“I will go down and take a look!” Ye Chu said to Tan Miaotong. He handed her the jade box. Once she had taken it, Ye Chu began to undo his clothes and casually tossed them aside.
“Ah!” Tan Miaotong had never expected Ye Chu to start undressing right in front of her. Seeing his well-defined, toned physique, her face flushed crimson. She quickly turned her head away.
“Go ahead and look! It is not like I will charge you a fee anyway! Besides, this makes things fair!” Ye Chu laughed. Looking at Tan Miaotong, whose shyness only made her more strikingly beautiful, he stepped towards the deep pool.
Tan Miaotong’s ears burned red. She bit her lip lightly, thinking Ye Chu was utterly wicked. This guy had brought up the time she had seen him again. What kind of man was he? Any other man who had accidentally seen something would never mention it again out of shame or guilt, yet Ye Chu… should he not feel embarrassed and avoid the topic entirely?
Thinking of what Ye Chu had said, Tan Miaotong could not help turning her head to glance at him. What is so special about your body anyway? she thought. But her eyes still drifted over.
Just as she turned, she saw Ye Chu standing there with a smile, gazing at her playfully, a hint of teasing in his eyes.
“Ah…”
Tan Miaotong felt her heart pounding fiercely. Her entire face burned like blooming peach blossoms. She felt flustered and shy: Ye Chu would not think she wanted to sneak a peek at him, would he?
Only when she heard the splash as he jumped into the water did Tan Miaotong dare to turn back. She looked at the clothes lying on the ground. She could not help recalling the body they had just covered. Ye Chu looked rather slender when dressed, but seeing him bare earlier revealed surprisingly graceful lines. He was not overly muscular, yet his build was perfectly proportioned.
“Pah!” Tan Miaotong felt ashamed of her own thoughts and could not help spitting lightly in embarrassment. Her gaze turned towards the deep pool.
The pool was not shallow. Ye Chu dove deeper and deeper. Once he reached the depths, visibility was almost zero. He could only grope around blindly like a blind man feeling an elephant. But Ye Chu had underestimated the pool’s depth. He could not touch anything at all.
Unwilling to give up, Ye Chu dove even deeper. The further down he went, the weaker the light became. The cave’s illumination came only from tiny cracks above, already dim. At this depth, the water was pitch black.
Ye Chu descended another metre or two. He thought the pool was bottomless, and the pressure at greater depths would soon exceed what he could withstand. He was about to surface when he suddenly noticed a faint light not far below.
“Hm?” Ye Chu was surprised. In this pitch-black water, seeing any light at all was completely unexpected.
Gathering his breath, Ye Chu held it and swam downwards. The light gradually became clearer. There was a moderately sized opening, and the light was emanating from within.
Without hesitation, Ye Chu shot towards the opening. To his astonishment, once his entire body entered, not a drop of water followed inside.
The cave was not large, but the stones within glowed faintly. The light came precisely from those stones.
Just as Ye Chu marvelled at the cave’s strangeness, his expression suddenly changed. His fingers moved rapidly, and grey-black specks flickered across his forehead.
“There is killing aura in the cave!” Ye Chu was shocked. He could feel the violent killing aura invading his body. Such ferocious killing aura, if not for his special physique, would have destroyed his vitality in no time, leading to a miserable death.
Ye Chu kept pointing and circulating his energy, neutralising the danger of the killing aura.
After taking a few steps forward, Ye Chu saw several skeletons on the ground. Judging from the remnants of ornaments and accessories around them, they appeared to belong to villagers from the nearby settlement.
Ye Chu was not surprised by this. The village had guarded this cave for so many years. It was only natural that occasionally someone would venture deep into the pool. Unfortunately, even an Innate Realm cultivator could never withstand the erosion of such killing aura. Entering meant certain death.
Continuing deeper, Ye Chu soon reached the end of the cave. At the very end stood a single skeleton. Though it was merely bones, the pressure it emanated made Ye Chu struggle to breathe. It even forced him to the verge of kneeling in reverence.
Ye Chu retreated several steps to block the oppressive aura. He was deeply shaken. For a mere corroded skeleton to make an Innate Realm like him feel this way meant the original owner must have been extraordinarily powerful.
To possess such imposing might, the person must have reached at least the level of ‘Devouring the Essence of Sun and Moon’ in life. In other words, this skeleton belonged to a great cultivator!
Ye Chu could not help drawing in a sharp breath. The corpse of a great cultivator was a treasure to any practitioner. The bones could rival fine steel and be forged into weapons. The lingering intent could suppress anyone below the Primal Spirit Realm. And if the primal spirit had not dispersed upon death, it could transform into a Primal Spirit True Source.
“Primal Spirit True Source!” Ye Chu was stunned for a moment, then his eyes suddenly lit up. He felt that this place very likely contained such a thing.
The formation of a Primal Spirit True Source required two conditions: first, the great cultivator’s primal spirit must not disperse after death; second, sufficient spiritual energy must naturally integrate into the undispersed primal spirit.
Both conditions were exceedingly rare. It was said that death was like a lamp extinguishing, where the lamp referred to the primal spirit. In most cases, the primal spirit vanished upon death. Among tens of thousands of great cultivators, perhaps only one would have an undispersed primal spirit.
And for spiritual energy to naturally merge into that undispersed primal spirit after death was even rarer. It required the deceased’s primal spirit to have had an astonishing affinity with spiritual energy in life.
These two conditions made the formation of a Primal Spirit True Source incredibly difficult. It was a treasure of unparalleled rarity.
Yet what Ye Chu had seen in the cave strongly suggested the effects of a Primal Spirit True Source.
The cave was filled with dense spiritual energy, very likely drawn here by the True Source. Moreover, the energy was all of the Spirit Moulding variety, possibly transformed through the True Source itself. Most crucially, the cave contained killing aura.
After death, the various malevolent energies within a person naturally dissipate. Under normal circumstances, they fade into the world. But if the primal spirit does not extinguish, those malevolent energies can draw upon its power to persist in the world.
The malevolent energies of a great cultivator were already terrifying. After enduring for countless years and being tempered by time, it was no surprise they had transformed into such horrifying killing aura!
It was similar to how grave robbers entering ancient tombs might encounter corpse aura, a form of killing aura, though far weaker than what Ye Chu faced now. But that was understandable. A great cultivator was no ordinary person. Even in death, the corpse aura they left behind would be thousands of times stronger!
Recalling the description of Primal Spirit True Source from the classics of Qingmi Mountain, Ye Chu’s gaze involuntarily turned to the skeleton’s brow. If a Primal Spirit True Source truly existed here, it would definitely be located there!
Ye Chu felt a surge of excitement. Enduring the oppressive aura that nearly forced him to his knees, he stepped forward towards the skeleton bit by bit.
His eyes fixed on the skeleton’s brow. He wanted to see whether there really was a Primal Spirit True Source here. If there was, then below the Primal Spirit Realm, Ye Chu would no longer need to worry about Spirit Moulding at all.
Because even the lowest-grade Primal Spirit True Source would surpass the effect of a hundred stalks of Demon Origin Grass, and its Spirit Moulding Qi would be far purer.