Cultivation Nerd-Chapter 328 - Things Not Written

In the end, no matter how much we explored, the inheritance turned out to be about a man who sought to fuse two systems of talent: the bloodlines of monstrous beasts and the spirit roots of humans. Beasts had spiritual roots too, but they also had bloodlines that aided cultivation on top of that. Though those same bloodlines were like chains in later stages.

The hologram explained how beasts had such strong stomachs for alchemy pills that they suffered no drawbacks from overconsumption. He went on about creating the perfect organism, declaring that humans and beasts had no reason to fight.

That last part I agreed on.

It was an interesting path of research, but one that required countless human test subjects, and even then, success was uncertain.

That was what I disliked about whoever created this place, not just the ethics, but also how little thought he had put into the long-term stuff. Still, I could learn even from people I didn’t necessarily like or respect that much.

Either way, I wasn’t interested in pursuing it for now.

Interestingly, the projection was replayable. If another person entered after Jiang Yeming, as I had, the same message would play. Clearly, the creator had expected that those who reached this place might die or something.

Afterward, Jiang Yeming and I floated around, exploring the edges of the miniature world. It was vast, the size of a small country, though most of it was barren and uninhabitable. Whoever built it clearly never intended it to last.

“So, any idea how we’re getting out of here?” I asked Jiang Yeming with a smile.

She took out a silver sword, about an arm and a half in length, and handed it to me.

“You just point it forward and turn it. It acts like a key. To enter, plunge it into the mirror and do the same,” she explained.

Her expression suggested she expected me to ask a thousand questions about how she knew this.

But I asked nothing and simply did as she said.

I twisted the sword in the air. A low hum filled the world as a black hole, shaped like a door, opened before us. It shimmered with an eerie beauty.

I didn’t hesitate. Stepping into the darkness, my ears popped, and the next moment we stood once more in the dusty room with the mirror.

Now… how would I move this mirror away from here?

But the thought vanished quickly as there were bigger problems, such as how the hell we’d escape this place with no exit or ventilation.

“Any way you think we could get out of here?” I asked Jiang Yeming, who seemed unsettled, almost skittish after I’d ignored her unspoken invitation for questions about the silver sword.

“Any suggestions?” I added before her mind could wander further.

She opened her mouth to say something, but then looked around. Seeing no exit, she grit her teeth.

“Shit,” she cursed.

Huh. She couldn’t sense any spatial exits either.

I had a teleportation technique that could get me out of here, but when Song Song and I tested it, anything I tried to bring along was crushed by the spatial twists. It wasn’t built to carry passengers.

“Well, I have a rough idea of what to do next,” I told her.

I pointed my silver sword forward and twisted it.

Again, a swirling dark hole opened in front of us.

Just as I suspected, this was another pocket dimension. Which meant the mirror was a dimension within a dimension.

Could the mirror hold even when stored in a storage ring? Storage rings themselves were pocket dimensions…

But storage rings were several levels weaker than this. There was a reason putting one storage ring inside another was considered suicidal.

I pulled a coffin-shaped box from my storage ring, slid the large mirror inside, strapped it to my back like an oversized pack, and stepped toward the hole.

We walked into the black swirl, Jiang Yeming keeping one hand on my shoulder just in case.

The next instant, weightlessness hit. We were midair, falling into the ravine!

Damn. Fuck the guy who designed this so-called inheritance! He hadn’t even bothered to make it look real. This was no inheritance, just his lab, left behind so someone else could continue his research if he failed.

I quickly wrapped Jiang Yeming and myself in a jade barrier, guiding us safely down, as the morning light shined down on us until we were surrounded in darkness again as we reached the bottom.

Once the barrier dissolved into specks of light, Song Song, Tingfeng, and Ye An turned toward us.

It looked like they had been passing the time watching Song San perform a live dissection of hybrid beasts, assisted by the masked elder.

Song San noticed my return and smiled, abandoning his experiment.

“These things are more amazing than I thought,” he said with excitement. “Even their corpses hold so much to learn from. I’m tempted to try creating a hybrid myself. I could probably make one.”

“Human experimentation is forbidden in the sect. Do it, and you’ll be branded a demonic cultivator,” I reminded him.

Of course, rules only applied within reason. A Nascent Soul cultivator or someone with strong allies could get away with it behind closed doors. But Song San lacked both strength and influence. Quite the opposite, in fact, one slip could easily get him killed.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The only reason he was still alive was his claim that poison sacs were hidden around the sect, ready to explode if he died.

Even so, if he stepped out of line, we could simply seal him, evacuate the disciples, and then kill Song San to see what happened.

"Yes," he agreed. "But with you by my side as my best friend, we can achieve great things."

I raised a questioning brow at that.

"I mean, look at the level of friendship we have," he pressed, working his tricks. "Even though you were gone for quite a while, I didn't even ask where you were. That's the kind of trust built on deep relationships."

"Stop with the games. Since when was I on your side?" I said.

He was messing around, even now. If not for his mask, I'd bet money there was a nasty smirk on his face.

Song San was usually indifferent, unable to keep up his friendly act all the time. But when it suited him, he wore the mask well.

"Perhaps. But imagine what we could uncover if we worked together," he insisted.

I got the feeling he'd try something reckless whether I agreed or not. Perhaps his sister was right about him.

"Are you done?" I asked calmly.

Song San glanced around, realizing his words weren't being heard. He had overplayed his hand. No matter how relaxed he appeared or how much he jested, he was still in a very dangerous situation.

