allonlinenovel Chapter 296 Temptation
Chapter 296 Temptation
Chapter 296 Seduction
Through the narrow crevice in the black stone, Mo Yuming followed Xiao Mei and Xiao Pang into the mysterious Black Stone Secret Realm.
The secret realm consists of a giant stone cave and several smaller caves. The stone walls are all hard, black rock, and the entire space is as if it were cleaved by a knife and axe. The cave walls and ceilings are sharp and very flat.
In the center of the main cave stands a square stone platform, about a foot high. The platform is unadorned, with only a few sets of ancient, rough runes carved on its four sides. Standing in the center of the platform is a thick, black iron rod, over two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters) tall. The two ends of the rod are carved with patterns that resemble both flowers and runes, inlaid with gold metal. A faint golden aura emanates from these patterns.
The golden spiritual energy fluctuated in strength, like the breathing of a large iron rod. Other items were scattered on the cave floor: weapons and armor, minerals and gems, metal tools, a small amount of textiles and clothing, and some animal hides and bones. These items were placed on the cave walls as if carelessly discarded, without any deliberate tidying.
But upon closer inspection of these seemingly casually discarded items, one discovers that each one is a priceless treasure. Even the filthy animal hide is an extremely rare high-grade magical beast hide. Such a high level is seldom seen in the Tianxuan Continent. Mo Yuming's research on magical beasts, while not outstanding, is certainly not bad either. With his current experience, he can tell the quality of a magical beast hide at a glance.
These animal hides, carelessly discarded in the corner for countless years, still exude a faint aura of power—the natural domineering aura forged when they were once powerful rulers. Although they are now just animal hides, and countless years have passed, the aura has not dissipated. The animal bones are even more formidable; with Mo Yuming's current peak Earth Rank strength, he can feel their overwhelming presence even from a distance of ten feet.
Two old apes were guarding the cave. When they saw Mo Yuming follow Xiao Mei in, they only glanced at him and said nothing, letting him walk through the cave with them. The Homo sapiens had a very gentle and kind nature, and got along very well with the humans in the canyon. They especially favored Mo Yuming and didn't treat him as an outsider at all.
Five or six ape youths were cultivating, sensing special spiritual energy, in the open space around the iron rod. Just as Little Fatty had said, they were all at least three zhang away from the iron rod. None of them dared to approach. Only Xiao Mei could walk freely under the iron rod.
Mo Yuming also tried to follow Xiaomei to get closer to the iron rod to see what it was all about, but when he was still four or five zhang away from the iron rod, he felt an invisible pressure preventing him from moving forward. Even when he used his spiritual power to resist it, Mo Yuming could only get as close as the other young apes to about three zhang away before he could go no further.
Mo Yuming chose a nearby open space and sat down to practice his earth elemental energy cultivation technique, hoping to gain some insight from this special golden spiritual energy.
An hour passed, and aside from sensing that the spiritual energy here was purer than the earth-attribute spiritual energy from other places, Mo Yuming gained nothing else. It seemed that the unique energy contained in this peculiar spiritual energy was only useful to the ape race. Since this kind of cultivation was of no benefit to Mo Yuming, he withdrew from cultivation and went to the outer perimeter to examine the treasures on the ground.
What first caught Mo Yuming's attention was the set of armor stacked separately. It was a heavy armor set, complete with a helmet and boots. The main protective parts were made of a composite of metal, magical beast scales, and bone, while the joints were made primarily of animal hide and some soft metals. Due to its age and lack of maintenance, the armor was covered in dust and grime. In many places, dark bloodstains were clearly visible, forming dark marks. In addition, the surface of the armor was covered with dense grooves and scratches, some deep, some shallow, and of various shapes, layered upon each other, making it impossible to distinguish between knife marks and sword marks. From these numerous scars, one could tell how many life-or-death battles the armor's owner had endured, and how many fatal blows it had blocked for its master. Yet, even so, the armor showed no signs of breaking, demonstrating its incredible sturdiness.
