When system cheat becomes rampant!-Chapter 1154 - 766: The Strings of the Zither_2
What a strange place.
"Let’s take a look at something else."
Xiang Beifei continued to dig to the next pile of blood soil, this time unearthing a piece of blue bone, which was crystal clear like a gemstone, looking quite beautiful.
Strangely, this piece of blue bone moved, trembling as if it were alive, though it wasn’t as lively as the severed hand from before and didn’t speak, leaving its race unknown.
"Could this be the Bone Dao Race? There’s a race specialized in cultivating bones, where their bones are the strongest weapons, both offensive and defensive. It’s an ancient and powerful race that’s been extinct for a long time," Li Qianluo said.
Xiang Beifei furrowed his brow and continued to dig, unearthing several strange remnants, all seeming to come from different races.
And they were all races that had been extinct for a long time!
He wasn’t native to the Edge Corner Airspace, so he didn’t know much about these races’ origins. Li Qianluo knew quite a bit, but even she couldn’t recognize some of them.
The more Xiang Beifei dug, the more grave his expression became.
Xiaohei asked, "Could each of these soil piles be burying an entire race?"
"Why did the Dao Palace capture so many races?" Li Qianluo asked in confusion.
"Or rather, how did they imprison so many already extinct races?"
Most races seemed to be bound by the breath soil here, unable to escape, as if some mysterious force kept them forever trapped here, barely alive, unable to die or escape.
Xiang Beifei had seen such a scene before, during his visit to Netherworld Hell Island.
Countless races were captured onto Netherworld Hell Island, their bodies covered with black trees. At that time, the Eternal Night Demon King nourished the black trees with the bodies of those races. Could this be the same situation here?
Could it be that the Dao Palace was really cultivating this kind of black wood to become the orthodox bloodline for the Ju Mang Tribe, replacing Erha’s bloodline?
But it didn’t seem like that was the case, as the soil here was entirely different from that on Netherworld Hell Island, and below it appeared to be a mass of strange, crisscrossing formations extending to the other side.
Xiang Beifei placed his hand on the ground, and spiritual power spread out through his palm. Soon, he sensed each soil pile had an ancient and vast aura connecting to the distance.
"Let’s go this way."
Xiang Beifei gradually grasped the flow of the formations, realizing all the buried blood soil’s auras pointed toward one direction, as if drawing their power to supply something.
He must see for himself.
After passing by dozens of soil piles, the formation’s flow below suddenly split into two paths.
"The paths are split. Which direction should we take?" Xiang Beifei turned to look at Li Qianluo.
"Oh, let me see."
Li Qianluo’s palm emitted a white light, quickly dividing into two beams that disappeared in opposite directions.
After a moment, the two beams returned to her hand, and Li Qianluo shrugged helplessly. "My Divination Dao shows both paths are equally risky—dangerous!"
Xiaohei decided: "Let’s do eeny, meeny, miny, moe! Left!"
Xiang Beifei had no better idea, so he simply headed left. They walked for about a few hundred meters, and then sharp-eyed Xiaohei suddenly exclaimed, "Look! What’s that!"
Ahead was an extremely tall conical hill made of blood soil, and hovering in the middle of this cone was a special ancient qin.
This qin was no more than a meter long, its material indiscernible; it looked like stone, yet like wood, and upon closer inspection, perhaps bronze, impossible to determine definitively.
The most peculiar aspect was that the qin had four strings, unlike typical strings, as they appeared to drift like gas, looking very frail.
The power beneath the blood soil surged unceasingly into the qin, extending out to the sky.
"Ancestral Instrument!" Li Qianluo exclaimed in shock.
"There’s actually an Ancestral Instrument here! I remember Ge Hengzi saying that the Dao Palace uses the litian spear, five-stringed qin, and Huo Qi Mirror to suppress the foundation of the Human Race. Could this be the Five-stringed Qin?" Xiang Beifei said.
Xiaohei counted with a small paw: "One, two, three, four... wait, only four strings, so why is it called the Five-stringed Qin?"
"Could it be that one string is broken?" Li Qianluo speculated.
Xiang Beifei stared at the missing string, furrowing his brow.
Suddenly, he displayed a surprised expression: "How can this be?"
"What’s wrong?" Li Qianluo asked.
"The Five-stringed Qin... the missing string, it seems to be with me?" Xiang Beifei said uncertainly.
"Huh? Are you sure?" Li Qianluo asked, extremely surprised.
Xiang Beifei nodded slightly. It was a vague feeling, a special connection to this qin, deriving from a power within the Spirit Gathering Book.
[Zui Constellation: Divine String]
In the later stage of immortality.
When he unlocked Zui Constellation, he obtained a peculiar string, though he didn’t know what it meant. At the time, Erha muttered that since it was called Divine String, it must be formidable, and slashed it through the air.
But the so-called "Divine String" shattered immediately.
The Divine String wasn’t sharp at all, but it eventually restored itself, yet remained very fragile, and Xiang Beifei couldn’t grasp its power, so he left it in the Spirit Gathering Book.
Only now did he realize that the Divine String seemed to be the missing string from this qin in front of him!
"Where did you get it?" Li Qianluo asked.
"It’s a long story." Xiang Beifei shook his head.
Li Qianluo looked back at the qin and said with sudden understanding, "Then it’s evident. This qin, as an Ancestral Instrument, is incomplete!"
Xiang Beifei nodded slightly: "The blood soil’s formations seem to draw out the races’ power to supply this qin, trying to make it functional?"
Ancestral Instruments aren’t unusable just because they’re incomplete; they can still exert power, Xiang Beifei knew this, seen from the Five Pieces of Stone, which he often used as bricks.
The old Giant Spirit once told him that the boards under Daoist Qingde’s control were vastly different from when Xiang Beifei used them, without having collected all five pieces.
This means that a domain-level expert like the Dao Palace could also wield the qin’s power.
Li Qianluo asked, "Do you want to try attaching your string to it? Uh... a string continuation?"
"No, it’s an Ancestral Instrument. Taking it out might alert the complete litian spear." Xiang Beifei replied.
Earlier, he had been startled when he took out the incomplete Wufeng Sword, alerting the litian spear in the distance. His Divine String was also an Ancestral Instrument fragment, making things riskier here.
"That makes sense." Li Qianluo nodded.
Xiang Beifei originally planned to climb up and examine the qin before deciding, but at that moment, a voice suddenly sounded behind them.
"What are you two doing here?"
This voice was extremely majestic and dominating, imbued with an irresistible force, falling upon their ears.
Xiang Beifei and Li Qianluo were both startled, immediately turning around, warily facing the person before them.
It was a man radiating Holy Light, with a golden halo above his head. Though wingless, his aura inspired surrender.
[Inquiring Dao: Zhang Yuexing]
[Dao embryo: Netherworld Dao]
[Realm: Mid Inquiring Dao]
Zhang Yuexing! 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶
Xiang Beifei’s heart skipped a beat, realizing this was a domain-level elder from the Dao Palace!
