Chapter 00115: A Disappointing Ruin
# A Disappointing Ruin
Chapter 115
Novel: After the Myth
Chapter 115: A Disappointing Ruin
Cang Beichun was about to rush into the stone gate when he suddenly saw a figure in front of him.
He instinctively took several steps back.
"Old man, you're quite fast," Ding Huan said with a smile, looking at Cang Beichun.
"You..."
Cang Beichun looked as if he had seen a ghost, completely unable to believe his eyes.
Ding Huan snorted coldly, "What about me? I kindly spared your life so you could lead the way, but you deceived me first and then tried to avoid me. Because of your false information, I almost fell off a cliff."
"Friend, this is truly a misunderstanding. I was afraid you might attack, so I acted out of caution. I, Cang Beichun, swear..."
Ding Huan interrupted him, "No need for swearing. Just tell me, is this where you cultivate?"
Cang Beichun's forehead was drenched in cold sweat.
He kept wondering how Ding Huan could have appeared so accurately in front of him.
He was certain he had been extremely careful along the way, making sure no one could follow him.
How could he have been intercepted like this?
This guy had said outside that he would search each branching cave one by one.
At that pace, it would take at least a day or two to find this place.
Even at the fastest, it would take a full day.
Since they hadn't prepared much when they entered, Cang Beichun thought Ding Huan would need to go out again to gather supplies like mining lamps and food before coming back in.
"This..."
Cang Beichun hesitated.
He knew that reaching the peak of the Xiantian realm wasn't the ultimate goal.
To break through Xiantian, this was the only place.
In his heart, this place was the true ruin of the Dao cultivators in the Kunlun Mountains.
As for going further in, he had been there before.
The deepest part only had a few spirit stones, and nothing else.
This place, however, had a cultivation spot rich in spiritual energy.
Though small, he felt there were many secrets hidden here.
It was just that his cultivation and knowledge were too limited to understand them fully.
If he gave this place to someone else, how could he progress in the future?
"Pfft!" A flash of blood light exploded, and Cang Beichun felt a chill on his shoulder.
He then realized in horror that one of his arms had been severed by Ding Huan.
"Friend, I'll talk. This is indeed where I secluded myself to cultivate."
Cang Beichun suddenly realized that his life was in the hands of this man.
What reason did he have to keep silent?
"How did you enter this stone cave just now?" Ding Huan asked indifferently.
Cang Beichun quickly replied, "This stone cave opens for a few hours every day. I planned to block it after entering so you wouldn't know where I went. I admit I was selfish. I'm willing..."
"Pfft!" Another flash of blood light exploded at Cang Beichun's neck.
Cang Beichun saw his own back.
His last thought was that his head had been chopped off.
Why? He hadn't even finished speaking yet.
Ding Huan reached out, and before Cang Beichun's body could fall, he grabbed a small pouch hanging from Cang Beichun's waist.
With a flick of his hand, a flame landed on Cang Beichun's body, reducing it to ashes in moments.
By this time, Qi Xin Yue and Lao Liu had hurried over.
"Big brother..."
Qi Xin Yue looked at the stone cave behind Ding Huan and the faint smell of burning, guessing what had happened.
Ding Huan walked to the spot where Cang Beichun had planted the small flag.
He noticed that this groove was different from the others.
It seemed to have dense patterns carved into it.
This reminded him of the divine patterns on the Immortal Spider.
Could they be the same thing?
He took out the small flag from Cang Beichun's pouch.
The flag was made of an unknown material, warm and smooth to the touch.
It was about twelve centimeters long, with a brown flag surface roughly five square centimeters in size.
Only when holding it did he notice that both the flagpole and the surface were covered in dense patterns.
When he tried to probe it with his divine sense, Ding Huan was shocked to find that his divine sense couldn't penetrate it.
This was definitely no ordinary treasure.
Besides the flag, the pouch also contained some spirit stones and a few handwritten notes on breathing techniques.
Judging by the paper, they were likely copied by Cang Beichun himself.
"Let's go. We're entering this place," Ding Huan said, holding the flag and leading the way into the side cave.
Earlier, his divine sense had only scanned halfway before being blocked by something, which made him even more curious.
Inside the cave, Ding Huan saw another groove filled with patterns.
He inserted the small flag into it, and sure enough, the stone cave slowly returned to its original position.
Ding Huan's divine sense swept out, but it was immediately blocked by the stone wall, unable to penetrate further.
Just like before, his divine sense couldn't enter from the outside.
It was indeed as he thought.
Ding Huan was glad he had intercepted Cang Beichun in time.
