Confucian and Taoist Cultivation Starting from the Equipment Slot

Chapter 156 Upside-down Tower

Song Zhiyuan turned his gaze away from the light screen and towards Chen Zhuo.

His grey-white scholar's robe shimmered with a faint silver light under the glowing mineral, and his face appeared exceptionally serene against the backdrop of the light screen.

Chen Zhuo did not hesitate for long, his tone solemn and leaving no room for doubt: "You are to keep the pages of the book. You are the one who can circulate the cultivation technique, and you are also the one who can open the secret vault."

The pages of the book can only truly fulfill their purpose when they are in the hands of a successor of the circulating practice.

Chen Zhuo did not refuse. He took the pages of the book off the stone platform.

The soft light lingered in his palm for a moment, then slowly receded, and the entire page lay quietly in his hand.

Like an autumn leaf that has just fallen from a tree.

It felt warm to the touch and was lighter than it looked, but the resonance of the laws pressed heavily into the depths of his perception.

It subtly echoes the silver-white inscription on the iron-slaying sword.

"Since the pages belong to Chen Zhuo, let's divide the rest among ourselves."

Su Ning turned his gaze away from the pages of the book and back to the dozen or so bronze boxes on the ground.

Her allocation method was very pragmatic: first categorize, then allocate according to need, without resorting to egalitarianism.

Suning divided the artifact blanks into two piles according to their preservation condition, and selected several pieces with the greatest research value from the better-preserved pile.

Then wrap it in a soft cloth and put it in your own wooden box.

"The patterns on these blanks are similar to the flowing water patterns on the iron-cutting sword. If we can reverse-engineer the ancient blacksmith's techniques, it might be able to raise the overall level of forging at Ruhua Society."

The remaining unfinished artifacts are recommended to remain at the Academy of Arts as physical evidence of the transmission of the circulated school of thought.

My friend isn't interested in the embryo.

He rummaged through a pile of bronze boxes, picked out two palm-sized fragments of ancient alloy, weighed them in his hands, tapped them with his knuckles to listen to the sound, and nodded in satisfaction.

"This material is ridiculously hard, denser than any ore I've ever seen."

"I'll try to melt it down and mix it into the cold iron later to upgrade the Iron-Cutting Blade." He stuffed the fragment into his backpack and added.

"I suggest bringing the other alloy fragments back to the painting studio as well, and testing their composition one by one."

Gu Qing'e did not take anything from the copper box.

She sat cross-legged among the pile of cultivation notes that Su Ning had organized and began to read through the notes page by page.

The notes record the mental journeys of successive generations of practitioners of the Transformation School when they broke through bottlenecks, including in-depth discussions on the "self-contained cycle of laws".

She read very quickly, but would stop at crucial points, her fingertips lightly tracing the lines on her sleeve, mentally verifying these arguments with the cultivation methods of the Xinyuan School.

After a moment, she raised her head and said to Chen Zhuo, "I will take these notes back to the Academy of Literature to study them carefully. The master of the Flowing Transformation School has attained the Way of the Mind Source, which is consistent with the Mind Source School's principle of 'seeking within oneself'."

Several essays within it discuss the relationship between the cycle of laws and self-awareness, offering valuable insights for the next breakthrough in the Mind Source School.

Chen Zhuo carefully wrapped the notes and put them into his luggage.

These manuscripts are different from stone carvings or artifact prototypes; they are neither weapons nor martial arts techniques.

But they record the intellectual lineage of a vanished school of thought over hundreds of years.

Gu Qing'e was able to find inspiration for the Xinyuan School from it.

That might have unexpected reference value for the landscape painting school, the humanities school, and even for Xiao Luo's naturally reclusive physique.

The copper boxes in the secret vault have been inventoried, and everyone has put away the items they were responsible for.

The glow of the luminous ore slowly dimmed as everyone left, and the vault returned to silence.

Chen Zhuo walked at the back, turning back to glance at the slowly closing stone door.

