Chapter 113 - Pavilions by the Emerald Water

Xu Yuan slowly woke from the tremors of teleportation. What met his eyes was a vermilion roof with upturned eaves. He did not get up right away. Instead, he lay there in a daze, thinking about what he had just seen.

The Sage knew the Heaven Deriving Art. Azure Point had not described Luo Daofan in much detail. Like every familiar old routine, whenever the story’s protagonist asked the Sage about his former identity or cultivation realm, the old bastard immediately turned into a walking riddle.

I was merely a third rank Grandmaster.

Knowing too much will do you no good right now.

Back in my day, the female Sages of those great sects were so fresh and pretty they practically dripped water...

Not a single word said he was amazing, yet every word screamed that he was amazing. He’d even mentioned the Pavilion Master of Heavenwatch Pavilion. Now it all made sense.

Xu Yuan asked softly, Old Luo, were you once the Pavilion Master of Heavenwatch Pavilion?

“Pavilion Master, my ass. I was only a Sage Venerable.”

Xu Yuan froze for a moment. A Sage Venerable of Heavenwatch Pavilion? That sounded even more terrifying than Pavilion Master.

Before he could think further, the Sage’s remnant soul spoke again. “Xu boy, how did you know the boundary of this secret realm was a teleportation array?”

Xu Yuan thought for a moment, then answered in a low voice, I once read it in an ancient text.

The Sage’s remnant soul fell silent for a moment. Then he finally sighed and said, “Xu boy, do you take this old man for a fool?”

Xu Yuan smiled, slowly sat up, and asked in return, Didn’t you say earlier that even a Sage Venerable was forbidden from reading the Heaven Deriving Art? Then how did you learn it?

The Sage’s remnant soul chuckled. “A Sage Venerable was indeed forbidden from reading it, but why should I tell you the reason?”

There he went again, playing riddles.

Xu Yuan gave a light laugh, not bothered in the slightest. In that case, why should I answer your question? Old Luo, knowing too much is not necessarily good for you either.

The Sage’s remnant soul fell silent again.

Xu Yuan did not stop there. Sitting on the ground, he propped one hand on his knee and rested his forehead against it.

I can roughly guess how you learned the Heaven Derivating Art anyway. The rules said you weren’t allowed to read it, sure. But rules are dead, and people are alive. Besides, you were a Sage. So either you stole it, or you robbed it. There are only two possibilities.

He paused, then lifted his eyes and continued on his own.

But if that’s the case, then we may be able to cooperate. As a Sage Venerable, you abused your position and stole the Pavilion Master’s inheritance. And since Heavenwatch Pavilion hasn’t been completely destroyed, that should still be a capital crime, right?

The Sage’s remnant soul listened carefully, then gave a dry chuckle. “Heh. Stop trying to bait me into talking.”

Seeing that the old man refused to fall for it, Xu Yuan sighed softly, rose from the ground, and said no more. He looked around.

This was an enormous lake. Vermilion corridors branched in every direction, built right over the surface of the water, stretching toward the endless distance. Lotus leaves floated across the pond, accompanied by pink lotus flowers, while in the very center of the vast lake stood a gigantic cherry tree in full bloom. As the breeze swept past, petals shimmering with strange light drifted down one after another.

A silence and beauty unchanged for ten thousand years.

After one glance at his surroundings, Xu Yuan roughly understood which map he had landed in.

Not bad luck at all. He had been teleported straight into the central hub of the Dome Palace. By following the maze-like corridors built over the lake, he could reach any part of this Immortal palace.

Following Xu Yuan’s gaze, the Sage’s remnant soul drifted straight out from the soul realm and said softly, “There’s a chaotic concealment array around here.”

A chaotic concealment array disrupted the soul intent or source qi of an area, thereby blocking all forms of perception. In simple terms, it was full-channel signal jamming.

Xu Yuan glanced at him and laughed under his breath. “The Dome Palace is still more or less intact. Of course arrays like this would still be here.”

“This secret realm of the Dome Palace was the Dao Palace of the Splendorbloom Sect ten thousand years ago?” The Sage’s remnant soul stared at Xu Yuan with a slightly odd look.

Xu Yuan smiled and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what it’s called. Old Luo, even with your soul power, you can’t break the restriction?”

The Sage’s remnant soul snorted coldly. “There is something strange about this place. If I recklessly break the array, who knows whether it will trigger other formations?”

“Fair enough.” Xu Yuan nodded and walked forward along the corridor.

A faint breeze stirred the air. The lake was quiet and beautiful, like a water town south of the river. Interwoven vermilion corridors, lotus leaves and blossoms scattered across the boundless lake, all set off the gigantic cherry tree at its center.

The autumn waters and the endless sky merged into a single color.

After walking for a while, the Sage’s remnant soul suddenly spoke again. “Xu boy, where are you going?”

Xu Yuan pointed toward the hundred-meter-tall cherry tree a thousand meters away. “There, of course.”

“There? Do you need me to fly you over?” the Sage’s remnant soul asked with a low laugh, testing him.

Xu Yuan only smiled and said nothing. From his Sumeru Ring, he took out the corpse of a wolf demon he had kept as emergency rations, then casually hurled it far out over the calm surface of the lake.

The Sage’s remnant soul focused his gaze.

The wolf demon’s corpse was still flying through the air.

After one second of dead silence, several creatures resembling leeches suddenly shot out from beneath the lake. Except these things were a hundred times larger than ordinary leeches.

Their mouthparts extended midair and stabbed into the wolf demon’s corpse. In the span of a few breaths, the wolf’s body rapidly shriveled. Clinging to the carcass, the leeches dragged it down and crashed heavily back into the water.

“What are those things?” The Sage’s remnant soul sounded faintly puzzled. “They look somewhat like yellow river leeches, but also a little like blood spirit leeches...”

After a pause, he shook his head and said, “Still, their strength is only around eighth rank at most.”

“What’s the hurry?” Xu Yuan said.

“Oh?” Though interrupted, the Sage’s remnant soul showed no annoyance at all. He gave a soft sound of surprise, then quietly watched the lake.

The corridor fell silent for a time. The ripples stirred up by the wolf corpse gradually weakened. Just as the surface of the lake was about to become completely calm again, something began to spread from the distance toward them.

The entire lake started boiling.

In the blink of an eye, countless giant leeches surfaced, crowding the lake in dense, overlapping layers. As far as the eye could see, the water was covered with their disgusting, oversized mouthparts.

After rising to the surface, all of them stopped moving.

From every direction, the giant leeches silently stared at the two of them with their eyeless mouths.

Seeing a scene from Azure Point recreated in reality right before his eyes, Xu Yuan felt his scalp prickle. There were two ways to reach the cherry tree. The first was to follow the corridors and make his way through the maze. The second was to fly straight there. But if he flew directly over the pond, he would encounter a monster called Leech. No fancy name. No dramatic title. The monsters in this pond were simply called leeches.

But that was not the important part. The important part was that these things did not show a health bar. If you wanted to fly across, you could only take the hits and rely on your health pool to endure them. Only after reaching the area near the gigantic cherry tree would an enormous leech, so huge it took up half the screen, finally emerge and begin the real boss fight.

That boss’s name was just as casual, Leech King. Although the lake was full of hidden danger, the corridors above the water were extremely safe. As long as the player retreated onto the corridor, the leeches would automatically stop attacking. Now that it had become reality, it seemed no different from how it was in Azure Point.