Chapter 83 – Miasma Beads and Spirit Bones
After hearing what the Spirit Master said, a large half of the disciples immediately spread out, some following Spirit Master Lin to the large structures while others lifted into the air, leaving the stone stronghold, headed toward an unknown place.
Only seven or eight people, including Liu Ming, were newcomers. After looking at each other, they walked toward the stone plate in the middle of the stronghold.
After the time it take to drink a cup of tea, Liu Ming had read all the words on the stone plate, and walked a little around the stone stronghold.
He discovered that apart from a small scale Transportation Formation that could be used in special situations, there was also a store that sold miscellaneous goods and a weapons store. The store that sold goods specialized in supplying Pills of Fastening, Spirit Liquids and some simple supplies. The weapons store could fix some broken Practitioner Weapons and also sold some simple Practitioner Weapons.
As for the other small stone huts, they were freely provided for the disciples who joined the suppression mission to rest in.
Before coming here, Liu Ming had already prepared all the supplies, and therefore only spent several dozens of Spirit Stones to purchase a map of the Ten Thousand Bone Cave from the miscellaneous goods store. This was before he flew out of the stone stronghold like the other people.
In the air, he rolled open the map, after a close look, he squinted his eyes, and got a far look around the basin.
He only saw that the sides of the basin had hills and some uneven, black stone pillars. Farther in the basin, there was an azure-colored stone platform with some ancient looking inscriptions carved into them.
Liu Ming looked at those stone pillars and the stone platform, and then look at his map, before his expression changed. He formed a hand sign with one hand, and the gray cloud which he was riding immediately started ascending.
Three thousand feet, four thousand feet, six thousand feet, ten thousand feet…..
After ascending to ten thousand or more feet, Liu Ming focused his attention and looked down carefully, resulting in a gasp.
He only saw that the whole basin was in fact a huge formation of tens of thousands of acres, and the ordinary looking stone stronghold was in fact in the center of the formation.
Seeing this, the Ten Thousand Bone Cave was just as scary as it was rumored to be, otherwise there would not be several sects working together to place such a scary sealing formation.
According to the information he had researched, the Ten Thousand Bone Cave was formed five or six thousand years ago, after an outburst of Miasma.
It was said that there were countless bones and skeletons of humans and beasts buried there ten of thousands of year ago, and after being corrupted by the miasma, they all became alive one after another into skeleton type ghosts. However, these skeletons had been inactive for a long time, so their innate intelligence was not high. Therefore, they could all be called Bone Ghosts.
As the length of time spent in the Miasma varied from one bone ghost to another, it also caused variation in their strength. There were Soldier Level Bone Ghosts that could fight with Practitioners, as well as General Level Bone Ghosts that could fight with Spirit Masters.
Also, some people said that on the lowest level of the Ten Thousand Bone Cave, there was a Bone Ghost King, which had the power of a true Ghost King, and could fight with Crystal Level Elders.
Of course, not many people believed this rumor. After all, if there really was such a Bone Ghost King, then the Crystal Level Elders of the sects would have already set out and hunted it. There was no way they would let such a thing stay at the lowest level of the Ten Thousand Bone Cave.
Also, due to some unknown reason, these Bone Ghosts could not be overwhelmed or tamed by the Spirit Communication Technique. Only after being killed would they sometimes randomly drop Spirit Bones or a type of crystal bead condensed from Miasma, which was somewhat valuable.
However, to prevent a great amount of ghosts working together to break the seal placed by the sects, the sects could only send groups of disciples in to kill large amounts of Bone Ghosts.
However, as the Miasma in this cave was almost unlimited, combined with an unknown amount of skeletons and bones, even though countless Bone Ghosts were killed each year, many more new Bone Ghosts were also be born.
Therefore, the sects had to send disciples to regularly guard this area to the point where they were willing to offer large amounts of rewards to attract disciples to go there of their own accord.
However, several hundred years ago, the Barbarian Ghost Sect made a deal with the other sects, where the Barbarian Ghost Sect would be the sole guardian of this cave. Of course, if the other sects sent a few disciples to this cave, they would not be impeded nor stopped.
Although the Ten Thousand Bone Cave had existed for such a long time and never caused any large problems, the danger level inside it was legitimate.
It was said that the whole Ten Thousand Bone Cave had nine levels, but as of now, people had only gone to the first five levels.
The first three levels of the Ten Thousand Bone Cave normally had Soldier Level Bone Ghosts, and the fourth and fifth levels had Warrior Level Bone Ghosts, with General Level Bone Ghosts appearing once in a while. It was said that the world below the the first five levels was the world of General Level Bone Ghosts and that even Spirit Masters would not dare enter.
As for disciples that were Spirit Apostles, they normally only did extermination in the first three levels. The ones courageous enough to enter the fourth and fifth level were either extremely talented and brave, or had a Spirit Master leading their squad.
After looking around high up in the sky for a while and quickly going through the information in his brain, Liu Ming urged his gray cloud to descend and arrived on a hill next to the basin after a short while.
In the rock face that was a hundred or so feet away, there was a cave several tens of feet high, with its entrance covered by a barrier made out of white light.
This was one of the entrances into the Ten Thousand Bone Cave. Several similar entrances were littered all over the basin, which was said to amount to almost one hundred entrances.
