Ch. 1531..1540
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1531
Splash!
Alex was the first to dive in.
The water was quite chilly, but it wasn’t unbearable. It shouldn’t be a problem for anyone, even if they had no powers like Alex. Susan was the one in most discomfort. Since she had just taken a blood energy pill, the water temperature should be alright for her, but she might need help when it came to holding her breath underwater.
In just moments, all of them dove in.
Alex was initially worried about Susan. He wanted to ask Waltz to help her out. Unexpectedly, Susan had made preparations for this, taking a tiny mask and snorkel out.
“Are we diving to the bottom?” Kenneth asked. “We just tried that earlier. We have no idea how deep this is. It’s not just hundreds of meters deep. I don’t think most of us could handle such strong water pressure.”
Everyone froze, thinking about this problem as well.
Alex and Dorothy wouldn’t have any problems in this process, but even Waltz, a strong fighter, would be uncomfortable with such pressure on her lungs if they had to dive thousands of meters down there. She wouldn’t be able to handle it, just like the rest.
Alex said, “Why don’t I go down first? You’ll have to wait for a while.”
However, Maya said, “Wait guys. Look, the water level is decreasing.”
Their surroundings were very dim. Hence they couldn’t tell that the water level had decreased when they were floating on the surface.
Looking toward other objects as a reference, they realized that it was indeed decreasing at a rapid pace. Susan seemed shocked and said, “Who would’ve thought… What a complicated machine?”
They had brought waterproof flashlights, so they could be switched on underwater. They watched as the walls rose rapidly and continued to lower to the bottom.
Quincy was worried. “This place is so deep. It’d be hard to go back up there once we’ve reached the bottom.”
Waltz replied. “What are you worried about? It’ll be fine in the end. Even if you could go back up there, you wouldn’t be able to escape. Did you want to feed those poisonous bugs?”
Although the water levels were decreasing quickly, it was still much slower than falling from the top. It felt quite uncomfortable to be in the water for long periods. Hence Alex and Dorothy leaped out and stood on the water’s surface as if light as a feather.
Everyone envied their powerful skills and abilities, even Kenneth, the legendary thief who was known for his strong Feather Walk, wouldn’t be able to stand on water with such ease.
However, Quincy was still as arrogant as ever, asking, “Mr. Rockefeller, I remember your skills were still around my level a few months ago, around Mystic rank, right? It hasn’t even been six months yet you’re this powerful already? Are you a grandmaster now?”
Waltz buffed. “You’ve underestimated him.”
Quincy froze, his eyes widened. “Could he have achieved… Martial Honor?”
Waltz seemed proud. “A Martial Honor probably wouldn’t stand a chance against my brother’s skills!”
“Holy sh*t! He’s a Martial Saint?!”
Just then, Zayne spoke up. “Brother, stop making assumptions. Mr. Rockefeller’s skills have exceeded martial artists like us. If I’m seeing this right, Mr. Rockefeller, and his aunt are probably what we call cultivators, just as the legends say.”
With this, Freya’s eyes lit up as she looked towards Alex and Dorothy.
The Exorcist Dragons were considered cultivators as well.
However, their cultivation was different from most cultivators, where they relied on the natural gift within their blood. The other Mayers without the innate powers within had no other way to master the Nine Symbol Incantation.
Alex looked towards Zayne and said, “Mr. York, you’ve probably started cultivating, right?”
Zayne smiled sadly. “Actually, our great grandmasters in the Drifters clan used to be cultivators as well.”
Upon hearing this, Quincy gasped loudly. He had no idea about this.
Zayne nodded. “I’m telling the truth. Our master told us this before he passed. He even passed down one of those skills to me. However, these skills of the Drifters clan have been passed down for millenniums. All these skills were lost during the war, and master only managed to hand me half of our Drifter Skill Book. ”
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1532
Quincy asked, “Is it possible to train, even just with half of it?”
“Yeah, it is,” Zayne replied. “But there’s no way that we could actually become cultivators! One thing though, this definitely greatly improved my training.”
Alex pondered and asked, “If you’re willing to, Mr. York, you can Show me the Drifter Skill Book once we’re out of here. I’ll see if I can help make some changes to it.”
“Change… The book?”
Not only Zayne was shocked, but Freya was surprised as well.
