The Nine Cauldrons

Book 4 Chapter 22 Black Steel Treasure Map

At the peak of the Silver Horn Mountain, Wei Canglong and the single-armed middle-aged man were beside the lake, happily discussing about the divine weapon ‘Heavenly Hawk Claws’. Suddenly, Wei Canglong seemed to have noticed something and turned back.

“Die!”

Just as it looked like Wei Canglong was about to turn his head, Teng Qingshan tossed out the two flying knives in his hands. “Swoosh! Swoosh!” Two flashes of cold light cut across the air. It was merely a distance of over ten Zhang, and with the speed at which Teng Qingshan had tossed out the flying knives, how could the two warriors in the Postliminary Realm dodge when they were caught unaware?

“Pu!” “Pu!”

The blades of the flying knives shot into the back of their heads and out from their mouths!

Wei Canglong and the single-armed middle-aged man stared with wide-open eyes before they dropped down weakly, falling onto the skeleton next to them.

“Hu!”

Just when the two of them fell down, Teng Qingshan also landed lightly, not bothering to take a look at the two dead men. He picked up a stone with his left hand and grabbed the small black cauldron that had been left on the ground with his right. His gaze was completely focused on the small cauldron, and he touched the surface of the small black cauldron with his trembling right hand.

“This is it, this is it! It’s exactly the same!”

In his previous life, he had treasured the item left behind by his wife the most, and to think that in this life, he would get his hands on it again.

“This material, this touch…they’re all exactly the same.” Tears vaguely rolled in Teng Qingshan’s eyes. Thereafter, Teng Qingshan solemnly put on the small black cauldron pendant around his neck, feeling the cauldron against his chest as he took in a deep breath. He then lowered his head and look at the skeleton that had been submerged at the bottom of the lake for hundreds of years as he said to himself, “Senior Wei Dan, you also came across this little cauldron. While we are separated for centuries, it is still a connection of sort.”

At that moment——

“Hua!” A figure appeared from the water. It was one of Tie Yi Hall’s Postliminary Realm expert who had gone to the bottom of the lake to look for the treasure map.

Teng Qingshan’s gaze turned cold, and the stone in his hand shot out.

“Pu!”

The stone pierced through the spot between that person’s brows, and his body was about to sink down feebly.

On land, Teng Qingshan dashed out and grabbed onto the corpse, tossing it to the side after he landed on the opposite side of the lake.

“If the lake is deep and the currents at the bottom are strong, they won’t know that I was the one who killed the men at the bottom of the lake.” Teng Qingshan calmly lingered at the lake’s bank. “There were three men who had entered the lake, one innate master and two warriors in the Postliminary Realm. After dealing with all the warriors in the Postliminary Realm, I’d be able to focus on dealing with the innate master.”

Teng Qingshan waited calmly.

……

“Where on earth is the treasure map This lake is so deep and covered with a layer of mud. How do we find it?” Frowning, the white-haired old man held onto his breath and searched carefully. This time around, amongst the experts from Tie Yi Hall, there were only two whose hair were white. One of them was him, Elder Tian, the other one was Wei Canglong.

In terms of age, he was close with Deng Geng, but Deng Geng had become an innate master many years ago, and thus he did not appear old.

“Hu!” He released some breath from his mouth, “I’ll head up for some air.”

Elder Tian dashed for the surface.

“Boom!”

When his head emerged from the water, his face was covered with water such that he could not see his surroundings clearly, and he only cared to take in a few breaths greedily. But just when he took in one breath…

“Pu!” Elder Tian only felt an intense pain between his brows and throughout his head, and then he lost consciousness.

……

Teng Qingshan was like a little bird flying across the surface of the lake. He grab onto Elder Tian’s corpse and landed at the opposite bank of the lake, tossing it gently on the ground. His movements were extremely small. With these two trips, Teng Qingshan returned back to the side with Senior Wei Dan’s remains.

“Now, there is only Deng Geng left!” Teng Qingshan grabbed onto a flying knife in his right hand.

