The road is vague

Chapter 211 In-depth exploration
Li Mo and Lü Ping ultimately failed to reach a conclusion.

"Let's go on."

However, their discussion clearly alerted the others, making them more cautious about the place.

Along the way, you can see seedlings of Nine Yin Ganoderma, but most of them are only twenty or thirty years old. There are also many signs of digging nearby, which means that they were dug up by Wang Ping, Chen Zhen and Xiao Fan who arrived here earlier.

After the six of them killed two more groups of vengeful ghosts, a fork in the road appeared ahead. At the end of the fork, some ghostly figures could be seen moving about, and there seemed to be some ruins.

When Wang Ping saw that Li Mo, Chen Rong, and Lü Ping were all looking at him, he quickly began to explain.

"Due to limited magical power, I didn't take this side path during my first two explorations. Instead, I went straight to the main path. This side path is filled with yin energy and ghostly shadows. I'm not sure if I'll find anything, but there's a high probability that a ghost general will reside there. What do you think?"

Li Mo, Chen Rong, and Lü Ping exchanged glances.

"Let's go take a look. With our strength, ordinary ghost generals are naturally no problem for us."

After making their decision, the six immediately headed deeper into the fork in the road.

Just a moment later.

With a series of urgent bell rings, the spiritual power of various magical artifacts surged one after another, and a great battle broke out in an instant.

This time, the horde of vengeful ghosts numbered about thirty, but their strength was significantly greater. They launched an attack from all directions, and for a moment, the group found themselves in a state of disarray.

Li Mo, who was shaking the bell at lightning speed, was undoubtedly the most relaxed of the group.

While the exorcising bell may not be able to kill powerful ghosts, it will weaken them, allowing others to easily eliminate them.

Roar!
A roar echoed from the depths of the ruins.

A humanoid ghost general, about ten feet tall, with three eyes, rode on a bear-like spirit mount engulfed in yin flames, wielding a halberd, and charged forward menacingly.

"It's the Ghost General!"

Chen Rong shouted and unleashed the Yang Ring, shooting it forward.

The environment here is extremely suitable for these ghosts to perform, and their strength has increased by 30% almost out of thin air. Therefore, even though they have a large number of people, they dare not be careless.

If this causes damage, it will undoubtedly affect subsequent exploration.

The ghost general brandished his halberd, and a terrifying yin wind swept through, deflecting the yang ring that Chen Rong had summoned, demonstrating his considerable strength.

At this time.

A three-zhang-long, two-headed ice snake emerged from the Snow Essence Pearl and lunged at the Ghost General.

The war bear ghost rider beneath the ghost general suddenly spewed out a large amount of yin fire, trapping the two-headed ice snake and making it difficult to break free for a time.

Chen Rong then unleashed the Yin Ring, the power of which was unknown. However, the ghost general vaguely sensed danger, and its third eye suddenly shot out a stream of light, which landed on the Yin Ring and froze it in mid-air.

Chen Rong's expression changed slightly.

"Petrification Technique?"

The surface of the Yin Ring was covered with a layer of solidified stone, which seemed to be covering the entire Yin Ring.

Chen Rong, being a mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator, reacted quite quickly. He immediately channeled more mana into the Yin Ring, stimulating a large amount of mana energy to counteract the petrification power. Then, he used the Yang Ring to temporarily repel the ghost general.

"Watch out for its third eye! Use earth and wood elemental magic items to deal with it!"

Lü Ping understood immediately, patted the storage bag at her waist, and summoned a wood-attribute seal magic artifact. After expanding to about ten feet in size, the huge seal descended from the sky.

Boom!
The powerful force of the seal artifact caused the ghost general to flee in disarray.

Xiao Fan's magical weapon was a top-grade Obsidian Birch Spear, which happened to have both wood and earth attributes. Upon hearing this, he ignored the surrounding evil spirits and immediately drove his weapon straight towards the ghost general.

Chen Zhen then let out a loud shout, and after gathering a surge of golden spiritual power, he released a golden spell towards the distant horde of ghosts.

A golden staff, about three or four zhang long and five or six chi in diameter, quickly took shape and slammed down on the horde of ghosts. Amidst the rumbling of the earth, the spiritual power of this metal-elemental spell gradually dissipated.

The hard ground, which had been nourished by yin energy for a long time, became scarred and barren.

Wang Ping's magical artifact is a high-grade spirit ruler. Every time he swings the artifact, more than a dozen wind-attribute ruler shadows are projected out, like dense wind blades.

"Six Foundation Establishment cultivators are more than enough to handle this place."

After a while.

After slaughtering all the surrounding evil spirits, the group began to besiege the ghost general.

Although this ghost general was quite powerful and had the advantage of the yin energy environment, it was still no match for the overwhelming force. In the end, after Chen Rong's yang ring strike, it let out a wail and vanished into thick black smoke before everyone's eyes.

Chen Rong breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this.

She nearly suffered a setback in this battle.

If we were to lose our useful magic weapon as a result, we would truly be devastated.

"This ghost general's petrification technique is truly vicious; it's specifically used to defile magical artifacts, quite like the practices of the demon race."

Lü Ping's expression was also not very good.

Fortunately, the ghosts here have been cleared out by everyone, and now it's time to find something to eat.

