Pursuit of the Truth

Su Ming stopped moving, then turned his head around to look at the white-haired man.

The man lifted his left hand and brought out a storage bag from his bosom. Once he briefly sorted and counted the things inside, he threw it towards Su Ming, and that bag immediately charged towards him. Once he caught it, Su Ming turned his attention towards it.

There were exactly two hundred and ten thousand Shaman Crystals in there. This large sum of money was perhaps nothing to the people in the World of Nine Yin, but to Su Ming, this was the largest amount of Shaman Crystals he had ever possessed.

However, compared to these Shaman Crystals, Su Ming was more concerned about the Crimson Stone placed in the middle of the room! He took a few steps forward, and right under the white-robed man’s eyes, he walked up to it, then lifted his right hand and swung it forward. Immediately, the gigantic Crimson Stone disappeared into his storage bag. However, Su Ming was very cautious, he did not place the stone in the same bag as the black humanoid but in another bag.

Once he placed the Crimson Stone away, Su Ming brought out the remaining Scattering Dusts from his bosom and flicked his wrist at the white-robed man. Immediately, those Scattering Dusts flew out. Once the man caught them, Su Ming turned around and walked towards the Relocation Rune.

The Relocation Rune shone. When Su Ming disappeared, the white-robed man lifted his head and a dark expression appeared on his face. He looked as if he was hesitating about something, but at that moment, ripples suddenly appeared behind him, and an old man wearing a long black robe walked out with a snake-head cane in his hand.

The white-robed man immediately lowered his head and bowed towards him. He looked incredibly respectful.

Once the old man walked out, he looked at the Relocation Rune, which Su Ming had used to leave, and spoke in a hoarse voice. ”This person’s power is very diverse. I can feel a sort of threat coming from him. Don’t think about anything else.”

The white-robed man lifted his head and asked hesitantly, ”He could make you feel threatened, my liege? Could it be… This person is an End Shaman?”

The old man remained silent for a moment before he asked unhurriedly, ”There’s that possibility. Just what is the deal with your Crimson Stone? And how many Scattering Dusts do we still need?”

”My liege, I obtained this Crimson Stone by chance in the past. It was one of the stones used during the past treasure gambling events. I originally wanted to examine it, but it was empty. It’s a useless stone.

”As for the amount of Scattering Dusts we still need, with the three good quality pills we obtained today, we will still need two more and we’ll be all ready!” the white-robed man immediately said.

”Two more…” The old man fell into a moment of pensive silence before he turned around and disappeared into the distorted ripples.

As for Su Ming, once he walked out of Nine Shaman Pavilion, he did not immediately return to the inn, but started taking a stroll around Shaman City. He had his divine sense spread outwards, and once he was certain no one was following him, he returned to his original appearance and put on the black mask. When evening arrived, he had already gone to a large number shops in Shaman City and spent almost one hundred thousand Shaman Crystals to buy all the medicinal herbs he needed before he returned to the inn with a calm expression.

Once he returned to his room, it was already slightly dark outside. Su Ming sat down cross-legged and filled the entire area with his divine sense, causing the place to be within his control. Then, he took a deep breath, and brought out the mountain rock he had bought from the auction hosted outside Freezing Sky Clan from his storage bag. As he looked at the small, black humanoid sitting cross-legged inside, Su Ming narrowed his eyes.

”Just what is this thing… I only know that its finger is one of the main components I need to create the Welcoming of Deities…” he mumbled, and he sized up that small black humanoid.

There were certain properties within this mountain rock that were similar to a Crimson Stone’s, but it was difficult to use divine sense to perform a complete check. Su Ming had not linked the both of them together before, but at that moment, as he looked at this rock, he began to find an increasing amount of similarities between them.

After a moment, Su Ming averted his gaze and lifted his right hand to slap his storage bag. Immediately, as a dark red light shone, that gigantic Crimson Stone appeared before him.

The instant that Crimson Stone appeared, Su Ming immediately saw the small black humanoid in the mountain rock shuddering as if it was struggling to open its eyes. The picture at the center of its brows began flashing, and the seven poisonous, snake-head-shaped leaves appeared once again.

The small black humanoid began trembling more furiously with each passing moment. Waves of black mist began spreading outwards from its body as if a drop of ink had fallen into water and was spreading outwards through that transparent mountain rock.

At that moment, Su Ming’s pupils shrank. A sense of danger suddenly formed in his heart, and it was one that arrived incredibly abruptly.

”Give it to me… Give it to me..” Suddenly, a hoarse and hate filled voice echoed in Su Ming’s mind. When that voice spoke, Su Ming’s divine sense, which was hanging around in the room, immediately sensed a cold chill. That voice seemed to have come from ages ago, and his words were filled with longing and age. It could make the people who heard it feel as if they were rotting away.

”Give it… to me… I promise you a life of riches… I will give you a life where you are given the highest form of respect… Give it… to me…”

There was a strange power contained in the voice. As it spread around the room, it stirred up Su Ming’s divine sense, causing an endless amount of distortions to appear around him, and all the things that contained physical form in the room looked so indistinct that they even lost their general form.

Su Ming’s gaze sharpened. As his divine sense was shaken and sent into a state of agitation, he let out a cold harrumph and cut off that voice that was spreading outwards. With a wave of his arm, he immediately put away that mountain rock containing the small black humanoid into his storage bag and placed a seal outside the bag rapidly with his divine sense!

