Book 1, Chapter 2 – Historical Relic
The lost mountain, Machu Picchu.
Down the hill on the tourist’s path towards Machu Picchu, local police had set up a roadblock, preventing the public to enter. The reason for this is that there is an important archeology assessment going on at Machu Picchu, so the public is prevented from even getting close to it.
At the border of Machu Picchu which was 2000 meters above sea level, three capable and vigorous disciples of the Underhand Sect were watching around alertly with micro machine guns.
Wu Qi was sitting on the wall of a building that had no roof. He admired the surrounding scenery with a can of beer in his hands and a smile on his face.
The surrounding mountain scenery in Machu Picchu was pretty amazing. Amazing green hills were everywhere, the morning fog was hovering around, mist dragon long white lines along the mountainside with the help of the morning wind. This place was like a fairy land people could only daydream about.
After drinking up the remaining beer, Wu Qi squeezed the beer can and threw it far away.
He unconsciously touched the secret pocket on his belt. The Sect Elder Token for the Underhand Sect was now laying quietly in his secret pocket.
According to the Underhand Sect’s rules, the Sect Elder Token has to be with the Sect Elder at all times, it can’t be anywhere else. But, Wu Wang is not someone who follows rules all the time, he was now with a group of elite disciples and was checking on Machu Picchu. He did not want to have an extra burden with him.
He handed over all his important things to Wu Qi who wasn’t familiar with the assessment on the historical relic. He brought a group of elite disciples himself, and right now he was busy working in the ruins of Machu Picchu.
In an abandoned temple about 200 meters away, Wu Wang who was only wearing underpants stood straight up. He coughed out loudly and spat out a thick sputum. It was heavily raining before this, the temple was filled with thick dust, the rain water and the dust mixed together became dirty mud. Wu Wang was now covered in this mud and looked like a wild monkey.
Throwing away the ultrasonic detector, Wu Wang took a few steps back and suddenly leapt forwards, hitting a brick in the corner of the temple with his palm. The instrument had detected something special in the temple, and with the experience and judgment of the Underhand Sect’s elite disciples, it was easy to find out that this brick was a switch that controlled some mechanism within the temple.
All of Machu Picchu trembled for a moment. Followed by Wu Wang’s forceful strike, the brick slowly submerged into the wall. In the hall without a roof on the east side of the temple, a few hundred carefully carved bricks laying on the floor quietly started sliding away, quietly submerging into the ground and showing an entrance to an underground passage which was large enough to allow three grown men to walk side by side.
Wu Qi grabbed a shark skin scabbard beside him, the handle was made with copper, and the locket was made with gold. Numerous gemstones were mounted on the scabbard itself.
This is a sword that an elder from the Underhand Sect three generations ago stolen from an ancient tomb underneath a Sword Pool. On the sword’s blade two words were carved in, ‘Dragon Abyss’. But, it was unknown whether or not this sword was the same Dragon Abyss sword as the one made by the legend Ou Yezi.
This Dragon Abyss sword is extremely sharp, combat knifes made with modern day alloys can’t even withstand a single light hit from it. As Wu Wang’s only successor, and being the disciple with the highest status in the Underhand Sect, Wu Qi obviously has the right to use it.
Dozens of capable and vigorous men from the ‘Greedy Wolf Group’ of the Underhand Sect carried a variety of weapons and followed closely behind Wu Qi.
The Greedy Wolf Group is an elite group. After Wu Wang joined the Underhand Sect, he spent a few years adopting orphans from different places and trained them to form a skilled team. Under Wu Qi’s lead, the Greedy Wolf Group played an important role in the fight for power amongst Wu Wang and Shangguan Ye.
Carrying the Dragon Abyss sword in his hands, Wu Qi led the group and entered the underground passage.
After taking a few steps into the passage, Wu Wang who was overexerted turned around and started dragging Le Xiaobai who looked unwilling to follow.
