FIMA Ch164: The Great Treasure

The trial of the seventh hall was to learn a method of soul attack.

It complemented the illusion trial of the sixth hall rather well. Those who could wake quickly from illusions generally possessed rather strong minds and souls, and such people were naturally the most suited to studying the path of the soul.

In this respect, Gu Siyuan had an even more exceptional, heaven-given advantage.

Very quickly, half a day passed.

He opened his eyes and said to Xie Xueyi, “I suspect the next hall will most likely test one of the hundred arts of cultivation. You’ve never touched those before, so passing may be difficult. Soul cultivation methods are very rare, so you should stay here and keep studying for now. I’ll go ahead and check the next stage.”

Xie Xueyi hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Alright.”

This seventh stage allowed seven days in total, which was enough for him to at least learn a basic foundation of the soul attack method on this wall.

Still, even though he said that, when Gu Siyuan stood up, he clung to his sleeve in a lingering, sticky way. “Gege…”

Gu Siyuan raised a brow, bent down, and lightly kissed him on the forehead. “I’ll be back very soon.”

Xie Xueyi did not notice anything off about that line at all. He simply nodded and let go of the sleeve with reluctance.

Only after watching Gu Siyuan’s figure disappear beyond the wall did he finally turn back to his studies.

Still, Gu Siyuan’s “very soon” turned out to be much slower than he had imagined.

Three days later, Xie Xueyi was currently glaring eye to eye with Ji Jinghuan, who had just entered the sixth hall.

“You made it through the first six stages. Not bad.”

Ji Jinghuan looked around and, seeing that Gu Siyuan was not there, asked unwillingly, “Where’s Gu Siyuan? Did he go on to the next stage?”

Xie Xueyi smiled smugly. “Naturally. My gege is a genius. He’s ahead of the rest of you by who knows how many steps.”

Ji Jinghuan narrowed his eyes. “Xueyi, back in the beginning, I was the one who brought you into the sect. Weren’t we friends then? Why did you later get tangled up with Gu Siyuan? Was it just because he saved you that time?”

Xie Xueyi shook his head. “Not really.”

Ji Jinghuan looked at him. “Then why?”

Xie Xueyi smiled. “Because I value beauty over friendship. Gu Siyuan is that handsome. I took a liking to him at first sight.”

Gu Siyuan was handsome?

Someone like Gu Siyuan, cold and stern like an iceberg—could he really be described with the word handsome?

Ji Jinghuan froze for a moment.

To be honest, when he had first met Xie Xueyi, he had assumed Xie Xueyi liked him.

Back then, Xie Xueyi had always liked staring at him when there was nothing else to do. If it was not because of admiration, then what else could it have been…

But ever since that accident in the mountain forest, it seemed that everything had changed.

When Xie Xueyi later entered the sect and joined Qingchen Mountain, Ji Jinghuan had not cared much. After all, the two of them had only been passing acquaintances to begin with, and at the time he had already been worn out by Ruan Li and Xiao Xinchi.

But the changes in Gu Siyuan had humiliated him beyond measure. It felt as though Gu Siyuan had been stepping right on top of him, one move after another.

He always felt that things should not have turned out this way…

Just then, a flash of white light burst forth, and Gu Siyuan’s figure suddenly appeared in the hall.

Xie Xueyi sprang up in delight. “Gege, you’re back.”

Gu Siyuan nodded. “I said I would be.”

When Ji Jinghuan looked at the newcomer, guilt first flashed across his face, but then he was shocked to the extreme. “You came from over there… how is that possible?”

According to the legends, once one entered the Xianling Ancient City, there was no turning back.

There were nine halls in total, and one could only pass through them in order, one by one.

And every hall had a minimum time limit for its trial. If one passed, then one could proceed to the next hall. If not, once time ran out, the city would directly expel the person, and there would never again be another chance to enter. Of course, one could also choose to give up midway, and the city, being sentient, would send the person out immediately.

