Over the 2 thousand years, Ning had never bothered learning how to make formations or the formation flags. Creating a formation was never something he thought he required.
However, he did learn deconstruction of formations. He learned how to stop a formation, dismantle it, or if required, destroy it.
So, when he saw the shadows about to overlap and form a perfect formation on the pattern below, he quickly tossed a gold coin in it to open it.
Once the formation was filled, it lit up and opened what looked like a portal to a secret realm.
Ning stepped forward and disappeared. He felt a slight tug on his body as if he was being pulled down instead of teleporting.
“Hmm… interesting,” he thought as he let his body free fall. It took him what felt like 3 minutes to finally reach the bottom with a bang. He only had to bend his knees slightly to absorb all of the force of the impact, however.
“So… what’s happening here?” he thought and started looking around. He was in a dark cave, but he could clearly see the carvings on the rocks.
‘That doesn’t look like it was made by a human,’ Ning thought as he stared at the deep lines on the wall. They were about 40 centimeters deep, 15 centimeters wide, and about half a meter in between each of the carvings on the wall.
“What sort of tool did the maker of this tomb use to make these?” Ning wondered and walked forward.
The marks ran all along the wall until it reached a massive open space in the cave. When Ning finally walked into the open room, he was stunned.
In front of him were hundreds of statues all over the room, and all of these statues were looking towards a single thing in the middle of the room, a giant coffin.
Ning looked at the statues in more shock than he ever had when he realized just what he was looking at.
“That’s… that’s a Water Drake, and that’s a Wildfire Phoenix, that’s a Light Roc, and that’s a Black-Horned Qilin.”
“That’s a Dark-emperor Crow, and the Golden Shelled Beetle’s statue is here too.”
Ning looked around as he started recognizing all the beasts that were in the room.
A White Puma descended from the White Tiger, a green Turtle descended from the legendary Black Turtle, a seven-tailed Fox descended from the Nine-tailed fox, a snake descended from the hornless dragons called Chi, a fire breathing dog descended from Huodou.
Every single descendant of the legendary creatures was here.
Ning looked in shock at the statues. “Just who carved these statues? How did they know what the extinct beasts looked like? Who the hell made this tomb?” Ning thought.
Finally, he reached the main question that started bugging him more and more as he thought about it.
“Who is in that coffin?” he thought. Since the answer wasn’t gonna come up to him, he walked forward.
He gently touched the statues as he walked forward. He checked to see how well made they were and what they were made of.
Ning suddenly stopped when he felt a few of them. He looked at the dirt on his hands and thought, “That’s just normal dust. Were these incredible statues really made with something so ordinary?”
He checked a few more and realized that the material that was on the statue was the same one as the one in the cave.
‘Going so far as to create a tomb then sealing it away, and then making a fake tomb on top of it. How did the person who made such an incredible tomb, not find a single better material for the statues? I’m sure the sculptors themselves would go out of their way to ask for better materials.’
‘So weird,’ he thought.
Finally, he left the statue and walked towards the coffin itself. He was a little surprised when he saw the coffin, however.
‘Is this where he spent all the money?’ Ning wondered. ‘Even a small piece of Primordial Holy Jade would cost anyone 5 generations of fortune. I’m surprised the person was even able to afford one, let alone such a large piece of it.’
Primordial Holy Jade was a very strong and resilient piece of jade, far stronger than the small marble Ning had made years ago.
Ning remembered reading that the Primordial Holy Jade could also block all forms of Qi, aura, and even divine sense.
Ning sent in his divine sense up to the slab of jade and was pleasantly surprised to see that his divine sense didn’t enter there at all.
“So it is true. It’s very heavy too isn’t it?” Ning thought and touched the cool, but the dusty surface of the jade.
“Let’s see what’s inside,” Ning thought and tried to push it from the side of the slab.
Just as he was about to push it, a divine sense entered his mind.
“You do not belong here, Human,” something spoke into his mind. Ning immediately turned towards the direction of the voice but saw no one.
“Who’s there?” Ning asked trying to see if they were hiding behind the statues.
“Go away,” a voice entered his mind. Ning turned around again. This time the sound was coming from the opposite direction, and the voice felt very different too.
“Do not open it,” another voice made Ning turn to the right.
He still couldn’t see anything, but by now he had a sinking suspicion on what could be happening.
Immediately, he spread out his divine sense, but he didn’t stop at that. Instead, he started sending those divine senses into the statues themselves to check if his suspicions were true.
“HOW DARE YOU!” many divine senses bombarded him at the same time, but none of them could make Ning falter at all.
“Heh, so that’s what it is, huh?” Ning said as he looked around him.
The statues he believed to be just statues were in fact beasts that seemed to have been plastered from outside to make a statue.
“I’m surprised so many of your kind are still alive.”