The best opportunity to deal with Deng Geng would be to shoot a flying knife at him when he first emerged from the water! Teng Qingshan was an assassin in his previous life, and he had been trained to kill his targets with the least cost regardless of the means used and without being silly and insistent on pursuing fairness. Afterall, Teng Qingshan was not clear about his opponent’s actual abilities.

Teng Qingshan’s gaze chanced upon Wei Canglong’s hands.

On Wei Canglong’s hands, there was a pair of purple gloves.

“Hmm?” Teng Qingshan could still remember the conversation between the two men earlier. “This must be the divine weapon, the ‘Heavenly Hawk Claws’ that they were referring to! That Wei Dan…according to them, was a innate Golden Dan and an extreme expert who was once listed in the top ten of the Heavenly Ranking. The weapon used by such an expert would definitely be something.”

Teng Qingshan took off the pair of ‘Heavenly Hawk Claws’, while holding on to a flying knife with his right hand. He prepared to launch an attack on Deng Geng, who would emerge anytime.

“This is quite heavy.” Teng Qingshan assessed it with his left hand, and astonishment flashed passed his eyes. “This pair of ‘Heavenly Hawk Claws’ seemed light at first glance, but in actual fact, it has a weight of tens of Jin.”

Teng Qingshan noticed that the value of this weapon would probably be no lower than his Reincarnation Spear.

Teng Qingshan first put on one of the ‘Heavenly Hawk Claws’ on his left hand. While it was very heavy, it was also very soft, as if a layer of skin had adhered to his hands. At the joints and fingers, there was a dark purple metal which was seemingly sharp. Wearing the glove, Teng Qingshan casually waved his hand.

“Chi!”

It was as if a sharp sword had cut across the sky.

“It’s no wonder that Wei Canglong could easily crush boulders with this pair of gloves.” Teng Qingshan had an idea. “With this pair of gloves…I can easily depend on this pair of gloves to fend off sharp godly weapons. My Xing Yi Martial Arts can finally be put to good use!”

Although Teng Qingshan’s hands were tougher than iron…

No matter how tough they were, they would not be comparable to ‘Ten Millennia Coldsteel’. Teng Qingshan dared to fend off the sharp blades of ordinary warriors.

But against a blade at the level of his Reincarnation Spear, if he was to receive it with his bare hands, they would probably be chopped off!

“Mmm, from today onwards, the identity of the scarred face man will wear the Heavenly Hawk Claws to battle!” Teng Qingshan was prepared for his alias to become a well-known presence. Then, in the future…there would be many unexpected reward from using the reputation of his ‘alias’, .

He put on the glove on his right hand at the speed of lightning.

“With this pair of ‘Heavenly Hawk Claws’, there’s no issue with close combat against innate masters.” At the same time when he was putting on the glove, Teng Qingshan held onto a flying knife in each hand as he started at the bottom of the lake.

Once Deng Geng emerged, the two flying knives would shoot out!

……

Time passed, and at the blink of an eye, close to an hour passed. However, Deng Geng still had yet to emerge.

“This Deng Geng can really hold his breath in in the water.” Although he had waited for an hour, Teng Qingshan was not panicking at all. He half squatted, holding firmly to the flying knives with his hands, not moving an inch. A smile hung on his face, “Rushing to this Silver Horn Mountain, the best and unexpected gain would be getting hold of this little cauldron.”

Having gotten the little cauldron, other than feeling happy, Teng Qingshan also had some doubts.

“The size, design, and feel are exactly the same as the little cauldron from my previous life!”

“But, this little cauldron had been submerged at the bottom of the lake for six hundred years! What kind of metal, after being submerged for six hundred years…to think that there is no impact on it.”

“In my past life, I did not manage to know what material the small cauldron was made from, but now, I still do not know!”

