Chapter 60 – Songs of Prelude (III)

Chapter 60

Songs of Prelude (III)

It truly ended with the proclamation that the cauldron exploded.

Look, I may be a bit stupid, and I may not have a working knowledge of this world, but I know for a fact that wasn’t a cauldron exploding. Not unless you think Elder Zhang was a cauldron. And even if the man carried a bit of a belly, it wasn’t–look, the point is, the sect was hiding what transpired.

Why?

The first clue came the day later, when the Declaration of War was officially sent out to the Fire Sun Sect.

The entire sect was abuzz with the news, and practically everyone forgot about the exploding cauldron… but I didn’t. I tried poking and prodding around for some info when Elder Qin came for his daily visit, but he didn’t actually divulge anything, just reiterating that it was a cauldron.

Okay.

Let’s get my facts in order before I start drawing my theories.

One: The system confirmed that Elder Zhang is a traitor.

Two: it also confirmed that his temper was extremely unstable and that his cultivation method was worsening his condition.

Three: Long Tao left the peak two days ago, and yesterday somebody screamed very loudly, ‘WHO THE HELL WAS IT?’ before the entire mountain caught fire.

Four: It was definitely Elder Zhang losing his shit, revealing himself as a spy, and likely being at least fought if not killed by the other Elders of the sect.

Five: For some reason, rather than revealing Elder Zhang’s involvement, they kept it a secret and immediately sent a declaration–

Ah. Right.

Maybe they learned something from Elder Zhang? Or one of his disciples? Which compelled them to issue the declaration immediately while hiding Elder Zhang’s betrayal? Maybe it was to keep the Fire Sun Sect believing they had their ‘trump card’ still?

I don’t know.

Honestly, it’s just guesswork. It might be that they just didn’t want to worsen the sect’s morale by letting everyone know one of the most important and senior members of the sect was actually a traitorous bastard.

… in fact, knowing this place, that might as well have been it. But no, wait–why would Elder Qin hide it from me? Tsk. This whole thing stinks.

Nonetheless, I actually feel a bit relieved–I was worried about how to handle the whole ‘Elder Zhang’ business. I had to expose him before the competition, but the big question was ‘How’.

My plan was actually rather similar to how it played out: just piss him off so much that he loses his shit and starts using Fire Sun Sect arts, all whilst praying Elder Qin would save me from certain fiery death.

Anyway, that was dealt with, as were most other immediate things.

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Hua had brought back more servants to finalize the buildings, Xi Zhao was cultivating regularly and getting daily guidance from Elder Qin, and Dai Xiu was also busy with breaking through–having reached the sixth stage just three days ago, actually. Long Tao was long gone–he he–and that only left one kid on the block: Light.

If I could meet with the Spirit Sage one-on-one, I was about 3% confident in subtly slipping in that Light would find the Antechamber extremely useful. 97% chance that I’d be killed on the spot, however.

She would eventually gain an entry to it, no doubt, but there was a minimum age limit of 11. Long Tao knew that, yet he still brought it up, which means that it would be vastly more beneficial for her to enter it as early as possible.

So…

How the heck do I sneak a 6-year-old girl into a secret underground area?

Wait, no, that sounded wrong.

Hmm.

Maybe I can create a cloaking art for her, too?

Okay, let’s actually test this real quick, if I can use some of her ‘rareness’ as a restriction.

[Restriction, Bane of Blood: -80,000 CP (Inaccessible)]

[Restriction, Star Devourer Physique: -4,000 CP (Inacessible)]

[Restriction, Demonic Bloodline: -20-1,000,000 CP (Partly Accessible)]

… huh.

Let me actually see if something can be made…

So, I followed the same route I did with Long Tao but ran into a bit of an… issue, you could say. It was actually possible to get the 400-point deduction and use just 100 Creation Points to practically replicate the same cloaking art I made for Long Tao (well, like, 92% the same), but it would cost me… 100,000 high-grade Spirit Stones.

That’s right.