Chapter 4. Underground Hall
Still in the same cave now sat a thin young man, dressed in a shabby black robe. Three chessboards lay on the ground in front of him, and a small stone tombstone with an inscription neatly carved on it was placed opposite.
«In memory of Mo Canghai, Mo Zitian's grandfather»
The young man moved the piece on the central board and after a few moments hit himself on the forehead as if he had made a mistake and said dejectedly.
"Grandpa, you won as always!"
Mo Zitian took to mouth a piece of dried meat from a wooden bowl lying next to him and chewed with a grimace on his face.
"Grandpa, I at present have to go down to the mine, but I will return in the evening as usual, then we will continue, next time I will definitely not lose to you." the young man said with a smile.
Mo Zitian got to his feet and picked up the bag lying next to him. Next he bowed to the tombstone, only then he turned around and headed deeper into the cave.
Mo Zitian turned 16 this year, and old Mo Canghai, as he predicted, could not hold on for long and retired seven years ago.
Back then, Mo Zitian wasn't even ten years old yet, but he was left alone in such a cruel place, so he had to adapt. Throughout the whole time Mo Zitian continued the work started by his grandfather and without stopping for a day he moved deeper and deeper into this cave.
The total length of the tunnel he dug must have already reached more than 3 miles, so during the descent, to save time, he always had to switch to running.
The mine excavated by Mo Zitian was not winding and branching like the other inhabitants of the canyon. Unlike them, he did not decide on a goal to get as many spiritual stones as possible, he was looking for something completely different, although he himself did not fully understand what exactly it was.
The cave that Mo Zitian was running through resembled a straight line that sloped downward as he deepened. This happened for the reason that he always followed the instructions of the soul shard and periodically adjusted the direction of the excavations, guided by the sensations that were transmitted to him through the connection established between them.
The further he made his way, the steeper the shaft sloped down into the bowels of the earth. And despite the fact that for all the time of his excavations he could not discover anything, Mo Zitian did not despair, because increasing the angle of inclination could only mean one thing, that he was getting closer and closer to his goal.
Moreover, the deeper he got, the more often he began to encounter spiritual stones on his way. Other prisoners could dig up to five spiritual stones per week, provided they were extremely fortunate in this. Mo Zitian is currently mining an average of more than ten spiritual stones over the similar period of time, despite the fact that he did not even have a goal to get as many as possible, otherwise he could increase this number by one and a half to two times. If others found out about it, it is unknown what consequences he would expect.
The presence of so many spiritual stones in this place was extremely surprising, because the cave chosen by Mo Canghai was located in a remote corner of the Canyon of Powerlessness. If it were not for the guidance of the soul shard, he would never choose such a place to live, because as it is known, the greatest concentration of deposits of spiritual stones is located in the central area of the canyon, and the further away from it, the more difficult it becomes to find them.
Only just the competition in the central zone is very fierce, and usually it is those who could not stand it there who go to the outskirts. Only the completely desperate went to isolated corners and tried to dig up spiritual stones there, but it never led to anything, and soon they died because they simply had nothing to buy their food with.
In fact, Mo Zitian has been saving up enough to release a thousand spiritual stones for some time, and even more than just that. He wasn't certain, but the combined number of spirit stones in his possession must have exceeded four thousand. This was not surprising, because he had lived here for 16 years, longer than anyone, and besides, some of them were passed on to him, so to speak, by inheritance from Mo Canghai.
But even with such wealth with him, he did not dare to convoy them to the Black Ghost Gate in the Gorge of Forgiveness and demand his freedom from the ghost guards.
Mo Canghai repeatedly echoed him that this was the terriblest idea that could ever occur to him, and that no matter how much he wanted to leave this damned canyon, he should not have done such a stupid thing.
All the prisoners in this place, every solitary one of them hates the ghost guard and the faction that stands behind them. And what will endure their initial thought if they can get out to freedom? Clearly, this will be a desire for revenge! Even though most of them would be unable to raise any waves once they were free, no person in their right mind would put themselves at such risk, not to mention the merciless ghost guards.
Mo Zitian ran through a dark tunnel for ten minutes before arriving at the very end of the mine he had dug. Since he got used to this darkness that a few years ago he stopped using illuminating jades altogether, now his eyes could perceive everything perfectly without any luminous source.
