Chapter Sixty-Two: The Ancient Tomb

He had seen dead bodies before, but that was back at the Wudang Academy, where people died instantly during duels or while out on missions. However, he had rarely seen someone reduced to nothing but bones, and this sight thoroughly frightened him. Qi Tian hurriedly patted his chest, soothing his battered little heart.

Human beings are naturally curious. Upon arriving in an unfamiliar place, one always wants to check the surrounding environment for any potential dangers. With a flash of thought and aided by the glow emanating from the spirit stone, he carefully observed his surroundings. The wall right beside him was bluish-green and icy cold to the touch. The pitch-black passage ahead was flanked by bluish-green stone slabs, stretching out to a distance where the end was completely invisible. He turned his head to look behind him, only to find two stone doors—two directions, two choices?

Qi Tian recalled a book he had read out of sheer boredom when he was a little child: grave-robbing adventures. The stories in it were all about grave raiding, unearthing ancient antiques, and then handing them over to the state. Did this environment look very much like the ancient tombs described in those books? A flash of inspiration crossed his mind, and he thought: Since there is a subterranean tunnel here, there must surely be others who fell down here and had it even worse than him?

He immediately lowered his head to look at the ground. Two or three pairs of footprints were visible, extending all the way toward that stone door. Could that be the gate of the tomb? Were there coffins inside? Suppressing his curiosity, Qi Tian cautiously walked toward the stone door.

The stone door was about fifteen meters high, with a crack right down the middle. It was designed to be pushed or pulled open, yet there were no handles or pulls to be seen. On both sides of the wall hung murals. The mural on the right depicted a general slaying enemies on the battlefield, while the one on the left showed that same general committing suicide by cutting his own throat with a saber. Qi Tian could not make head or tail of these murals.

He wondered if he should try to open the door in a non-violent way and spend some time searching for a switch. On second thought, however, whenever he tried to be non-violent and gentle back at Mount Wudang, he ended up getting separated from Elder Jingyun. Hardening his heart, he delivered a fierce kick straight at the stone door. The door trembled in fright, sending dust showering down from the masonry above. Qi Tian quickly stepped back, a flicker of surprise flashing in his eyes.

"Bang!"

As if having undergone a fierce internal debate, the stone door finally broke free from the restraints above. A thunderous roar slowly reverberated through the tomb, sending chills down the spine. As the massive stone door slowly fell forward, faint ripples stirred in the surrounding air, like rising clouds of dust that obscured his vision. After a short moment, the dust finally settled.

Only then, by the illumination of the spirit stone, was he barely able to make out the interior of the tomb.

So many coffins!

Qi Tian cast his gaze around, his face a mask of utter astonishment. His body trembled slightly, perhaps out of fear. Countless coffins stood upright, arranged in rows. Qi Tian carefully counted them: ten coffins made up a single row, and there were dozens of such rows. For some inexplicable reason, facing these coffins felt as though he were confronting an entire army. Qi Tian could distinctly feel his own heart trembling in dread.

There were perhaps only a hundred coffins here, or even fewer—not even comparable to the trials he faced when trying to enter the inner sect. Back then, what he faced was the entire body of outer sect disciples yearning to enter the inner sect. Standing in the vast plaza were four or fifty rows of formidable experts who had successfully opened the governor and conception vessels to reach the Xiantian realm. Four to five hundred people—what concept was that? That represented every single martial artist in the entire outer sect. Most of them had nearly reached their eight-year limit, with annual tuition fees costing close to a hundred spirit stones.

Five hundred people, ten spots, a mere two percent chance, all fighting fiercely within that vast forest solely for the qualification to enter the inner sect. The brutality of those times meant that if you made too many enemies in the outer sect, a single moment of carelessness could cost you your life and send your soul to the netherworld. Those with good social skills could gather companions around them to form a ten-man squad and fight desperately for survival. But if you had too many formidable enemies, you ultimately had to rely on your own wits and gamble with your life.

His own popularity back then had not been good; in fact, he had several bitter enemies who banded together to hunt him down and encircle him. In the end, relying on his superior strength, he managed to avoid being killed by them, hanging by a thread before finally making his way into the inner sect.

These coffins numbered only in the hundreds, and they were merely lifeless corpses; how could they possibly compare to the brutality of that time? Even so, the overwhelming aura exuding from this mass of coffins still terrified him to the core.

Suppressing the tremor in his heart, he resumed tracking the footprints on the ground. Just as he followed them forward with his eyes, the trail of footprints unexpectedly veered off and entered the sea of coffins.

Suddenly, his vision blurred, and a white figure materialized right before his eyes. His expression shifted instantly. He thought to himself that if it were an elder, they would call out his name and make a sound, whereas this figure stood there in absolute silence. This was the lingering psychological trauma of reading that book; if he hadn't read it, he would have simply assumed it was an elder from the Hall of Penalties. But having read that book, he felt deep down that this white figure must be an "unclean entity!"

Hardening his heart, Qi Tian bolted directly into the adjacent array of coffins. Holding his breath, the world seemed to plunge into a profound stillness. As he strained his ears, it sounded as though someone was breathing right behind his back.