‘All skill books that were passed down for generations had been fully thought out and practiced. How can you just say that you’re going to change it after taking a look? Are you for real now?’
“Don’t be so shocked,” replied Waltz. “My brother’s skills are out of this world. You simply cannot imagine what he can do. He amended my skills and Maya’s as well.”
“Ah… He’s that powerful?”
Just as Zayne was getting fired up, the water levels had reached the very bottom. Everyone could feel the ground beneath their feet.
Flashing their lights, everyone realized that this place was flared. The upper level was larger, whereas the bottom was small.
The bottom was around two square miles, so it got quite crowded even though they weren’t exactly a large group.
“Where’s Mr. Lambert?”
“Yeah! Where did that old man go? Even if he did die from that fall, his corpse should be here! How could there be no trace of him at all?”
“The water drained pretty quickly, so there must be an exit here. Where else would all that water go?” asked Dorothy.
Quincy turned his flashlight to the top. “If a bunch of rocks or sand, or worse, mercury, fell from above right now, we’re so dead!”
Rocks, sand, and mercury were very common traps within heavily protected tombs like these.
“Oh, shut up! Don’t jinx it!” Susan snapped, seemingly annoyed. “Let’s all go look for the exit. Since they have such hidden mechanisms here, I don’t think they’d want to kill us here.”
In just a few moments, they found a blueprint. It was a formation blueprint.
Upon seeing this, Alex noticed how it seemed familiar. lt was oddly similar to the third sword of Dragon’s Bane of Thirty Six, called the Breaking Point.
Dorothy asked, “So? Can you solve this?”
“Let me see…”
Alex focused the image within his mind just to complete the Breaking Point’s formation blueprint with the current one at hand.
Alex was delighted. The blueprints were the exact opposite of each other, like yin and yang. These blueprints could offset each other’s flaws.
Not only would Alex be able to use Breaking Point’s blueprint to solve this, but he could also figure out how to use the third sword as well.
Within ten minutes, Alex succeeded in solving it and moved some core points in the formation blueprint. After hearing the crackling noises of a machine, a stone door opened slowly and steadily. The door frame looked as if it was made of both water and glass. No one could tell what was inside.
Alex knew that this was a force field formed by the blueprint.
Everyone mentally prepared themselves while Alex was the first to step into the force field. His body started to waver slightly within it.
After a slight shift in his vision, he felt as if he had just gone through a barrier.
His eyes lit up as soon as he saw a large pond filled with lotuses.
“The Soul Substitute Lotus Seed!”
Alex was excited. “We’ve been through so much, and we finally found it!”
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1533
“I can save Mom!” Alex was overwhelmed.
The two main reasons he came to this tomb were to find Soul Substitute Lotus Seeds and follow his father’s tracks. It seemed he was about to complete his first mission.
At that moment, the others crossed the barrier successfully as well. After the soul of the ghost emperor of Caesar’s tomb was destroyed, every danger in this large tomb seemed to have disarmed themselves.
It stood to reason that the person who planted all these traps probably didn’t want to kill every person who entered the tomb. They wanted to leave some form of hope for them.
As long as they’ve found this small glimmer of hope, it wasn’t necessary to set any more traps. just like how players could get through a game by passing each level, any other traps would be like little raindrops compared to the 100 thousand resentful spirits and the ghost emperor within the blood river.
“Black Soul Lotus!” Freya shouted as soon as she saw the lotuses on the large pond.
“Are there any Soul Substitute Lotus Seeds in them?” Waltz asked immediately.
Since she had no idea what Soul Substitute Lotus Seeds were, she obviously didn’t know if there were any in those black lotuses.
Freya replied. “Yes! Quite a few too!”
Upon hearing this, Waltz and Maya smiled brightly with relief and joy.
Alex was excited as well. However, he wouldn’t be able to relax until he got some in his pocket. He immediately headed straight to the pond to pick some seeds out.
Suddenly, a loud noise came from within the pond.
Boom!
Water exploded out of nowhere as a man leaped in front of them. Alex and the others were shocked by the noise, lifting their flashlights toward the pond area.
They soon realized the man who leaped out was Trevon, the Peak Lord of Clarion Peak.
Susan yelled. “It’s Mr. Lambert! He’s still alive!”