The ancient characters on the door still glow faintly, and the stone fragments carved in the five-character grooves remain quietly in place.

The founder of the Transcendental School may have known when he left these relics that his lineage would one day be unlocked.

It wasn't caused by human error, but rather picked up again by those who came after.

Now these manuscripts, artifact blanks, alloy fragments, and even the character "孤" (lonely) from the Book of Heaven and Earth will all return to the world with their footsteps.

After leaving the secret vault, Chen Zhuo carefully put the book pages away in his bosom.

Suning's wooden crate was much heavier than when it arrived, and the two new alloy fragments in Lao Tie's backpack made him have to adjust the shoulder straps from time to time.

The five men took a short break at the fork in the mine road, checked their equipment, and prepared to retreat along the route they had come from.

A muffled rumble suddenly came from beneath my feet.

It's not a landslide.

The sounds of the landslide were chaotic and disorderly, with falling rocks and fracturing rock layers all mixed together.

But the roar was very rhythmic.

The vibration occurs every few breaths, lasting for three to five breaths each time. The vibration travels from the soles of the feet to the knees, and then from the knees to the spine.

It was as if some enormous mechanical device was slowly awakening deep within the mine.

The remaining runes on the rock walls on both sides of the mine tunnel trembled violently.

Several scorch marks that had not yet been completely cleaned glowed with a faint dark golden light again during the tremor, before fading away again.

Gu Qing'e reacted the fastest.

She pressed her palm against the rock wall, extending her perception along the direction of the earthquake's epicenter to its limit.

As she perceived it, the rock strata in the mine tunnel were peeled away layer by layer.

The mine shafts, the secret vaults, and deeper still, that blank area that has never been marked on any map.

Her brows furrowed, and her fingertips traced rapidly on the rock face, carving out not the simple directional marks of before, but the outline of a tower.

With its spire pointing downwards and its base above, the entire tower looks as if it has been plunged upside down from the sky into the depths of the earth.

The tower has seven levels, and the connection structure between each level is extremely complex.

"Beneath the secret vault lies an underground space far larger than the vault itself."

She withdrew her hand, her voice not loud but exceptionally clear.

"An inverted tower with its spire pointing downwards, seven stories high, each story engraved with the emblem of the Red Serpent Society, a double dagger coiled around a snake."

The tremors were coming from the bottom of the tower; something there was operating—not a mechanism, but an altar.

"The Red Serpent Society's stronghold."

Chen Zhuo drew his iron-slaying sword, and the frost patterns on the blade lit up on their own in the reflection of the luminous ore.

The alternating light and shadow of flowing water patterns and armor-piercing patterns made half of his face appear to be in light and shadow.

He looked at Song Zhiyuan and said, "After they were wiped out at the old temple, their remnants hid deep in the mine. These tremors are not accidental. They may be preparing for a final blood sacrifice."

"Shen Du's previous intelligence indicated that the Holy Envoy had sent people to investigate the direction of Blackwater Pool before the old temple was destroyed."

This indicates that the Red Serpents were aware of the existence of the waterway entrance, but they were never able to break through the stone gate.

Now that the stone gate has been opened, they have most likely detected the fluctuations in the laws that occurred when the seal was broken.

They knew someone had come in.

Song Zhiyuan's expression darkened slightly as he pushed the Dingbo Wenju technique to its limit, creating a very thin barrier of literary energy around the five people.

The vibrations from deep within the mine were isolated to prevent the conversation from being disturbed.

"What was wiped out in the old temple was only the outer perimeter; the real core has always been hidden deep in the mine tunnels."

If the inverted tower is their core stronghold, then once the blood sacrifice is completed at the altar at the base of the tower, the consequences will be unimaginable.

Old Tie took the hammer off his shoulder, gripped the handle with both hands, and said in a deep voice, "Before they finish the refining, go down now and take them down one by one."

"The structure of the inverted tower is the opposite of that of a regular building."