“The most important thing is…my previous life was on earth, and my current one is on the world of the Nine Prefectures. Regardless of its the geographical setting or historical developments, they are all totally different. They are definitely not the same world. But…why would there be the exact same small cauldron in two different worlds? It would not be easy to create a cauldron this small!”

Teng Qingshan had some status across the Nine Prefectures. Hence, he had learned quite a bit regarding some of the precious materials.

A material he had never heard of, having no change even after submerged in water for six hundred years…who would be able to create a small cauldron like that? Could it be that such a small cauldron had appeared coincidentally in both his previous life and now?

Teng Qingshan could not help but have doubts when thinking through this questions.

“A coincidence for this small cauldron to appear in two worlds? Or is it that the small cauldron that I was wearing in my previous life came to this world the way I did, just that it arrived six hundred years back?” Thinking about this, Teng Qingshan could not help but shake his head, overruling this possibility. It was all too atrocious.

While he was thinking in his head, Teng Qingshan’s gaze had not left the surface of the lake for even a second.

……

Deep at the bottom of the lake, the light that shone from the surface was very dim.

However, there was big ball of white light at the bottom of the lake. Beyond the layer of light was Deng Geng! He had channeled out Innate True Origin to form a layer of light surrounding his body. There was quite a lot of air beyond the layer of light. Furthermore, with Deng Geng’s ability to hold his breathe, this little amount of air would allow him to stay at the bottom of the lake for very, very long time.

“Could it be that the treasure map had been taken away by the expert who killed Senior Wei Dan?” Deng Geng frowned and lowered his head. The layer of light stopped at his elbows, and his arms were still submerged in water. He continued to dig about and fiddle with the mud endlessly. “No matter what, we must decide after combing through the bottom of the lake.”

Deng Geng was very patient.

He fumbled through, inch by inch, through the rocks and the rotting corpses of birds, venomous snakes, and other dead creatures.

This search at the bottom of the lake took him two hours! And Deng Geng only managed to cover a small area at the vast land at the bottom of the lake.

“Hmmm?” Deng Geng fumbled in the mud and suddenly his hand came into contact with a hard object. Deng Geng was not excited, but casually tugged on the hard object. It was too common to come into across hard objects. There were too many things around, including the remains of birds as well as rocks. However, after tugging it out, his eyes opened wide.

This hard object was square.

Deng Geng quickly wiped the surface with his hands, cleaning the layer of filth on its surface. Under the light of the Innate True Origin, Deng Geng could clearly see——it was a black piece of metal. And on one side of the black metal, there seemed to be numerous closely packed marks that were carved by a knife.

The familiar material and familiar markings made Deng Geng’s heart tremble in excitement.

“Haha, this is it, this is it.” Deng Geng could not stop his trembling hands. “The Black Iron Treasure Map! Haha, our Tie Yi Hall has finally gotten the bottom half of the Black Iron Treasure map! Founding father! Our Tie Yi Hall finally has the hope to gain prosperity! Haha, our founding father obtained the first half of the Black Iron Treasure Map more than a thousand years ago, leaving only the bottom of the map. Now, with both parts of the map, it’s finally complete! Our Tie Yi Hall will be able to access the legendary treasures of Emperor Yu!”

Deng Geng was so agitated that he was trembling.

Before Tie Yi Hall’s founding father had died, he had instructed all the future generations of Tie Yi Hall’s Sovereigns to never give up on the search for the bottom half of the Black Iron Treasure Map! Tie Yi Hall had the first half of the treasure map, so long as it did not leak out…then, other people would not be able to access the treasures even if they had the bottom half of it. Therefore, so long as Tie Yi Hall puts in effort, they would be able to succeed one day.

“It’s been over a thousand years! Haha…” Deng Geng was agitated like never before. Suddenly, his gaze focused, “Hmmm, there are fine prints on this Black Iron Treasure Map?”

Under the numerous closely-packed markings of the Black Iron Treasure Map, there was actually a line of words——“For those who hold the treasure map, he who enters by force is bound to die. One must remember, to get the treasure, one must bring along one of the nine cauldrons!”