As for the white light at the entrance, it was a powerful seal that specially restrained ghosts but had no effect on the disciples from each sect that wanted to enter.
Liu Ming did not hesitate and walked toward the cave. After a white flash, his body was enveloped within, nowhere to be seen.
After entering the light barrier, there was a tunnel over a hundred feet in length. The rock walls on both sides were quite smooth but not completely flat, clearly showing that it was not created by people.
In addition, the stone walls gave off a faint white light, making the tunnel abnormally bright.
What made Liu Ming feel curious was, when he closely examining a rock face and lifted his hand, he was able to pull off a piece of faintly glowing crystal.
The rock looked like Spirit Stones, but it was abnormally cloudy and there were no traces of Yuan Qi that could be felt.
Liu Ming shook his head and casually threw away the rock in his hand, before patting the leather pouch by his waist. A black light appeared, and the White Bone Scorpion appeared nearby bundled inside a cloud of green gas.
“Go.”
Liu Ming pointed ahead and gave a deep shout.
Instantly, the White Bone Scorpion leaped up and disappeared the dark shadows that was up ahead.
Then, Liu Ming felt the bronze bracelet on his wrist, and slowly walked forward too.
After walking a short distance, a one hundred or so feet long and wide cavern appeared, with three different tunnels, all seemingly to reach further into the ground.
Liu Ming chose one without hesitation, and entered it in a flash.
Two hours later, Liu Ming did not know how many caverns he had passed, and how many tunnels he had entered, but he vaguely feel that he was very deep underground.
Even the light-emitting crystals on the sides of the tunnels began to lessen, and the surrounding environment became slightly hazy, leaving people with a strange feeling of their heart beating faster for no reason.
Liu Ming turned around a corner, and when he passed by an intersection, something from jumped out of the nearby mud and rushed toward him.
“Peng”.
Liu Ming swayed his body, and dodged the opponent. He then moved his arm, suddenly using a fist covered with yellow light to hit the black shadow.
The black shadow immediately flew backward, painfully hitting the side of the tunnel which produced the sound of something breaking apart.
Only then did Liu Ming focus his attention and get a look at his attacker. It was a beast type Bone Ghost and was less than half a foot long. Half its body had already crumbled from Liu Ming’s attack, but the remaining half, under the urging of the flashing black bead that was embedded on its head, actually stood up with difficulty.
“Sou.”
A black long stinger shot past Liu Ming, immediately piercing the small skull. After a blur and a pull, the rest of the Bone Ghost also crumbled away.
Only then did Liu Ming grab at the thin air.
The small skull of the Bone Ghost immediately flew toward Liu Ming, who caught it.
Using some power in his five fingers, the skull of the Bone Ghost instantly turned into dust under the huge power. The black bead that was originally embedded in the skull came rolling out, landing in Liu Ming’s hands.
Within his hand, Liu Ming carefully examined the bead that was no larger than a bean. When he decided that it could be exchanged for one or two Contribution Points, the White Bone Scorpion which was underground nearby suddenly came borrowing out. It then stared at the Miasma Bead in Liu Ming’s hand and gave out a low humming sound.
“You want this?”
When Liu Ming saw this situation, he was slightly surprised and after a little bit of thought, he casually tossed the bead to the ghost.
The White Bone Scorpion jumped up, and swallowed the black-colored bead midair, before lazily lying still on the ground.
After staring at his scorpion for a while, Liu Ming did not discover any abnormal symptoms and could only shake his head and continue on.
……
Three days later.
With the explosion of a fire ball and a loud “hong” sound, the fragments of the skull of a human-shaped Bone Ghost flew in all directions. At the same time, a black bead the size of a broad bean came rolling over with the pure white, headless body of the Bone Ghost. The body swayed a few times, before collapsing onto the floor, forming a pile of spare bones.
With a “sou” sound, a green shadow flashed past and the black bead that was on the floor disappeared.
Liu Ming looked at the White Bone Scorpion raise its head and emit out a “ge beng” sound, causing Liu Ming to helplessly roll his eyes.
TL: Scorpion raised head to chew/eat the bead
This was the Miasma Bead of a legitimate Soldier Level Bone Ghost, which could be exchanged for three or four Contribution Points. For it to be eaten by the White Bone Scorpion, it gave Liu Ming a wave of pain in his heart.
This was also the first Soldier Level human-shaped Bone Ghost Liu Ming had met in these few days. It was not one of those bone rabbits or bone rats, or any of those weak, small-sized Bone Ghosts he had met before.
However, ever since Liu Ming discovered that once the bone scorpion had swallowed seven or eight of these Miasma Beads and the green gas that enveloped it was slightly thicker than before, he was no longer opposed to the actions of the White Bone Scorpion — who was stealing the Miasma Beads.
As the White Bone Scorpion finished consuming the black bead, it turned around, and suddenly used its huge claws to dig out a small, abnormally sparkling and translucent bone — which was several inches long.
Liu Ming’s expression changed, and immediately grabbed the small bone that was in front of him. After a close examination, he smiled and said to himself, “So this is a Spirit Bone, too bad it seems to only be ten years old. However, I can exchange it for a hundred or so Spirit Stones.