The spire is at the very bottom and bears the weight of the entire tower, so it must be the most solid and crucial position.

If the altar is at the bottom of the tower, then it's at the deepest part, and we have to fight our way down.

Suning loaded the crossbow bolts with gunpowder into the crossbow mechanism.

He then took out the last few bottles of antidote prepared by Shen Du from the cloth bag and distributed them to everyone.

"First, find the entrance to the inverted tower and set up barriers along the way to prevent them from blocking our retreat from above."

Gu Qing'e closed her eyes again, extending her perception further towards the epicenter. After a moment, she opened her eyes and looked down at a side road deep in the mine that had not yet been cleared.

"In that direction, there's a hidden door at the end of the mine tunnel. Behind that door is the passage leading to the inverted tower."

She paused, then added, "The hidden door has the Red Serpent Society's restriction patterns. The structure isn't complicated, but it will send a warning to the tower when triggered."

We need to decipher the patterns first before opening the door; we can't just force our way in.

Song Zhiyuan nodded slightly, took out a talisman brush from his sleeve with his right hand, and held up a small inkstone with his left hand.

The ink in the inkstone shimmered with a very faint bluish light.

He dipped his brush in ink and began to sketch a temporary array pattern in the style of landscape painting on the ground in the direction of the hidden door.

That was a sealing technique he learned in the Stele Forest Formation, which could sever the connection between the hidden door's restrictions and the inside of the tower, making the opening process undetectable.

"Within fifteen minutes, this array will block all warning signals. After fifteen minutes, the array will dissipate on its own, and the restriction will be restored. We need to act quickly."

That's enough.

Chen Zhuo held the iron-slaying sword horizontally in front of him and walked towards the hidden door.

Lao Tie followed closely behind, carrying an iron hammer, while Suning leveled the crossbow.

Gu Qing'e walked beside Song Zhiyuan, her fingertips still lightly tracing patterns on her sleeve, continuously monitoring the fluctuations of literary energy behind the hidden door.

The five of them disappeared back into the deep darkness of the mine tunnel and strode toward the inverted tower buried deep underground.

The hidden door slid open silently under Su Ning's precise strike with the talisman blade, and the scene behind the door made everyone hold their breath for a moment.

It was an underground space that was countless times larger than the Secret Vault, with a dome tens of feet high. The spire of the Inverted Tower was suspended in the very center of the dome, with the spire pointing downwards.

The first level of the tower extends downwards from the dome, as if someone had turned a seven-story pagoda upside down and nailed it into the earth's core.

The tower is covered with the Red Serpent Society's emblem of snakes coiled around two daggers.

Each engraving is embedded with dark red remnants of a blood sacrifice, which writhe slowly like living things under the eerie light emanating from the tower.

Song Zhiyuan stood inside the hidden door, his right hand pressed against the rock wall, and his literary energy extended along the rock strata to every level of the inverted tower.

His expression appeared particularly solemn under the eerie light of the tower, but his tone remained steady and orderly: "The tower has seven levels. The bottom three levels are the core area of ​​the altar, where at least five low-ranking scholars are bound."

All of them are people on the list who haven't been circled yet.

Dozens of Crimson Serpent Society members were still active inside the tower, preparing for a large-scale blood sacrifice.

He withdrew his hand and turned to the crowd.

"The Crimson Serpent Society intends to use this blood sacrifice to forcibly break the seal on the core of the ruins and seize control of the central authority."

"Everyone on the list is here."

Gu Qing'e opened her eyes, and her mental perception clearly projected the scene at the bottom of the tower into her consciousness.

"The five people all had very weak fluctuations in their literary energy, but they were all still alive."

The altar runes are being activated. Based on the patterns recorded in Xie Yun's patrol log, the blood sacrifice should begin around the next mine shaft tremor.

"Let's do it before the tremors start."