”Give it to me… Give it to me… Give it… to me..” The voice in the storage bag started fading away only after a long while. It grew increasingly weaker, and eventually, under Su Ming’s observing eyes, the small black humanoid slowly calmed down. The black mist that had spread out also started flowing backwards, little by little, returning to the small humanoid’s body.

As the black mist disappeared, that sense of danger Su Ming had felt also went away. His eyes sparkled, and when he turned his head back to look at his surroundings, his pupils shrank. All the things in the room had turned to dust. When Su Ming looked at them, that dust was disappearing into the ground.

The entire room was now empty.

Only the Crimson Stone remained a quiet existence before Su Ming. Not a hint of change could be seen on it.

Su Ming remained silent for a long while, and a frown could be seen constantly between his brows. This was the first time Su Ming had heard that small, black, humanoid’s voice. He had originally thought that it was a dead thing, but now… it did not seem so.

‘Just what is that small, black, humanoid thing..? Why did such a change happen to it when it saw that Crimson Stone? And could it be that the flashing picture at the center of its brows is actually the thing contained within the Crimson Stone?’ Su Ming looked at the Crimson Stone, and a look of resolution appeared briefly in his eyes.

‘I can put aside the matter of what that small black humanoid is for now. As for the Crimson Stone... If it is empty, then nothing will change. But if there really is a medicinal herb in there that no one could find, and that medicinal herb is really the picture at the center of the small humanoid’s brows, then…’

Su Ming stood up and moved beside the Crimson Stone. After casting it a few glances, he lifted his right hand and pressed it on the ground. With that, the Crimson Stone immediately started trembling and chips fell off.

Su Ming frowned. The power of that one palm strike just now was enough for him to split apart mountains and break stones, but when it fell on that Crimson Stone, only a small part of its outer layer was crushed.

He looked towards the numerous small holes on the Crimson Stone, took a few steps back, then green light shone at the center of his brows. The small sword immediately flew out, and with a sword whistle, green light began shining brilliantly. The small sword charged towards the stone and sliced down on it.

With that one slash, rumbling sounds immediately rang oit. If Su Ming had not sealed his surroundings with his divine sense, that sound would have immediately spread through the entire inn.

Once those rumbling sounds died down, the small sword was lifted up. A crack that was about three inches deep appeared on the outer layer of the Crimson Stone that was positioned before Su Ming. When he saw this, Su Ming’s expression changed.

‘What a sturdy rock!’ Su Ming remained in pensive silent for a moment, then lifted his right hand and pointed at the small sword. It immediately closed in on the Crimson Stone with a whistle again. This time, the sword did not try cutting down the stone. Instead, Su Ming plunged the sword into the stone with the intention of piercing it through.

With a bang, the small sword was buried deep into the stone, straight up to its hilt. This scene made Su Ming’s eyes sparkle. After a moment, the small sword flew out, changed position, then stabbed the stone again.

He repeated the process multiple times, right until the holes that the sword had created after stabbing into the stone and subsequently pulled out formed a straight line that split the Crimson Stone right down from the center.

‘This stone is really strange. If I try cutting it down, I can only cut three inches into it, but it’s easier if I pierce through it with the tip of a sword…’

Su Ming lifted his right hand, and after one seal, he pointed at the small sword. It immediately rose into midair, and as it shone, the sword swiftly grew larger. Once it turned into a sword that was nearly ten feet long, it cut straight down at the Crimson Stone beneath it, right at its center, where the straight line formed by the numerous amount of sword holes was.

With that one slash, rumbling sounds mixed with cracking sounds rang out, formed as the spaces between the small holes shattered and these holes connected together. As the rumbling sounds disappeared, due to the sharpness of that large virescent sword, when Su Ming lifted it, the Crimson Stone before him shuddered, crumbled, and split into two halves right from the center.

The center of each half of this big stone was empty. If they were connected together, they would create a spherical empty space. By the looks of it, someone had used some sort of method to separate that part from the stone.

Su Ming took a few steps forward and stared at the two halves of the big stone. Eventually, his eyes fell on the right half of the stone. The faint medicinal fragrance he had detected came from this half.

After a moment of pensive silent, Su Ming controlled the small virescent sword and cut down on that half of the stone, just like he had done before. When he had split that half of the stone into eight pieces, Su Ming picked up one of them.

This was an uneven stone piece that was about the size of two palms. As Su Ming held it, a faint medicinal fragrance wafted into his nose. The source of that scent was indeed from this stone piece.

In fact, Su Ming could even see the broken part of a leaf at the spot he was looking at right then. The leaf had already fused together with the stone piece, but if he took a closer look, he could still that it truly existed.

It was a leaf, but when Su Ming had cut the stone down, he had cut off a corner of that leaf.

Holding the stone in one hand, he used the other to strike the piece repeatedly. His actions were very gentle. A large amount of chips fell off, and gradually, the stone piece became smaller. After two hours, there was only a half of that stone piece remaining in Su Ming’s hands.

He stared at it blankly, but gradually, a sharp glint appeared in his eyes, because the stone piece in his hand was no longer dark red, but transparent…

That transparency was the exact same as the mountain rock’s containing the small black humanoid!

Within that transparent stone was a medicinal herb with seven leaves. Six of them no longer had any signs of life, and one of them had even lost a corner as it had extended to the surface of the stone.

However, there was a long leaf with a tip that looked like a snake. Although it was sealed within the stone, it still looked as if it was alive.