Pursuit of the Truth

There were not many changes on Su Ming’s face while he remained hidden under the straw hat. However, he did focus his attention and sized up the old man. He looked to be a Medial Shaman as well, but Su Ming noticed that while the Relocation Rune shone and the middle-aged man with Su Ming’s bottle was the first one to walk out, he instinctively slowed down a little, causing the old man to be able to overtake him and making the middle-aged man to be the one following.

When this minor detail fell into Su Ming’s eyes, it allowed him to find some clues.

There was still shock on the middle-aged man’s face. When the old man looked towards Su Ming, he took a few quick steps forward and stopped ten feet away from Su Ming.

”I am Zuo Dao Ming. Sir, this way, please!” The old man turned all his attention towards Su Ming and was very polite towards him. He even wrapped his fist in his palm and bowed.

Su Ming gave him a slight nod, then walked forward in a relaxed manner. The old man followed behind him. When the both of them walked past the spot where the middle-aged man was, the man immediately lowered his head and bowed respectfully.

Su Ming did not bother with the man. He walked straight towards the Relocation Rune with the old man beside him, then as the Relocation Rune shone, they disappeared.

Only when Su Ming left the place did the middle-aged man let out a breath of relief. The memory of him bringing the small bottle to the first floor resurfaced in his mind. The manager of the first floor had originally been displeased about it, but when he took the small bottle over and sniffed it, his expression immediately changed drastically and he quickly went to the second floor. By this point, the man already had no idea which floor manager was in possession of that small bottle.

However, by the looks of it, that small bottle was definitely not any common item, but the man simply could not wrap his mind around just what made that bottle so extraordinary.

The light from the Relocation Rune made Su Ming’s vision blur slightly. A slight medicinal fragrance wafted into his nostrils. That scent was very odd, but when he tried to get a detailed sniff, it was gone.

Besides that medicinal scent, the first thing Su Ming saw was a man sitting by a desk made of purple wood, positioned right ahead of him. That man wore a white, long robe, and his face was as fair as a piece of jade. The man was incredibly handsome, and while he was a little old, the thin beard on his face made him seem even more striking.

He had his head lowered as he sat by the desk, and he was holding Su Ming’s bottle in his hand. There was a slight crease between his brows, making it seem as if he was frowning. Occasionally, he would take a sniff from it, and then he would close his eyes slightly.

”Grandmaster Yu, I brought him here.” Once the old man by Su Ming’s side bowed to the white robed man respectfully, he took a few steps back into the Relocation Rune. This man might not have given him even the slightest bit of attention, but he did not mind. The Rune shone once again and he disappeared.

At that moment, only Su Ming and the white-robed man remained at this floor of the pavilion.

Su Ming remained calm. He could not really gauge this man’s level of cultivation. When his divine sense fell on the person, a gentle power bounced it away, but that power was not alive. It actually felt quite rigid. Clearly, this person did not have a power that far surpassed Su Ming’s own but instead had some treasure that made it hard for others to examine him using divine sense.

If Su Ming truly wanted to check this man’s power, then he would need to force his way through. While he had the confidence that he would be able to break this power that bounced him off, there was no need for him to do so.

The white-robed man did not speak, and neither did Su Ming. He swept his gaze across the floor. This was a room that absolutely could not compare to the size of the ground floor; it was only about a third of it. There were a dozen something illusionary, glowing objects floating around, causing this floor to be brightly illuminated.

There were black stone boards spread on the floor and even some sculptures that protruded off the walls around them. These sculptures were not of birds, but were an endless amount of plants and flowers that looked alive. It was a pity that they did not have color, or else there was a possibility that a person would feel confused as to where he was when he cast his first glance into the room.

Right before Su Ming and behind the white-robed man sitting by the long purple wooden table was a window. Sunlight shone through it, making the room seem like a fantasy.

When Su Ming was about to look away from the window, his gaze suddenly focused, and he cast a scrutinizing look at the sky outside the window, and then, he felt his heart quiver.

What he saw was an endless mass of sky; he could not see the ground.

‘This isn’t the first floor… If it was, then I would be able to see the ground. Judging by the height, this floor is at least the third floor.’ Su Ming no longer looked at the window, but cast his gaze at the center of the floor.

There were three incense burners of the same size there. They were all about half the height of a person, and it would take two men to fully encircle them. Wisps of green smoke floated up from them, turning into layers of smoke rings that spread in all directions.

The incense burners were not of a single color, but were instead of a variety of them. They looked incredibly pretty, but Su Ming only let his gaze stay on them for a moment before he looked at the thing placed at the center of these three incense burners.

It was an oval-shaped stone. It was dark red and did not look smooth. It actually looked very ugly. There were even a lot of holes decked on it, and judging by the looks of these holes, they did not seem as if they were formed naturally, but were made by man.

That stone was very big and surpassed the height of those incense burners. It was twenty something feet tall, and it was about the size of several of these incense burners. It was placed at the center of this floor and stood out like a sore thumb.