This armor was clearly no ordinary item, but it puzzled Mo Yuming greatly. Its unusual feature wasn't the material or craftsmanship, but its size. It was incredibly small, so small that only a young child could wear it. Mo Yuming estimated that he himself could barely fit into it before the age of ten. Currently, everyone in the secret room, except for the petite Xiao Mei, couldn't fit into it, not even the chubby boy her age. Could it be the armor worn by the White Ape Clan's ancestor in his youth? Or was this ancestor a dwarf, only the size of an eight or nine-year-old child?
Mo Yuming was very familiar with the white apes in the canyon. Even though these white apes weren't very tall, they weren't much shorter than humans. Even the young white apes like Xiao Mei and Xiao Pang were already about the size of eight or nine-year-old human children. When they grew to maturity, they would definitely be much taller than they were now.
"This is the armor our ancestor once wore. It has a name: the Fiery Dragon Chainmail. It was made primarily from the scales and bones of an ancient fiery dragon and is one of the three great treasures inherited by our Wise Ape Clan. The other one is the Dragon-Locking Divine Whip. That artifact was forged from the tendons of a fiery dragon and was the divine weapon of another of our ancestors. Its whereabouts are still unknown."
As for the third divine artifact, it is the Hunyuan Ruyi Staff standing there, the most important divine artifact of our Wise Ape Clan. Our ancestor used this artifact to break through the layers of encirclement by the demonic giants, sending the orphans and children of our clan out of the battlefield and finding this secluded place. Originally, we thought that this armor and the Ruyi Staff had been taken away by our ancestor, but we did not expect that he would store them in this secret chamber.
Nearly ten thousand years have passed, and many things can no longer be investigated. The circumstances at that time are very vague to us, and we do not know the purpose of our ancestors in leaving these things behind.
"We apes are different from you humans. Our lineage continues through bloodline awakening. Unlike you humans, we don't need written records. Many things only require one descendant to awaken a significant portion of their bloodline heritage to retrieve the memories recorded within. However, over the years, the bloodline awakening of our descendants hasn't been very high, leading to many things being unclear. Fortunately, the bloodline awakening speed of Xiao Mei and Xiao Pang's generation is much faster than before, especially Xiao Mei, who may be the first person in ten thousand years to have the highest bloodline awakening. Then, the truth will come to light."
An elder of the ape clan, who was guarding the secret realm, came to Mo Yuming's side and introduced him to the elder.
"What kind of animal hides are those? There seem to be some symbols or something engraved on them?" Mo Yuming asked, pointing to several rolls of animal hides in front of the armor.
"Those animal hides must be relics left behind by your human warriors. We've examined them; the inscriptions appear to be runes for formations or similar purposes, written in your ancient script. Since most of our ape race are earth-attribute warriors, we haven't made much progress in alchemy or weapon crafting. These armors and artifacts were crafted for our ancestor by his human friends. At that time, your human cultivation was relatively low, and you often needed our ape race's protection. Therefore, our two races were interdependent, helping each other to improve our survival capabilities."
"Is this something left behind by our human ancestors? Can I open it and take a look?" Mo Yuming was very surprised.
“Alright, those things originally belonged to your human race. It wouldn’t have mattered if you had taken them. Those things are of little use to our ape race. Their only significance is that they are relics left by our ancestors. As descendants, we cannot give them away casually. That would be disrespectful to our ancestors!” said the ape elder.
"I just want to look, I won't take it! And I won't damage it!" Having received permission, Mo Yuming couldn't wait to walk towards the pile of animal hides. There were many treasures in this secret chamber, and they were very eye-catching. Even though he was very tempted, Mo Yuming never had any intention of taking them for himself.
This stack of animal hides contains more than a dozen pieces, all of which have been cut and trimmed, making them appear quite neat. Due to the processing and their age, it is no longer possible to distinguish what kind of animal hides they are.
"What are these characters? They're all crooked and tadpole-like, and they look a bit like the oracle bone script of Earth!"
Mo Yuming carefully unfolded the first animal hide, only to find many strange runes and hieroglyphs carved on it. Mo Yuming didn't recognize any of them.
However, Mo Yuming still saw a few familiar patterns among the complex runes. They were some initial patterns that Mo Yuming had seen on the array plate used by Wang Baichuan. After careful consideration, Mo Yuming determined that this animal hide was likely a diagram of a large array, and the text on it was likely an introduction to the arrangement and use of the array.
