At this thought, his breathing hitched slightly. If such a thing were real, would he not be able to mass-cultivate vast quantities of spiritual herbs in the future?
"Eh? That's not right."
Though he had not paid close attention before, a more careful examination revealed that the soil of the herb garden had expanded significantly, stretching to a breadth of over three zhang.
"So this herb garden really can expand."
When he first activated the small tower, he had received fragments of information indicating that the greater the number of spiritual items contained within, the larger the first-tier space would become. Now, reality had confirmed it.
Withdrawing his attention from the herb garden, Lu Li cast his Divine Sense into the second-tier spatial hall. As expected, because the lower-tier herb garden had expanded, the second-tier hall had now stretched to thirty zhang in circumference.
With a flick of his mind, he retrieved an ancient book and a palm-sized cyan pebble from the spatial hall.
These were the ultimate spoils of this secret realm expedition.
Curious, he picked up the cyan stone and inspected it closely. After turning it over several times, however, Lu Li could not help feeling a twinge of disappointment. The stone looked entirely ordinary, no different from a common river pebble.
"Why would that fat deacon place such high value on this thing?"
Lu Li's eyes flickered. "Could it be that because it was placed so conspicuously, he simply mistook it for a rare treasure?"
No.
An item of this nature could not be so mundane.
After turning the matter over in his mind, Lu Li suddenly had a flash of insight. He bit down on his middle finger, forcing out a single droplet of fresh blood that fell directly onto the cyan stone.
The blood was swallowed into the stone instantly.
Immediately afterward, the pebble trembled, and tiny golden characters emerged from its surface, automatically arranging and combining themselves until a complete scripture hovered in mid-air before Lu Li's eyes.
"Great Profound Scripture!"
At the sight of the first three characters, Lu Li's body gave an involuntary tremor of excitement. This was actually the Great Profound Scripture!
In the next instant.
The golden characters twisted and warped, transforming into a stream of light that whistled directly into Lu Li's mind.
Before he had even a moment to examine them, an ancient, frail voice suddenly echoed from within the cyan stone:
"I am Ye Qingyang. Having my body invaded by a fiend and wishing to prevent the monster from wreaking havoc upon the sect, I confined myself within this secret realm. Now reaching my limit, I leave behind one volume of the Great Profound Scripture and one volume of the Great Evolution Forbidden Arts."
"The Great Profound Scripture belongs to the upper sect, the Great Profound Dao Sect. Should any disciple of our sect acquire it, they must surrender it to the sect for proper disposal and never publicize it, lest they court a fatal disaster..."
"The Great Evolution Forbidden Arts records a heaven-defying forbidden inheritance which I chanced upon. All my mastery over arrays and restrictions stems from this. If a predestined person obtains it, they must guard it in strict secrecy. Once made public, this item will render one the enemy of the world, making a peaceful end impossible......!"
Such terrifying implications?
Lu Li stared down at the ancient text on the table, a sudden wave of unease gripping his chest.
Once the ancient voice finished speaking, the stone fell completely silent. Lu Li tentatively called out 'Senior' a few times, but when no response followed, he picked up the cyan pebble once more.
The stone retained its ordinary appearance, but the contents of the Great Profound Scripture now belonged entirely to him.
With a sharp turn of his thoughts, he figured that since the fat deacon desired this cyan stone so badly, he could use it to extort a handsome sum of contribution points.
Putting the stone away, Lu Li picked up the volume titled Great Evolution Forbidden Arts and began to leaf through it.
"This... surely this is an exaggeration?"
Upon reaching the final lines of the general outline, Lu Li's eyes widened in disbelief. The text stated: Those who achieve mastery in the forbidden arts can establish restrictions with a mere wave of the hand; wherever their Divine Sense reaches becomes a forbidden zone. Trapping, destruction, life, subjugation, defense... all rest within a single thought.
In other words, if he stood in one spot and swept his hand outward, any territory covered by his Divine Sense would be instantly transformed into a forbidden domain where life and death were decided at his whim?
If such a claim held true, the Great Evolution Forbidden Arts was terrifying beyond measure. True mighty figures could already shroud millions of miles with their Divine Sense; if combined with these forbidden arts, it would technique a direct defiance of the heavens.
Yet, when he eagerly attempted to turn to the subsequent pages, he discovered that he could only read the first section: Hundred Explanations of Talisman Restrictions.
As for the Hundred Explanations of Array Restrictions and the actual Great Evolution Forbidden Arts mentioned in the outline, the pages adhered to one another as though sealed shut, completely unyielding.
A glance at the very last page of the talisman section finally offered an explanation: Array restriction arts may only be practiced upon successfully reaching the Foundation Establishment stage.
It was not that the pages were glued together; his own cultivation simply fell short.
Lu Li came to a realization. In short, he would have to advance to Foundation Establishment before the second section would reveal itself.
After lingering over the volume for a long time, Lu Li finally put the Great Evolution Forbidden Arts away. The first section on talisman restrictions detailed various methods for crafting talismans and inscribing runes, requiring a mountain of materials he currently lacked the time to gather.
His most pressing objective was securing the materials for the Piercing Acupoint Pill to break through his bottleneck; the path of talismans would have to wait until he had leisure to study it.
By evening, having finished taking stock of the secret realm spoils, Lu Li stretched his limbs and muttered, "Time to go collect from that fat deacon. He still owes me one hundred thousand contribution points."
With that, he triggered the mechanism and stepped outside.
No sooner had he cleared the courtyard than a figure in grey robes emerged right behind him, matching his pace step for step.
Lu Li spun around abruptly, fixing a glare of absolute fury on Qin Feng. "What on earth do you want?!"
Qin Feng looked back at him with an expressionless gaze. "Boy, hand over the Great Evolution Forbidden Arts, and not only will I spare you, but I might even deign to take you as my disciple. How about it?"