Following his explosion, the pond erupted with a louder noise.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Roar!
An enormous black figure jumped out of the pond.
The noise sounded explosive, causing the entire pond to rumble as its roars filled the air. The thing was as big as a ship and looked like a fish.
“Ahhh!” Trevon yelled in horror.
“Alex! Save me, quick!”
“Aaaaa!!”
Trevon was already mid-air at the time, no longer having any energy to leap higher. Just then, the large beast behind him stretched its mouth open and chomped onto Trevon’s body.
As the flashlights continued to shine on it, everyone watched as its sharp, bright, white teeth sank into Trevoin’s waist. Trevon’s waist was snapped in half.
Within seconds, his entire body was severed into two pieces. As the beast swallowed his lower portion, while his upper torso fell into the pond.
With his very last breath, Trevon yelled hysterically for the last time in his life.
The scene horrified every person there. Waltz couldn’t help but grab onto Alex’s arm as well.
Alex was starting to feel petrified. He had almost entered the pond a while ago, and if that beast were to have targeted him, he probably would have a hard time dealing with it too.
However, just as the upper half of Trevon continued to fall, a small, similar-looking beast opened its mouth and caught his body, dragging it into the pond.
Splash! Splash!
The water broke out in ripples. Then, everyone noticed that these smaller beasts weren’t just individuals but a massive swarm, trying to devour Trevon’s corpse.
Boom!
The beast with size of a boat then jumped, slamming its body into the pond, causing several massive waves to form.
Seemingly unsatisfied with having just Trevon’s corpse, it came back up to the surface and ate two Black Soul Lotuses.
“Ah! The seeds!” Waltz shouted worriedly.
Although there were quite a few of those black lotuses floating on the pond, there weren’t many. Besides, they weren’t even sure if they were ripe. Only ripe Soul Substitute Lotus Seed would be able to save Brittany.
Alex started panicking as he watched the beast lunging toward the other black lotuses, still unsatisfied.
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1534
‘I can’t possibly let this beast eat any more lotus plants. I have to get them!’
“How dare you, beast?!” Alex yelled.
He stomped harshly on the ground and leap ed into the air, lunging towards the black beast in the middle of the pool. In his hand was the Seven Blades of Death, slicing the air with sheer murderous intent as he formed a shield on the beast’s head.
Just then, the beast finally realized that there were other strangers around the pool. Pausing for a slight second, it immediately swung its big tail towards Alex.
“Kill! Seven Blades of Death!”
Slash!!!
A large wound was sliced across the beast’s face, causing it to bleed profusely. However, the beast’s tail still managed to hit Alex’s body harshly, sending Alex flying into the pond like a missile.
“Alex!” Waltz shouted in panic, rushing toward the pond to help.
Seeing this, Dorothy stopped her and huffed. “You’re weak, so are you looking for a death wish? I’ll help. Maya, take this chance and collect some of those Soul Substitute Lotus Seed now.”
“Alright!”
After placing such orders, Dorothy rushed to join the battle.
Maya, on the other hand, didn’t dare to be slow. She immediately activated her Silver Frost powers and rushed towards the pond, forming ice under her feet to collect some black lotuses.
To her dismay, some smaller beasts leaped out of the pond, lunging toward Maya with their mouths open. These beasts seemed to be the guardians of the Black Soul Lotus Seed.
If they saw these lotuses as their property, there was no way that they would let anyone lay their hands on them.
“Careful!” Waltz reminded Maya loudly.
Suddenly, a figure appeared in front of Maya. It was the long-legged beauty, Freya. In her hand was a dagger, and she was stabbing the small beast brutally.
With this, the beast was sliced in half.
“Thanks!” Maya said and started collecting the seeds.
All she wanted to do was pick the seeds out, yet these were different from normal lotuses. Not only were their stems filled with tiny thorns, but they were also quite tough as well. There was no way that she could pluck the seeds out with her bare hands.
At the same time, the giant beast roared loudly once more. It had gone mad as soon as it saw Freya kill its child.
Leaving Alex and Dorothy, it cried and leaped out of the pond, rushing towards Freya.
“Careful!”
“Get away!”
Alex ran over as fast as lightning, using his body as a shield to take the beast’s brute force. He then took both the Seven Blades of Death and the Sword of the Universe, forming them into one.
