I hurried down along Meng Hao, running down the stairs as fast as we could. The twists and turns weren't much to deter us from reaching the area where the kids and other cultivators were being held.
"You do know, that if we don't find anything, the whole Black Tower Sect will blacklist us, and we'll be unable to do purchases in any of its branches on the whole planet do you?" Meng Hao said, though even if his words were mortifying his tone was that of someone who didn't really care if that actually happened.
"I do know, and that's why I'm sure we'll find them, also you should make sure to be alive to be black listed, because we're basically inside their own treasury," I said as we stopped in front of a single door that had several dozen high-level inscriptions.
"Why would the Black Tower hide the kidnapped people in this place?" asked Meng Hao "I find it hard that they'll have use of cultivators of the core cultivation stage."
"I know, but I have a feeling that the Black Tower Management itself doesn't know this," I said then pulled my brush.
"Can you unlock this?" Meng Hao said.
"This? Bro, you should have seen the restriction I had to deal with in the Lower Celestial Realm, this stuff here is child play," I said then began adding lines and removing others as fast as possible. My hands blurred as the lines were modified and changed to my own liking, and then, I pressed a hand on the middle of the inscription, twisted, and the whole restriction dissipated.
Soon, the door opened up to a massive vault of treasures and loot that seemed to fill the whole room from side to side.
I'd say this is nothing short of a Dragon's Treasure Trove minus the dragon. Most of the stuff here was organized and placed in crates or behind glass containers, while the rest of the materials, which were 'junk' such as gold bars, meteorite ingots, and some precious metals were all over the ground.
I made sure to close the door first behind us before we walked in.
"Why don't they just place all these treasures in a holding bag." Meng Hao asked.
As I walked trying to follow the middlemost path leading to the other side of the room and gestured to Meng Hao to follow me, I began explaining.
"Because no one will trust another with all this fortune in their bag, there are a lot of inscriptions on the floors, the moment one thing is taken without presenting a specific Inscription, an alarm system will go off. So, this way, the cultivators supervising the trove will always be on alert if someone tried to take something from here, and at the same time won't need to have all of their eggs in one basket, in the pocket of a cultivator that might get greedy and flee with everything."
"How would you even know that?" Meng Hao said dodging a few random ingots that could probably sound an alarm if touched.
"Because Inscriptions aren't just random things, once you understand their purpose you can get a gist of why they were made, use your head a bit, Meng Hao," I said as I tapped my index on my temple.
The two of us walked a straight line towards the other end of the treasure room, without touching anything, then stopped near a wall that had a statue of a meditating cultivator.
It looked like a regular statue, and there were even more of it all over the area, but since I stopped here, there had to be a reason.
"Let me guess, behind this statue, there is a secret entrance?" asked Meng Hao.
"Yep, there is an inscription that is blocking Divine Sense from going through.
"But how can you be sure that the kidnapped people are inside? What if this is just another section to another treasure trove?" asked Meng Hao.
"I already inspected the whole city, and this is the only place with an inscription to block divine sense, but there is still a high chance that you're right, and there could be nothing here. But would you not have tried to see what's here?" I asked.
"Well, I would have probably checked if I had the ability," Meng Hao said.
"Still, I was sure that we're in the right place the moment we set foot in the tower," I said.
"How?" asked Meng Hao.
"Because this place, has the same smell as one dark, and dangerous memory of mine, and it smells of rot…and poison," I said then began slowly tapping at the dais the statue was sitting on until I found a section that can be pushed in.
I pressed on it and this moved the statue and opened up a wall behind it, revealing one more door with even heavier layers of inscriptions.
I worked on the door with almost the same speed as the earlier one, and then it unlatched opening up to reveal a small stone-paved tunnel that led further down.
"Let's go," I said and closed the door behind us by locking back the inscription.
The two of us hurried towards the other side of the tunnel and found what I feared the most.
Hundreds of cultivators, famished, malnourished, and many dead and dying.
A massive Pool of Bone and Body Grinding Poison was placed in the middle of this room, where there was a single golden Door with a hand imprint, missing but the touch of a man that survived the Bone and Body Grinding Poison to open up.
My eyes turned dark after seeing this sight once again, and some inexplicable emotions of attachment to this place, and at the same time, detest, hate, rage, and senseless fear, all assaulted me as I looked at the people here, with seals on their mouths and their bodies, so they don't release Qi.
Meng Hao's eyes darted all over the place until they landed on the emaciated form of a girl wearing the same outfit as he did.
"Yan'er!" he shouted and hurried towards her, leaving me gazing on all of this clusterfuck once again.