His gaze settled on Jiang Yeming. Unlike the others, who simply dismissed his words, she radiated open hostility the moment he hinted at human test subjects.

This girl… far too reckless. She needed to learn to hide her malice better. If I wasn't her teacher and indirectly her protector, Song San would've snapped her neck just for daring to glare at him that way.

I placed a hand on Jiang Yeming's shoulder, a silent reminder to cool off.

"We should return now that we've gotten what we came for," I told them.

Song San would probably sneak back here on his own, and hopefully figure out how to access that separate space where we'd already taken the inheritance… Getting in was not difficult, but he was going to have a hard time getting out.

"Well, this turned out to be a really boring expedition," Song Song sighed, glancing at her brother from the corner of her eye.

There was only one thing that could cure her boredom. Her brother tensed immediately when he noticed her gaze. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

"Not right now, you're not," Ye An stepped in front of Song Song.

Though she clearly held no affection for Song San, she didn't want him removed just yet. He served as a shield, something in his sister's way, until Ye An was strong enough to ensure that a battle against Song Song would end in a decisive victory.

Song San regarded them both through the hollow eyeholes of his porcelain mask, his green eyes glinting with a cold light.

By now, he must have realized it was only a matter of time before Ye An came for his head as well.

Then his gaze flicked to me, searching for any hint of hostility. I just shrugged.

He sighed at being caught staring and stored the dissected hybrid corpses in his ring. A handful of survivors he sedated with poison and bound in writhing Qi chains.

Tingfeng yawned, utterly uninterested in the tense dynamic between these three powerhouses. Jiang Yeming, however, narrowed her eyes, casting a glance at me as she subtly stepped behind me.

Did she think a fight was about to break out?

It seemed she didn’t know Song Song and Ye An very well in this timeline. Those two were always on the edge of clashing. I remembered she had been in Ye An’s group when they first came to the sect, and her very first impression of them was seeing them fight.

I clapped my hands, breaking the growing tension and pulling everyone’s focus.

“We should be getting back to business and start returning to the sect,” I reminded them.

Song Song smiled sweetly, almost like the girl next door. But her gaze lingered on her brother.

“With no one around, now would be the best time to eliminate some pests,” she said lightly.

Ye An stepped forward, and the world shifted with her.

A biting cold burst outward, seeping into the marrow of my bones. Frost spiderwebbed across the stone walls in an instant, coating the ravine in a glittering sheet of ice. The air grew so sharp it burned to breathe, each inhale stabbing like glass needles.

The ground crackled as a thin layer of frost spread from beneath her feet, rippling outward until the entire ravine shimmered under a pale, frozen glow. Even the drifting mist froze mid-sway, suspended in crystalline shards before shattering softly onto the frost below.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Ye An’s voice was low, but carried like thunder.

I sighed and raised a barrier around myself, Jiang Yeming, and Tingfeng as the latter eagerly moved closer. But despite the danger, his eyes lit with expectation, like he couldn’t wait to see them fight.

What did he think this was? Prime entertainment? If those two decided to fight we would be caught in the aftermath.

“I heard you perfectly,” Song Song replied, her smile widening. “But what gave you the illusion that I cared?”

Her bloody crimson Qi erupted outward, thick and suffocating. The air filled with a metallic tang that clung to the back of the throat. It spread like a living miasma, writhing tendrils of red light coiling around her body, dripping like liquid blood before seeping into the frozen ground.

Where Ye An’s frost froze the ravine in shimmering ice, Song Song’s aura corrupted it, staining the pristine white in shades of red. The ground quivered under the pressure, cracks bleeding with faint crimson light as though the earth itself were leaking.

The collision of frost and blood filled the air with violent tension, like domains clashing.

Ah shit, they might actually fight for real.

I clapped my hands together, sending a pulse of Qi that made the air shudder. Instantly, a barrier snapped into place around the two girls. From it, translucent green chains as thick as ancient trees erupted outward, writhing like serpents. They coiled tightly around Song Song and Ye An, their phantom weight pressing the stone beneath their feet until it cracked.

For a heartbeat, we all held still. The chains hissed, thrumming with suppressive force, feeding on the array’s intent to bind.

Then the two of them shifted.

They didn’t break the chains, not yet. Instead, they calmly sealed their Qi, or at least the part of it they’d been leaking as intimidation.

The crushing pressure filling the ravine dissipated, the air growing lighter, easier to breathe. The chains tightened in the absence of resistance, but I knew the truth. If they chose to unleash their strength, no array at my current level could hold them.

The bindings weren’t to stop them. They were a reminder that we shouldn’t fight here.

“How about we just go home?” I asked.

Song Song snorted, Ye An sighed, but when I released the restraints, both girls kept quiet.

I conjured a square barrier around us, rose into the air, and blasted off toward the Blazing Sun Sect.

Ironically, among the three Core Formation cultivators here, the only one not causing trouble was Song San. He merely stared at the live hybrids I had sealed inside my barrier, clearly eager to return to his lab.

…

The ride to the sect was thankfully without incident.

Once back, I escorted my students to their homes, then went to greet Fu Yating and reassure her that I was fine.

Afterward, I returned to the library and went beneath it, to the basement. There, I placed the mirror in the corner while keeping the silver sword at my side at all times.

I set up a stasis array and drew out the time-worn books I had collected, beginning the arduous task of reading and deciphering them.

It wasn’t easy work; most were eroded by time, but the thought of what I might uncover kept my spirits burning bright.