'Hmm… what's that?' he walked a little further and saw the object in full clarity. He was expecting to see something that had to do with the formation that was laid down, but instead, it was a corpse.
And a very old one at that. The corpse's flesh had mostly rotted away, and all that was left was the skeleton. The clothes were also in tatters and the skeleton itself was pressed to the side of the tunnel.
"Was he buried here and only showed up when someone opened this tunnel? Or was he already here and whatever opened the tunnel pushed him to the side?" he wondered.
He walked closer to the corpse and looked at it. He didn't feel any disgust or awfulness when he looked at it. Instead, all he felt was sorry for the poor guy.
"Hmm…" he noticed a small slip of talisman on his hand. "What is that?" he wondered as he picked it out. He tried to read and see what it was but realized very soon that it wasn't a records talisman. It was a talisman that did something. As for what a dying man would've wanted to do, he was not sure.
He checked the corpse a little further and found 2 storage bags on him. One of the bags had a bunch of talismans that he guessed were similar to what he was holding. The second bag, however, surprised him. The second bag had plenty of wooden boxes. When he tried to penetrate his spiritual sense into the boxes, he realized that they were all actually full of Alchemy materials.
"Using Jade or Wooden boxes to protect the energy of the ingredients from diffusing is generally helpful, but I've never done it so myself since I use the ingredients pretty much instantly. It's nice to finally see someone do that for its correct cause."
He then looked up at the corpse and thought, "so this person was an alchemist?" suddenly, the ground started shaking.
"What's happening?" he got a little scared. The shaking got larger and larger until he saw a giant worm come his way. The worm was quite slow, but it covered the whole tunnel, almost as if it was the one that made all of the tunnels.
Alex was still in his concealed form, so he didn't worry about the worm, but the aura the worm sent out was stronger than anything he had sensed yet. Not even either of his masters was as strong as this worm. That did scare him well.
Suddenly, the worm turned towards him. 'Can it see me?' Alex was surprised and his fear of the worm started to rise. But then, he saw that the worm had no eyes. In the first place, it shouldn't have been able to see him anyway since he was invisible.
"Unless… " a bad premonition appeared in his head. Suddenly, he rotated his Qi, until it came to his head and all the surrounding area started to light up. The worm sped up so fast towards him, that he almost fumbled. But at the last second, he managed to use Flickering Shadow to leave the underground and come back outside.
"Huff Huff… So, that thing was actually looking towards me through its sense of smell huh," he thought.
He watched the worm dance around searching for him, but since he was no longer there, it couldn't find him anymore. The worm then went away opposite to the direction it came from.
Finally, he looked up at him current surrounding. He saw that while the vegetation was still there, there were no more fogs in the surrounding. 'Is it because I took out those formation flags?' he wondered.
Now that the elder was probably searching for him, he deactivated his concealing technique and stopped using his invisibility.
He walked a little forward and saw an elder hurriedly coming his way. "Disciple are you alright?" he asked worriedly. The elder then immediately called the rest of the elders and sect leader.
"Yes, I am fine, elder." Alex simply answered." Wen Cheng looked at his disheveled state and asked, "What happened? Did you manage to get all of the ingredients in there?"
"Aside from a few, I managed to get all," Alex said as he handed 4 full bags and 1 three-quarter full bag. The elders also got in close to look at the ingredients.
Wen Cheng sighed and asked, "You didn't get any Spirit Cleansing Lilies, did you?"
"No, master. Those are impossible; even for me." Alex said while shaking his head. "Alright then, let's return."
Wen Cheng flew off and took Alex along with him. It took them about 2 hours again to return back to the sect. They all landed in the sect leader's backyard.
"Alright, as previously mentioned, my disciple gets half of the ingredients. Do any of you oppose this?" Wen Cheng asked. Nobody there spoke a word of opposition. So, Wen Cheng took out an empty storage bag and filled it a bit. He then handed Alex 2 and nearly half full storage bags.
Alex was surprised. 'Why did master not give me the empty bag back in the special place? Did he intentionally do that?'
The elders took their portions and left without hesitation. Only after seeing the elders leave did Wen Cheng let out a big sigh. "While they are helpful, we are all fighting for the sect leader's position. So nobody wants to give the others a chance to one-up them. If I tried to openly help you, they would shut me down without question."
Alex finally understood. He took out 3 flowers from his bag and handed them to his master. "These should be enough, right master?" he asked.
"So you can get them. Little Mei wasn't lying. Oh god, I was so worried you couldn't do it. Good. Good. You keep one and try to unlock your spiritual sense as well." Wen Cheng said as he handed one back to Alex.
Alex felt warm seeing his master treat him so nicely. "Keep it, master, I already have some more." He said as he took out a few more of the Spirit Cleansing lilies.
"Alright. Go back to your house now. And unlock your spiritual sense." Wen Cheng said and sent him back during the night.