19

A few days passed after Hong had fallen unconscious near the stream, but Hong had shown almost no signs of movement. Instead he was meditating.

Even though he had hastily realigned his body to a working condition, it was only to serve as a temporary solution, like using a wheel chair when legs are broken.

With the state his body was at the moment, Hong had absolutely no intention of moving. Instead he was letting the nature of his body run it's course, allowing it to heal perfectly. The only actions he took these past days were eating and drinking.

While his body healed, he began to look back at his fight. It was the first time he had fought a peak gold rank spiritualist. Heck, it was the first time he had come across an enemy spiritualist, who was above three star silver rank. And the last time he fought a human spiritualist, was in his previous life, and the inexperience had shown it's consequences.

He was able to subdue few of the black gold rank demon beasts thanks to the many tricks in his arsenal. His flying knives were poisoned with numbing and paralysing herbal mixtures he had made from experience, not to mention the puppet cross art he had used to control the bodies of those beasts after they succumbed to the poison. With no intelligence or any special techniques, it was no suprise that the beasts fell victim infront of his magnificent self.

But the human spiritualist was different. Hong had to risk his life to take out a human spiritualist whose realm was below that of the spiritual beasts.

The man was undoubtedly a important figure in the dark guild, because he seemed to have a special physique, or at least have high ranking spiritual beast bloodline flowing in him. Otherwise there's no way a spiritualist at the peak gold rank would've stayed awake and even breakthrough after a volley of attacks to the face. Hong believed it to be some sort of washed up dragon bloodline. After all, only dragon type bloodlines provide power when the body is pushed to the limit.

He also came to understand that, demon spiritualists can draw out massive amounts of power, leagues beyond the level of their cultivation, by bonding with a demon spirit. Nei Li had done the same by using his fanged panda to defeat a gold rank spiritualist while he was at the silver rank, in the novel. But after two lifetimes, Hong had forgotten details like that.

No matter, if there's anything Hong had learned during that fight, it was that humans were not at all limited by the level of cultivation in this world.

Then there was the final self destruction. This wasn't entirely Hong's fault, as he never saw techniques like this in his previous life or in the novel. But then again, the novel only covered few significant areas, so there should be many more unexplored techniques, beasts, regions and treasures unknown to him.

Which only made Hong promise himself to go for the head of all enemies in the future. Which he considered a lesson well learned.

As days passed Hong's body returned closer to prime till one day, he felt he was ready to move once more. Standing up, he stretched his body and threw a few punches to warm up his sleeping muscles. Then finding himself to be in peak efficiency, he began to follow the stream upwards.

After spending nearly a week near the water path, Hong had come to realise that the stream held more than it showed outwardly.

For one, the vegetation around the stream seemed unnaturally lush for a forest near the cold peak of a mountain. The water also seemed to hold a strange appeal.

It didn't have a special taste, aftertaste or even an odour, yet the water seemed to taste better than regular water.

But the strangest part was the lack of animals around it. Normally , any source of water would be visited by a wildlife at some point, but, throughout the entire time he was present, no wildlife, even aquatic ones caught his eyes. He had even spread his qi sense around to confirm this. There were no wildlife around except for the trees.

While this proved a blessing for him through the entire time, he was not about to leave this mystery unattended.

And so, Hong spent the next few hours checking all the water creeks and other sources of water thet connected to the main stream, hoping to get a clue. There were many errors, he tasted tree sap, puddle water and almost drank swamp water, but in the end he was able to find the source.

A small pond, no bigger than a bath tub in width and barely deeper than Hong, himself. But the water was saturated with unnatural amounts of spiritual energy. And the stranger thing was, the spiritual force was not mellow like naturally existing energy, instead it held a certain amount of desire within, desire to fight.

There were only two options, either this pond was the result of the battle between experts, which seemed unlikely due to it's size, or the intent was there to ward off any intruders.

Snd there's only one reason to place intent on a random pond. TREASURE!! Hong's eyes gleamed with excitement. He had probably come across a treasure kept away by an expert till it reached maturity. As options emerged in his thoughts, his mind began to wonder. It could be a special heavenly herb, one that grew powerful with time, or it could be cold iron, really old cold iron ore at least a millennia in age. He needed special metals to reforge his own flying knives. Or it could even be a treasure of heaven and earth. An essence ore that contained attributed energy of heaven and earth condensed into a natural treasure.

Hong felt himself tremble in anticipation. He had no fear of the expert since the intent was not strong enough to make him vigilant. Besides he was curious. Very, very curious.

Putting his clothes into his space pouch, he placed it under a nearby rock, just in case. Then taking a deep breath, he pinched his nose shut before jumping in, heels first.

Feeling himself go weightless, he opened his eyes. He could only see blurred images of what is supposed to be rocks. But no matter. He removed all protection qi around him, trying to sense the source of the flowing energy.

Sensing the origin of the energy to be near his foot, he bent down, turning himself entirely upside down to see what it was only to see a rock standing in the area of the supposed treasure.

But Hong was not disappointed because he felt that the intent was originating from below the rock. And considering that the rock was nearly wide as the pond, he deduced that what ever the treasure, must be under the rock.

Planting his feet beyond the edges of the rock, Hong dug his fingers deep into the soil before gripping it with all his strength. Fingers cracked the rock, making holes where Hong had gripped it, but he paid no attention to it. Instead he' focused his concentration on lifting the rock.

It was hard at first. The rock seemed to be stuck in the mud like a cork in the bottle mouth. But the moment Hong began using qi to strengthen his muscles, all resistance melted away. The rock moved up before it dislodged itself completely with an audible 'pop' before it flew up and out the pond entirely. But what was under the rock was not what Hong had imagined .

Hong jumped out of the pond in a hurry before he grabbed his pouches from under the rock. Then unlike before , he dived right into the pond, excitement evident on his face. He didn't find a treasure, but rather a film of water. There was a cavern of sorts underneath, and Hong believed he knew what it was. A gateway to another realm.