“Die!”
After that, its blood filled the pond, and the air was engulfed with a stench of raw fish. However, only the smaller ones had died. The giant beast had the skin and power to handle the attack.
Alex and Dorothy had to use almost their full power to stall it so that Maya could successfully collect seeds out of some of the lotuses.
“Roar!!!” the beast cried again.
As it breathed its last, half of its large body ended up on land.
Quincy, Susan, and the others were shocked to their core, their faces extremely pale.
They had never seen such beasts in their lives.
“What is this thing even?”
“I’ve never seen such a monster. Is it a mutated catfish?”
Dorothy swallowed a pill and said, “No, that’s not it. This is a demon.”
“Huh?”
“A demon? Demons actually exist?”
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1535
“Demon?” Susan was appalled.
Even as a tomb raider, she had never seen demons her entire life.
“There’s literally a ghost emperor here, so I don’t think demons are extraordinary!” Dorothy replied. “Demons have already blended in with humans and have been around us since the Stone Age! They could have existed earlier than humans too! Hence, many humans have the blood of demons running on them.”
She then turned to look at Susan. “Like you, you have Clairvoyant Eyes. That’s because you have the blood of some demon within you.”
Quincy chuckled. “So you’re saying that Susan’s a mongrel?”
Susan glared at him. “Quincy Zoppins, you’re always spouting such bullsh*t!”
Quincy replied, “If you could actually spout bullsh*t out of your mouth, I’ll call you master.”
Susan was so angry that she started heaving, but she couldn’t do anything at the time. Even so, she was still quite interested in Dorothy’s explanation of demons.
“Then what demon blood do I have in my body?”
Dorothy said, “It’s hard to tell. Powerful demon blood, once activated, usually allows for obtaining massive fighting power, like the four great beasts, Seiryuu, Byakko, Genbu, and Suzaku. Any average person could easily become a strong martial artist, but you only have Clairvoyant Eyes, so it’ll be either cats or cows… Animals like that. Plus, your body is pure Yin, so I’m guessing you have the blood of a cat demon.”
Quincy laughed again. “So you’re just a little wild kitty?”
Dorothy glared at Quincy coldly. “Cat demons are still demons. If put into good use, she could become a cultivator as well, something clearly better than useless normal blood like yours. You don’t even have the spiritual roots to start training with.”
Upon hearing this, Quincy’s head hung low, unable to lift it up.
Slash!
With that, Dorothy’s sword stabbed into the beast’s head. Its head really did look similar to a fish, but it had two tough barbs about ten meters in length.
“This is a Hell Fish. It’s a pretty weak demon, and it doesn’t possess much power.”
After Dorothy’s sword stabbed into its skull, she extracted an ivory pearl out of it.
“What is that pearl?” Kenneth asked.
“It’s a demon core!”
She threw the pill towards Alex nonchalantly. “It’s a low-level demon core, but there’s still quite a lot of Chi in it… Pretty good material to make pills. Alex, make this into a spiritual demon pill that’s stronger than blood energy pills.”
Alex immediately checked the Ultimate Book of Medicine and found the description for spiritual demon pills within the alchemy series.
This was a specific pill made out of demon cores, able to consume all the essence within a demon core efficiently. A pill like that could achieve three times the effect of a blood energy pill.
“This is some good stuff!”
“Such a big demon core could make up to hundreds of spiritual demon pills!”
Just then, he remembered that there were quite a few corpses in the pond as well.
He asked, “Do the small ones in the pond have any demon cores in them?”
“Even if they do, it’ll be really small. It won’t be of much use,” replied Dorothy.
Alex then expressed that every little piece of material counted, and he wanted to waste nothing.
‘Wait!’
He managed to find descriptions on Hell Fishes in the Ultimate Book of Medicine. He wouldn’t have found out if he didn’t check, but the information he obtained was quite shocking.
This creature had the potential of becoming a Kunpeng but had a remote possibility of achieving so. Moreover, the barbels of a Hell Fish were considered treasures, items that could be used to make eternal beauty pills.
Cultivators were no stranger to such a pill, but not the average person. Throngs of celebrities and rich women from prominent families craved this pill.
Beauty pills were much more tempting than rejuvenation pills and could be sold for billions. Thinking about this, joy was plastered all over Alex’s face as he cut the barbels off.
