Desolate Era (Book 1 - Book 5)

The journey from Serpentwing Lake to the Blacktooth Tribe was a long one. Even with the black beasts travelling all day and only resting at night, three days time was needed.

Night time.

The campfire was blazing. Ji Ning and Autumn Leaf were by the side of the campfire, while Mowu was on watch, so as to not allow any impudent wild beasts to interrupt his young master.

“I haven’t had the chance to take a good look at the miscellaneous items I acquired in the Aquatic Manor.” Ning suddenly remembered that although he had gone through all those magic treasures he had acquired during the first and second trials, of the thousands of magic treasures and miscellaneous items he had acquired at the third trial, he had bound them then immediately battled that black-furred golem, then met with that old black bull. He hadn’t had any time to flip through them at all.

“One of the miscellaneous items I found in the first or second trial was a secret manual that is nearly as good as the [Raindrop Sutra]. The number of miscellaneous items in the third trial was several times greater than in the first two.” With a wave of his hand, Ning brought out one item after another, which he then made disappear afterwards.

Autumn Leaf just watched to the side, curious.

A long time later…

“Yet another secret manual, the [Clearwind Manual]?” Ning flipped through it, and was instantly delighted. “It’s actually a swordplay manual, and it directly instructs one in how to utilize the True Meaning of the Dao. It is comparable to the [Raindrop Sutra].”

Ning’s judgement and vision was much keener than before. After all, he had gained insights into the True Meaning of the Dao, and as he carefully read the contents, he quickly could vaguely sense that the ultimate goal of this type of swordplay was to develop the ‘True Meaning of the Clearwind’.

Actually, the deceased people in the corridor were all only at the Xiantian level, so how powerful or profound could the manuals they were carrying on them possibly be? Actually, a consummate skill such as the [Clearwind Manual], logically speaking, shouldn’t even be in there. For example, Ning hadn’t brought the [Raindrop Sutra] or the [Thunderflame Sword] with him. From this, one could tell that the previous master of this manual most likely came from an even more powerful, top-tier clan who didn’t restrict manuals on this level too tightly.

––––—

There really were many miscellaneous items in the third trials, and plenty of treasures as well. Ning found as many as three powerful techniques! After flipping through these manuals, Ning began to carefully inspect the other miscellaneous items, the ones that didn’t look like manuals.

“Huh?” Ning suddenly flipped out a jade carving!

This was two foot long square piece of jade, and on the jade there was carved an image of an old man with a long beard.

“Wait!” Ning’s eyes lit up, and he carefully inspected it. At first glance, he had thought that this was just a carving, but as he took a closer look…he felt as though the square jade piece was actually covered with countless small characters that formed some small images. These characters were the characters used in the Grand Xia Dynasty.

The characters were tiny! If an ordinary person saw it, they probably wouldn’t even notice it, but Ning was no ordinary person. His visual acuity was astonishing, and he could see a housefly from a distance of ten kilometers! With such visual acuity, naturally he could read the dense, tiny characters on the jade carving.

“How marvelous.”

“This piece of jade has hundreds of thousands of words carved onto it, and the countless works actually formed the image of a long-bearded elder.” Ning first exhaled in amazement, and then he began to search for the place where these characters originated. Soon, he found that in the leftmost upper corner, there were four prominent characters…

[Nine Scrolls on Formations]!

Ning’s eyes lit up as he carefully continued to read.

“I, Wu Daoyan, have focused exclusively on formation techniques for over eighty thousand years. I was lucky enough to survive the last tribulation, but I think that the next great tribulation in nine hundred years time, I will not be able to survive. I am unwilling for the essence of my formation techniques to be lost, and so I have recorded down the knowledge of my formation techniques within these nine scrolls! I hope that someone with the right karmic fortune will carefully learn and comprehend it!” The opening words caused Ning to feel delighted. Anyone who was capable of living eighty thousand years and yet still be subject to the Three Calamities and Nine Tribulations was almost certainly a Loose Immortal.

Immortal Juhua was able to live for millions of years, but most Loose Immortals weren’t able to live that long. Three Calamities, Nine Tribulations; the calamities were easy to avoid, but the tribulations were hard to escape. A great tribulation every nine hundred years! Each tribulation more powerful than the last, continuously accumulating until even a Loose Immortal like of Immortal Juhua, on par with a Celestial Immortal, would not be able to withstand it.

“The knowledge of a Loose Immortal regarding formation techniques. This is something that is no less valuable than the [Lesser Thousand Swords Formation] or the [Windwing Evasion].” Ning immediately understood how valuable this was. “With this knowledge regarding formations, someone actually went to enter the trials of the underground estate’s corridors. Jeeze…”

The person who acquired this knowledge on formations was most likely someone who was unskilled in formations. After all, the abstruse mysteries of formations were very hard to comprehend. Generally speaking, Immortal practitioners only knew how to set up formations; they didn’t understand the principles behind the formations. For example, Ning only knew how to set up and control the [Lesser Thousand Swords Formation]. Immortal practitioners would generally prefer to spend their time in binding more powerful magic treasures, or more powerful magic techniques. Those who would lower their heads and study formations were indeed very rare!

And what’s more, formations were extremely abstruse and hard to understand, making researchers in formations even rarer!

Most likely, the person who received this didn’t understand it. Even up until the point of his death, he still hadn’t had any accomplishments, and thus he had gone to attempt the underground estate.

There was another possibility as well, that it was someone like Ning…someone who accidentally entered Serpentwing Lake and thus was forcibly teleported into the Aquatic Manor, then died within.

“No matter what happened, this [Nine Scrolls on Formations] is now mine. And here I was, wondering how it could be possible that, given there were thousands of storage treasures, signifying thousands of people, how could not a single one of them been carrying something truly valuable?” Ning said to himself joyfully. “I finally acquired a valuable treasure. Time to take a good look.”

He immediately lowered his head and began to read this [Nine Scrolls on Formations].

Formations could be set up using all sorts of things, and some truly miraculous, large-scale formations could even make the world itself part of the formation!