The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, becoming a disciple of Yue Buqun.

Chapter 30: The Female Corpse

Jiang Ning's eyes lit up with joy; it was indeed right here.

Without hesitation, Jiang Ning immediately began searching for the entrance mechanism around the tombstone.

After a while.

Got nothing.

The oxygen supply in Jiangning is almost depleted again.

Jiang Ning frowned slightly and had no choice but to stop swimming and return to shore.

After resting for a while, Jiang Ning jumped back into the pool to continue exploring the tombstone. When his oxygen was almost depleted, he returned to shore, and then repeated this process.

Five days later.

Jiang Ning, who had been stranded here for five days, finally found the mechanism of the tombstone.

At the bottom of the pool, less than two meters from the tombstone, Jiang Ning found a ring four inches below the bottom.

A look of joy appeared on Jiang Ning's face.

However, he did not pull the ring immediately. Instead, he returned to the shore to catch his breath and regain his strength before swimming back down and pulling the ring.

The tombstone, which had been buried at the bottom of the pool for a long time without any movement, began to make a sound, then shook and moved to the side, revealing an opening.

After the cave entrance appeared, a whirlpool appeared above it. Jiang Ning knew that the pool water was flowing in, and without hesitation, he immediately swam into the cave entrance.

After entering the cave, Jiang Ning finally breathed a sigh of relief. He was now standing in a spacious area, with the water from the pool above flowing into the cave.

Jiang Ning scanned the area. His night vision was quite good. Although it was dark all around, he still noticed a similar ring on a stone wall. He went forward and pulled it, and a rotating sound came from above, and the tombstone returned to its original position.

Only then did Jiang Ning take out a piece of cloth from his bosom. The cloth contained tinder, and although the bundle was soaked, the tinder inside was dry.

After lighting the tinderbox, Jiang Ning finally had time to look around. Although the area was spacious, it was surrounded by stone walls on three sides, with only one passage leading to an unknown destination.

Although this place is located at the bottom of the pool, there is oxygen available for Jiang Ning to breathe, so he won't suffocate. He just doesn't know where the ventilation shaft is.

Jiang Ning looked around with a smile, his eyes filled with excitement.

Although he hasn't found the Innate Skill yet, judging from the current situation, the Ancient Tomb Sect should be wiped out, which is a good thing for him.

After catching his breath, Jiang Ning walked along the passage.

The passage was not narrow, about three meters high and two meters wide. Jiang Ning walked into the passage for about ten minutes until a tomb door appeared in front of him.

The tomb entrance has two doors, like the doors of some large mansions.

Jiang Ning reached out and pressed his hand on the tomb door, then pushed hard, and it opened without any resistance.

A spacious tomb chamber appeared before Jiang Ning.

The tomb chamber was very simple, with nothing but seven tomb doors. In front of Jiang Ning was a stone tablet with the words "Quanzhen Sect and dogs are not allowed to enter" inscribed on it.

I belong to the Huashan School, not the Quanzhen School.

Jiang Ning thought to himself.

He pushed open one of the tomb doors and found it was also a passage, but he didn't know where it led. He then pushed open the other six tomb doors. Behind the remaining tomb doors, there were three passages, but there were also three tomb doors, but they were the kind that were sealed. Structurally, the tomb doors fell from above, and unless there was some kind of mechanism, they could not be opened at all.

Jiang Ning didn't see any mechanisms; the surroundings were flat. After taking a look, he went to the other four tomb doors with passageways to explore those four areas.

Jiang Ning randomly chose a passage and walked in. After walking for a minute, he reached the bottom, which was also a tomb chamber.

The tomb chamber contained a stone table, stone benches, and a wooden dressing table, but all of them were covered in dust.

After finding nothing there, Jiang Ning explored the other three tomb entrances.

At the end of the three tomb passages, there were two more tomb chambers. One of the chambers contained rice, vegetables, pots, pans, and other food and utensils, but all of the food was moldy and rotten. The other chamber contained nothing but a stone bed, which looked like a place for practicing martial arts.

Jiang Ning is now at the entrance of the third tomb door. In front of him is another tomb chamber, but compared to the previous three tomb chambers, which, although old, still had a hint of life, this tomb chamber only has a coffin in the center, and nothing else.

This is more like a cemetery.

Jiang Ning felt a chill even before entering the tomb chamber.

The chill was emanating from the coffin.

Jiang Ning approached the coffin and touched it, feeling a bone-chilling coldness return to him.

It turns out this is a coffin made of ice.

This icy coffin is made of some kind of ice, yet it hasn't melted after all these years; it's clearly a treasure.

"Sorry to bother you."

After saying a few words, Jiang Ning went to the edge of the coffin and began to push it.

Jiang Ning pushed open the ice panel that had been closed and never opened before.

A body lay quietly in an ice coffin.

By the faint light of the tinderbox, Jiang Ning discovered that it was a female corpse.

The female corpse was stunningly beautiful, dressed in bright red. Her hands were folded over her abdomen as she lay quietly in the ice coffin, seemingly asleep. However, her skin was pale, and there were even ice beads on her eyelashes, all indicating that she was dead.

The female corpse had a sorrowful expression on her face. Even though her eyes were closed and she was no longer breathing, she still seemed to be grieving. It is unknown what she had experienced in her life that made her so sorrowful before her death.