But no matter what, it was a road with no return.

So how could Gu Siyuan come back?

Gu Siyuan did not answer his question. He merely drew his sword with a cold laugh. “You’ve hidden for several days. At last you’ve come to die.”

Ji Jinghuan’s expression changed violently. He shot Gu Siyuan a hateful glance, then his figure flashed, and he directly used the secret realm token to force himself out of the ancient city.

Xie Xueyi blinked. “He really did run fast. He came in and left immediately. He wasted the whole seventh stage for nothing. What a huge loss.”

Gu Siyuan’s brows lifted slightly. “Indeed, very fast. Actually, one cannot fight inside the Xianling Ancient City at will. All attacks are absorbed by the city. I just didn’t expect him to be that afraid of me.”

Hearing the faint schadenfreude in his tone, Xie Xueyi’s eyes turned. “You were deliberately bluffing him. Since he saw you could even walk back, he became afraid that you might also be able to attack, so for self-preservation he had no choice but to quit immediately.”

Gu Siyuan smiled and said nothing.

A person like Ji Jinghuan did not deserve the reward of this place, especially not this soul-attack method.

Xie Xueyi asked curiously, “Speaking of that, gege, how were you able to come back? Isn’t it supposed to be only forward, or else leave entirely?”

Gu Siyuan replied calmly, “I passed all of the ancient city’s trials and obtained a few small privileges. Let’s go out first. I’ve already learned the soul method. Once we leave, I’ll teach you personally.”

Xie Xueyi’s eyes lit up. “Good, good, good.”

He had never been particularly diligent in cultivation to begin with.

What was more, ever since entering these halls, he had been put through high-intensity comprehension and cultivation almost every day. He had already long reached the limit of his endurance.

The force of teleportation wrapped around both of them.

The two of them appeared in a lush green forest, and Xie Xueyi immediately sensed that the spiritual energy around them was much thinner than before.

He looked at Gu Siyuan in surprise. “This isn’t inside the secret realm. Did we come straight out? Freely entering and leaving the secret realm—is that also one of the little privileges you got from clearing it?”

“Mm.” Gu Siyuan nodded and took his hand. “We’re going back to the sect now.”

Xie Xueyi tilted his head up to look at him. “Gege, the spiritual energy in the secret realm is so rich. Wouldn’t it be great to cultivate in there? Why are we in such a hurry to come out? There are only ten days left before the secret realm closes anyway. Why not just leave together with everyone else? If we disappear so suddenly now, won’t that attract a lot of attention…”

Gu Siyuan answered evenly, “I killed Deng Huan and Zhu Buming. Once the secret realm opens again, the Nascent Soul elders from Hehuan Sect and Corpse Refining Sect who came along with them will likely go mad. But now I’ve disappeared too, so there won’t be much left for them to say. Are they really going to seek debt from a dead man?”

Xie Xueyi understood at once and hurriedly tugged him along. “Right, right, gege, let’s hurry back to the sect.”

As long as they returned to the sect, then even if the demonic path learned later that Gu Siyuan was still alive, they would not be able to directly fight their way to Taixuan Immortal Sect.

And if they really did go mad enough to launch a major war, then that would already be a full righteous-versus-demonic conflict. At that point, whether the truth mattered or not would no longer make much difference anyway.

…

Ten days passed in the blink of an eye.

All the surviving people within the secret realm were sent by an irresistible force back outside to the Purple Bamboo Forest, exactly where they had entered in the first place.

“What? The young master is dead?”

“Your senior brother is dead?”

Almost simultaneously, furious roars broke out from the teams of Hehuan Sect and Corpse Refining Sect.

And over on the side of Taixuan Immortal Sect, the Baiqing Mountain Lord and several Nascent Soul elders counted the numbers several times over and still could hardly believe it. “Where is Martial Nephew Siyuan? Where is your Da Shixiong? Why hasn’t he come out yet?”