Mo Yuming naturally wouldn't let such ancient array blueprints go to waste. Since he couldn't take the original, he would make a copy and take it back for further study. Perhaps there would be unexpected gains.
Most of the dozen or so animal hides were blueprints depicting formations, while several others were written entirely in text that Mo Yuming couldn't understand. He had no choice but to copy them. He made copies of all of them. Of the remaining three, two seemed to be related to weapon crafting, and one described a set of combat techniques with illustrated movements, but the text was incomprehensible, so Mo Yuming couldn't determine the technique's attribute or combat power.
Fortunately, these original documents will remain in this secret realm. If, by chance, someone learns to decipher the inscriptions on them, they can always refer to the original documents if there are any suspicious or unclear aspects in the copies.
After Mo Yuming carefully copied the contents of the animal skin, two or three hours had passed. Xiao Mei and the others had also finished their cultivation, so they bid farewell to the ape elder and left the secret chamber together.
"When I was cultivating just now, I seemed to have some new insights. I felt that the spiritual power emanating from that iron rod, besides stimulating our bloodline inheritance, seemed to be conveying some kind of message to us, but I just couldn't figure it out."
On the way out of the cave, Xiao Mei said to Mo Yuming.
"What kind of message can that iron rod convey? Could it be hiding some secret?" the chubby boy laughed.
"It's true, it seems to want to communicate. I think it's sentient! It must know a lot, it's just that we can't communicate with it!" Xiaomei continued earnestly.
"Don't be so self-righteous! Even if I told you, you wouldn't understand!" Xiao Mei rolled her eyes at Xiao Pang.
"I've heard that weapons are classified into different levels. High-level weapons can develop their own consciousness and give birth to their own weapon spirits. If a weapon spirit is powerful enough, it can even transform into a living being and exist independently of its original body. It can not only communicate with us but also has a high level of intelligence."
Mo Yuming said.
"Could that iron rod be a high-level weapon? It's so big, who could lift it?" Little Fatty didn't believe it.
"Advanced divine weapons can change shape. That iron rod is the number one inherited treasure of your ape clan. If I'm not mistaken, that iron rod not only has a weapon spirit, but it can also change shape. If needed, it can even turn into the size of a needle!"
Mo Yuming said.
"Is it really that magical? Then why doesn't it reveal its spirit? That way we can see what its spirit looks like. Is it a stick with eyes and a mouth? That would be so much fun! Hehe..." Little Fatty laughed innocently.
"You really dare to say that! Aren't you afraid the elders will hear you and slap you? That's a treasure from our ancestors! You have no respect at all!" Xiao Mei shouted.
"Alright, it's getting late, I should head back now. Goodbye for now! I'll come visit you again next time I have time!"
Mo Yuming was preoccupied with something and wanted to get back to Yishi Valley as soon as possible, so he hurriedly said goodbye to Xiao Mei and Xiao Pang. Xiao Mei and Xiao Pang had no choice but to say goodbye reluctantly.
"Keep it up, Xiaomei! Advance quickly, and I'll take you guys out to play!" Mo Yuming couldn't help but whisper to Xiaomei as they parted.
Mo Yuming had known all along that Xiaomei and the others had long wanted to see the outside world, but their clansmen were very strict and they couldn't get away. Mo Yuming's words were undoubtedly tantamount to trying to abduct the children, but for Xiaomei, they were the words she most wanted to hear.
"Okay, I will definitely try my best!" Xiaomei nodded.
"You can try communicating with the armor in the corner first. If you can refine that armor, you might be able to gain the approval of that iron rod. Once you have these two treasures, even if your cultivation level is a little low, it won't be a big deal! Remember not to tell anyone that it was my suggestion! Say that they summoned you on their own initiative!" Mo Yuming whispered to Xiao Mei when Xiao Pang wasn't paying attention.
"That armor is so ugly, it's all dirty, I don't like it!"
Xiao Mei said with a frown.
"That armor is beautiful, it's just dirty!"
"Really?"
"