Chapter 30: Dragon Tomb’s Gold Testing Platform
Lu Qingyang spat out the salty seawater from his mouth, the sticky scales of the carrion fish on his fingertips glowing faintly under the moonlight.
He pried off the tracking talisman stuck between the scales and casually affixed it to the back of the iron-armored turtle, which was gnawing on a coconut crab: “Is this Ye Wuchen a turtle? He’s chased me for eight hundred li across the sea and still hasn’t stopped!”
The volcano on the east side of the desolate island suddenly erupted blue flames, and the qingmu spirit pearl in his Dantian vibrated violently.
The newly healed mountain and sea patterns on its surface perfectly matched the cracks in the volcanic rock.
When Yinghuo’s silver bell cord wrapped around his ankle, he was scraping glowing moss from the rock wall with a dagger—that fluorescent powder, mixed with cinnabar, could fetch three times the price of an evil-repelling talisman in the black market.
“This is the Dragon Clan’s burial ground,” Yinghuo said, as fragments of chensha stone embedded themselves in the volcanic rock crevices, causing the entire mountain to suddenly writhe like a living creature.
Lu Qingyang was struck on the back of his head by falling rubble, and the carrion fish in his arms suddenly broke free, burrowing into a putrid-smelling rock crevice.
He chased the carrion fish into the cave, the insect eggs crushed by his boot soles bursting with 腥黃汁液.
Yinghuo’s silver bell illuminated ten meters ahead; ancient cords made of Dragon tendons were wrapped around the stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling, each knot tied with a weathered Cultivator’s leg bone.
Lu Qingyang tugged on a newer bone cord, and a rotting corpse wrapped in a Taiyi Pavilion Daoist robe suddenly fell from above, its inner pocket containing an unopened packet of aphrodisiac powder.
“The Ye family Disciples sure know how to have fun,” he said, pinching the packet of powder and shaking it at Yinghuo, then suddenly scattering it towards the pursuing carrion fish.
The estrous fish wildly gnawed at the rock wall, actually chewing out a narrow passage leading to the earth’s core.
The qingmu spirit pearl sensed the Dragon breath, and the golden patterns at its cracks wriggled like earthworms, bulging into scale-like armor on his skin.
Nine bronze trial platforms floated above the earth’s core lava lake, each platform inscribed with different forms of Dragon patterns.
Lu Qingyang stepped onto the scorching hot chains and leaped towards the nearest one, the hidden cold jade pieces in his boot soles colliding with the chains, producing an explosion of ice and fire.
When he clearly saw the trial participants’ relics piled on the platform, his pupils suddenly constricted—three bronze fragments from the same source as the qingmu spirit pearl were being used as paperweights, pressing down on a yellowed Pill Formula.
“The Xun Wind Trial requires drawing talismans with Dragon blood…” he muttered, reading the instructions on the Pill Formula, then suddenly grabbed Yinghuo’s wrist, “Fairy, could you spare two drops of blood to help me out?”
The silver bell cord wrapped around his neck like a venomous snake, but it suddenly loosened before drawing blood—the hollow eye sockets of a Dragon bone floating up from the bottom of the lava lake suddenly opened.
The trial platform sensed the Dragon Clan’s aura, and a bronze cauldron rose from a crack in the platform.
Lu Qingyang threw the carrion fish’s green scales into the furnace fire, and the exploding poisonous mist actually condensed into three poisonous pills inside the cauldron.
He picked up a pill and examined it against the light: “It’s overcooked by half a breath, and has three-tenths more Impurities…” Before he finished speaking, he shot the poisonous pills at the pursuing Taiyi Pavilion Disciples, and the exploding poisonous mist, mixed with aphrodisiac powder, immediately knocked out a group of them.
When Yinghuo stepped onto the Li Fire Trial Platform, Lu Qingyang had already pried away three bronze fragments.
The Dragon language inscription that suddenly appeared on the ground caused his body to pause slightly; the qingmu spirit pearl spontaneously began to operate the “Tai Xu Condensing Yuan Art,” actually converting the difficult Dragon language into Divine Sense fluctuations: “…The trial participant must break the seven emotion Seals…”
Seven Dragon tendon cords immediately wrapped around his seven orifices, each knot tied with a memory fragment.
Lu Qingyang saw himself at eight years old secretly swapping a beggar’s Spirit Stone bag, at fifteen years old reselling fake foundation establishment pills in the black market, and yesterday deliberately transferring the tracking talisman to the iron-armored turtle… When the seventh knot tightened around his Divine Sense, he suddenly chuckled, “How many of the seven emotions are greed and lust?”
The blue light erupting from the trial platform sent him flying, but the bronze fragments in his arms precisely embedded themselves into the qingmu spirit pearl’s missing parts.
The hourglass illusion inside the pearl inverted nine times, actually solidifying the lava lake into Body Tempering Spiritual Liquid.
Lu Qingyang leaped naked into the lake, his skin shedding three layers of dead skin in the extreme hot and cold, and the unhealed Lightning Tribulation scars on his back even grew Dragon scale-like patterns.
“Lu! Qing! Yang!”
Ye Wuchen’s Sword Qi split the solidified lava, but his Nascent Soul Avatar twisted and deformed in the mingling Spiritual Qi of water and fire.
Lu Qingyang stepped on the re-boiling lava and leaped towards the last trial platform, the bronze fragments in his hand transforming into sharp blades that cleaved open the platform’s Seal—it didn’t contain treasure, but a blood-written message desperately carved by a trial participant three hundred years ago:
“The qingmu spirit pearl was forged from the Dragon Clan’s gouged-out heart; whoever collects all the fragments will be a sacrifice for the Dragon Tomb…”
Yinghuo’s silver bell cord suddenly tightened, and the last three bronze fragments flew out from her sleeve.
Lu Qingyang glimpsed a terrifying truth the moment the fragments embedded themselves in the qingmu spirit pearl—the mountain and sea patterns within the pearl clearly formed an Azure Dragon that had been stripped of its tendons and skin.
The instant the qingmu spirit pearl completely healed, the entire Dragon Tomb began to collapse, and the nine trial platforms transformed into chains that wrapped around his limbs.
“Sacrifice, return to your place—”
An ancient Dragon language exploded in his Sea of Consciousness, but Lu Qingyang, with a flick of his wrist, stuffed the qingmu spirit pearl into Ye Wuchen’s sword sheath: “Such a good Opportunity, of course, I must give it to Fellow Daoist Ye!”
Taking advantage of the chains changing direction, he dragged Yinghuo and leaped into the escape array at the bottom of the lava lake.
Before the white light of the teleportation swallowed his vision, he glimpsed Ye Wuchen’s shocked and angry expression as he was dragged by the chains towards the core of the Dragon Tomb.
As the desolate island sank into the seabed behind them, Lu Qingyang was inventorying the miscellaneous items he had pilfered from the trial platform.
Although the qingmu spirit pearl’s cracks had disappeared, a blood pattern that could not be removed had appeared on its surface.
He picked off a newly grown dragon blood grass from inside the qingmu spirit pearl, chewed on it, then suddenly frowned and spat it onto the deck: “It’s bitter, not as good as the cool tea from Drunken Immortal Pavilion…”