Li Mo, Chen Rong, and Lü Ping remained tacitly still, leaving Wang Ping, Chen Zhen, and Xiao Fan to search instead. Despite their occasional excited shouts, they remained unmoved.

suddenly
Li Mo drew his Heavenly Golden Sword and shot it towards a pile of ruins.

When he saw that his attack had only damaged half a brick, he looked closely at the bricks and stones that looked as if they had been cleaved by a knife and axe. The rough and irregular patterns on them, combined with the strange runes, made them look like works of art that did not care about details. He immediately confirmed his guess.

"It seems this is indeed an ancient site from the Great Zhou Dynasty, but I wonder how much has been preserved." *Bang!*
Seeing this, Chen Rong also summoned the Yang Ring and struck the bricks in front of her with all her might, but only left an inconspicuous mark on it. Her face immediately turned extremely ugly.

Li Mo and Lü Ping turned their heads away, pretending not to see, and searched for other useful clues.

Although the ghosts here had just been cleared away by everyone, these ghosts were invisible and could fly and disappear into the ground. Occasionally, one or two would still emerge from the ground, which annoyed everyone and forced them to take action to deal with them frequently.

After a cup of tea.

Wang Ping, Chen Zhen, and Xiao Fan each brought back some Nine Yin Herbs and returned to Li Mo, Chen Rong, and Lü Ping's side.

The three of them exchanged a glance, and all saw the disappointment in each other's eyes.

This area seems to be nothing of value; nothing of value has been preserved within these ruins.

After a fair distribution, Li Mo obtained a Nine Yin Ganoderma lucidum that was over 400 years old, three Nine Yin Ganoderma lucidum that were over 100 years old, and over 100 spirit stones from the on-site auction.

"Let's go, let's continue exploring back to the main road."

"kindness."

The six people reunited.

After this experience, the group naturally wouldn't easily explore any more side paths.

About half an hour later.

After breaking through several groups of vengeful ghosts, the six finally found the main hall that Wang Ping had mentioned. The three of them had also failed here last time.

Li Mo seemed to be lost in thought.

This exploration of Jiuyin Cave has taken us about three or four miles.

Based on this, it can be inferred that this geological stratum is similar to the ruins of the Great Zhou Dynasty at the bottom of the Cangyuan Valley in the Southern Barbarian Lands. It seems that the claim that a massive earthquake occurred here thousands of years ago is not unfounded.

"Everyone, there's no need to worry!"

Wang Ping gestured to the crowd, pointing to the entrance of the mysterious building.

There was a black barrier above the gate, seemingly dividing the inside and outside into two worlds.

"This barrier seems to have an isolating effect. When we came here last time, we fought almost to the death, but the ghost general inside remained unmoved. However, precisely because of this, the yin energy inside the hall is much denser than outside, and the ghost general's strength is terrifying. Even if the three of us joined forces, we were no match for it."

Upon hearing this, Chen Zhen and Xiao Fan nodded in agreement, their faces showing helplessness.

This so-called main hall was quite different from what Li Mo had imagined. There were no supporting buildings or things like city walls.

"This doesn't look like a city."

Li Mo was somewhat disappointed, but continued to carefully observe the buildings and facilities here.

Judging from the scale of the buildings here, it seems to be a small fortress, only a few dozen feet long and wide, and about four or five feet high. As a single building, it is still quite magnificent.

However, the building facilities here are very ordinary.

However, it is unlikely that this place is just an insignificant location, since even the Great Zhou Dynasty could not possibly have runes and restrictions on every building at all times.

This is not just a matter of the runemaster's energy; the etched runes also need to be enchanted, which will be quite expensive.

The most common enchanting methods in modern times are silver essence and demon blood.

The enchanting of the Great Zhou Dynasty seems to be achieved through other means, but etching runes and restrictions onto a building of such scale could not be too cheap.

After examining the situation for a while, Lü Ping suddenly fell into thought.

Everyone turned to look at the female cultivator.

"This place looks like a war workshop."

She made a startling statement.

"Look over there, doesn't it look like a materials area? And over there, doesn't it look like a moving area? And look at the ground beneath our feet, there seem to be some traces of an ancient formation..."

As Lü Ping analyzed each point, everyone nodded in agreement.

Even Li Mo had to admit that the other party's analysis was indeed reasonable.

"Since it's a war workshop, what kind of things is it used to process and produce?"

Chen Rong is an alchemist. As she asked the question, she looked at the Nine Yin Mushroom in her hand.

"According to the habits of the Nine Yin Mushroom, it prefers to live in places with yin winds, accompanied by evil energy, and absorbs the spiritual essence dissipated between heaven and earth to grow. It is often compared to the hell grass, the nine netherworld grass, or the underworld grass..."

However, Lü Ping did not agree with Chen Rong's analysis.

“Junior Sister Chen has probably forgotten that these Nine Yin Mushrooms are only a few hundred years old, while this ruin is at least several thousand years old.”

"Yeah, that's true."

Chen Rong shook her head and sighed.

"Then I'm a bit confused. Since there was no large-scale killing and no large-scale dissipation of spiritual energy, even if it was just a coincidence that a few Nine Yin Mushrooms grew here, there shouldn't be so many of them."

Everyone chimed in with their own opinions, but they still couldn't figure it out.

Fortunately, the group took this opportunity to use the spirit stones to recover a significant amount of their magical power, preparing them for the final exploration ahead.

(End of this chapter)