The first thing he managed after arriving was summon a soul shard, hovering over his palm, the soul shard trembled violently, as if showing him his excitement.
This had been happening for the past few days, and Mo Zitian was extremely pleased with it, because it could only mean one thing, that he was very close to achieving his goal.
Without much thought, he picked up the tools that had become so familiar to him over the multiple years of his stay here and began to break through the petrified wall of the cave.
Mo Zitian grew up to be an attractive young man. At the age of 16, he was relatively tall, having a height of 5'9, but due to the harmful influence of the deadly wind reigning in the Canyon of Powerlessness, his physique looked very thin. The color of his skin, due to the lack of sunlight, was pale as a corpse. Another particularly noticeable detail of his appearance was his purple hair, which reached a level just below his shoulders. He possessed sharp facial features and straight eyebrows framing sharp eyes the color of a deep blue sky.
His every move with a pickaxe or shovel was extraordinarily dexterous and precise, and the blows, despite his skinny physique, contained a mighty force. During the strokes, every muscle in his body was tense like a stretched bowstring.
From the outside, it did not seem at all that he was busy with something so mundane like digging the earth's crust, instead, he seemed to be engaged in martial arts. In fact, it was, all his movements, as well as many other things, were taught to him by the experienced Mo Canghai. Controlling and making the most effective use of all the possibilities of the human body was one of the lessons that Grandpa instructed him in the first place.
Mo Zitian continued relentlessly pounding the ground for several hours, until at the moment of another blow with a shovel, the ground under his feet began to crack, and before he had time to respond, it completely collapsed. Mo Zitian had no choice but to group up and roll head over heels down through the passage formed due to the collapsed earth.
While he was rolling down, he began feeling an abnormal cold coming from below with his whole body. After a while, he reached a flat surface and sprawled on the ground injuring his head. Recovering from the fall, Mo Zitian abruptly stood up, he looked around and found he was in a strange dungeon. The concentration of cold energy in this place was so enormous that even he, as a person who had been accustomed to the influence of the deadly wind and low temperatures since childhood, could not stop the trembling spreading through his body
The first thought that entered his mind was to run and run as fast as possible, because of the aura of death contained in the cold energy, every minute spent here could cost him months of life. However, gritting his teeth, Mo Zitian decided to explore the dungeon that had opened up to him, something inside him advised him that it was in this dungeon that he had worked so hard for, it would be ridiculous to just let it go.
Mo Zitian quickly made his way farther into the dungeon, carefully examining his own surroundings, and after only a few minutes of walking, he came out into some room.
A immense underground hall appeared before his eyes, the height and width of which were several hundred yards. Countless blue stalactites hung from the ceiling, the light from which illuminated the entire hall. If it were not for the absence of a characteristic yellow ball on it, it might seem that it was a real sky.
On the walls of the hall, various spiritual runes were engraved everywhere, connected by spiritual lines in various patterns. And in the center was built a giant altar, which occupied half of the entire space here. The most astonishing thing for Mo Zitian was that the entire altar was as if sculpted from a gigantic piece of spiritual stone.
For a moment, he even thought everything he sees in front of him now was just a dream and soon he will wake up in his gloomy cave as usual. For the first time in his life, he was delighted to feel the cold energy that chilled him to the bone, because it was a direct proof of the reality of what was happening.
The spiritual stones that he and the other prisoners mined in Canyon of Powerlessness were about the size of a fingernail. It was difficult for Mo Zitian to imagine this, but this altar alone corresponded to millions of such volumes. Transferring his gaze to the very top of the altar, he saw an ice coffin lying on top of it, and through its transparent walls he could see the golden bones inside it that seemed human in shape.
Looking at all this, Mo Zitian barely managed to overcome his shock and think a little. His brows furrowed, and a thoughtful expression appeared on his face. At this moment, if he couldn't place two and two together and didn't understand what this place was like, then Mo Canghai's years of training would have been in vain.
The underground hall, the altar consisting of a spiritual stone and an ice coffin with golden bones inside, all this immediately leads him to think this place should be the burial place of a powerful cultivator.
The cold energy that filled this hall, as well as the entire vast territory of the Canyon of Powerlessness, comes from this icy coffin, and the golden bones should provide the source of the aura of death contained in it, together the energy emitted by them formed the so-called deadly wind.