“What are you taking that for?” Dorothy rolled her eyes.
“Hehe, you’ll see.”
Just then, Maya approached them and said, “Brother, these are the seeds that I collected. Are they of any use?”
Only then did Alex remember what he was actually here for. He immediately checked the seeds and realized that there were around thirty ripe ones.
This was more than enough to continue Brittany’s life.
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1536
However, this was just a temporary solution. Alex knew that he still had to find a way to completely solve the problem of Brittany’s lack of a soul.
***
Splash!
Alex went back into the water and collected both the cores and barbels from the smaller beast corpses. Suddenly, he noticed that there was a large entrance to the Hell Fish’s nest. After putting in some thought, he crawled into the cave.
‘There’s probably no old Hell Fishes around, right?’
Alex held the Seven Blades of Death in one hand and a flashlight in the other. He then noticed that the cave was abnormally huge. After swimming further into it, he even found a ray of light from within.
‘What is this?’
‘This is probably thousands of meters underground! How could the bottom be linked to anywhere outside? Where did this light come from?’
Just as he was drowning in confusion, he felt something grab his foot.
‘Holy sh*t!’ Alex was shocked, swinging his Seven Blades of Death. However, he stopped abruptly as soon as he realized that it was Dorothy.
“Why did you come down here too?” Alex said using telepathy.
“You’ve been down here for quite a while, so I was worried that something might’ve happened to you. Despite that, you’re trying to kill me now?” Dorothy rolled her eyes again.
“What’s in there?”
“I’m confused too. Why is there light in here?”
“This cave is sloped upwards. Careful, let’s go up there and take a look. That large Hell Fish back then was a male, so maybe there’s a female in there. Female Hell Fishes are more savage than males.”
The two swam quite fast as well. However, even so, they had to swim for five minutes to reach the other surface. When they saw what was there, their mouths dropped wide from shock.
Above the water was a large stone room, square in shape and around ten thousand square miles.
There seemed to be a large, glowing pearl on the ceiling, which was the source of the ray of light Alex noticed a while ago. Besides that, there was an ancient looking doorpost right in the middle.
“There’s a Hell Fish there!”
Alex’s eyes were sharp, so he noticed the large Hell Fish on the right side of this stone room. It was still, seemingly stranded on land while its lower half was submerged in the water.
“It’s still alive!” With his Third Eye, Alex realized that a feeble life force was still within its body.
The two approached it carefully, only to realize that it had actually been dead for some time. The life force within its body was from the egg in its womb.
“It’s a Hell Fish egg! And it’s still alive!” Dorothy’s eyes lit up. “I think it’d taste amazing.”
Alex was shocked. “You want to eat it?!”
Dorothy replied. “What else are we going to do with it? Are you going to keep it as a pet?”
Alex nodded. “I was actually thinking of doing that. It’s a Hell Fish, after all, the predecessor of the Kunpeng. It has a possibility of becoming one, though!”
“Are you dreaming? Do you know how much a Hell Fish has to go through to become a Kunpeng? It has to go through 3600 obstacles! The god-tier ones only have a one in a billion chance of becoming a Kunpeng, let alone mortal ones!”
Alex smiled. “I mean, I’ll just keep it as a pet, like a goldfish. How nice is that?”
“Just think this through. You may be able to keep it in a small fish pond now, but you’d have to make a larger one specifically for it later on.”
The egg was as big as a coconut, but it wouldn’t be too hard to handle as long as he kept it in his bag.
And with that, the two made their way up to the surface. Walking around the room, they noticed that the floor was carved with tightly written ancient talismans.
Dorothy and Alex turned to each other and exclaimed. “A teleportation circle!”
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1537
Teleportation circles. With a name self explanatory enough, it could teleport someone to another place within seconds, using the law of space and a formation circle as the medium. This had been built by a high-level cultivator, one that expertise specifically in the law of space.
This was an extremely valuable product within the cultivation field, a feat so incredible that the average person would never achieve.
They really didn’t expect anyone to be hiding in the Hell Fish cave at the bottom of the pond in this grave.
Dorothy asked, “I wonder where it sends you to? Could this be the exit to this grave?”