Everyone looked at one another in confusion.

The death rate inside the Xianling Secret Realm was naturally terrifyingly high. It was common enough for some sects to lose half their people. But Gu Siyuan had been the strongest among everyone who entered. If anyone were to die, surely it should not have been him…

And yet now, the man was simply nowhere to be seen.

At that moment, the Nascent Soul elders from Hehuan Sect and Corpse Refining Sect flew over and roared, “Taixuan, hand over Gu Siyuan! Outside the secret realm, he already acted viciously, but no lives were lost, so we did not lower ourselves to argue with a junior. Yet once inside the secret realm, he actually still dared to kill so mercilessly!”

The Baiqing Mountain Lord looked at the aggressive newcomers, and all the grief in his heart turned into endless coldness. “Oh, so your young masters were killed. But wasn’t that because they were inferior in skill and deserved it?”

The two men froze for a moment, then exploded in rage. “Do you intend to tear relations apart with our two sects today? Do you want to trigger a war between righteous and demonic paths?”

The Baiqing Mountain Lord said expressionlessly, “And if I do tear relations apart? And if war comes?”

There were not many Nascent Soul cultivators on the continent, and there were even fewer masters on the level of the Baiqing Mountain Lord.

So although they normally stood on opposing righteous and demonic sides, they actually crossed paths often enough and were quite familiar with each other. In their impression, the Baiqing Mountain Lord had always been a nice old man. Since when had he become this tough, speaking in such ugly terms?

Suddenly, a voice rose from the crowd: “Gu Siyuan, Young Hero Gu, hasn’t come out either.”

The Nascent Soul elders from Hehuan Sect and Corpse Refining Sect froze. They swept their gazes around and then searched with divine sense.

Sure enough, within a hundred li, there was no trace of Gu Siyuan’s aura.

This…

In an instant, their hearts were filled with both joy and shock.

Could it be that Gu Siyuan had really died in the secret realm? If such a heaven-shaking genius had truly died, then for the demonic path it would be a blessing of astonishing scale.

“So what if the young masters of your two sects died? Even if every disciple in both your sects dropped dead, how could they compare to even one finger of Gu Siyuan’s?”

Boundless grief spread through the air.

…

And at that very time, Gu Siyuan and Xie Xueyi, having left several days early and traveled at top speed, had already arrived at Xuanyuan City at the foot of Taixuan Mountain.

Xuanyuan City was the last stop before entering Taixuan Mountain, and it was also a great city that had grown and prospered because of Taixuan Immortal Sect.

When people came to the immortal sect to seek apprenticeship or visit family and friends, they would usually stop in the city to rest first.

Likewise, ordinary sect disciples, when cultivation became too bitter or dull, would sometimes descend the mountain into the city to relax for a while.

“I heard there’s going to be a small auction at Taixuan Tower today. Let’s go take a look!”

“The Xianling Secret Realm is about to open soon. Maybe some good things will flow out. Everyone’s scrambling to gather spirit stones!”

“Exactly. Even if you’re not going to bid, just going there for a drink would be worth it. Taixuan Tower’s spirit wine is absolutely incredible!”

“…”

Listening to the lively discussion around them, Xie Xueyi immediately lit up with excitement and tugged on Gu Siyuan’s sleeve. “Let’s go to Taixuan Tower and drink wine too. We’ve never gone out to have fun together before.”

Gu Siyuan nodded. “Alright.”

Xuanyuan City was already Taixuan Immortal Sect’s own territory. Whether it was the demonic path or other sects, none of them would dare to act recklessly here.

Taixuan Tower had four stories.

Both Gu Siyuan and Xie Xueyi preferred quiet, so they went directly to a private room on the fourth floor, where formations had been set up to ensure absolute silence and safety.

Xie Xueyi excitedly drank a pot of the spirit wine served there. But after a while, he decided it was not actually that good. It could not compare to Gu Siyuan’s spirit tea, nor was it as tasty as the meat he roasted.

