Chapter 3014 — Adventure in the Cave 3 (Part Two) (Monthly Tickets Requested—Three Updates Today, With More Tomorrow!)
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
This left Wei Zhao utterly disappointed! He was already a Heaven-rank expert, and he had dreamed that behind the third stone gate he might obtain a formidable Heaven-rank divine weapon. But now it seemed there was nothing here but a box.
How could a divine weapon possibly fit inside such a small box? It stood to reason it could not. Somewhat dispirited, Wei Zhao walked toward the platform and took down that antique little box.
The box was light and airy, much like the last one, which only deepened Wei Zhao's disappointment. It seemed there could be nothing inside but the mental technique formulas.
"There's no divine weapon here?" Wei Zhao asked Jiao Yazi, somewhat let down.
"What's there is there, and what's not is not. What you see is what you get." Jiao Yazi apparently did not know either what good things lay behind the stone gate, and so he offered a piece of ambiguous nonsense.
Wei Zhao was somewhat speechless, but since he had come, having something was always better than nothing. For now he could only pin his hopes on the fourth stone gate.
For in this third stone chamber, Wei Zhao had seen the fourth stone gate.
Perhaps these stone chambers were arranged according to Heaven, Earth, Mystic, and Yellow? It was only that he had entered five years late, which had caused some desynchronization between his strength and the mental technique formulas—or perhaps, in theory, the third layer of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art was the one truly suited to the Earth rank?
Wei Zhao could not work it out either, for every mental technique formula was linked to cultivation rank differently, with nothing to serve as reference, and he did not know whether his conjecture was correct.
He came before the fourth stone gate. Here too a stone tablet stood to one side of the gate, and as Wei Zhao had expected, a passage was carved upon it in seal script.
"Three layers perfected, weapon in hand; strike the gate with the weapon, and only then may you enter!"
"What? Weapon in hand?" Wei Zhao was stunned. What kind of rotten trick was this? Where was he supposed to get a weapon? Behind the third stone gate there was only a small box, and inside it was presumably the mental technique formula—where in the world was he to find a divine weapon?
Could it be that the inscription meant he need only strike the gate with any Heaven-rank weapon to open the fourth stone gate? Though this guess was a bit far-fetched, after turning it over and over Wei Zhao truly could not think where else he might get his hands on a divine weapon.
Seeing that dawn was about to break, Wei Zhao did not linger. He went straight out of the stone gate and came to the mouth of the cave. Day was just breaking now; Wei Zhao waited until the stone gate had fully closed before leaving the place and heading toward the village.
This time Wei Zhao had returned discreetly, and the villagers knew nothing of it. Now that day had broken, if he were to go down the mountain carrying a little box in his bare hands, it would inevitably rouse suspicion. Though the Xuanyuan Cave Mansion lay at the foot of the mountain on the other side of West Star Mountain and was unlikely to be discovered, Wei Zhao, ever cautious, decided to hunt a wild beast on the mountain before going back.
Otherwise, if Wei Zhao returned to West Star Mountain Village for no apparent reason and the first thing he did was not go home but climb the mountain, it would seem odd no matter how one looked at it.
With this in mind, Wei Zhao did not hurry down the mountain, but instead walked deeper into the mountain range, planning to bag some game at random—and give himself a treat besides.