Wearing a long robe, the clean and tidy Le Xiaobai who looked like a noble young master who was about to eat dinner struggled. He shouted loud and said, “I can’t stand being dirty! I can’t stand being dirty! Big Brother, Sect Elder, Uncle Wu, I hate going underground, can you please not drag me along?”
[TL: He’s referring to Wu Wang in all 3]
Wu Qi remained silent as he grabbed a chunk of dirty mud from the mud pond on the ground in the dark, then he put some of it on Le Xiaobai’s face.
Le Xiaobai was startled. He started blankly at the dirty mud water that was dripping down from his face, his body started violently trembling.
“Wu Qi! You ungrateful brat! Have you forgotten who the one who brought you out from Africa was?!” Le Xiaobai’s folding fan almost touched Wu Qi’s nose.
Wu Qi’s lips twitched a little, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Last year in Amsterdam, who was the one who had no money to pay for women and asked me to save him? You bought me with only $100 in Africa, that day I paid $3,800 for you! Even if we take the inflation into consideration, I’ve already repaid all your favors!”
Staring and the stunned and speechless Le Xiaobai, Wu Qi teased and said, “As the White Folding Fan of the Underhand Sect, you still let those little gangsters in Netherland steal your wallet… If the previous grandmasters of the different generations rose from their graves, they would strangle you to death while you’re asleep!”
Wu Wang started laughing out crazily. Le Xiaobai’s lips twitched for quite some time. Suddenly, he stomped his feet. He accepted his fate and threw away the folding fan. He undressed his long sleeve shirt and led the group forwards in low spirit.
With high intelligence like a freak and a body so thin that even the most famous catwalk models couldn’t compare, Le Xiaobai had mastered all the Underhand Sect’s books about traps and mechanisms, he even innovated some new techniques. As long as he led the way, there were basically no traps that could trouble Wu Wang, Wu Qi and the rest.
Wu Wang has strong leadership and organizational abilities.
Wu Qi has strong innate skills towards martial arts and combat skills.
But the one who really inherited the genuine skills that made the Underhand Sect famous was still Le Xiaobai.
Complaining and mumbling to himself, Le Xiaobai led all the men along the passage and slowly entered deep into the mountain. There were dozens of deadly traps hidden in the passage, but they were all cracked by Le Xiaobai with ease.
“I hate actions that insult my intelligence!” While breaking the traps along the way, Le Xiaobai kept mumbling to himself, “Intruding someone’s ancestor tomb, breaking in by force… This doesn’t involve any intelligence!”
Nobody really cared about Le Xiaobai’s mumbling.
Wu Wang brought a few of the disciples and set up some lights and ventilations along the passage. Wu Qi led the Greedy Wolf Group and carefully watched the surroundings. In this kind of historical relic, some strange things might happen.
Last year, they were in an underground tomb within the King’s Valley in Egypt, they met a mummy who was still alive. Wu Qi and over 30 Greedy Wolf Group elites fought a tough battle before finally dismembering that mummy.
The mysteriousness for the Inca remains is similar to Egypt. Wu Qi was prepared to strike his sword at all times.
Luckily, no abnormal accidents happened. After Le Xiaobei cracked 64 traps along the passage, everyone arrived at the end and stood in front of a huge metal door. The door was made with gold and silver, and there were numerous mysterious patterns on top of it.
The rectangular shaped door was 12 meters high with a width of 3 meters. The door reflected silver and golden colors when pointed at with the searchlight.
Le Xiaobai came closer to the door and forcefully impaled it with a needle.
“60% gold and 40% silver, the purity is pretty high. This door alone is worth more than all we spent to get here!”
After all these years in the Underhand Sect, Le Xiaobai had achieved an amazing assessment ability. By just slightly impaling the door with a needle, he had already analyzed all of the doors components. It was made with the purest gold and silver, 60% gold and 40% silver. The materials were so good that even if the door was just normal size, it would still be an astonishing fortune.
Wu Wang extended his hand and grabbed a golden plate with a polygonal sun shape on it, it closely resembled the Inca culture. Wu Wang looked at the door with a smile, “I’m really curious, if the front door is so expensive, what will be behind this door?”