Looking at his puffed-cheek, cute, spoiled expression, Gu Siyuan took out a storage ring. “A gift. I forgot to give it to you on the road.”

Xie Xueyi immediately began guessing excitedly. “What is it? Are they the rewards from the last three stages of the Xianling Ancient City?”

Gu Siyuan nodded. “You could say that.”

“The farther back the stage, the rarer the reward. It must be much more valuable and unusual than the earlier ones. I wonder what kind of treasures they’ll be.” Delighted, Xie Xueyi took the storage ring in his hands.

“You’ll know once you look,” Gu Siyuan said, raising a brow slightly.

Xie Xueyi sent his spiritual sense into the ring and began pulling things out while curiously asking, “So, gege, what exactly were the final few trials of the Xianling Ancient City? For nearly ten thousand years, the Xianling Secret Realm has opened once every twenty years, and the Xianling Ancient City appears once every five hundred. But because no one has ever truly cleared it, there are still only scattered legends. No one knows the city’s real secret.”

Gu Siyuan answered casually, “Nothing much. The final three trials tested artifact refining, pill refining, and formation arts…”

“…”

Xie Xueyi rolled his eyes. “No wonder no one ever passed.”

For a cultivator to do even one of those well was already unimaginably hard, let alone all of them.

If not for Gu Siyuan, this freak of nature, the secret of the realm would probably never have been uncovered.

Gu Siyuan gently rubbed his wrist. “In all things, gain and loss come together. Precisely because of that, the rewards for passing are also rather abundant.”

Abundant rewards?

Thinking of those odd little privileges Gu Siyuan had demonstrated inside the secret realm, Xie Xueyi immediately smiled till his eyes curved. “True.”

Being able to leave the secret realm early had basically saved their lives. That really was quite a generous reward.

“Ah—”

Yet in the very next instant, Xie Xueyi lowered his voice with great effort to suppress an excited scream. “Gege… how… how are there so many? Shouldn’t three stages only mean three rewards?”

Gu Siyuan reached out and pinched his cheek. “I told you—passing all the trials gave me a few extra small privileges. Not only was I allowed to move freely through the ancient city and enter and leave the secret realm whenever I wanted, I was also no longer limited to opening just one box per stage.”

Looking at the table before him, covered in dazzling treasures enough to blind the eye—any one of which could stir up bloody storms throughout the cultivation world—Xie Xueyi swallowed hard.

So this was what Gu Siyuan meant by abundant rewards?

“Gege… so you opened every single box in the last three palace halls and took out all the treasures?”

Gu Siyuan gave a simple response, his expression cool and unconcerned. “Mm. Every box had a formation on it, so they had to be opened one by one. It was rather troublesome. But don’t you like these things?”

Xie Xueyi suddenly pounced at him, leaping onto him so that his long slender legs wrapped around Gu Siyuan’s waist and both arms locked tightly around his neck. “Gege, I love you to death. You’re the greatest person in all history. You’re my heavenly god. I wouldn’t even mind being your pet…”

Gu Siyuan raised a sword-like brow and bounced him lightly in his arms on purpose. “Mm? What are you talking about? You already are my pet.”

Xie Xueyi tightened his hold and glared at him. “Gege, am I not your adorable precious treasure anymore?”

“No.” Gu Siyuan shook his head.

Angry, Xie Xueyi bit lightly at his ear. “Heartless, faithless man.”

Gu Siyuan’s palm rubbed his backside lightly, meaningfully, as he said, “But you are the home of my precious treasure.”

Xie Xueyi first stared blankly, not understanding right away.

Then, feeling the warmth of that hand, a wave of embarrassed red suddenly rushed through his whole body.

“Gu Siyuan—you!”

So all that coldness and aloofness before really had just been an act. Once he had gotten someone into bed, every bit of his true face came pouring out…

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