As the wisps of smoke rising from the three incense burners turned into smoke rings in midair and started spreading out, some of them were absorbed by the small holes on the stone. Later, they would seep out from another hole. There had to be some sort of unique changes made within the stone that caused the smoke that seeped out of the stone to turn into smoke butterflies that looked as if they were dancing in midair.

Even though they disappeared quickly, new smoke butterflies would reappear. The cycle repeated, and it could be even said that the sight could not be compared with anything else in the world.

Su Ming took a few steps forward and stood before the big stone to look at the wisps of smoke surrounding that stone before turning into pairs of butterflies that danced with each other. Suddenly, the faint medicinal fragrance that he’d sensed before spread out faintly once again. The origin of it was between the stone and the three incense burners. Su Ming could smell it straight away, but when he tried searching for it, the smell was already gone again.

As he looked at the stone, Su Ming’s eyes sparkled. He extended his divine sense to the stone, but the instant his divine sense touched it, it was immediately absorbed by a powerful suction force. It was like a piece of stone sinking into the ocean. Unless he withdrew his divine sense right when he touched the stone, perhaps a large amount of his divine sense would be devoured.

Su Ming’s expression changed under the straw hat. He stared at the stone, and a surprised glint appeared in his eyes.

Right at that moment, the faint and indistinct medicinal fragrance reached him once again. This time, even though the fragrance was still as faint as ever, but it was a little thicker than before. When Su Ming smelled it, while his expression remained as usual under the straw hat, he was already shocked to the core.

Because right at that instant, he felt a faint ripple spreading out from the storage bag in his bosom. That ripple might only have lasted for an instant and everything returned to normal right at the next moment, but Su Ming knew that he was not imagining things.

Besides his clone and the Poison Corpse, there seemed to be nothing else that could send out ripples from his storage bag, but the thing that made Su Ming shocked was not the clone, neither was it the Poison Corpse… Naturally, it was not the strange snake either. It was instead a material Su Ming had obtained a long time ago to create medicine!

It was a small, black, humanoid creature contained within a gigantic mountain rock as if it was sealed within! Su Ming had obtained that rock from the auction hosted by Western Sea Clan outside Freezing Sky Clan. It was one of the main ingredients to make the Welcoming of Deities.

Those ripples came from the mountain rock, or more accurately speaking, they came from the small black humanoid that looked as if it was dead!

This item had once caused a small stir in the past, and after that, due to the Battle of Sky Mist, Su Ming hadn’t had the time to ask around about what happened to the person from Enlightenment Gathering Tribe. In fact, he had already forgotten about this.

When he saw the ripples from the mountain rock, Su Ming was shocked.

He might have only seen this stone once, but through the discussions he had with Wu Duo, if he still could not recognize that this was the Crimson Stone that was used in the treasure gambling event, then he was no longer Su Ming.

‘A small number of these Crimson Stones used for the treasure gambling event contain either completely fossilized, partially fossilized, or… herbs that are not fossilized at all. This is… incredibly alike to the small black humanoid contained in my mountain rock! However, one of them contains herbs, and the other a humanoid thing!

‘Wu Duo also said before that there are not just herbs contained within these Crimson Stones, there are many other things contained inside as well!’ Booming sounds were going off in Su Ming’s head. He had never linked these two items together before, but the mountain rock’s ripples had lifted a corner of the fog’s mystery!

‘Could it be that the mountain rock containing this black humanoid actually came from this place?!’ Su Ming was in shock as he looked at the stone before him. He was absolutely certain that the fragrance did not come from the incense burners’ smoke from that stone.

After all, the smoke from the incense burners was constantly around, and was unlike the medicinal fragrance, which was always faint and indistinct.

Su Ming stood there for a moment before he took a few steps forward and got closer to the stone. He closed his eyes, and after a long while, the medicinal fragrance appeared once again. He sucked in a huge breath, and as he breathed in, a large amount of that medicinal fragrance entered through his nostrils and surged right into his mind. At that instant, he placed his divine sense on his storage bag to observe the black humanoid sealed in the mountain rock.

It was right at that instant that Su Ming felt the small black humanoid shuddering a little, and he felt those ripples clearly. More ripples spread out, and if it was not in the storage bag and Su Ming didn’t have his divine sense hiding it, then the people around him would have definitely been able to sense it as plain as day.

Soon after, Su Ming’s divine sense immediately saw black light flickering on the mountain rock in the storage bag and the small black humanoid shivering. Then, right in the midst of it all, a faint and blurry picture appeared at the center of its brows.

That picture was of an herb with seven leaves, and each tip of these leaves was sharp, looking like that of a poisonous snake’s head. In fact, there was even one of the poisonous snake-head-like leaves that would occasionally hiss with its forked tongue out of its mouth, and it looked as if it was alive!

However, that was the only leaf that acted in that manner. The other leaves were dull, as if they were void of life, and only contained the shape of a poisonous snake’s head.

”Sir, you have been watching this Crimson Stone for a long time. Could it be that you’ve seen it before?” As Su Ming’s heart was filled with shock, a gentle voice reached in his ears.

”Sir, you have been watching the small bottle for a long time as well. Could it be that you’ve smelled that medicinal scent before too?” Su Ming asked flatly, having turned around and quelled the shock in his heart.