Jiang Ning looked around the space inside the ice coffin and noticed that the female corpse was holding a scroll in her hand and had an oval-shaped object about the size of a palm next to her feet. He didn't know what it was.

When Jiang Ning brought the tinderbox closer, he realized it was a tortoise shell.

Jiang Ning frowned and took the scroll that the female corpse was clutching and the tortoise shell in the corner of the ice coffin out of the coffin.

The first thing he examined was the painting.

The female corpse was buried in the Ancient Tomb Sect's territory, so she must have been a member of the Ancient Tomb Sect. She kept this scroll in her hands even in death, so it must have been something very important, perhaps a martial arts manual.

However, when Jiang Ning unfurled the scroll, he discovered that it was not a martial arts manual, but a portrait of a man.

The man in the portrait is handsome and refined. Even though it is just a portrait, you can feel his otherworldly demeanor, which shows that the painter has a high level of skill.

The words "Wang Chongyang" are written in the corner of this portrait.

Upon seeing these three words, Jiang Ning couldn't help but turn around and glance at the female corpse in the ice coffin.

Lin Chaoying...

It turns out she was the founder of the Ancient Tomb Sect.

Thinking of this, Jiang Ning shook his head, closed the scroll in his hand, and then looked at the tortoise shell in his hand.

The tortoise shell wasn't large and didn't look particularly special, but when Jiang Ning touched it, he could feel the dense markings on it.

Jiang Ning held the tortoise shell up to his eyes and examined it closely. He found that it was covered with small characters, but because the light was too dim, he could not see what the characters were. He could only see three slightly larger characters on the edge of the tortoise shell.

"Innate Skill"

Chapter 31: Success

When Jiang Ning saw these three words, his heart skipped a beat. Fearing he had misread them, he looked at them several times and confirmed that they were exactly as he remembered them.

"Ha ha ha ha."

Jiang Ning was overjoyed, and an indescribable excitement spread through his heart.

Perhaps it was the spirits of the ancestors of the Huashan Sect in heaven, or perhaps it was the spirit of Wang Chongyang in heaven, but although Jiang Ning's search was not very difficult, he still found it as he wished.

This joy made him want to burst into laughter.

But Jiang Ning managed to restrain himself at this moment.

Suppressing his inner joy, Jiang Ning looked at Lin Chaoying in the ice coffin.

He's a pitiful person too.

After thinking about the love and hatred between Lin Chaoying and Wang Chongyang, Jiang Ning closed the scroll in his hand again, then put it back in the corpse's hand, and then closed the ice coffin.

Looking at the ice coffin, Jiang Ning paused for a moment, then knelt and kowtowed three times before it without saying a word, before getting up and leaving the tomb.

Having achieved his purpose, he planned to leave.

However, since he was already there, he still searched the other tomb chambers to see if he could find any of the Ancient Tomb Sect's martial arts techniques.

With this in mind, Jiang Ning went to the three tomb doors without passages again to examine them carefully, but found that they still couldn't be opened. Even when he slashed at them with his sword, they didn't budge or leave any marks. Jiang Ning had no choice but to give up.

He then went to the other three tomb chambers to take another look and searched them carefully. In any case, apart from a bell tied with gold silk in the drawer of the wooden dressing table, there was nothing else.

After confirming that nothing was missing, Jiang Ning went back the way he came, and by then his tinderbox was almost used up.

Returning to the hole he had jumped into, Jiang Ning took a deep breath, then pulled the ring on the stone wall. A tremor came from above, and the entrance reopened. Taking advantage of the moment when the rushing water was not too fast, Jiang Ning darted upwards and returned to the bottom of the pool.

He found the circular mechanism at the bottom of the pool, closed the tombstone, and then swam towards the shore.

"call!"

Jiang Ning swam to the surface and took a long breath, clutching a turtle shell tightly in his hand. Looking at the turtle shell he had brought out from the ancient tomb, a strong sense of joy appeared on Jiang Ning's face.

Maodou was still waiting for him by the pond.

Jiang Ning swam towards the shore.

After getting ashore, Jiang Ning didn't even have time to change his clothes, which were already soaked. He just wiped the water off his face and looked at the turtle shell in his hand with a little excitement.

The small characters on the tortoise shell were not obvious inside the tomb, but Jiang Ning could see them clearly after they were brought into the sunlight.

"The Innate Skill is the supreme divine skill of our Taoist sect..."

Upon seeing this, Jiang Ning couldn't help but smile, and the smile grew wider and wider until he burst into laughter.

"Hahahaha, hahahaha!"

"Our Huashan Sect shall rise to prominence!"

Even with Jiang Ning's composure, he couldn't suppress the joy in his heart at this moment.

With the Innate Skill, the supreme Taoist martial art, the Huashan Sect truly had a chance to rise to prominence, a chance to rival Wudang and Shaolin, or even surpass them, to become the number one sect in the world.

Although Wudang's Tai Chi swordplay and Shaolin's Yi Jin Jing are top-tier martial arts that have been famous in the martial arts world for hundreds of years, and the Taoist Xiantian Gong only showed its power with Wang Chongyang before being lost, as a Taoist treasure, Xiantian Gong, even if it is not as good as Wudang's Tai Chi and Shaolin's Yi Jin Jing, is not much weaker.