Riding the wind, it took only half a day for Nan Zhi to touch down upon a boundless expanse of green grasslands.
Gazing across the Siberian Plains, lush greenery and deep emerald grass filled her vision as far as the eye could see.
The washed-out azure sky and the vibrant, thriving grassland converged in the far distance, gradually merging into one.
As spiritual energy rose alongside the earth’s qi and nourished the ground, ordinary new spirit herbs like hemostatic grass, money flowers, and two-petaled lotuses could be seen everywhere.
The terrain stretched flat and open, with the few hills within Nan Zhi’s field of view rolling with barely perceptible slopes.
Sturdy wild horses roamed casually across the meadow, plump voles darted into grass burrows, bean geese flapped their wings, and lynxes lay low, waiting in the shrubs...
A female snow leopard accompanied by several cubs strolled past Nan Zhi, even pausing in its tracks to curiously size up this unusual human.
Giant-winged bean geese landed on the horizon, wild horses galloped, snow leopards crouched, brown bears roared, while three-meter-tall elks, muskoxen, plain wolves the size of calves, and squirrels, flying squirrels, and leopard rats the size of basketballs went about their lives...
This vast, sparsely populated plain had unmistakably become a haven for wild animals.
Nan Zhi had already left Huaxia far behind and arrived within the borders of Russia.
Although the Huang family had only released a video clip without sharing exact landmarks, countless talented individuals on the Lingjing App had still identified the secret realm in the video as being located around the Kamba Mountains on the Siberian Plains.
Yet even with approximate coordinates, searching inch by inch like this would take her until dark.
With a thought, mist surged around her as Nan Zhi donned Ma Guniang’s skin and began performing hand seals.
She had only just scratched the surface of the 《Great Dao Deduction Record》; while she couldn’t divine auspiciousness or misfortune, foreseeing a general direction was no problem.
Sure enough, within the time it took to drink a cup of tea, a hazy thought suddenly emerged in Nan Zhi’s mind:
【Head north.】
【What you seek is not far ahead.】
Rather than a concrete divination hexagram, it was more of a vague, wondrous intuition.
Nan Zhi headed north and searched for two full days before finally spotting that secret realm amid the boundless meadows.
Just like in the video, it resembled a mirage, with immortal pavilions and lotus platforms towering amidst layered clouds and mist, accompanied by palaces, towers, waterside pavilions, and floral corridors.
This secret realm was not present at all times.
Only in the early morning hours, when the sun illuminated the golden peaks and refracted seven-colored rays through the clouds, could this dreamlike scene be witnessed.
Right now, it happened to be dawn. Beneath the snow-capped mountains, dew formed upon the grass blades. With the rustling of the wind, plump dewdrops rose into the air, soaring upward as if flowing in reverse, directly sucked into the secret realm.
Wind arose, and water surged.
Nan Zhi attempted various methods to draw near, but the secret realm seemed to have sprouted legs and was running away; no matter how high or fast she flew, that layer of illusions remained floating in the clouds, neither near nor far.
“Could it really be as Huang Shiduo said, that an entry token is required?”
Nan Zhi dejectedly drifted down from the clouds, wondering whether she should first get her hands on that token before anything else.
【Ding—】
【Detected instance: Entrance to the Ten Directions Mountains’ Miaoling Secret Realm. Would you like to use the inventory item “Entry Token”?】
The system prompt rang out without warning, interrupting Nan Zhi’s thoughts.
Only then did she fish out an Entry Token cast from refined iron and etched with auspicious cloud patterns from the corner of her inventory.
—This was one of the compensations Nun Miaoyun had demanded from the Qingjing Sect on her behalf after Daoist Qinglong’s death.
The Ten Directions Mountains’ Miaoling Secret Realm was originally an ancient battlefield that later served as a secret realm where introductory disciples of the Qingjing Sect chose their natal dharma treasures.
Nan Zhi had originally planned to hunt for treasures inside once her strength was sufficient.
Never did she expect that one day, this item would resonate with an instance in the real world!
In other words, after the Four Provinces shattered, the Ten Directions Mountains’ Miaoling Secret Realm was fortunate enough to survive, and it had landed within Russian territory!
