Volcanic Age

Chapter 38: Their Circumstances (1)

"I feel like someone's talking behind my back." Zhou Xuchuan said, scratching his ears.

"Captain Zhou! Watch out, in front of you!" Wang Yi hurriedly shouted.

"Mm!" Zhou Xuchuan leaned back, narrowly avoiding a strong hook.

"Not happening!"

He immediately got back into position and swung his sword diagonally.

The sword slashed through the bronze puppet's waist to its shoulder, splitting it in two.

"Hieek!" Zhuge Shengji shrieked in terror, crouching down.

"Why's this kid suddenly freaking out?" Chu Lian asked confusedly. "You were totally fine looking at those wooden puppets earlier."

"B-but that's not a mechanism!" Zhuge Shengji shouted fearfully. "That's sorcery!"

Seven minutes before, the group left the mountains of silver coins and pressed forward. The level of mechanisms and traps evolved as they went further. Even Zhuge Shengji started needing some time to dismantle them.

When they eventually reached the end of the passage, they encountered puppets made of bronze, which was completely unexpected.

At first, they thought they were replicas of the wooden puppets, but they were wrong. It wasn't a mechanism at all.

As soon as the group stepped inside, all the exits were sealed shut, and the bronze puppets sprang to life. They weren't just repeating the same moves as the wooden puppets. Instead, they moved freely, almost as if they were alive.

The first thing that caught their eyes was the ancient characters engraved on the puppets. The characters glowed faintly.

"I have heard that the Three-Eyed Godly Thief had stolen from places outside of the Central Plains, but I didn't know he actually stole sorcery from the Nanman…" Zhou Xuchuan muttered, sidestepping.

A bronze puppet's spear struck where he was a moment ago.

In a world where powers that worked wonders besides martial arts existed, one of them was sorcery. Necromancy used by the Two Demonic Factions was also a type of sorcery.

Although sorcery did exist in the Central Plains, it was so insignificant compared to martial arts cultivation, which prevailed there. Sorcery as a whole originated from Nanman, not the Central Plains, and was predominantly used there.

Nonetheless, sorcery sometimes caused strange phenomena, like the situation they were currently facing

There were around fifty bronze puppets, all holding metallic weapons as they attacked the group.

"Urgh!"

This time, the other cultivators participated in the fight. They all stood in a protective formation around Zhuge Shengji.

Assessing the bronze puppets, they appeared to be around Second Class. Although they didn't use any sword arts, their physical capabilities were exceptional, making them innately strong.

"Geez, you don't mind wooden puppets being moved by mechanisms, but you're afraid of things moved by sorcery? From our perspective, they're pretty much the same thing," Chu Lian said, feeling flabbergasted. She then yanked out the sword lodged in the bronze puppet's chest and kicked it away.

The bronze puppet rolled on the ground. It lay still for a moment, before twitching and rising to its feet again.

"Dammit!" Chu Lian swore. "Why do these things keep getting back up?"

"Young Master Sheng!"

At Chu Lian's question, Wang Yi turned to Zhuge Shengji, seeking an answer. Until now, Zhuge Shengji had answered all their questions, so they naturally turned to him whenever they found something they couldn't understand.

The responses from the other cultivators were the same.

"I-I don't know! How would I know? That thing is sorcery!"

However, they didn't get the response they wanted. Instead, it fueled their unease.

"Ugh."

Whoosh-!

Wang Yi groaned and swung his sword. A bronze puppet holding an ax was pushed back by his attack and staggered backward.

"Severe their limbs!" Zhou Xuchuan responded instead. In front of him were bronze puppets that had all their limbs and their heads cut off, and were no longer moving.

The bronze puppets moved perfectly even with holes in their chests, but they couldn't move if all of their limbs were cut. It was quite obvious.

"Oh!" Wang Yi exclaimed, following Zhou Xuchuan's lead. True enough, the bronze puppets didn't move after he cut off their limbs.

"It's not as easy as it sounds!"

"Captain Zhou, I'm sorry, but we can't last much longer!"

They were outnumbered by the bronze puppets, and each puppet was on the level of Second Class. To make things worse, their actions were restricted because they had to protect Zhuge Shengji.

"Then just focus on protecting Sheng!"

Zhou Xuchuan became a whirlwind. He executed the Plum Rose Sword Technique to quickly deal with the bronze puppets. First, he cut off their two arms so that they couldn't attack, then their legs and lastly, their heads.

The amount of qi in his lower dantian was reassuring. He had meditated whenever he had the chance during breaks because he was uncertain about the challenges ahead. It proved to be a wise decision.

Whenever he cut one down, he didn't stop to rest and went to the next one. There was no hint of hesitation in his actions. He didn't even think. He just slashed relentlessly, driven by instinct.

He was so fast that the others could only see a blurry image of him.

"I thought we could help…"

They scratched the back of their heads awkwardly.

"Just how strong is Captain Zhou?"

All they had for him was admiration.

"From the looks of him, I don't think he's exerting full power yet."

"Are Peak Realm experts all this strong?"

It wasn't surprising that they found it perplexing. Zhou Xuchuan's capabilities were on the level of Peak Realm, but his sword arts were that of the Harmony Realm. It was natural that they thought he was high level.