Mo Zitian wasn't sure, but looking around the walls of the hall, where the spiritual runes with many lines shimmered with a faint light, he had a feeling that they were all somehow connected to the very force that blocked the spiritual energy in this canyon.
Despite the fact that Mo Canghai had told him a lot, but what was happening now probably went beyond even his grandfather's understanding. In view of this, he couldn't recover for a long time, not quite appreciating what he should do next in such a situation.
The moment he was displaced in his own thoughts, the ice coffin suddenly trembled. Mo Zitian looked at it with a bad premonition, and discovered how a ghostly silhouette separated from the golden bones imprisoned in an ice coffin and soared above the altar.
When Mo Zitian focused his gaze on him, he was capable to discern an elderly man emitting an aura of oppressive superiority with his whole appearance. It seemed that the man had just regained consciousness, because he frowned and began to look around as if trying to comprehend what was happening, so it was exactly until his gaze fell on Mo Zitian, who at that moment was standing there as if rooted to the spot with his eyes wide open.
"A mortal? What is a mortal doing here? Who are you and why are you here?"
The man asked as he slowly floated through the air towards Mo Zitian, who was still in a daze. The translucent flying man who seemed a ghost did not fit into his head. Things surpassing his knowledge continued appearing one after another. He lived most of his life in a cave, getting out of it only when necessary, occasionally exchanging a few words with other prisoners or with the ghost guards to get his food from them, or some other things. He constantly tried to escape the attention of other people and reduce communication with them to a minimum.
All his knowledge of the external world was derived from Mo Canghai's teachings, but even he had never prepared him for the ghost that suddenly appeared from the golden bones. From this man, Mo Zitian instinctively felt a considerable danger, causing all his thoughts to be confused. He didn't know what exactly this ghost wanted from him, so he didn't dare to answer anything.
"If you keep silent, I'll slay you." the man said, furrowing his brows even more.
Mo Zitian involuntarily swallowed his saliva, for some reason he was certain that this ghostly man was not joking, and that it was very easy for him to do it.
"I'm ashamed, but I don't know what you're asking me. I am a miner mining spiritual stones in this canyon, but during the excavations the mine I was developing collapsed, and I got here by accident." he replied, his voice trembling either from cold or fear.
Just in case, Mo Zitian decided to keep silent about the soul fragment that brought him here, this ghost did not demonstrate the behavior of a good person.
"A miner? Spiritual stones? Is the Great War of the Two Worlds over? What happened to the Demon Suppression Sect?" the man continued to shower Mo Zitian with questions.
"I'm sorry, but I undoubtedly don't know anything about the Great War of the Two Worlds and this is the first time I've heard of the Demon Suppression Sect." Mo Zitian replied, slowing down with every word he said, because as he replied to, the ghost's expression became sullener.
Not getting the answers he needed, the man got angry.
"Useless mortal, if it wasn't for your appearance, which caused the formation mechanisms to work and arise me up, then I would have already finished you off for such answers."
Mo Zitian didn't dare to object, all he possessed to perform was make as stupid a look as possible and try not to provoke this weirdo.
Having calmed down, the man stopped paying attention to him and directed his gaze to the top of the altar on which the ice coffin lay. After a brief moment, his displeased face sank even more.
"What finally happened then? And how long has it been since then? My plan didn't work out? My body has rotted away and even the golden bones I cultivated were on the verge of destruction. How many resources and time it will take me to restore my former body? Also this mortal, from whom for some reason I experience a strangely familiar feeling." the ghost mused aloud.
As if thinking of something, he returned his gaze back to Mo Zitian, this time lingering on him much longer. After examining it for a while, the man's face displayed a disappointed expression, but later a slight smile appeared on his face.
For Mo Zitian, this smile seemed devilish, at the sight of her, he immediately suspected something was wrong, for the first time in his life he experienced a feeling of goosebumps crawling down his back.
"If you don't have any more questions for me, then I'll likely go back to where I came from, I still need to finish my daily allowance for the extraction of spiritual stones." Mo Zitian was about to turn around and leave without waiting for an answer, but as soon as he took just one step back, he was halted by a cold voice.
"Did I allow you went?"