Chapter 380
“Hehe, it’s just luck.” Xu Ziyan chuckled, but he was already on guard.
It was also a test to Tianle with the fact that he took out the map. After all, Tianle was just a manic, not a fool. When he walked through the maze later, he would definitely find some clues. Instead of turning his face at that time, it would be better to show the map in advance. He could at least make some preparations in case Tianle had some bad thoughts.
“Well…I was indeed lucky.” Tianle touched his chin, rolled his eyes and said, “well, since cultivator Xu has a map, it would be bad of me to take advantage of this. Let’s cooperate, what do you think?”
“Oh? What do you want as cooperation?” Xu Ziyan smiled faintly.
Tianle instantly looked cunning and he slowly flipped through his Qiankun bag, then took out five sets of keys…
Xu Ziyan: …
Hehe, why are these five sets of keys so familiar? It is exactly the same as the one Ao Yuanqing gave me except for the different color!
Damn! Does everyone have the key to the treasure room now?
Xu Ziyan pondered for a while, then took out the key that Ao Yuanqing gave him, and gestured to Tianle, “if you want to split evenly, it’s not enough.”
Tianle saw that Xu Ziyan also had a key and he had an idea. He narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at Xu Ziyan cautiously.
With a flash of Xu Zirong’s figure, he stood in front of Tianle, his fingertips gleaming with blood, making it clear that he would kill Tianle mercilessly if Tianle dared to do anything.
It didn’t matter if they had the same disease – no one could touch his brother no matter what!
Tianle: (╯‵ ′)╯︵┻━┻, can we still have a happy time being sick together? My fellow patient friend, aren’t you willing to play with me?
“Ahem…Actually, I still have some news to share with you.” Tianle noticed the faint glint of blood in Xu Zirong’s eyes, and immediately turned the expression on his face to a serious one.
“Let’s talk about it.” At this time, Xu Ziyan smiled like a fox. Now, they were like restraining each other, but Tianle didn’t have a map, and there’s nothing he could do even if he could get the keys.
“Do you know how many secret rooms there are?” Tianle asked after blinking.
Xu Ziyan was stunned for a moment, as he really didn’t know. In the original novel, Bai Hua got the map and went directly to the biggest secret room. He was cheated by Tianle halfway and almost got himself killed. He wasted some time before opening the central secret room. At that moment, the fragmented continent was about to close as well, and he never had a chance to look for other secret rooms.
It was not mentioned in the novel that his original body had never explored this treasure, so Xu Ziyan naturally didn’t know how many secret rooms there were in the fragmented continent.
“Central secret room. That counts as one.” Tianle pointed to Xu Ziyan’s map and stretched out a finger.
“There are six affiliated secret rooms, we were lucky to get all the keys.” Tianle smiled and shook the keys in his hand.
“The hidden secret room counts as one. You need to combine the keys of the six affiliated secret rooms to open it, then you can have access to a mysterious treasure.” When Tianle talked about the mysterious treasure, his eyes sparkled, as if he saw countless spirit stones floating in front of himself.
“How do you know so clearly?” Xu Ziyan asked suspiciously.
Tianle chuckled, “my master is a phantom cultivator and they are famous for their longevity. When he was cultivating previously, he read many ancient books because he was bored, and this treasure was mentioned in one of them. However, I didn’t know when the treasure would be revealed, and I didn’t have the map either. Otherwise, I would have started digging long ago. I spent so much effort collecting the keys and I’m finally ready for the treasure to be opened.”
Xu Ziyan silently gave a thumb up to his master phantom cultivator. It was indeed beneficial to live a longer life, as at least he’d have read more books and know more about secret realms.
“Let’s make 30 and 70. We’ll take 70% and you take 30%. Let’s go if you agree.” Xu Zirong directly interrupted Tianle and said coldly.
Tianle’s eyes rolled, “Okay!” All in all, he would not suffer from any losses. He thought that it’d be follow Xu Ziyan, someone with maps, instead of strolling around alone.
The two reached a consensus, and Xu Ziyan and Tianle consciously made the heart demon oath. Both were smart people. In the absence of 100% trust, the most reliable way to cooperate is to make a heart demon oath.
The central city of the fragmented continent was actually a huge maze, and this maze was more complicated and changeable than a maze in the general sense.
Back then, the True Dragon Maze could only be regarded as a flat maze at best, but the central city of the fragmented continent was a three-dimensional maze covering both worlds of above and underground.