"What do you think his identity is?"

"He must be the disciple of a reclusive expert."

"Have you heard of experts around that age among the ten major organizations or the five great clans?"

"They like to boast, so if there was, there's no way he wouldn't have made a name for himself."

The number of bronze puppets defeated by Zhou Xuchuan increased. The nearly fifty puppets were now down to twenty.

The cultivators had an easier time protecting Zhuge Shengji as well. Now, they could relax a little.

"Phew, if he's open to it, I'd like to get a few pointers from him after this."

"I saw last time, but isn't he quite close to the head merchant?"

"If we can keep working for the head merchant, we might end up getting that chance."

"If you have time to talk, you should commit Captain Zhou's movements to memory. That's not something you can see every day."

As time passed, their respect and loyalty towards Zhou Xuchuan deepened. Their lives were being saved by him after all. Without him here, someone would have died already.

After around fifteen minutes…

"Done."

Zhou Xuchuan sheathed his sword and stretched his arms. Scattered at his feet were the remains of numerous bronze puppets.

Everyone appeared speechless, shocked by Zhou Xuchuan's display. He didn't even break a sweat after such an impressive performance. It meant that his cultivation level was high.

"Captain Zhou. How much qi do you have?" Chu Lian regarded him with a mixture of awe and bewilderment.

"Quite a lot."

A young person with a lot of qi, and a high level of sword arts weren't common in the martial world. His name was well-known after the incident with the Watertop Spearman, so he kept his name a secret just in case.

"Well then, let's keep going, shall we… hm?"

Just as he was about to leave, something caught his eye.

Among the remains of the bronze puppets, something sparkled. When he went over and checked it out, it was a bracelet.

"I don't know what this is… but it's better to take it with me than leave it here."

The bronze bracelet was adorned with dangling chains and an artificially carved mineral embedded in it. He also noticed characters similar to those controlling the bronze puppets.

If he couldn't find a use for it later, he could always sell it.

"You're going to be cursed if you take something like that!" Zhuge Shengji exclaimed in panic.

"Raiding this treasury is cursed in itself, you know?" Zhou Xuchuan laughed dismissively, placing the bracelet in his chest pocket for safekeeping.

"Let's go."

*

The treasury of the Three-Eyed Godly Thief was designed maliciously—the more they investigated, the more apparent it became. Without Zhuge Shengji, they wouldn't have made it through, even if they had sacrificed a life or two. At the very least, they would have to suffer from all sorts of losses.

Sometimes, they encountered a maze without an exit, or a room where they were slowly poisoned to death if they couldn't find a secret door in time.

Sometimes, they got poisoned, but they were able to survive thanks to the antidotes of the Tang Clan prepared by Li Yicai in advance.

Zhou Xuchuan had prepared to raid this treasury for a long time. He had prepared a year's worth of grain pills as well. Although the raid shouldn't take a whole year, he brought that much just in case.

Not only antidotes and ointments, he had also prepared spare swords and grindstones.

"I know this is nothing new, but I wonder how something like this was made…" Zhou Xuchuan pondered aloud as he walked forward.

"Money makes everything possible," Wang Yi replied.

"Creating traps and mechanisms of this level would require a huge sum of money, sure, but it should have been difficult to keep it a secret. How is it that no hint of place was known to the later generations?" Zhuge Shengji wondered.

"The dead keep their secrets," Zhou Xuchuan replied. "Yanchang is a place where not even animals come near, not to mention people. Not only that, the treasury was built underground, so whoever made this probably wasn't worried that it was going to be exposed."

"But there should have been people involved in transporting items and other things."

"There's an old saying that money can make even ghosts work. With the wealth that the Three-Eyed Godly Thief had, secrecy shouldn't have been a problem."

And if everyone involved were to die after everything had been built, no one would know a thing.

"Ugh… what a vicious person…" Zhuge Shengji shivered, hugging himself.

"The wealth is enough to buy the entire Central Plains, so that much is natural, kid." Chu Lian chuckled, tousling Zhuge Shengji's hair vigorously.

Zhuge Shengji swatted her hand away in annoyance while Chu Lian laughed mischievously. Of course, it was Chu Lian who teased Zhuge Shengji most of the time. When Zhuge Shengji asked about it, she told him he reminded her of her son.

"What kind of situation were you all in to come to a dangerous place like this?" Zhuge Shengji asked.

"Mmm…" Everyone smiled bitterly at the child's innocent question.

"Sheng, it's rude to ask something like that."

Zhuge Shengji was smart, but he was still a child in areas like this and had no clue what was okay and what was not.

"It's okay, Captain Zhou. He's just a child," Wang Yi said with a bitter smile.

"When I was still immature, I left my house because I didn't want to farm like my parents did. After that, I became a wanderer and was lucky enough to reach First-Class. When I returned, my homeland had been ravaged by an infectious disease."

"...I-I'm so sorry."

Zhuge Shengji wasn't evil by nature. He apologized, regretting his rudeness.

"It's okay, Young Master Sheng." Wang Yi reassured with a tender smile.