Welcome to Ability Store

Chapter 453: Chapter 453: Sect Enigma (Part 2)

Liu Shuyue pursed her lips, her cheeks slightly red, "Hmm, I believe you."

"In any case, let’s thoroughly search the entire Lotus Cloud Sect first. We should be able to find some clues." Chen Xuan called Lin Qing over the walkie-talkie, "You can come over, it’s safe here."

Once everyone gathered at the Dharma Hall, he briefly shared his suspicions, "The absence of people in the sect probably isn’t them intentionally toying with us, but rather due to certain special circumstances. Regardless of whether these hundreds of people moved elsewhere or disappeared, they would have left some traces, so it’s better if we split up to search next."

Liu Shuyue squatted down and used the Spiritual Energy Sword to carve a simple map of the sect on the stone floor, "We are currently in the main hall, which is situated right in the center of the Lotus Cloud Sect. Moving further in, there is the Fragrant Flower Forest, the Artifact Refining Room, and the Treasure Vault. To the west of the Fragrant Flower Forest are the disciples’ living quarters, while the east leads to the Library Pavilion. Among these, only the Treasure Vault is relatively dangerous, as entering recklessly might trigger punitive arrays, but the other places are very safe."

Based on the information she provided, Chen Xuan divided everyone into three groups: he and Liu Shuyue continued deeper to explore the vault; Lin Qing and Honglian formed a group to search the west side; Xu Xuanling went alone to search the eastern area.

Everyone gladly agreed.

Xu Xuanling even rubbed his hands excitedly, "The Library Pavilion should have a collection of many technique manuals, right? Since no one’s around, no one will know if I sneak a peek."

"You can look, just don’t take anything out of the pavilion." Liu Shuyue warned, "There was once a disciple who stole books and was hung at the Library Pavilion entrance for display for a whole month."

The five of them passed through the Dharma Hall and arrived at the Fragrant Flower Forest... As described by Lin Qing, this was a vast, enclosed medicinal garden. Within the garden were artificial hills, streams, and ancient trees towering dozens of meters high; the Eternal Night Jade overhead was even brighter, its internal lights transforming from scattered starlight into a dazzling galaxy. Clearly, the designer intended to combine herbal cultivation with landscape gardening from the beginning, allowing sect disciples to enjoy the flowers and the moon while practicing medicine identification and gathering.

Seeing those high-grade herbs blossoming everywhere, Chen Xuan was even more convinced of his conjecture — if the medicinal garden wasn’t consistently managed, it would be overrun by weeds in just two or three years.

At least when Liu Shuyue departed from the mountain, the inside of the Lotus Cloud Sect should still have been flourishing.

Everyone parted ways in the medicinal garden, each searching their responsible area, while Chen Xuan and Liu Shuyue went deeper, reaching the Treasure Vault.

There was another path to the left, leading directly to the Artifact Refining Room.

However, the entrance to the vault was wide open.

"How could this be!?" Liu Shuyue’s expression changed immediately, and she hurried over.

Chen Xuan couldn’t help but furrow his brows.

Just a glance from outside revealed the exquisite construction of the vault: the layered wooden display cabinets filled the surrounding walls, each cabinet towering about ten meters high, with hundreds of different sized compartments capable of holding a vast amount of treasures. The central spiral staircase of the vault connected with several corridors, these corridors clung tightly to the display cabinets, dividing them evenly into upper, middle, and lower tiers. Walking along the corridors allowed a close-up view of each treasure stored in the vault.

But that was if the treasures remained.

And the Lotus Cloud Sect’s treasure vault had obviously been looted.

The thick iron doors weren’t opened normally but had completely fallen, with noticeable scorch marks on the surface.

The compartments of the wooden display cabinets were also empty, almost nothing left in the bottom tier, and only the items on the top tier were more cumbersome to retrieve, leaving about a dozen artifacts.

At this moment, not only Liu Shuyue, but even Chen Xuan felt somewhat shocked.

An reclusive great sect built at Kunlun Peak, possessing mysterious methods to expand space within temples severalfold, and equipped with multiple defense measures like sect-protecting arrays and mechanical techniques, yet its own treasure vault was excavated by someone?

Liu Shuyue had just reached the door but suddenly stopped beside it.

Chen Xuan, looking over her shoulder, found several corpses lying on the ground.

To be precise, they were skeletonized remains.

Having dead bodies wasn’t surprising, but what was truly bewildering was the clothing on these bones.

Even though the clothes were tattered and full of holes, their styles were unmistakable — some were shirts, some were sleeveless padded jackets, and some were short-sleeved jeans.

This was clearly not the attire of people from Liu Shuyue’s time.

"Could they have been killed by the arrays?" Chen Xuan asked from behind her.

"Punitive arrays are more of a warning rather than taking a disciple’s life. Besides notifying the guardian Immortal Master, their primary function is to incapacitate violating disciples while causing them physical pain." Liu Shuyue shook her head, "But there’s one thing that doesn’t make sense, these people have been reduced to bones, indicating they’ve been dead for a long time, yet the Fragrant Flower Forest and Dharma Hall are well maintained, not like they’ve been neglected for months, could these groups be unrelated?"

If that’s the case, then it’s a bit eerie.

This implies there are several groups of people existing simultaneously within the Lotus Cloud Sect, each with their own life trajectories, never meeting one another, yet leaving traces in the real world?

Isn’t that like a quantum ghost?

Even more terrifying, it neatly explains why the Lotus Cloud Sect is empty — because the sect disciples are such ghosts; they live in another dimension, and once they leave the mountain gate, they exit this dimension, transforming from ghosts into entities.

Chen Xuan shook his head, forcibly interrupting his train of thought, "There are also bones on the left path, maybe we can find some clues in the Artifact Refining Room."

Compared to other rooms in the sect, the Artifact Refining Room wasn’t particularly large, about 200 square meters, with furnaces, forging tables, bellows, and other equipment all present, resembling a blacksmith’s shop at first glance. No sooner had they set foot in here, both couldn’t help but furrow their brows. There were bones everywhere on the floor, almost stacked to the point of accumulation! Their postures before death were varied, some lying down, some sitting against the wall, some embracing each other... yet no visible injuries on the bones, and the scene neither looked like a site of fierce battle nor an occult blood sacrifice.

They seemed to have naturally chosen to end their lives here.

Simultaneously, beside a long-cooled furnace, Chen Xuan saw a pile of scattered, rough jade tokens on the ground.

"This is..."

He picked up a jade token in surprise and examined it closely.

Indeed, both in appearance and quality, it closely resembled the jade token in Lin’s memory, which had appeared in the Wind Song, the so-called root of the nano-living body.

But such a root should be incredibly rare... perhaps even a unique item?

What does this large pile of jade tokens signify?

"Could they have been refining jade tokens using the treasures in the vault?" Liu Shuyue bent down and inspected by the furnace for a while before exclaiming.

"What?" Chen Xuan was taken aback, "Jade tokens can be refined?"

"Artifact refining is inherently about converting spiritual qi into various things, and since most of the world’s rare treasures contain spiritual qi, they can naturally be used as materials for refining. It’s just that no one would squander things like this." She muttered, "I’m not skilled in artifact refining, but I’ve studied for a year or two. The talismans pasted on the furnace appear to be refining talismans for jade magical artifacts. And look in the ashes... that piece emitting the iridescent glow is most likely the Ten Thousand-Colored Ice Crystals from the Treasure Vault!"

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!