Her past caution had brought an unexpected pleasant surprise today. Nan Zhi was instantly overjoyed.
The moment something happened on her end, White Tiger Nan Zhi naturally received word at once.
Feeling the reassuring sense of security within her soul, Nan Zhi gripped the Entry Token and plunged straight into the clouds—
Sure enough, things were different this time.
The world spun around her as the surrounding clouds and mist dispersed. Nan Zhi tapped the ground beneath her feet, realizing she was standing atop a flat stone platform.
The platform was massive, stretching several li in length and width. Ravines several meters deep, looking like sword gouges, crisscrossed the surface, dividing the ground into small squares.
Upon these squares lay countless lifelike stone statues.
There were men and women wearing diverse attire from various dynasties.
Yet all of them had their eyes wide open, their faces frozen in terror and despair as they looked up at the sky.
What was in the sky?
Nan Zhi looked up, only to see two stone statues of immortals with obscured faces—one in the east and one in the west. Standing roughly a hundred meters tall, holding Go stones in their hands, they seemed lost in contemplation on how to counter each other’s moves.
This was actually a colossal chessboard.
Nineteen lines horizontally and nineteen lines vertically, with three hundred and sixty-one intersections. But instead of Go stones, lifelike stone statues occupied the board.
Looking at those meticulously detailed, lifelike stone people, Nan Zhi deduced that they were likely mortals from the real world who had wandered into the secret realm by mistake.
Without mobilizing spiritual power, she cautiously stretched out her foot and took a step forward, only to hear a series of “clack-clack-clack” sounds above her head—
The stone immortal to the east seemed to come alive, stone chips sloughing off as its massive hand descended slowly, on the verge of swatting toward Nan Zhi!
Yet in the next second, a glint of spirituality flashed between the stone figure’s brows. It stared at Nan Zhi, studying her for a moment, before mechanically pulling its hand back.
Nan Zhi: “...”
What was going on?
Wasn’t this place supposedly fraught with murderous intent and traps at every turn?
Why did you suddenly freeze up?
Was it because of the token?
No, that wasn’t right. According to Huang Shiduo, the token was merely a prerequisite for entry, not something that would bypass traps.
“Clack, clack, clack...”
The stone immortal slowly returned to its original posture, holding a Go piece in silence like an inanimate object, naturally incapable of offering an explanation.
A strange feeling lingered in Nan Zhi’s heart. Urgently wanting to find that floating giant sword, she simply continued forward in the direction the stone figures had collapsed.
...
The further forward she went, the more stone statues there were, with numerous stone statues of demon beasts and yakshas fallen to the side.
Nan Zhi even spotted over a dozen men and women dressed in modern clothing.
—Likely members of the Huang family.
Upon reaching the end of the chessboard, she looked up and indeed saw a giant sword standing erect in the clouds, its tip suspended in midair. Radiating a surging, undisguised, and overbearing sword qi, it swept across the surroundings!
Due to the sword qi, within a hundred-meter diameter beneath the sword, there were no stone figures at all. There were only bits of corpse fragments crushed into bloody mush by the sword qi, plastered layer upon layer across the ground, both fresh and old.
Nan Zhi even saw over a dozen lumps of mashed flesh bearing yellow fur.
She could barely even discern by their shape whether they were weasels.
At the exact center of the sword qi, however, it was not empty. Far in the distance, a white skeleton sat cross-legged underneath, clad in the Daoist robes of the Wuwei Sect.
The Wuwei Sect’s iconic yellow Daoist robes were simply far too distinctive.
In the Qingjing Sect’s Ten Directions Mountains’ Miaoling Secret Realm, the gatekeeper turned out to be a disciple of the Wuwei Sect.
This was truly rather bizarre.
With her earlier experience, Nan Zhi attempted to step into the range of the sword qi, only to find there was no pressure at all.
She could run, jump, and even mobilize spiritual energy.
Could this be the power of 200 faction Favorability points?!
Nan Zhi was deeply astonished, taking the opportunity to step forward and examine the white skeleton closely.
Rate on N.U.