Alex shook his head. Since he was more familiar with formation circles and blueprints than Dorothy, he said, “This is a very complicated ancient talisman circle. Besides, it covers such a large area. So I really doubt it’s just used to send us outside of the grave. I think this is a long-distance teleportation circle.”
Dorothy nodded in agreement. “But I think it’s broken. It’s probably been here for a very long time, or that the space is unstable, so it didn’t have enough energy to activate. Too bad that I don’t know anything about formation circles, so I don’t have any idea on how to repair it either.”
“Huh, what’s this?” Alex then noticed something next to the doorpost.
“It looked like… A token..?”
“This is… A key!”
“The key of the teleportation circle!”
Alex then remembered that members of the blood cult were trying to find a key.
‘Could it be this one?’
He then tried it on the keyhole on the doorpost. As expected, they were a match. It fit the keyhole perfectly.
After turning the key, the top of the doorpost immediately let out a large gush of spiritual power. It was incredibly exhilarating. Moreover, it seemed to be shining a bright ray of white light.
“What? The door’s not broken?”
“Is it activated?”
Both Alex and Dorothy were shocked. They then wondered if they should enter the portal before immediately shaking the thought off and jumping away from the door.
They didn’t want to get teleported… There were quite a few people who were still in the tomb after all. If they really were to be teleported somewhere, the people in here would be doomed.
Despite this, the door only lit up for a split second. The formation was not activated fully and was extinguished right after.
It was indeed slightly broken, and it didn’t have enough energy on its own.
“This really is the key to the portal!” Alex said.
This key wasn’t what he initially assumed to be. He thought that this circle was the starlight formation circle paired with the Holy Book It would seem that the key wasn’t the one correlated to the Holy Book
‘That’s not right!’
‘I remember Darven Mikail mentioning Dad finding a pair of keys when he first came here. He didn’t even take it with him and left it aside…’
Dorothy immediately figured out his thoughts. “Are you suspecting that this is the key you’re looking for? So your father came by a second time to use it? Then this teleportation circle…”
She then knelt and observed the talismans intently.
She didn’t understand the formation circle, but she still could figure something out from the worn-off talismans.
In just a few moments, she nodded. “I think you’re right. From the worn-off talismans, I could tell that it was used not long ago! This abrasion was probably caused by the last time the portal was in use! There’d be a huge difference in the portal’s effects even if it’s one small scratch.”
Alex stored the key in his pocket. He had no power to repair the portal currently, so he decided to research hard on such formations so he could come back to fix this.
Whether William teleported out of here or not, he wanted to take the chance no matter what.
“Let’s go! If we stay here too long, your two little lovers out there would be worried sick” Dorothy said.
Alex nodded.
He then took both the barbels and the demon core out of the female Hell Fish since they could still be of use. However, as he was cutting the barbels off, a piece of jade rolled out of the fish’s mouth when he turned it to the side.
“Huh?”
“That’s weird. Is that the Hell Fish’s tartar?” Alex froze.
Dorothy rolled her eyes and took it. “Are you mad? What do you mean tartar? This is a Memory Crystal. It’s pretty average, but I think it’s still usable.”
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1538
She then shot her mental power into the crystal. She seemed stunned.
After a long while, she retracted her mental power from the crystal and turned to Alex with an odd expression. “Look at it.”
“What’s in it?”
“This is… For you.”
“What?” Alex was shocked.
Dorothy replied, “It’s Dad’s.”
Suddenly, Alex felt his chest tighten. He felt as if he was suffocating. With trembling hands, he took the crystal and slowly inserted his mental power into it. At that moment, he felt his mental power linking with someone else.
Within the mental world of the crystal, he saw his father, William Rockefeller.
“Oh, my son, Alex. I don’t know if you’d ever find this crystal or hear this, but if you can, that means you’re all grown now!”
“Maybe you’ve figured out what’s happened here.”
“If you found the teleportation circle yourself, I’d be very proud of you. You didn’t disappoint me! You’re my good son after all!”
“Your mother’s sick, so take care of her for the time being. I’ll be back! We will reunite when that time comes, so don’t come looking for me! This is a responsibility I have to bear both as husband and father.”
William didn’t leave a long message. That was all he said.
William had probably left this message before going into the portal. He was most likely worried that something might happen to him on the other side of the portal. He didn’t have full confidence in finishing his task.
