Chapter 193: Joint Administration From Nine Offices (I)

Chapter 193: Joint Administration From Nine Offices (I)

“Do you want me to bring them here?” asked a brawny man in a muffled voice. “Or have Huang Yun go?

Huang Yun was extremely fast and skilled at moving through the earth.

“That’s alright!” Hao Lianchuan shook his head. “Now is not a good time to leave—everyone’s keeping an eye on everyone else. Be careful of being assassinated if you move by yourself.”

There wasn’t much danger to Yuan Shuo as one, it would cause a great disturbance if one of the powerhouses left and two, everyone still hoped that the professor could be involved in the expedition. Thus, they wouldn’t raise a hand against him in the short term.

Hao Lianchuan breathed out heavily and changed to a solemn topic. “Has anyone caught sight of Sun Yifei?”

“No, but someone in Rift Canyon saw him by the bridge a few days ago...”

True worry appeared in Hao Lianchuan’s face. Would Sun Yifei attack Yuan Shuo before the excavation began? If that was the case, all sides would erupt in war before anyone entered the ruins. The Night Watchers would never let Yuan Shuo die like this.

What a hassle!

“These people were the instigators of bedlam in the history of Silver Moon’s martial world,” someone sighed explosively. “People died everyday then. Now that Sun Yifei is back and Yuan Shuo is coming... the chaos of the martial world won’t be returning too, will it?”

The assembly immediately fell silent. Some still recalled the events of decades ago!

......

Silver City.

Li Hao and the others hopped into a car—it was Liu Long driving. There was quite a distance between Silver City and Rift Canyon. He wasn’t at ease letting Li Hao or Wang Ming drive.

There were four humans and a dog in the car. Panther had beelined for the car and jumped straight in. Neither Li Hao nor Yuan Shuo minded. If Panther didn’t go where the two of them went, that would make it a stray dog. They would come back together if possible. If not, all three could go down together in the ruins.

The passenger seat.

Liu Yan was in charge of relaying intelligence. Some came from the Night Watchers, some from Silver City’s own efforts.

......

“Rift Canyon is approximately one thousand kilometers away. It’s very wide at another one thousand kilometers across. Widely regarded as a calamity for birds, it extends three hundred meters into the earth at its deepest and several dozen meters at its shallowest.

“Rock cliffs form both sides and some ruins can be found in its depths. Based on ancient records, it might have been a city in times long past. The entire city was buried in the canyon after the ground caved in.

“On this expedition are the Silver Moon branches of the three great organizations, two mid-sized organizations, and fourteen small organizations. This does not rule out the participation of independent supernaturals!” Liu Yan looked back at Li Hao. While Wang Ming and Yuan Shuo most likely understood the situation, Li Hao did not. “Based on our information, supernatural organizations with Solars are considered mid-sized. Those with only Sunflares are small organizations. On this excavation, the mid-sized organizations can possibly match the three great organizations. The three greats have not stationed their main force in the province, whereas the mid-sized organization may be sending out most of theirs!”

Li Hao nodded as he knew she was talking to him.

“Of the two mid-sized organizations, one is called Light Island and the other is Sword Sect,” Liu Yan continued.

Li Hao nodded again and his teacher suddenly interjected, “The leader of Sword Sect should be the Earthturner Sword of the Seven Swords—Hong Yitang.”

“Yes!” Yuan Shuo responded calmly. “A city buried beneath the ground, but it retains its original appearance due to the presence of an ultimate treasure. That treasure envelops the city and is what the Night Watchers want!”

A city buried underground, yet preserved in full because a treasure had halted the immense destruction resulting from landslides.

“One treasure can protect an entire city?” Liu Long’s eyes widened. Could it still safeguard the city after all these years and changes wrought by time?

“It can.” Yuan Shuo nodded. “A treasure like that does indeed exist! That’s why the entire supernatural domain of Silver Moon has gone into a frenzy. Even though the Night Watchers and three great organizations do not get along and are at each other’s throats in the central region, they are willing to explore together for this purpose.

“Profit propels the heart. How many other treasures must reside in a pristine ancient city? Ancient tomes, origin weapons, ancient technology, martial dao and supernatural knowledge of the ancient era... Perhaps all of that awaits discovery. There might also be other rarities that are mightier than we can imagine!”

The professor murmured to himself when he recalled a certain memory. “I excavated a ruin once, not a big one, but guess what I found?”

No one had an idea; they listened raptly.

“A tree!” Yuan Shuo revealed. “A tree that had been buried for countless eons. It’d withered away, leaving only its trunk behind. No one paid attention to it at first, but when someone accidentally knocked a hole into the trunk, everyone felt a powerful force—vitality!”

The professor was both nostalgic and yearned for the tree of his memories. “We saw a drop of water, a different kind of water, buried in the center of the trunk. It evaporated as soon as the trunk was opened, but the power it exuded caused some of the ancient trees around it to spontaneously bud and grow branches. They instantly turned into towering trees. When we were swept by the power, all of us felt that we’d become ten years younger!” Yuan Shuo shook his head with wonder.

“It has much to do with that drop of water that I can maintain prime condition at seventy years of age. If it wasn’t for my injuries, I might’ve even set foot into Dominator. This is a rarity, a gem left by the ancient civilization!”

Emotions swelled in the car! A drop of water sealed for tens of millions of years had reverse-aged people and elicited new growth from old trees when it evaporated. What kind of treasure was this??

It was unimaginable!

Seventy years old was indeed the beginning of decline for martial masters. But Yuan Shuo still had his sights set on Dominator when he was seventy. It was a pity that he was injured, or he might’ve succeeded a long time ago.

“Elder Yuan, are there treasures like that in this city?” Liu Long rumbled.

“I don’t know, but it’s possible,” Yuan Shuo responded. “This ancient city has yet to be excavated because we’ve been unable to enter it. To be more exact, we made it to its outskirts. Just the outskirts alone killed a lot of our people.

“The outskirts? What’s the source of danger there?” Liu Long continued to ask. Yuan Shuo was one of the few who knew these things; others who also knew might not be as forthcoming.

“I’m not entirely sure what it is.” The professor hummed uncertainly to himself. “Sparks exploded when we entered the area and burned a lot of people to death!

“That was only the beginning. Countless blades shot out of the darkness not long after that and killed many people. Finally, when there was only me and the Sunflare left, we heard footsteps...”

Footsteps??

Living people?!

The others jerked with shock. There were people alive in the city? How was that possible?? How many years had it been since the city stood in the ancient times?

No one was sure; it was impossible to determine. The era recorded in the ancient records was completely cut off from present day. It was now the time of the Star Calendar. There couldn’t be anyone alive in a city like this, even if it’d been perfectly preserved!

They would’ve long decomposed to nothing!