In the novel, Xu Ziyan cheered at the cultivators who built this maze, as they had built a city into a complete maze.
In this maze, there might be a passage leading to other places in any rooms, and the six affiliate secret rooms were also hidden in several different places on the ground and underground.
“Well, our entrance here is the east gate on the ground. The fastest way to enter the central maze from here is through this one, this one, and this one.” Xu Ziyan placed the map on a relatively flat boulder, pointing to several hidden passages on the map and explained.
“However, like this kind of secret path, the number of mechanisms inside would surely be several times that of the outside.” Tianle’s expression also became serious. In the previous realms, there would be no grave danger if he’s careful enough, but after entering the central city, he would face the risk of being killed if those monsters worked together. He had to take it as seriously as possible.
“Yes, there are traps marked on the map, but it doesn’t say what kind of trap it is, I suppose we can only find out once we enter.” Xu Ziyan said seriously.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” Tianle raised his eyebrows. “The colors of the traps marked in these three passages are different. The sooner we can see them, the better. Don’t forget that besides the central secret room, we still need to spend time to find the other ones.”
Xu Ziyan nodded and noticed that the map seemed to have its own limitations. Only a part of the terrain could emerge at a time. In Xu Ziyan’s opinion, the content that this piece of land revealed was about a quarter of the central city. That is to say, the entire central city was divided into eight fan shapes, four above the ground and four underground. Taking the central secret room and the entrance gate as the center line, it spread toward both sides.
The map could only be activated after they entered the fan-shaped area, otherwise they would not be able to get the rest of the map.
“Since everyone has no objections, let’s go.” Xu Ziyan put away the map and walked towards the intersection first.
According to the instructions on the map, the secret realm they were going to enter should be in one of the houses on the next street, but it was also marked on the map that there were green trap marks on both sides of that house.
For the first part of the road, the three of them walked fairly smoothly, but the further they headed, the heavier they felt in the heart. In an empty city, there were many shops on both sides of the street, as if they could still see the prosperity of the day, but at this time, there was absolutely no sound, only the rustling footsteps of the three, echoing on both sides of the street.
“It’s really making me uncomfortable here.” Tianle’s face looked gloomy, and he couldn’t help touching his neck.
As a maniac, he really rarely had any heavy thoughts, but for some reason, he felt inexplicably depressed and irritable after entering the huge maze.
“It’s really uncomfortable. It feels like there are people who have lived here, but they seemed to have disappeared in an instant.” Xu Ziyan looked at the streets on both sides and said with a frown.
Xu Zirong looked around silently. The surrounding environment was no different from that of a normal city. The most surprising thing was that many of the shops even had live animals that were sold at that time.
Of course, after so many years of turbulences, these things had already rotted, and even the spiritual energy of some spiritual stones had completely dissipated, turning into a pile of debris.
Obviously, Xu Ziyan was not the first one to notice this situation. In some shops, there were obviously traces of being rummaged, but those traces were left a long time ago. They thought that certain cultivators broke into those shops when the fragmented continent was open several days ago.
“Look!” Xu Ziyan pointed to a courtyard in the alley.
They stood at a good angle, just in time to see a house living in the alley. It was a small courtyard, and the people living in it were definitely ordinary. There was a dining table in the center of the yard surrounded by three bamboo chairs.
There was even a heap of ashes scattered on the dining table. Xu Ziyan took a closer look. If his speculation was correct, the owner of this small courtyard should be eating at that time. The owner left in a hurry not knowing what happened, and there was no time to clean up the food on the table.
“It’s really weird, why do I feel scared all of a sudden? As if my master is staring at me from behind…” Tianle shivered unconsciously and looked around with suspicions.
He didn’t find any abnormalities in his divine consciousness, but he had already developed a sense of alertness much sharper than ordinary people thanks to all the tricks that his master played on him.
Even though he didn’t find anything in his divine consciousness, he had a vague feeling that he was being watched.
“Let’s go. No matter what happened here, it already happened thousands of years ago. We are not here to solve puzzles, but to hunt for treasure.” Xu Ziyan glanced at the wooden table that turned into dust after he touched it casually, suppressing his weird feelings.
Xu Zirong followed closely behind his brother and walked out of the small courtyard. Before he left, he suddenly turned his head and looked——
The small courtyard was empty, without a single person, and in his divine consciousness, there was no trace of living things either.
After everyone left, there was suddenly a breeze blowing from somewhere and they seemed to have heard a sigh…