At that very moment, Alex had mixed feelings brewing up within him.
‘It really is dad. He’s been teleported to the other side.’
However, Alex had no idea what was on the other side, not even knowing where it would lead. Hence, he couldn’t help but worry about him. Moreover, William didn’t mention what business he had over there, but Alex figured it was related to his mother’s sickness.
“Darling…” Dorothy called out to him.
Alex pulled his mind out of the crystal. “I’m alright!”
Dorothy hugged him gently. “This is good news, isn’t it? This means dad is still alive! He went into this portal, and if he could come here alone, then that’s enough to prove he’s very powerful! I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
Alex nodded. “I’ll think of a way to fix this. I have to look for him as soon as I can.”
“Mhm! I’ll go with you!” chirped Dorothy.
The two hugged each other tightly and placed their lips on each other. A few minutes later, they parted lips and left the stoneroom, tracing back their footsteps.
At the same time, the people outside were worried sick. If nobody had convinced her to stop, Waltz had initially thought of hopping into the pond to look for them as well.
When she noticed the two coming out of the pool, Waltz let out a sigh of relief. “Why were you in there for such a long time? I was so worried about you!”
Alex smiled. “I took a bit of time to look for those corpses. Look, I even found a fish egg.”
“What is that?”
“A Hell Fish egg! And it’s still alive!” Alex exclaimed, slipping the egg into his backpack.
“What do we do now?” Susan asked. “We’ve tried walking around the pond, but there aren’t any other passages. We’re trapped again.”
Alex waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. I already found a way out. Follow me!”
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“You know how to get out?”
Susan was surprised. “That’s great! I really don’t want to stay here any longer. This is definitely not the same tomb that I’ve entered last time.”
“Yep!” Quincy nodded in agreement. He didn’t want to stay any longer either.
“We’ve risked our lives coming in here, yet we didn’t manage to get anything. This isn’t even a tomb. This… I don’t even know where we actually are now!”
Zayne let out a sigh as well. He had only agreed to come because he wanted Alex to help saving his godbrother. However, he didn’t mention the other reason he had come.
When he last came in here, he noticed some tracks of the Drifter clan. He wanted to confirm this once more, thinking he could find the other half of the skill book. Too bad that they ended up entering another place, so it was simply impossible for him to find that book.
“Let’s go! ” Alex said as he led everyone as they retraced their footsteps and ended back at the place where the water brought them down.
“Why are we back here? This place is way too high to climb! Is that water going to rush back down again?” Quincy asked.
Dorothy was confused too. “Yeah, and when did you find out how to get out of here?”
Alex replied, “The Goddess of Mercy sits down in her skirt while the Genbu carries the green sky on its back. The skirt is probably a metaphor for the lotus in the pond, right? Doesn’t the Black Soul Lotus look similar to the one the Goddess of Mercy sits on? And the formation blueprint here is called the Breaking Point. The Breaking Point correlates to the star sign of Genbu, the legendary beast. Now, look at this place. Doesn’t it look like Genbu’s shell?”
Everyone bowed their heads and realized that it really did look like the shell of a tortoise.
In reality, Alex had already noticed this when he was solving the formation blueprint a while ago. In the middle of the blueprint was a keyhole, but he had no idea what it was for back then. Now that he had seen the keyhole of the teleportation circle, he understood its purpose immediately.
The token in his hand was not just the key of the teleportation circle. It was used to control the forbidden grounds of the tomb.
Anyone who possessed this key was equivalent to the tomb’s owner.
However, Alex didn’t want any outsiders to find out that he had the key, let alone let anyone finding out that William had left this key because he had another plan in mind.
That was why he first messed around with the blueprint on the ground and inserted flows of spiritual power into it while releasing large amounts of his mental power.
At that moment, everyone apart from Dorothy felt as if their ears were ringing and their heads spinning. Alex’s mental power was so imposing that they couldn’t even stand straight. They had to support themselves by holding onto the stone wall.
Just as the light shone brightly from the circle, Alex immediately took the key out and shoved it into the keyhole, unlocking it. After doing so, he took it out and placed it into his pocket.
Klink-Klang!
The sound of gears grinding in a machine filled the air. Suddenly, the platform that they were standing on rumbled and started elevating slowly.