If there were enough supplies inside, Cang Beichun could have stayed hidden for years, and Ding Huan would have been powerless.
"Chirp chirp..."
Lao Liu started making noises after looking around for a while.
Ding Huan took out a small bag, put some paper and a pen inside, and tossed it to Lao Liu.
"This is yours from now on."
Lao Liu excitedly grabbed the bag, took out the paper and pen, and quickly wrote, "This is a concealment array. The flag in your hand is the array flag used to open the gate."
So it was an array.
Ding Huan nodded.
He had suspected as much earlier.
Unfortunately, he knew nothing about arrays.
"Cang Beichun secluded himself here for a long time. This place should be safe," Ding Huan said, calling Qi Xin Yue to follow him deeper into the cave.
After walking about a dozen meters, they came across another stone gate.
Although he could see the gate clearly now, his divine sense had been unable to penetrate it earlier.
Beside the gate was another groove.
Ding Huan inserted the array flag into it, and with a creak, the gate opened without any issues.
The scene inside left Ding Huan momentarily stunned.
Was it really this simple?
He had imagined that since Cang Beichun had secluded himself here for so long, the place would be a vast and complex palace-like structure.
But what he saw was a space no larger than thirty square meters.
It wasn't just the size; everything inside was visible at a glance.
Four night pearls emitting a faint, misty light were embedded in the four corners of the cave.
There was a stone bed, a stone chair, and a green stone meditation cushion.
Apart from that, there was an altar table.
On the wall next to the stone bed, there was a smooth area with some cultivation techniques carved into it.
Ding Huan glanced at them and found them unremarkable—just the same techniques he had obtained from Cang Beichun earlier.
He had no interest in them.
Other than that, no matter how he looked, this place didn't seem like the ruin of a Dao cultivator.
Ding Huan began to regret killing Cang Beichun so quickly.
At least he should have let the man enter first to see if there were any other mechanisms inside.
The only notable thing was the dense spiritual energy in the air.
Ding Huan's divine sense swept through the cave repeatedly, and he soon realized that the spiritual energy was emanating from underground.
His divine sense couldn't penetrate the ground, suggesting that there was some kind of array carved beneath.
"This seems like just an ordinary hermit's cave," Qi Xin Yue couldn't help but comment.
She also didn't sense anything special about the place.
Ding Huan's divine sense continued to search the cave, unwilling to believe that the ancient Dao cultivator ruin he had been anticipating was just such an ordinary stone cave.
After nearly thirty minutes of searching, Ding Huan's divine sense suddenly stopped at a spot near the cave entrance.
By now, Ding Huan had figured out the pattern: wherever there was an array, his divine sense couldn't penetrate.
As he scanned the stone wall, it seemed no different from any other cave wall.
But near the entrance, there was a spot his divine sense couldn't penetrate.
Ding Huan reached out and touched the spot.
It was a small protrusion, no different from the surrounding stone.
The wall had clearly been manually chiseled, with many such uneven protrusions.
Ding Huan pried the small stone loose, and it fell into his hand.
Rubbing it, the stone quickly became smooth.
It was about two square centimeters in size, shaped like a star.
Even in his hand, Ding Huan's divine sense couldn't penetrate the star-shaped stone.
He pocketed it and said, "There's probably nothing else here. I never expected it to be such an ordinary stone cave."
Lao Liu chirped and pointed at the ground.
Ding Huan immediately sent a dozen wind blades slashing into the ground.
Soon, a faint white light seeped out.
"There's actually a three-meter-long spirit vein here," Ding Huan said in surprise.
He had noticed the spiritual energy seeping from the ground earlier and assumed there were spirit stones buried beneath.
To be honest, with a stash of Zhan Shen crystals on him, Ding Huan no longer craved spirit stones as much as before.
But when he dug it up, it wasn't spirit stones—it was a spirit vein.
Ding Huan had never seen a spirit vein before.
But he figured that since it contained spiritual energy and formed a continuous whole, it must be a spirit vein.
Ding Huan continued to slash with his wind blades, and soon he pulled out a spirit vein nearly three meters long.
"Chirp chirp..."
Lao Liu was extremely excited about the spirit vein, chirping and hopping around it.
"Let's go. There's nothing else worth investigating here," Ding Huan said, somewhat disappointed.
Originally, he had hoped to find some spirit stones in the Dao cultivator ruins of the Kunlun Mountains.
Now, he just wanted to find some Dao cultivation techniques or divine abilities.
In the end, he didn't get any spirit stones or divine techniques.
Instead, he ended up with a three-meter-long spirit vein.
(End of Chapter)