Chen Zhuo drew his iron-slaying sword from its bearskin sheath; the frost-like patterns on the blade gleamed coldly in the dim light of the inverted tower.

His tone was calm, but every word was as if it had been chilled by ice water.

"The tower has seven levels. Our goal is at the bottom of the tower: to rescue people, destroy the altar, and capture the holy messenger."

Do not hold back against any members of the Red Serpent Society you encounter along the way.

The tower gets narrower as you go down; below the fifth floor, the space is only wide enough for two or three people to walk side by side, so it's not advisable to separate.

The master was responsible for suppressing the enemy head-on, the senior sister was responsible for locating the core of the altar and the location of the offerings, Suning was responsible for blocking the poisonous fog traps, and Lao Tie stayed on the upper level to guard the retreat route and prevent anyone from blocking it from above.

My task was to tackle the attack, clear out the Red Serpent Society members who were blocking the way, and at the same time, rush straight to the bottom of the tower to rescue the sacrificial offerings.

Ask questions now if you have any; otherwise, get started.

Song Zhiyuan took out a talisman brush from his sleeve and quickly sketched a wave-stabilizing array pattern on the rock wall inside the hidden door.

This is not the wave-stabilizing technique previously used in the mine to calm the water flow, but rather another application of the wave-stabilizing technique.

Using the literary energy as an anchor point, the entire retreat route is temporarily locked to prevent the Red Serpent from blocking the secret door from the outside.

"This array pattern can last for half an hour."

The secret door will not be closed by any external force within half an hour.

He put the talisman pen back into his sleeve and stood with his hands behind his back beside the array pattern.

"I'll oversee the area where the altars are located below the fifth level."

"If there's anything at the bottom of the tower that's beyond your current cultivation level to handle, I will intervene."

"The core of the altar is in the interlayer between the sixth and seventh floors at the bottom of the tower, not in the exact center of the tower."

They concealed the true source of the altar's energy with a hidden layer.

The altar at the base of the tower is merely a facade; the true core of the blood sacrifice lies hidden in a secondary level. The entrance to this secondary level is on the north side of the tower's base, concealed by a protective barrier.

Only by finding and breaking that restriction can the blood sacrifice be completely destroyed.

Gu Qing'e opened her eyes and quickly traced the location of the altar's inner layer and the characteristics of the restrictive patterns on her sleeve with her fingertips, reporting them to Su Ning one by one.

After listening, Su Ning took out a bottle of rune-dispelling liquid, which was specially designed to counter the Red Serpent Society's restrictions, from his bag and applied a thin layer to the crossbow bolt tip.

Old Tie slammed his hammer on the ground and said gruffly, "Leave the escape route to me. As long as I, Old Tie, am standing here, this door will not close."

Chen Zhuo nodded, drew his sword, and took the lead in stepping into the first level of the inverted tower.

The air inside the tower was sticky and fishy, ​​a mixture of the smells of blood, decay, and burnt ash.

The ground beneath my feet trembled slightly, and the blood sacrifice carvings on the inner walls of the tower glowed with a dark red light in the darkness.

He had barely gained his footing when two members of the Red Serpent Society who were guarding the entrance pounced out of the shadows.

Their spiritual energy fluctuations were cold and chaotic, clearly the result of long-term forced enhancement of their cultivation through forbidden blood sacrifice techniques.

Instead of retreating, Chen Zhuo advanced, the frost patterns on his iron-slaying sword suddenly lit up, and the flowing water pattern and armor-piercing pattern were activated simultaneously, as he pounced head-on.

With a single slash, the sword cleaved through the aura shield of the person in the lead. The chilling power of the frost pattern seeped into the opponent's meridians along the blade. The short sword in the man's hand clattered to the ground, and the force of the sword sent him flying sideways, crashing into the tower wall.

Before the second man could react, the back of Chen Zhuo's blade had already struck the back of his neck, causing him to groan and collapse to the ground. From the moment the sword was drawn to the moment the two men fell, only three breaths had passed.