"Eastern Forest Garden, sounds a bit like a garden, tsk, feels a bit underwhelming."
Li Hai clicked his tongue in disappointment, then looked up at the entire grand hall in front of the table.
He then saw that the black mist, which had been emanating from a doorway on the left at the far end of the grand hall, was now gone without a trace.
In its place was a narrow, long stone corridor.
Without much hesitation, Li Hai's figure flickered, and he crossed a hundred zhang to fly into this suddenly appearing narrow corridor.
After speeding for several hundred more zhang, he reached the end of the corridor.
And when Li Hai pushed open the bronze door at the end, a vast but desolate wilderness came into his view.
It was called a forest garden, but as far as Li Hai could see, there wasn't a single decent tree.
There were only sparse, yellowed withered grasses and cracked land crisscrossed with gullies.
In short, it was a scene of desolation and death.
"It must be because it's unmaintained."
Li Hai stepped into the wilderness, walking slowly while looking around, wanting to find anything out of the ordinary.
But he was disappointed.
After that, Li Hai walked a full ten li.
But besides a few completely decayed and broken dead trees, and a few crooked, illegibly inscribed, incomplete stone tablets, he found nothing else of value.
However, although Li Hai was already impatient, a subtle tremor in his heart 'told' him.
Just hold on a little longer; if he keeps going, there will be a reward.
Li Hai clearly knew that this was a mysterious premonition ability that arose from the convergence of his 2nd-grade Wildness and 2nd-grade Inspiration, after he acquired them.
He guessed that a single 2nd-grade Wildness trait or 2nd-grade Inspiration trait might not have this effect.
But when both were present, they influenced each other and produced some wonderful reaction.
That hazy tremor was the result of this reaction.
"Oh well, oh well, since I have nothing better to do, I'll just keep going and see what I encounter."
Thinking this, Li Hai patiently continued to walk.
And when he had walked another five or six li, he finally saw other things completely different from dead trees, withered grass, and broken tablets.
Namely... hundreds to thousands of soldier corpses clad in dark black heavy armor and wielding various weapons, clearly filled with Death Qi yet neither decaying nor rotting.
At first glance, they looked like a group of routed soldiers who had all died in a fierce battle.
They lay quietly scattered across the vast wilderness in front of Li Hai, ninety-nine percent of them in a damaged state, missing arms, legs, heads, or with broken waists.
Only a scattered few corpses barely maintained their physical integrity.
However, even so, the armor and weapons these corpses wore were still covered in cracks and holes, looking quite tragic.
But this was only what Li Hai saw; the truth of what happened had long since vanished into the mists of history, leaving no trace.
"A ground full of corpses... what value could they have?!"
Li Hai frowned, his bald brows furrowed in displeasure, but he still walked into this field of corpses, looking around, wanting to find some useful items.
For example, Cultivation Techniques or Secret Manuals, or at the very least, some gold or silver would do.
But upon looking, he was disappointed.
Let alone Cultivation Techniques or Secret Manuals, Li Hai wandered around for a while, searching through a dozen corpses, but couldn't even find a single copper coin.
However, he also made an unexpected discovery, which was that these so-called corpses... were actually not human.
No, that's not right.
It should be said that these corpses were fundamentally like robots.
Previously, from a distance, with withered grass obscuring them, Li Hai couldn't see clearly, but once he got close, he discovered.
At the damaged openings of these corpses, there wasn't flesh and blood or tendons inside, but complex and precise mechanical devices.
And what these mechanisms connected and encased were not colorful wires or circuit boards, but rather jade stones of various shapes, sizes, and colors, and these jade stones were also carved with extremely complex symbols and patterns, looking both mysterious and ancient.
Not only did these jade stones have runes, but the surrounding mechanisms, whether intact or damaged, also had runes, though much fewer and sparser than on the jade stones.
At the same time, the precise mechanisms within the body holes of these corpses were not entirely made of metal; instead, bone, wood, porcelain, and even stone were the prevalent strange Materials, with metal accounting for only a very small portion.
"What does this mean, ancient robots? Organism Puppets?"
Seeing this situation, Li Hai couldn't help but recall a web novel he had read in his previous life—"infinite terror."
There seemed to be a kind of... what was it called, Yellow Turban Strongman, created by cultivators using some kind of rune technology.
Li Hai suspected that these wilderness corpses were similar to Yellow Turban Strongmen, combat tools manufactured by Naihe Prefecture.
"But no matter what, these robots are now destroyed. What use are they to me...? Alas, what a waste of time."
Shaking his head, Li Hai sighed and slowly walked away from this field of corpses.
But after walking a few steps, as he passed a burly corpse with half its face missing, wielding a door-sized saber, this corpse suddenly opened its eyes and quickly sat up.
"Huh?!"
Li Hai's steps immediately halted, and he stared at the awakened half-faced corpse, "You... you can actually wake up? Is it because I'm close enough, and you got activated?"
Upon hearing the voice, the half-faced corpse immediately turned its head to look at Li Hai.
Then, the next moment, he quickly propped himself up and knelt on one knee with a thud in front of Li Hai, saying in a muffled voice:
"Guiyou Cave Heaven Demon Subduing Warrior Number 3970, greetings, Master!"
"...Very good, very spirited."
Li Hai, secretly pleased at suddenly gaining a subordinate, smiled brightly and said, "I want to know, is your current recognition of me as your Master due to the Tinder Project of the Naihe Prefecture high-ups?"
"Reporting to Master."
The Demon Subduing Warrior said in a deep voice, "This subordinate has lost past memories and does not know what the Tinder Project is. I only know that you are the Master of Guiyou Cave Heaven, and thus, my Master."
"Alright."
Li Hai clicked his tongue, "Well, it seems we can't find out about the Naihe Prefecture's past affairs for now. Oh, by the way..."
Then he pointed to the Demon Subduing Warriors lying all around and said, "Which of your companions are still functional like you? Can you find them? It's too troublesome for me to walk over and activate them one by one."
"Reporting to Master."
The burly Warrior respectfully said, "This subordinate can find and activate all non-scrapped Demon Subduing Warriors. Please wait, Master."
Having said that, he turned and ran swiftly towards a certain direction, leaving a series of afterimages and explosive sounds. His speed was so rapid that it was not inferior to Li Hai, a top-tier Steel Grade martial artist.
Therefore, it is very possible that the hundreds to thousands of Demon Subduing Warriors in this wilderness... are not weaker than Li Hai in terms of martial arts combat and physical strength.