“Ah!!!”
“I understand now! Genbu carries the green sky! We’re the ones being carried!”
The platform wasn’t all that spacious, hence it was quite crowded with the size of their group. As it rose to the sky, it shook quite a little too.
Everyone immediately squatted down and held onto the edges. This was to prevent them from being pushed down by accident and meet their doom.
Quincy was still quite startled as he shone his flashlight to the ground beneath them, realizing that it was becoming more distant. “This place is way too high. How did Trevon not die from such a fall?”
Freya replied, “Cultivators have lots of unimaginable skills, so it’s not surprising, honestly. Even if I were the one who fell in there, I’d have found a way to prevent death! But for you, however, all that awaits you is death.”
Upon hearing this, Quincy felt as if his heart had been crushed by millions of boulders. He really wanted to push this woman off the platform.
However, he knew that Alex would definitely be the first to kill him off if he really did so.
The platform continued to rise, and they managed to reach the side of the tower where they fought the ghost emperor. Despite all that, the platform didn’t stop elevating, shocking everyone to their core.
The Pinnacle of Life Chapter 1540
‘Where is this leading us to?’
‘Just how long is the pillar under this platform?’
After quite some time, the platform stopped moving after a loud click.
Using their flashlights to light up the area, they realized they were in a dark and closed space.
Suddenly, the platform started going down as the sounds of gears filled the air again, just like an automated elevator.
“Get out!” Alex yelled.
Everyone jumped off of the platform immediately and landed on the ground outside. The hole where the platform rose from to had closed up as well. It looked as if it had never existed in the first place.
“Where are we?”
“Look, there’s a coffin right there.”
“This… Why does this look so familiar?”
As the group continued to discuss, Susan suddenly shouted. “I remember now! This is the grave that we entered last time, the actual grave that held Caesar‘s body!”
Alex shook his head. “It’s not the real one. The previous one was. This is probably just a fake to hide the real ones from the public.”
However, since they were here now, everything became a lot simpler to figure out. With the experienced tomb raiders, Susan, Zayne, and the others, all of them found their way out in a matter of minutes. Zayne even went out his way to find the corpse of the Drifter clan’s elder.
It was a shame that they died long ago that their bones were starting to rot as well. There wasn’t anything related to the Drifter Skill Book too.
However, Kenneth and Quincy still managed to take some tomb treasures with them, which indicated that thieves never left empty-handed.
The treasure that Quincy took was an odd-looking mask. It looked damp and black, made of some unknown material. It was so ugly that it looked petrifying.
Alex took a few glances at it and said, “This isn’t treasure at all. The Yin energy on this is way too heavy. I’d advise you to leave it instead.”
However, Quincy didn’t care. “All tomb treasures have Yin energy one way or another. It’ll be fine once it’s out in the sun!”
Susan was speechless. “Do you really think the sunlight can help banish thousands of years of Yin energy? Don’t be too greedy. We’ve managed to survive the many obstacles here. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we died just because of your god-forsaken greed?!”
“Susan Hunter! How dare you f*cking curse me? I know what you’re actually thinking of. You want this mask, don’t you? I’m no fool! Just look at the craft, shape, and age! This is definitely a one of a kind treasure. Now that I have my hands on it, don’t you dare even think of taking it! Hmph!”
Since Quincy was so stubborn, Alex decided not to persuade him further.
Following the map that they had drawn earlier, they managed to find the exit. When their eyes met a ray of light and a patch of the big blue sky, Susan was so overjoyed that she hugged Alex tightly. “We’re out of there! Finally!”
She wasn’t the only one who reacted like this, everyone was so overwhelmed that they managed to exit the grave. The trip down there was extremely perilous. They had barely survived.
Darven died, Kenneth lost an arm, Quincy lost a chunk of flesh… And Trevon’s entire corpse was gobbled up.
Moreover, the blood cult was filled with hope when they went in there, yet none managed to come out.
“Good job! So many of you managed to get out of there!”
“That means you guys have found the central key to this grave, right?”
As the group walked out of the entrance, they noticed an old man sitting outside. He sat there arrogantly, staring back at the group with a wide grin on his face. There were ten people or so kneeling next to him. They were Azure and the other members of Thousand Miles Conglomerate.