Wu Qi stared at the door, suddenly he drew his sword. A layer of water shadows shot out from the scabbard, producing a sonic boom and hitting the door.
Wu Qi had amazing talent, after practicing with full effort for four years together with Wu Wang, his inner vital energy was almost at the same level as the four elders of the sect. The Dragon Abyss sword was an ancient sharp sword, the blade resembled water. When agitated by inner vital energy, the sword’s edge would spit out three inches of lightning, tearing the air apart as it flew towards its target.
After a loud bang, lightning started blinking around the huge door, an arm sized lightning bolt shot out from the door, violently striking the Dragon Abyss sword.
Wu Qi’s arms were affected by the lightning strike, the sleeve on his right harm was instantly turned into ashes. His body was covered in lightning, and he was sent flying away while swinging his arms and feet in midair from the explosion.
He felt extreme pain in his body, every single cell in his body had been penetrated by the high voltage. If it wasn’t for Wu Qi having strong inner vital energy to support him, the lightning strike would’ve just killed him.
Le Xiaobai who was standing next to the door jumped at least 2 meters backwards in fright, he shouted with a shock expression, “Go to hell! Those uncivilized ancient Inca men, how did they invent a high voltage electric net?!”
Wu Wang gripped the golden plate in his hand tightly, he stared at the huge door and shook his head, “Bullshit, high voltage electric net? If it really is that, then you would’ve been killed earlier!”
Wu Wang turned around and looked at Wu Qi with a worried expression, “Wu Qi, are you ok?”
Taking a deep breath, he carefully circulated the inner vital energy throughout his body one round. Wu Qi grinded his teeth and stood up. He shook his head and said, “I’m okay, but that lightning bolt consumed 70% of my inner vital energy.”
Gazing at the Dragon Abyss sword he was holding tightly, this sword truly deserve to be a famous ancient sword. After being hit by a lightning strike, there was no change in the sword itself. But, a mysterious blue color had appeared among the natural green color on the sword. The mysterious blue color closely resembled the electric lightning that appeared earlier.
Moving his body a little, Wu Qi grit his teeth and said, “Teacher, we’ll need to use that golden plate. This door, I’m afraid it’s just as weird as that living mummy.”
Wu Wang furrowed his brows. He held the golden plate tightly in his hands and started carefully moving closer to the door.
The golden plate was obtained by the disciples of the Underhand Sect a few months ago in a private museum in South America. With the Underhand Sect’s skillful judgment, this golden plate has a huge value no matter how you look at it, the material or the words carved on it, all valuable.
Therefore, this relic has arrived in the Underhand Sect smoothly. After being carefully studied by a few professionals with knowledge about the ancient history and language, they followed the clues on the golden place and finally arrived here.
The clues on the golden plate hadn’t fooled any of them. Let’s forget about everything else of value, just this huge door that can release lightning strikes and automatically attack has made all their efforts worth it. As for what’s behind the door, it only made the people here even more excited.
Carefully covering his right palm with vital energy and showing extreme caution, Wu Wang inserted the golden plate into a laughing sun symbol right in the middle of the door.
Just after the golden plate was inserted, the door suddenly started emitting a strong light. Wu Wang jumped backwards and kept a distance of at least 30 meters. The huge and heavy door quietly opened up by sliding both door panels to the side, presenting a huge space filled with bizarre lights.
Wu Wang gasped in astonishment and said, “We’ve struck rich this time!”
Wu Wang’s eyes kept widening as he blankly stared at the bizarre items inside that space.
Le Xiaobei extended his neck while mumbling to himself unconsciously, “Maglev? Deity? Immortal? Isn’t this going too far?”
Before he finished his words, three green light suddenly shot up from the ground behind them.
A few sounds were heard, the green light swept across everyone like a shining stretch of silk. Aside from Wu Wang, Wu Qi and Le Xiaobai, the rest of the Underhand Sect disciples were all dead now.
Dozens of blood pillars shot up into the air, dozens of human heads rolled on the floor.